The All New, All Daring Delusional Honesty!

Review-a-Thon: Incredible Hulk #4, Scarlet Spider #1

2012-01-11T20:53:00.001-07:00

I know, I know: "Where are the retrospectives, Gary?" I've been terribly remiss in bringing any historical pieces to this blog in the last few weeks. There's a very good reason for that, and one that you'll get within a few short weeks if all goes well. (Here's a hint: It likely involves a Kickstarter project you'll want to get in on.) I'll go back to those history pieces very soon, but in the meantime, here are two more reviews, culled from this week's releases. Without further ado...

THE INCREDIBLE HULK #4 - Marvel Comics, $3.99
By Jason Aaron, Whilce Portacio, Allen Martinez, Rick Ketcham, Arif Prianto & Veronica Gandini

For better or worse, "Hulk Vs. Banner!" begins this issue with "Island of 1000 Hulks," without the series' first artist (and most of his countless assistants) and with another Image Comics alum, Whilce Portacio. With the last three issues' pretense out of the way, the Hulk and the "government-sanctioned mad squad of crazy scientist assassins" headed by Amanda Von Doom (no relation!) go to kick Banner's butt. From the title of this portion, you can guess--sort of--what they find there.

If you've been following the series for its short duration, you know what you're apt to find here: Bruce Banner playing the mad scientist role to the hilt; the Hulk providing the voice of reason; Amanda Von Doom being hot for the Hulk's bod while insisting she's got no relation to the famous Von Doom; and dozens of monsters and widespread destruction. At the very least, this issue brings Banner and the Hulk together for the battle fans have wanted to see since they separated in Fear Itself.

I don't envy Jason Aaron's assignment month in and out. It's clear he's done a lot of thinking about this new status quo embodied in the storyline's title. But is it really a place the series should go? The Hulk is the hero, and without the "monster's" influence, Banner is the villain. You can take it that way, or you can take it differently, considering that the Hulk was the receptacle for every emotion Banner chose to repress. And while these scenarios should lend an air of tragedy to Banner's saga, the sad truth is that Aaron only seems to know how to play this card one way: Bruce has gone around-the-bend looneytunes, period, end of sentence. He's invading military bases and absconding with "gamma juice" (?!?) with which he churns out mutated animal after mutated animal.

At the very least, I'd believed the departure of Silvestri would be an asset to the series; after all, it's hard to establish any consistency with a multitude of artists contributing to each issue. Unfortunately, while Portacio's art is much cleaner than his predecessor's, his execution leaves much to be desired. Characters are awkwardly posed and out-of-proportion, and the finished art--full of crosshatching and vacillating between two very different inkers--only lets down any promise offered by the new penciler. We need artistic consistency, and we need it yesterday.

In short: Nothing's changed, move along, move along. Burn It.

SCARLET SPIDER #1 - Marvel Comics, $3.99
By Chris Yost, Ryan Stegman, Michael Babinski & Marte Gracia

This isn't your father's Spider-Man. That much is obvious, from the cover whose logo conjures memories of the jagged Spidey logo from the nineties' animated series, to the sell that promises "All of the Power, None of the Responsibility" in the same typeface as which adorns Marvel's own Wolverine. What this is, however, is a whole mess of webby fun.

Kaine has traveled a rocky road to arrive where he is. The imperfect clone of Spider-Man (about whom I wrote a duo of in-depth articles here and here), who became a stone-cold killer after the Jackal, his creator, rejected him, has recently been cured of the degenerative condition that caused him near-constant agony since birth. In "Spider-Island" he saved New York City and perhaps the world. He's picked up a few things from his "brother" Peter, and perhaps the other clone, Ben Reilly, as well. In a new town, with a new lease on life, he tries to suppress his more violent instincts--only to find that it isn't quite that easy.

When Kaine began appearing in Amazing Spider-Man several months ago, during "Grim Hunt" and even "Spider-Island," I thought there were flashes of the character I remembered, the one who prospered under the pen of "Clone Saga" architect J.M. DeMatteis. Still, some things about the "new" Kaine really rankled. Thankfully, Scarlet Spider scribe Chris Yost really seems to be familiar with those early stories--particularly Spider-Man: The Lost Years and Redemption--and lets those sagas inform his take on the villain-turned-wannabe-hero. Peter Parker's angst has been turned, twisted and amped up to "11" in Kaine, a character unsure if he wants to be redeemed. It's amazing what he's been given these last few months, and still, he's suspicious to a fault. He still relies on some of his bad behaviors, and when he tries to do the right thing, it backfires. Can anything smooth the rough edges of his soul?

Speaking of rough edges, the artistic team of Ryan Stegman and Michael Babinski, aided and abetted by colorist Marte Gracia...has none. Seriously. I've watched Stegman and Babinski work on a few projects, like the "Red She-Hulk" back-up stories in Incredible Hulk, as well as their own four-issue She-Hulks series, but this is the book destined to make spidery stars of them both. And, dear God do I want page 14 (you'll know the one)! Kaine's soul is bared in this story, with Stegman's facial expressions telling stories all by themselves. The fact there are no costumes for the majority of this story is a terrific asset.

Yes, that's no misprint: About the only piece of the puzzle not provided in this outstanding introductory story is the new Scarlet Spider's actual costume, but with the darkness inherent in the character, it's not missed. In fact, were there not the need to hide Kaine's face--because it just so happens to also be the face of ol' Peter Parker--I would want every issue to be just like this. No tights? No problem!

If you were scared that this story would relaunch the whole nineties "Clone Saga" all over again: Don't fear. This is the tale of a darker Spider-Man. It's spooky, and it's a thorny road the Scarlet Spider will travel. Let's walk the road with him, yes?

If you enjoyed the Marvel Point One one-shot, you'll love this one. Buy It.

~G.

Looking Back, Looking Forward: Defenders #2 & Dead Man's Run #1, Reviewed

2012-01-10T20:07:00.002-07:00

I had a great time at last weekend's Amazing Arizona Comic-Con, and can't wait to show everyone the photos and sketches from the event! Meantime, let's dig in and review one of last week's Marvel books (Defenders #2) followed by an advance review of Aspen's thrilling new miniseries, Dead Man's Run, whose first issue hits stores on January 18!

DEFENDERS #2 - Marvel Comics, $3.99
By Matt Fraction, Terry Dodson, Rachel Dodson & Sonia Oback

They say confession's good for the soul. Very well, then. I have this to confess: Defenders isn't the Non-Team™ of the past, which I loved. Two issues in, that much is abundantly clear.

On paper, all the hallmarks of the team's previous iterations are here: We've got Doctor Strange at the core of the group, aided by Namor the Sub-Mariner and the Silver Surfer. The Hulk even appeared in the first issue to provide the team's new raison d'etre (only to speak some horrendously un-Hulkish dialogue and leap away). Replacing the often-gruff Hulk on the team is his (ex?) wife, Betty Ross, having become the Red She-Hulk, whom Marvel's finest still can't manage to name with remote originality. Also aboard because it seems Strange can't be bothered to remember his martial arts training or whip up some teleportation spells is Daniel Rand'kai, the chop-socky Iron Fist, who's rich enough to ride everyone around in a private jet. And on this first adventure, they attempt to stop the Black Hulk, a remnant from the Fear Itself series, but are diverted by several wonderfully Silver Age-y concepts tossed in a blender. Prester John, wielder of the Evil Eye, now leads a group of the High Evolutionary's New Men to prepare for the creature's coming to Wundagore Mountain and the mystical treasure that awaits there.

All the while, I can't help but feel we've been through it all before.

Certainly Matt Fraction writes a great Iron Fist, as he co-wrote his series with Ed Brubaker some years ago. Certainly too there are enough madcap concepts to make Defenders go forward for a long, long time. Certainly the pieces of a "good" Defenders team are here in body. Unfortunately, the team is bereft of the soul that made it a moderate hit in its seventies incarnation.

Part of the trouble was glimpsed last month, when Strange enjoyed a fling with a co-ed who wore Clea's tights. (Okay, maybe not literally, but try looking at their designs and not imagining Doc's ex.) The Silver Surfer's more alien than he's been in some time (and is an absolute non-factor in this second tale). Namor's, well, his typical pompous self. The less said about the Hulk's cameo, the better. And instead of the sword-wielding Valkyrie and the millionaire playboy Nighthawk, we've got the Red She-Hulk (who now has an unusual transformation mechanism--after we were told she could change at will during "Heart of the Monster") and Iron Fist. (Okay, Danny's kind of an upgrade, you might argue, but man, Kyle Richmond was that team's heart.)

Also distracting--but terribly indulgent to all the "hardcore fans" out there-- are the little blurbs at the bottom of every story page. They either hint at upcoming storylines for this book, or are meaningless throwaway lines designed to pander to the base that's been reading for years. ("Werewolf By Night Nurse," I'm looking at you.) It's not the seventies anymore, and we shouldn't act like it is.

The only things that leave this book remotely enjoyable are the absolutely loony adventures the like of which Brian Michael Bendis wouldn't even touch, and the wonderfully stylish artwork of the Dodsons, who've been gone from the corners of the Marvel Universe I frequent for too long. Really, I'm hoping the series kicks up another few notches next month. The MacGuffin has been revealed, and the biggest battle of the series so far has begun. Will those two key points be enough to save this latest Defenders series from extinction?

Quick Verdict: Skip It.

DEAD MAN'S RUN #1 - Aspen Comics, $3.50
By Greg Pak, Tony Parker & David Curiel
Created by Ben Roberts

What a difference an issue makes!

Okay, it's true: I enjoyed Dead Man's Run #0 back in October. Ben Roberts' high-concept of a "jailbreak from Hell" was enticing, and that first story set up enough of the groundwork for me to be intrigued at what was coming next. All the while as I read the story, centered around Captain Frank Romero's descent into the realm for which he was a mere prison guard, I wondered how the events would play into the actual six-issue miniseries when it finally began. I knew that Sam Tinker, only briefly involved in the zero issue's events, would grow into the protagonist role, and that something would likely happen to his sister.

And yet, here I was, surprised at how much I outright loved Dead Man's Run #1 this month.

As Sam descends into the realm of the prison, I was immediately struck by the book's claustrophobic feel. It should feel that way, with the walls closing in, and an increasing sensation that there is no escape. Tony Parker succeeds in bringing writer Greg Pak's visions to uncanny life here, whether those visions include the reality of the outside world or the stark terror of the jailhouse's walls. His layouts are spot-on, and David Curiel appropriately uses colors to shift the tone--bright at the beginning, muted and haunting as time goes on.

I'm anxious to see what Pak has in store for Sam and Captain Romero, and that's in no small part due to the savvy pacing of the last issue and this one. The script is terrifically accessible, clearly defining the main characters in this insane world. Romero and Sam have a terrific conflict between them, and I'm sure it'll only grow when we finally discover what exactly has become of Sam's sister Juniper. And the jail itself, with its prisoners, guards, and their various abilities, is delightfully eerie, blending the best bits of the places Sam's supposed to be.

The only weak link in this entire episode comes early, when Pak suddenly flashes back to a time in Sam and Juniper's childhood. While it's perfectly all right to give a brief flashback--especially given the circumstance during which it arises--it's not drawn or colored any differently from the rest of the book. Aside from this quick faux pas, the narrative never falters and only grows more engaging with each page.

Quick Verdict: Buy It. This is a vision of Hell well worth the journey.

~G.

Vampires, Mutants & Hulks, Oh My! (Reviews: Astonishing X-Men #45, Hulk #47, I, Vampire #4)

2012-01-06T14:30:00.000-07:00

Take it away, er.....um, me!

(Apropos of absolutely nothing, today and throughout the weekend I'll be wandering the floor of the Mesa Convention Center for the Amazing Arizona Comic Con. Hang around the Samurai Comics booth long enough and I'm sure to come around. Just don't wait too long or be too conspicuous, because Mike & Moryha will start to look at you funny.)

Now then, did somebody say something about reviews?

ASTONISHING X-MEN #45 - Marvel Comics, $3.99
By Greg Pak, Mike McKone & Rachelle Rosenberg

The "Regenesis" of Marvel's mutant teams continues with the second installment of Greg Pak's "Exalted" storyline this month. When we left Cyclops last month, he'd been hijacked off-world, to a parallel dimension full of strange yet familiar doubles of his friends in the X-Men. He awakens in a chamber tailor-made to contain and absorb his optic blasts. Now that he finds himself in this incredible new tableau, the question is...now what?

One wonders, with Cyclops being the proverbial stranger in a strange land, how or even if Pak's X-saga will impact the ongoing storylines set forth in the other titles. The situation's even more tenuous with the recent announcement that he, McKone and Rosenberg are only on board through #47, with a new creative team taking over henceforth. Still, I'm a sucker for alternate-reality stories, and this one is just plain fun. It helps that Pak only employs the most familiar of the modern X-Men in this story, and the twists upon the familiar formulae are intriguing. Kid Nightcrawler? A bearded Wolverine with more than a few tricks up his sleeve? A mostly-the-same, snarky White Queen? It's like home, but...not. And the biggest surprise--unless I am totally misreading the story--is on the last page, with the identity of the mutant known as Savior.

Through it all, Mike McKone delivers the same clear linework he's brought to various other series. Cyclops is appropriately heroic, Wolverine's somewhat haggard, Nightcrawler has the joy of a child, and the ladies--all the ladies--are appropriately sexy. He knows when to give us big, dynamic shots and knows when a few simple lines are all the expression that's needed. Rachelle Rosenberg once again fills the bill with pastel tones of red, yellow and blue in the prison scenes, darkening the palette as time goes on until the blinding finish. Kudos.

If you like alternate-reality X-sagas and surprises around every corner, Read It.

HULK #47 - Marvel Comics, $2.99
By Jeff Parker, Elena Casagrande & Rachelle Rosenberg

If you're suffering a dearth of Hulk-on-Hulk action in Incredible Hulk these days, you're in luck, for this issue marks the first part of a new saga co-starring Betty Ross, the Red She-Hulk. Currently one of the newest Defenders (in the title of the same name), she appears here to fill a different kind of niche. After all, she's not only the long-suffering wife of Bruce Banner, she's also the daughter of this title's lead character, Thad Ross. It's been some time since father and daughter had a heart-to-heart--or any kind of contact, really--and so this storyline's more than a bit overdue.

Parker pulls it all off with aplomb, showing that Betty and Red She-Hulk are the same in some respects, yet drastically different in others. Red She-Hulk expresses herself in ways that Betty represses, acting out toward her father instead of taking the time to talk things out. It's a thrilling opening for the book, certainly, leading to the main thrust of the story featuring one of Ross' newest enemies as one of the many ongoing threads in this book proceeds.

Unfortunately, I can't say the same for Italian import Elena Casagrande, who returns for art chores this month alongside regular (?) colorist Rachelle Rosenberg. Her figures are often unusually posed and stiff, compared even to her earlier work on this series (in the "Fear Itself" crossovers, #37-38). She's at her best outside of the huge action scenes, which means the middle third of this book is exemplary. Otherwise, file it under "nothing special." Thankfully, Rosenberg's colors save the work and make the entire story flow as ably as do Parker's words.

The storyline, with its intersection of two key plot points (old villain + Betty), makes for an intriguing caper, and I can't wait for next month's conclusion. If you can get past some of the artwork, by all means Read It.

I, VAMPIRE #4 - DC Comics, #2.99
By Joshua Hale Fialkov, Andrea Sorrentino & Marcelo Maiolo

Last but certainly not least in this triad of reviews comes the frequently brilliant I, Vampire by Joshua Hale Fialkov and Andrea Sorrentino. This issue gives readers the first taste of the upcoming (or so it appears) war between super-heroes and vampires, courtesy a guest appearance by John Constantine, aka Hellblazer. When Andrew Bennett leaves his friends to feed, he meets Steve, a man to whom the curse of vampirism is nearly new. The two talk, and let's just say that Bennett's naivete is nearly his undoing. As if that weren't enough, there's an intense surprise on the final page that puts the whole adventure in perspective.

I have to hand it to writer Joshua Hale Fialkov for bringing this series to vivid, vampiric life. Any other writer could have played up the gore, or accentuated the more Twilight-like aspects of Bennett's struggle, but the subtle touches really make this book stand out. It's a relatively simple tale, but the combination of the spot-on dialogue for Bennett, as well as the low-key, powerful artwork by Sorrentino (aided and abetted by Maiolo), elevate it.

Similarly, adding characters from the greater DC Universe with whom Bennett can interact has really been a point ingrained from the beginning, and with Constantine here, the larger tapestry is starting to show. I do wonder, however, how Bennett, Mary and her kin will all react when characters outside the "Dark" side of DC arrive. It's one thing to have vampires rise up against members of, say, the Justice League Dark, but quite another to have the actual Justice League around. For that, I'm really looking forward to Bennett & co.'s upcoming jaunt to Gotham, just under a month away.

Oh, I still have my worries--for one, Sorrentino still likes working in those pages full of widescreen panels waaay too much for my taste, but he's diversifying and that's refreshing. But that's a small quibble among so much horrific goodness. I can't say this enough, month in and out: Buy It.

What did you think of these new releases? Buy 'em at your local comic shop, or online at Comixology, and post your opinions here!

~G.

"Green and red. Very Christmassy." (Hulk #45-46; Incredible Hulk #3 Reviews.)

2011-12-26T21:09:00.003-07:00

"Christmassy"? Well, the colors are. The books themselves...read the following, then make your judgments. This time, I'll be covering a few Hulk books, and then next time we'll stray off the beaten path and look at some books you don't usually see around here. Everyone ready?

INCREDIBLE HULK #3 - Marvel Comics, $3.99
By Jason Aaron, "Marc Silvestri" & Sunny Gho

First things first: If you're looking for clues to how man was separated from monster, you'll find the first inklings outside of scribe Jason Aaron's preview tale in Fear Itself #7 here. You'll find Aaron touching on Bruce Banner's past with his abusive father, and you'll find a mad scientist can turn a whole lot more than a couple of wild boars into gamma mutates. What you won't find here is any sign that Bruce Banner is anything but a bottom-scraping sonuvabitch. And that, as in the previous issue, is where Aaron really loses this reader. Establishing that the Hulk sees Banner as evil for keeping him locked away inside himself is one thing; showing that Banner's going way, way off the deep end and actually committing--let's not fool ourselves--evil deeds is something altogether different.

This issue, artist Marc Silvestri, fresh off a stay in the hospital for an injured ankle, returns to full penciler duties just in time for his grand exit...or does he? Certainly this issue no other artist's work can easily be seen, unlike last issue with Billy Tan and Whilce Portacio all too visible. However, that doesn't mean there weren't other artists making sure Silvestri made his tight deadline. Silvestri himself receives credit for "line art," but his studio, Top Cow, receives a "special thanks" credit (hence my using Silvestri's name in quotes above). It's quite obvious the difference in credits is a direct response to last issue's "monster mash" of eleven credited artists. While the package holds together better than last month, and in places the art is incredibly dynamic, it's definitely best for all concerned that a new and hopefully more reliable artist takes over next issue.

As mentioned before, Banner takes his turn at being "Dr. Moreau" further this month, sending his "Boar Brothers" 26 and 27 to the Hulk's recent hideout. A battle ensues, Hulk smashes, and then Amanda Von Doom and her super-secret organization are oh so happy because the battle has made Hulk do exactly what they wanted him to do last month. "Asunder" has felt by-the-numbers in its depiction of both the Hulk and Von Doom. Hulk is at peace, someone comes around to smash it all away, and the Hulk decides to go do some more smashing to smash those who smashed his chance at non-smashiness. The only new thing Aaron and Silvestri offer--and really, "new" isn't the word--is that the Hulk's smashing this time seems to set off seismic waves of force in the surrounding areas. At the very least, the ending of this story makes it clear Aaron is cutting to the heart of the conflict, setting man against monster on a very real playing field. That counts for something, I suppose.

I said earlier that this issue does contain a few hints about how the Hulk and Banner came to be separate beings this time. The answer--at least, as I see it--casts some serious doubt on whether that's really Banner we're seeing, with the mania and the unkempt hair and the brain tumor the size of a walnut. It casts equal doubt on whether that's really the Hulk. Aside from the "newborn" allusion, why would both Banner and the Hulk be shaved bald upon their separation? What's more, who would have the technology to separate man from monster--and why would Banner use a lab that seems to be set up in much the same way as the one in which he underwent his supernatural divorce?

There's still not enough to recommend this storyline or this new series after this third part of "Asunder." I've outgrown my revulsion at the second chapter, but still, I really think Aaron might be doing irreparable harm to the character of Bruce Banner. (No easy feat for one who has already been established as killing his own father and suffering from lifelong psychological trauma.) Maybe former Hulk writer Greg Pak bears some of the burden, as this storyline seems to explore some of his dialogue in which Banner postulated the Hulk was created to save the world from his own incredible intellect. Although I believe Pak later expressed through Banner that his idea was only clever tomfoolery, the fact we're now dealing with such a storyline now indicates some people just don't know how to take jokes.

Quick Rating: Skip It.

HULK #45 & 46 - Marvel Comics, $2.99
By Jeff Parker, Patch Zircher & Rachelle Rosenberg

On the other hand, Jeff Parker has, with the help of artists Gabriel Hardman and Patch Zircher, made Hulk into one of the best books Marvel publishes. If you're reading this, Jeff? I totally hate you for it. Use your talents for the Up Side of the Schwartz and give us a go on Robert Bruce Banner soon, yes? (You're invited, too, Patch. Rachelle? Anytime!)

This month's pair of issues successfully resolve the five-part "Hulk of Arabia" arc, in which "Thunderbolt" Ross, joined by Machine Man, finally gets to the bottom of Dagan Shah's insidious plans to carve out a niche for himself and his followers in the middle of the desert. Unsurprisingly, the storyline pretty much ends as it was choreographed by Steve Rogers and his merry band of Secret Avengers some issues ago, but Parker and Zircher manage to still pull off some surprises, including Shah's very cosmic origin story.

Most interesting are two key details. Parker uses Machine Man's presence to subtly examine Ross' own complex relationship with another artificial lifeform, his Gamma Base liaison Annie. The subtext is there in every question Ross asks, and I can't wait until her next appearance so we can see how ol "Thunderbolt" applies what he's learned. Parker's also made some salient points about Ross' status as a Hulk in this tale, and he has used Shah as his mouthpiece through which to do so. Specifically, Ross does rely on the public perception of who and what a Hulk is. Jeph Loeb used this point without stating it, such as when the Red Hulk only roared as he smashed through the SHIELD Helicarrier so as not to betray his true, strategic aims to Iron Man. Parker has made the point that Ross' hulking form hides his keen strategic mind--a mind which very likely has been sharpened by the mixture of gamma and cosmic rays involved in his mutation. It's this important distinction that separates Ross from Banner. Say what you like about Banner's Hulk: "Strategy" is not a word that involves itself easily.

The more I see Patch Zircher's artwork on this book, the more I feel he's right at home drawing monsters smashing things. He's asked to stretch his artistic muscles particularly in #45, with Dagan Shah's unusual origin, and he acquits himself very well. Rachelle Rosenberg matches his pace, using one palette for the more reality-based scenes and another for the otherworldly realms Red Hulk and Machine Man visit as they discover the rest of the story. It goes without saying that I really want to see this team work together again, and soon.

"Hulk of Arabia" spices up Parker's series with an international flavor, laying the groundwork for future encounters with Shah and others in the area. It also marks time by providing yet another encounter between the Red Hulk and General Fortean, and keeps Ross checked in with the other heroes in the Marvel Universe. It's fascinating that while the original Hulk gets more insular, this new Hulk gains vast exposure among the biggest super-heroes. While I still lament the fact there's a Hulk book out there that doesn't feature Robert Bruce Banner, I can't argue that this isn't one fine book month in and out.

But yeah, Parker, Up Side, Schwartz, green Hulk, yesterday.

Quick Verdict: Read It.

~G.

Hulk: Season One - The Day the Hulk Turned Green?

2011-12-17T18:06:00.001-07:00

If my fellow Hulk fans have been looking at recent comics news this weekend, you might've seen a reason to be extra giddy for next year to arrive. Marvel Comics is releasing a series of original hardcover graphic novels under the imprint of "Season One," featuring origin stories for its many iconic heroes. Several months ago, the company announced the first four titles, including tales of the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Daredevil and the X-Men. This time around, they've got three more origin stories, including Ant-Man, Doctor Strange (by Greg Pak), and...wait for it...

Hulk: Season One, by writer Fred Van Lente, artist Tom Fowler, and color artist Jordie Bellaire.

Of course, ol' Fred's no stranger to this blog or to the Hulk, having written some gamma-rific tales in books like Hulk Family: Gamma Genes, Hulk: Broken Worlds, All-New Savage She-Hulk (and accompanying backup tales in Incredible Hulk), and the upcoming Hulk Smash Avengers limited series, among others. He also co-wrote Incredible Hercules with Greg Pak when the Lion of Olympus took over Greenskin's book after World War Hulk. All that hanging around the Gregarious One must've left him with a bad case of the gamma flu, because he's about to unleash over 100 pages of purple-pantsed action in the mighty Marvel manner!

And even though their own exposure to Hulkish things hasn't been quite on-par with Mr. Van Lente, let that not diminish the heroic efforts of Tom Fowler, who's been making Spidey spinoff Venom his home these last few months, nor Jordie Bellaire, who's working right now with Hulk alum Gabriel Hardman on Boom! Studios' Betrayal of the Planet of the Apes miniseries! And yes, friends, the two of them have already made beautiful Hulksome goodness together in this sketch of the sensational She-Hulk! (Click below to check out the post on Jordie's site!)

You can bet as the release date approaches (it's currently scheduled for August '12) I'll be rounding up more details and maybe even getting the creators to say a few words about this titanic tome! In the meantime, I did want to add some early observations based on everything that's out there so far (mostly a CBR exclusive interview with Van Lente & Fowler).

In the interview, Fowler specifically notes that he and Van Lente are working with a different incarnation of the Hulk than in Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's previous high-profile origin rework, Hulk: Gray: "[W]e're dealing with the gray Hulk who wasn't just talking in three word sentences and saying, 'Smash' and 'Puny' a lot. This was kind of that a-hole Hulk that would often tell people to go to hell." Sounds a lot like the Hulk of Incredible Hulk #1 by Stan and Jack, doesn't it? Point!

Van Lente also notes that he's reshuffling a bit of the supporting cast to bring the series more up to date with the times. Particularly, Betty is now "an active member of the military, which sort of reflects how now the U.S. Military more actively recruits women and how they have a more active role in the military now than they did in the '60s." Additionally, Betty won't be the only woman in Bruce Banner's life, as the story "reintroduces a character that I created who has been directly associated with Bruce Banner in a romantic way by other writers. I'm now officially retconning her into Hulk continuity, and she plays a major role in the story. Basically, I thought Betty needed a romantic rival for Bruce's affections and that's this character." Sounds like Monica Rappaccini, AIM Scientist Supreme and mother to the new Scorpion, will be front and center.

But what about the bad guys? There's no word yet on whether the Gargoyle will play a role in this revised origin tale, but I'd be surprised if he weren't there in some fashion, Cold War or no. However, Van Lente's assertion we'll see "a very well known evil Marvel organization" speaks well to AIM's involvement since Monica will be around. The writer's also promised "a brand new Hulk villain called Biocide, who's pretty awful and horrible, and therefore awesome."

My last tease? Well, you've seen the cover to the book, and Julian Totino Tedesco's illustration clearly shows a green-skinned monster. On the other hand, Tom Fowler's mentioned that he's drawing a gray-skinned behemoth. Might we finally see the moment Hulk fans have waited five decades for? We know that sometime between Incredible Hulk #1 and 2, the Hulk turned from gray to green. Aside from a way-too-brief scene in Uncanny Origins #5, we've never seen how that color change occurred. Something tells me that if Fred Van Lente's involved, he won't give us a mere throwaway scene and that the shift from gray to green will be a pivotal moment in the narrative.

Alas, the answers are many months away. I'll follow up at some point next year, but for now, feel free to visit the above links, as well as those to Tom Fowler's blog, where he's sculpted some Hulk and General Ross heads for reference for this original graphic novel!

~G.

11th-Hour Pak Attack: Astonishing X-Men & Red Skull: Incarnate

2011-12-13T14:01:00.000-07:00

Greetings, gents. Due to illness--and developments with my "real job"--and yeah, there's that book I've begun writing--I haven't been around to post any reviews! It's about time I got back to it, here, and that means reviewing not one, but two new books by one of Marvel's best & brightest.

As everyone knows, although I'm a "Hulk guy" at heart, that's never stopped me from picking up countless other Marvel books, plus DC books, Image, and some other indie press publications. Send me something (at delusionalhonesty [at] gmail [dot] com) and I'll do my level best to review it in a timely manner. That brings us to a series I haven't picked up in quite some time, since just after the departure of Buffy and Angel writer Joss Whedon.

Yes, kids, it's Astonishing X-Men #44.

Caveat lector: I have been well-read on those mutant folk. At one time, I had an X-collection the envy of most X-fans. Full run of Uncanny X-Men if you include the first four Essential volumes? Check. Full runs of X-Men, New Mutants, X-Force, Cable, Wolverine, and a gajillion other series, regular and limited? Check. About the only series I didn't own that was X-related was Deadpool. But, aside from Peter David's X-Factor, they lost me when the X-folk relocated to San Francisco. And I even drifted away from X-Factor some time ago. For me, X-Men was a light that burned bright, borne from looking at far too many long boxes of quarter books, and then extinguished itself rather quickly.

As part of "Regenesis," the latest rebranding of the X-Men titles, writer Greg Pak and artist Mike McKone have come aboard Astonishing X-Men to tell a three-part tale. The creative shuffle is the latest in a long line for the book, which since Whedon's departure has been a showcase for Marvel's most popular talent--or at the very least, writers itching to tell an X-tale they can't fit anywhere else on the schedule.

And what of "Exalted," the storyline that begins here in this issue? It's...well, an intriguing puzzle, so far.

Scott Summers, the mutant called Cyclops, has been recovering from injuries incurred recently. He remains at Utopia, the San Francisco Bay area base of the X-Men, while the half of the team headed by Wolverine left to reopen the old Westchester school. Physically, he's fit; however, mentally is another story, as he demonstrates by using his optic blasts to decimate the facility's locker room. And then, Storm shows up--looking exactly as she did in the Claremont/Windsor-Smith era of the eighties, white mohawk and all. A glorious battle ensues, unique for its depiction of Cyclops' abilities...and then, as they go together toward parts unknown, that's when the weird gets weirder.

It's interesting that Pak and artist McKone go for the nostalgia value of a mohawked Storm as an entry point into this storyline, and then up the ante with the provocative cover image. Fans who weren't around in the eighties may be intrigued, and I hope they are, because Storm's change in appearance is only the gateway into the storyline set to unfold. The script charges full-steam ahead, never really stopping to let you breathe, a feeling only exacerbated by McKone's clean storytelling and topped off with Rachelle Rosenberg's exciting palette of colors.

I'm increasingly intrigued by the world into which Cyclops & co. are dropped in Astonishing X-Men #44. It's true, some fans may feel a bit flummoxed, especially those who haven't followed the merry mutants' adventures in some time. Still, I've always liked the stoic Scott Summers, and to follow him through an unusual adventure in the spirit of Judd Winick's Exiles is something of a treat. While by no means perfect--the ending is no doubt disorienting--"Exalted" is off to a good start. Read It.

As for the other book on this week's delayed-review list, Red Skull: Incarnate #5, it wraps up the origin of Johann Schmidt, the Rote Schädel (that's "Red Skull" to the non-German-speakers) with the same frightening flourish as writer Greg Pak concluded the origin of the villain who could be seen as the Skull's opposite in Magneto: Testament a few years prior.

Pak, this time joined by artist Mirko Colak, brings the tale of Schmidt full circle with--ironically enough--a plot to kill Hitler when he comes to discipline Ernst Röhm at a Munich hotel. Schmidt, his friend Dieter in tow, constructs a simple plan and goes through the motions, chillingly, to get that which he feels he deserves. The plot is an exercise in cold calculation, a hallmark of the later Red Skull. What's most incredible about this final adventure is how it's all based in stark reality--as has the entire series been--with no masks, no costumes, only human beings carrying out their own cultivated evil designs.

The minimalist script, together with the low-key, yet no less powerful artwork by Colak and colorist Matthew Wilson, really brings a powerful close to the Skull's first adventure. If you haven't picked up this book in the single issues--if this review gets you on board only too late--then do yourself a big favor and pre-order the graphic novel collection of this series. If you've been following all along or you just want a taste of the Skull's evil unfettered by Captain America, then I have two words about Red Skull: Incarnate #5: Buy It.

Next: More Hulkish reviews.

~G.

Tears of Blood: DeMatteis, Mishkin & Cohn Remember "I...Vampire!"

2011-12-04T17:43:00.006-07:00

Do you dare enter...The House of Mystery?

That's what every cover of the famed DC Comics horror anthology begged you to answer. Behind covers by luminaries like Neal Adams, Joe Kubert and Michael Wm. Kaluta, the caretaker of the House, a bespectacled, wild-haired man named Cain, entreated fans to spooky stories. Following in the tradition of previous features like "Dial H for Hero" and "Martian Manhunter," neophyte DC scripter J.M. DeMatteis and veteran artist Tom Sutton brought a new regular series-within-a-series to Cain's House under editor Len Wein, a series that now lives again in DC's "New 52": "I...Vampire!"

Now that Joshua Hale Fialkov, Andrea Sorrentino and Jenny Frison have produced three issues of the new I, Vampire (which I hope all of you are reading!), it's time to take a trip back to 1981 with three of the creative minds behind the series' original incarnation: original series co-creator J.M. DeMatteis (also of Spider-Man, Moonshadow and Brooklyn Dreams fame, among countless others) and series finale co-writers Dan Mishkin & Gary Cohn (also known for the much-beloved Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld and Blue Devil). You'll also see some comments from me on the overall direction of the series, which appeared in The House of Mystery #290-291, 293, 295, 297, 299 and 302-319.

Mike Kaluta's stunning covers are still enticing today.

Around the creation of "I...Vampire" superhero books were the most popular genre in American comics (and remain so today). According to DeMatteis, "When I broke into comics in the late 70's, the 'mystery books,' as they called the horror anthologies, were like the vaudeville of comics. A place for new writers to learn their craft, try, fail, grow, without a lot of attention on them. I sold my first script to [DC editor] Paul Levitz, then started working with Jack Harris and Len Wein. Len became more than an editor, he became my mentor, the first person in the business who made me feel as if I had something unique to offer."

DeMatteis set out to prove his craft when Wein assumed control of the horror titles. "Len wanted to inject some ongoing series into Weird War Tales and House of Mystery and asked me for ideas. I'd already had "Creature Commandos" rattling around in my brain and we set that up for Weird War [introduced in issue #93 with artist Pat Broderick], then Len tossed out a title to me—'I...Vampire'—and told me to go home and come up with a concept. That's just what I did, Len loved it, and we were off and running."

When it came to artistic talent, Wein cast his eye toward veteran horror illustrator Tom Sutton, whose previous claims to fame included being Vampirella's first artist in 1969 and drawing various horror series for Warren, Marvel and DC throughout the seventies. DeMatteis remembers: "I'm pretty sure Tom was Len's choice; but I was a huge fan of [his] work. He'd illustrated some stories I'd done for the DC science-fiction anthologies and his style was unique, moody, idiosyncratic, emotional. I loved everything he did with 'I...Vampire.'" Indeed, Sutton would remain on the series long after DeMatteis' departure, either as sole artist or inker over talents Paris Cullins and Adrian Gonzales, even drawing the series' finale.

Joe Kubert established the proper horrific mood with the first issue's cover.

The first "I...Vampire" story appeared in The House of Mystery #290 (March 1981), a few months after the debut of "Creature Commandos" and a month after DeMatteis' Marvel debut (Defenders #92). All the familiar elements of the series are in place at once: Andrew Bennett was the reluctant vampire who made his lover Mary into a less-reluctant creature of the night. To aid him in his quest to stop her Andrew recruited Dmitri Mishkin and Deborah Dancer, two humans terrorized by vampires.

DeMatteis' inspiration for the series' characters? "It's been a very long time, but my sense is that I started writing and the characters just came together. I know I was drawn to the idea of a vampire who wasn't corrupted by the curse, that it worked as a wonderful metaphor for the struggles we have in our lives, the darkness in our souls that we wrestle with, and the desire to live good and decent lives despite that darkness."

The vampire-as-heroic-protagonist idea was certainly less prevalent in the age of "I...Vampire" than today, where characters like Angel (of Joss Whedon's Buffy and his own eponymous series), Stefan Salvatore (of The Vampire Diaries) and Edward Cullen (of the Twilight novels and films) have caught the public's imagination. Like those latter-day vampire tales, "I...Vampire" also had a provocative, if twisted, love story at its center. "Of course the heart and soul of the story was the Andrew-Mary relationship," says DeMatteis. "Here was this woman Bennett loved, adored, worshipped—and the one time he allowed his vampiric hunger to overtake him, he transformed her into something twisted and evil. And he'd lived with that guilt and shame for hundreds of years. In the end, it wasn't enough for him to redeem himself, he had to redeem Mary, as well. In fact, Bennett was far less concerned with his own salvation than with Mary's. He wanted to oppose her and her forces—but, in the end, he opposed her in order to save her."

Andrew Bennett weeps tears of blood for his beloved Mary. Kaluta art.

Of special note to fans of DeMatteis' work is the character of Dmitri Mishkin, Bennett's male companion throughout the years: "I...recall loving the character...especially once I wrote his back story, explaining how he'd been with Bennett since he was a little boy. It made the character both more heroic and more tragic. (Mishkin was also Russian, so I was able to express my love of Russian literature, specifically my literary hero Dostoyevksy, through the character.)" DeMatteis made his love for the character manifest in issue #295, which explained Mishkin's origins and revealed that his mother had become a vampire when he was a child, a plot point that would be developed much later.

As for the final protagonist, the lovely redheaded Deborah Dancer: "[She], I think, was an attempt to inject someone younger and more contemporary into the mix," says DeMatteis. Bennett and Deborah definitely shared romantic feelings but dared not openly express them—due, no doubt, to his fear of making her another monster like Mary in a moment of passion and weakness—again, a point worth mining at another time.

Andrew Bennett only made one appearance outside HoM, and this was it. Jim Aparo art.

Bennett had his work cut out for him as a lone vampire allied with two humans against Mary, Queen of Blood and her legion of followers, the Cult of the Blood Red Moon. Whereas Bennett, Deborah and Mishkin were three, the cult consisted of many, often hiding in plain sight among the throngs of humans, ready to pounce, to overwhelm the triad who appeared to be all that stood in the way of their bloody conquest of the Earth. Unlike the latter-day incarnation of the series, the early "I...Vampire" had no elements that directly linked it with the greater DC Universe; in fact, Bennett's only contact with a "superhero," the ever-popular Batman, occurred in another title, the team-up series The Brave and the Bold (#195, February 1983), months before both series' end.

Unfortunately for fans of the series, like Don Corleone, Marvel Comics gave DeMatteis an offer he couldn't refuse in late 1981. "[They] offered me an exclusive contract, so that was the end of my involvement with DC for five or six years." To fill the noticeable void, new editor Karen Berger, who later went on to develop the company's eighties and nineties output into the juggernaut Vertigo line, tapped writer Bruce Jones, who spent much of the seventies on Warren Publishing's Creepy and Eerie magazines.

Jones picked up the series with issue #299 and immediately set Bennett apart from his friends Mishkin and Deborah following an adventure where he nearly killed them both. The series became like a vampire version of The Fugitive, with Bennett wandering from town to town, encountering Mary's minions and dispatching them. The unfortunate centerpiece of Jones' tenure was a multi-part storyline wherein Mary convinced Bennett to use a pair of ancient rings to transport them through time following the development of a vaccine against cancer which made toxic the blood of those who took it. It's difficult to see how Bennett would find Mary's aims anything but transparent (to travel back in time and kill the ancestors of the cancer cure's developer), but he does, and his naïveté nearly proved the series' downfall. What was once a series with incredible pathos instead became a ridiculous exercise in time-travel involving a visit with Deborah Dancer when she was a child and a cat-and-mouse game played between human and vampire pairs of Bennett and Mary during the period before both were transformed.

Bruce Jones' storyline became mired down in too many fantasy elements. Kaluta cover.

Leaving before the conclusion of the time-travel storyline, Jones was replaced in issue #310 by another pair of writers new to DC. Dan Mishkin and Gary Cohn came aboard and immediately underplayed the series' more fantastical elements, returning to DeMatteis' tragic take. According to Mishkin: "We’d been doing a bunch of work for Karen Berger in House of Mystery and for some of the other anthology titles...I assume we came to mind because we were right there on hand. I think that our being in the same generation of younger writers probably influenced her decision as well."

The series was less something Mishkin & Cohn sought out, and more a chance to prove they could work on a regular monthly book. "We were novices, and the opportunity to work in a series format, which is the meat of monthly comics, was something we jumped at. And there's a definite appeal to doing genre work, where you have lots of conventions that you're expected to follow, but readers are always hoping you'll defy convention in a way that surprises and delights them while still providing the satisfaction of conforming to them. That balancing act of working within the constraints of a genre while at the same time challenging them was something we ended up doing pretty well in Blue Devil. With 'I...Vampire,' we were learning the ropes."

Mishkin was attracted to the possibilities offered by the horror genre. "I'm generally attracted to stories that delve into the unreal and impossible, like any other genre geek. The idea of the vampire's sensuality and magnetic personality (of which Dracula is the ur-text), and how that works to break down our conventional notions of morality, is one I've always found fascinating." To that end, he and Cohn returned to the core conflict between Bennett and Mary as well as returning Deborah and Mishkin to central roles in the narrative. Once again raising the cancer vaccine plotline (whose resolution had been interrupted in Jones' time-travel arc), they established that the cure was a facade, and that the lab responsible was headed by a vampire who wanted to eliminate his kin from the world by seeding human blood with the poison. Mary's people found a cure for the toxin at the lab, shared it with Bennett, and the plague was ended.

By this time, the series' sales figures had slumped beyond redemption, and DC's other horror and science fiction series had faded away. The House of Mystery wasn't long for the world. "With that book coming to end, we were told to wrap up the Andrew Bennett saga, and to do it with no loose ends and with a finality that would leave no chance of bringing the character back (a dictate that seems awfully naïve in retrospect)."

The series' finale ramped up with the return of Mishkin's mother Dunya, who per the wishes of her mistress, Mary, insinuated herself with Rev. Edgar Warnock of the American Crusade, actually a vampire working to carry the Blood Red Moon's power to the highest position in the land. Warnock was defeated but Dunya kidnapped Mishkin and turned him into a vampire and they fled to Russia. Bennett and Deborah, in pursuit, found out through vampires who'd infiltrated the KGB that Soviet scientists had developed a substance to eliminate vampires' need to avoid sunlight and their lust for blood—a key point toward the series' end.

Mishkin's death, depicted by Kaluta.

In the series' 317th issue, Dmitri Mishkin met his end, sacrificing himself so he alone could kill his own mother and thereby save his friends. Dan Mishkin, the series' co-writer (but not, strictly speaking, Dmitri's namesake), found the character's death particularly memorable for the behind-the-scenes events. "It was always a little funny writing a character (not invented by me) who shared my first initial and last name, and when we came to his death, I was amused by the thought of seeing a beautiful Mike Kaluta cover that featured a headstone with the legend "Rest in Peace D. Mishkin." But when I suggested it to Karen Berger, she declined out of a superstitious concern for my well-being. Which was really quite sweet, looking back, though I would have loved to have been able to buy the original art from Mike."

After Mishkin's death, two issues remained, during which Bennett decided to gamble with his un-life and imbibe the substance the Russians developed. While he seemed fine at first, able to tolerate the Sun's rays and survive without the need for blood, he soon discovered its unfortunate side-effects. Having become a vampire several centuries earlier, he found that the return of his humanity also brought rigor mortis, making him a prisoner in his own body. Upon their final confrontation with the Blood Red Moon, Deborah took the formula before encountering Mary, and when the Queen of Blood bit her, she instead became a new breed of vampire with all the immunities the substance provided. So empowered, she brought Mary into the Sun and killed her before saying a final farewell to Bennett, who scattered into ashes as Deborah wept tears of blood for him, the man she loved. It was an unusual finale to the series, empowering Bennett's human love and having her be the one to end the conflict in the fallen protagonist's stead.

The writers called the finale their favorite moment on the series. "Though it’s sad to leave behind characters that you’ve become invested in (also to leave behind a regular paycheck), there's a way in which wrapping up a series was as gratifying as the original opportunity to shepherd one. So much of monthly comics involves keeping the pot boiling that it's easy to get in a rut that's as unpleasant for the creators as it is for the readers. With the chance to do a big finish, we probably turned out our best work on the series—although, given the previous comments about being novices and learning the ropes, and the overall quality that that produced, calling something our best work in this context might not be saying much."

Bennett finally met his end with issue #319. Art by Kaluta.

Although "I...Vampire" ended with issue #319 in 1983 and The House of Mystery soon followed with #321, fate, it seemed, was not yet done with Andrew Bennett. When DeMatteis united with artist Shawn McManus on a Doctor Fate series in 1988, the last-page surprise in the first issue was Bennett's shocking return! The six-issue arc dealt with his inexplicable resurrection and his attempts at redeeming himself for his tortured past. "I really liked Bennett, and his inner struggle for redemption fit right into the themes I was exploring in my first arc in the ongoing Doctor Fate series I did with Shawn McManus," offers DeMatteis. "It was a treat to return to the character and his world—I especially enjoyed the Zen monk vampires he was allied with—after something like eight years. I was also a much better writer by then, so I was able to make up for some of the clunkier scripting in my original run."

Bennett's arc ended on a bittersweet note, although certainly DeMatteis left the door open to a more permanent return. "I actually pitched DC on an 'I...Vampire' revival at least once, possibly a couple of times (my memory's fuzzy on the details), but they turned me down," he says. Sadly, DC relegated him to a memory for the next two decades, only allowing him a brief string of appearances in Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang's idiosyncratic "Dr. Thirteen" series in the anthology Tales of the Unexpected in 2006-7.

Dr. Fate encountered Andrew Bennett early in his 1988 series. McManus art.

Fans of DeMatteis' original work on the series, which has stood the test of time to inspire the new incarnation, may be surprised to learn the writer did not originally consider himself a major fan of vampire fiction. "I remember reading Bram Stoker's Dracula in college and being surprised by how good it was, but the genre never drew me in any profound way. Once I started writing for the DC horror anthologies, I had to dip into vampire lore because that was a huge part of what those books did. The more I explored, the more I enjoyed the genre. As with Bennett, I saw the vampire as a wonderful symbol of the darkness inside all of us. The vampire's struggle is the universal human struggle. 'To bite...or not to bite.' When I went over to Marvel, I explored the vampire mythos, in a very different way, in my Greenberg, the Vampire graphic novel (and the Bizarre Adventures story that preceded it)—which I remain very fond of, and proud of, to this day." DeMatteis has also worked alongside artist Kent Williams on the Epic Comics miniseries Blood: A Tale, a more unusual take on vampirism.

Asked for his opinion of his original "I...Vampire" tales, the author admits, "To be honest, I haven't gone back and looked at those stories in a long time. I'm sure I will once the collected edition comes out early next year. I'm sure there's a lot I would have done differently, simply because, as noted, I'm a better writer, a better storyteller, now. That said, 'I...Vampire' was my first original creation in comics and I poured my heart and soul into it. It was, at the time, the absolute best I could do. So, in the end, I think I should leave my younger self alone, respect him and let his work stand on its own."

Jenny Frison illustrates the new "I, Vampire" covers.

Understandably, with his wishes to bring back Andrew Bennett a few times in the intervening years, DeMatteis is proud to see his creation return in DC's "New 52" this fall. "I loved writing and creating that world and those characters and...based on the first issue of the new series, Josh Fialkov is doing a bang-up job reimagining Andrew Bennett's world. I just hope Mishkin shows up somewhere along the way!"

So do we, Mr. DeMatteis. So do we.

"I...Vampire" will be available in a DC Comics collected edition with a projected on-sale date of February 8, 2012. Consult your local retailer for ordering information, or order it from Amazon.com, Discount Comic Book Service or any shop you trust.

Please visit writer emeritus J.M. DeMatteis on his blog, Creation Point, at jmdematteis.com! And Dan Mishkin is at danmishkin.com!

New Blood: Morbius and the Vampire Genre (2) (Connecting Marvel to...Twilight?)

2011-11-30T10:04:00.003-07:00

Welcome back! This segment is the second in a two-part article spotlighting Marvel's very own resident Living Vampire, Dr. Michael Morbius! A Nobel Prize-winning biochemist, Morbius suffered from a rare blood disease whose cure instead transformed him into a creature of the night with an insane thirst for blood.

In the previous segment, I reviewed Morbius' appearances from his 1971 introduction in The Amazing Spider-Man through his two solo series as protagonist, and finally his cure in early 1980, again in one of Spider-Man's series. But of course, as they say, you can't keep a good vampire down!

The prodigal vampire returns. Cover by Jackson Guice.

In Roy Thomas and Jackson Guice's Dr. Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #10-18, Marie Laveau, Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, was aging in the absence of real vampires to feed her unnatural appetite. (This story occurred during the brief period where vampires were eliminated from the Marvel Universe, in the wake of the "Montesi Formula" storyline in Doctor Strange #59-62, Jun.-Dec. 1983.) She abducted Morbius and restored him to discover if his blood could act as substitute, only to find it could not. The Living Vampire escaped and briefly took up residence with Strange and his allies, who couldn't prevent the negation of the original spell.

After Todd McFarlane brought him back in a pair of issues of Spider-Man, Marvel took another look at their horror characters. With the new Ghost Rider title gaining success, the administration sought to build an imprint around the character and supernatural concepts. Hence, the "Midnight Sons" were born, and Morbius became a charter member of the loose grouping that also included Ghost Rider teaming with original Ghost Rider Johnny Blaze as Spirits of Vengeance; Tomb of Dracula alums Blade, Frank Drake and Hannibal King as Nightstalkers; and a group of supernatural investigators tracking down evil pages from the cursed book, the Darkhold.

The Midnight Sons rise, and with them was Morbius. Cover by Ron Wagner.

In the new series by writer Len Kaminski and artist Ron Wagner, Morbius ingested demon blood and found he could now transform between human and vampire selves. After encountering Ghost Rider and allies and suffering the loss of his former love Martine, he vowed he would now only drink the blood of the guilty. He spawned another vampire in assassin Vic Slaughter, and encountered villains like Dr. Paine and Nightmare.

Eventually, the series went off the rails, with Kaminski replaced by Gregory Wright due to disagreements with artist Wagner (who left shortly after). From the end of the first year, Morbius was involved in crossover after crossover--including "Siege of Darkness" across the entire "Midnight Sons" line--that robbed the series of any momentum. Not-ready-for-prime-time artists like Isaac Cordova and Nick Napolitano mired the series down as Wright kept telling stories of the demon blood and characters derived from it.

The series was mired in too many crossovers for its second year.

During the last half-year of the series, Marvel passed Morbius to writer Lisa Trusiani, a writer whose main claim to fame to that point had been the company's licensed Barbie comic. Drawn by Craig Gilmore, an unknown, rough-around-the-edges artist, the series just kept sinking. The stories degenerated into an unintelligible mess, with Martine coming back from the dead...or was that really her? Gilmore left a few issues before the series mercifully faded away with issue #32.

Shortly following the conclusion of Morbius' solo series, the character debuted on the small screen during the second season of the 1994 Spider-Man animated series on Fox. Voiced by character actor Nick Jameson, Morbius was recast as a college student like Peter Parker, who experimented with vampire bats and found himself transformed into a vampire-like creature. Since the censors didn't allow vampires to feast on necks, this vampire's fangs were useless; rather, this Morbius fed on "plasma" using suckers on his hands. He appeared in seasons two and four, during which he interacted with Spider-Man, Blade, and the Vampire Queen Mirium, who intended to use the Neogenic Recombinator technology that created Morbius to create a race of vampires.

Without a series of his own, Morbius reverted to type. Cover by Romita Jr.

In the absence of a regular title, suddenly Morbius reverted to his previous characterization as Spider-Man villain with Peter Parker: Spider-Man #77-80 under writer Howard Mackie and artists Claudio Castellini and John Romita Jr. He popped up in Don McGregor and Brian Hagan's Blade limited series, canceled just three issues into its run of six.

Once again Marvel employed Morbius' sometime ability to transform other characters into vampires. In Peter Parker: Spider-Man #7-8, he bit the vampire hunter Blade. The unique enzymes in his saliva reacted with the hunter's already-unique physiology, transforming him into a "Daywalker" and in so doing aligning the character more closely with his recent movie depiction. At the time, early buzz surrounding the Blade movie sequel had Morbius as its primary villain, but that idea was nixed in later versions of the script, and Morbius remains unseen in live-action.

After a few years' absence, Morbius returned in Marc Guggenheim and Howard Chaykin's Blade series (#7, Mar. 2007), having signed the Superhuman Registration Act during Marvel's Civil War and allied himself with S.H.I.E.L.D. to try to apprehend the hunter. Later, he appeared as part of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s A.R.M.O.R. unit during Fred Van Lente and Kev Walker's Marvel Zombies 3 and 4 series, first captured by his other-dimensional, zombie-infected analogue, and later as head of a new group of Midnight Sons that included Daimon Hellstrom, Topaz and Werewolf By Night. After that, he and the Werewolf retreated under New York City, where they and the Man-Thing found a "disassembled" Punisher and rebuilt him as Franken-Castle (Punisher #11, Jan, 2010).

Morbius soon became a hero of sorts, again. Cover by Greg Land.

When last seen, Morbius took a blood sample from Spider-Man to work on a cure for the Werewolf in Amazing Spider-Man #622 (Apr. 2010) before perplexingly allying himself with Dr. Octopus against Spidey (Amazing Spider-Man #642, Nov. 2010). He's currently appearing again, in Dennis Hopeless and Juan Doe's Legion of Monsters limited series, starring as the apparent leader of a team that includes the Werewolf, the Living Mummy, the Manphibian and Elsa Bloodstone--virtually the same team as co-starred alongside Franken-Castle in Punisher. And fans reading The Amazing Spider-Man may have seen a familiar face during "Spider-Island"...!

Over the years, the character of Morbius may have struggled. Certain writers wisely emphasized the fact that Morbius was a scientifically-created vampire, while others have treated him like just another vampire character. Sometimes he's been able to spawn other vampires like himself, while at other times we're told that's patently impossible.

Still, the other traditional tropes of vampirism in fiction have remained with him. Like many other vampire protagonists (and antagonists, for that matter), he reviles what he is and wishes he didn't have to ingest human blood to survive. His addiction to blood compares favorably to any traditional human addiction to alcohol, or drugs, or sex. The difference with Morbius is that due to the nature of his condition, we're told without that blood as sustenance he will die.

Morbius with the new Legion of Monsters. Art by Juan Doe.

A major asset to Morbius' ongoing characterization is the fact he is a biochemist, and as such, he is well equipped to identify the various symptoms of his condition and effect potential cures. He creates formulas to temporarily make himself appear human. He tries to manufacture artificial blood. He looks after his fellow monsters' medical needs. Often, he considers the curses of other monsters like himself in scientific terms. Sometimes that outlook is an asset; sometimes, not so much.

What is most important about Morbius is that he is really the first popular vampire protagonist in literature. His power set and appearance follow that of the traditional vampire, unlike Dell's "New Dracula." And virtually every other do-gooder vampire out there who angsted about his condition--from Andrew Bennett of I...Vampire!, to Nick Knight of Forever Knight, to Angel of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, to Edward Cullen of Twilight fame and many more--can ultimately trace that lineage back to Marvel's leading Living Vampire.

The premier vampire anti-hero? Art by Dave Cockrum.

And just think: we might not have had a Morbius had Stan Lee agreed to Roy Thomas' idea for Spidey to fight Dracula way back in 1971...

Yeah, take that, Vampirella.

~G.

SUGGESTED READING:

Marvel Zombies 3
Marvel Zombies 4
Punisher: Franken-Castle
Rise of the Midnight Sons (Out-of-Print)
Spider-Man: The Gauntlet, Vol. 3 - Vulture & Morbius
Spider-Man: The Next Chapter Vol. 2 (Coming Soon)

New Blood: Morbius and the Vampire Genre (1)

2011-11-27T18:16:00.001-07:00

A quick note about the article you're about to read: It was originally prepared for inclusion at Comic Book Revolution's site during the month of October. Unfortunately, due to some scheduling issues, it didn't surface there. Fortunately for you, dear reader, it's now available to read on this very site! Part two of this two-part retrospective will be available very, very soon, followed by an entry on "I...Vampire!", DC's 1980s supernatural series, with special contributions by original series talent! In the meantime, enjoy this trip down memory lane...

In today's age of vampire protagonists, it's difficult to imagine a time when vampires were always the "bad guys." It's even harder to wrap one's head around the idea that comic books were forerunners of the trend. And just consider that, for the longest time, vampires and the living dead were forbidden by the Comics Code Authority!

Impossible? No!

This October, we're all about things that go bump in the night, and that means bringing up unusual facts like these. So of course, we've gotta discuss...Dell Comics' Dracula!

Take a few deep breaths and stop laughing.

While this article may be about a certain living vampire, I must first note this three-issue wonder. While vampires were forbidden throughout the sixties, apparently heroes that experiment with bat blood, gain certain vampiric abilities, and go out in public dressed in a bat costume are just hunky-dory. He didn't have fangs. He didn't suck blood. He was just...a little batty. Three issues, and best forgotten.

A few years later, when the Comics Code Authority relaxed their restrictions on depictions of the living dead, Marvel Comics rushed in to capitalize. According to Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 11, writer Roy Thomas originally wanted Spider-Man to face the "#1 bloodsucker of all time," Dracula. However, editor-in-chief Stan Lee voiced opposition, preferring Roy and artist Gil Kane to offer up an original, villainous character.

Now this is more like it. The Amazing Spider-Man #101. Cover by Gil Kane.

Enter Dr. Michael Morbius, a Nobel Prize-winning Greek biochemist with an incurable blood disorder. With his friend Nikos and lover Martine, he tried to produce a cure using extracts derived from vampire bats. That cure may have rid him of the disease, but left his skin chalk-white, his bones hollow, his fangs sharp, and his body thirsty for fresh blood! Hence the good doctor became Morbius, the Living Vampire!

With an origin tale that evoked the classic scenes aboard the Demeter in Stoker's Dracula, Thomas and Kane brought Morbius into the Marvel Universe in The Amazing Spider-Man #101-102 (Oct.-Nov. 1971), in the middle of a storyline where the web-slinger had briefly grown four extra arms. It was almost easy to pity the scientist-cum-vampire. In trying to cure his own illness, he made his situation much worse.

In a cursory way, his nature compared him favorably to another of my favorite characters, Dr. Robert Bruce Banner and his alter-ego, the Hulk. Both men were scientists whose work led to drastically unforeseen consequences. Both men's alter-egos could be construed as evil. Both men really, truly wanted a cure but couldn't get it.

Morbius's 2nd appearance: Marvel Team-Up #3. Cover by Gil Kane.

At first, Morbius stuck around as Spider-Man's antagonist throughout the aforementioned story and a few issues of Marvel Team-Up (#3-4, Jul.-Sept. 1972) wherein he sought a cure with assist from a colleague he kidnapped. The story introduced, briefly, the idea that Morbius could create others like himself--something, like Morbius' reaction to daylight, writers could never keep straight.

However, Marvel soon saw an opportunity to develop the character further when they created a series of black-and-white magazines. Vampire Tales debuted in August 1973, and featured the first in a multi-part story with the Living Vampire as protagonist. The stories by Don McGregor emphasized Gothic horror, teaming Morbius with Amanda Saint, a young woman pursued by the Demon-Fire death cult. Art by Pablo Marcos, Rich Buckler, Tom Sutton and Mike Vosburg was wonderfully atmospheric, with ink washes and other techniques that gave the tales a gravitas unseen in the color comics. The creators took Morbius' plight very seriously, prominently displaying that, without that meddling Spider-Man, Morbius really could hold his own. Following the Demon-Fire cult arc by McGregor, Doug Moench and Sonny Trinidad came aboard for the final duo of tales before the series folded with its eleventh issue in 1975.

Morbius moonlights in the B&W mag Vampire Tales. Cover by Luis Dominguez.

Speaking of color comics, the powers-that-be at Marvel must have been impressed with the sales figures of the early black-and-white magazines, for it wasn't long before Morbius headlined one of Marvel's many anthology comics. With Man-Thing gone to his own series the previous month, Fear #20 arrived in February 1974 with a new star. Whereas the magazine told true horror tales, the comic told tales with a more scientific bent, including the saga of the Caretakers, a race of long-lived aliens who believed humanity to be on the verge of extinction due to impending nuclear war. To that end, they undertook Project: Second Genesis to create a new race of humanity. Mike Friedrich, Steve Gerber and Doug Moench all wrote the story at different turns, and the inconsistency doomed the series. Similarly, the series had a new artist nearly every issue. Not even a young P. Craig Russell could stick around.

Moench and artist Frank Robbins stayed together a few issues, during which monster hunter Simon Stroud migrated from the Man-Wolf's stories in Creatures on the Loose to fight the vampire. Perhaps due to the absence of the freshly-canceled Vampire Tales, Moench picked up that series' horror flavor in a tale featuring demonic entities and more "living vampires." Unfortunately, the book again fell victim to inconsistency with then-untested writer Bill Mantlo and more guest artists, and issue 31 would be its last--also in 1975, a few months after the magazine's finale.

Whereas Vampire Tales was about the horror, Fear emphasized sci-fi.

Without a solo book to call his own, the vampire who'd broken out in two books returned to villain status following guest appearances as part of the Legion of Monsters (Marvel Premiere #28) and alongside the Thing (Marvel Two-in-One #15). He again plagued Spider-Man, first alongside the Man-Wolf (Giant-Size Super-Heroes #1) and later by himself in the newly-minted Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man (#7-8, with a reprint of Marvel Team-Up #3 in issue #6). A few years later, without any further appearances, Morbius returned in issue #38, where former Fear writer Mantlo promptly cured him in an incident involving Spider-Man's radioactive blood and a bolt of lightning.

Morbius would appear irregularly over the next few years. In David Kraft and Mike Vosburg's Savage She-Hulk series (#12-14, Jan.-Mar. 1981), he appeared in court to defend himself against crimes committed while he was a vampire. At the same time, he battled a psychological addiction to blood cultivated during that period. As part of a team consisting of Bruce Banner and Walter Langkowski, he consulted with Reed Richards when his wife Sue suffered complications during her second pregnancy (Fantastic Four #266-268, May-Jul. 1984). And in West Coast Avengers #5-6 (Feb.-Mar. 1986) he encountered the team while trying to cure Jack Russell, the Werewolf By Night, and referred the team to the race of Cat People to assist in solving a problem with Tigra, one of their members.

Morbius: Cured at last! Cover by Allen Milgrom.

But a character like Morbius couldn't stay "normal" for long. In the second segment, coming soon, I'll turn my attention to the Living Vampire's 1989 return, his time in the "Midnight Sons," and the time he nearly became a star on the Silver Screen!

Join us, won't you?

~G.

SUGGESTED READING:

Essential Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man Vols. 1-2
Essential Savage She-Hulk Vol. 1
Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 11
Marvel Masterworks: Marvel Team-Up Vol. 1
Vampire Tales, Vols. 1-3

Future Reviews: Comic Book Comics, Incredible Hulk & Marvel Point One

2011-11-14T15:00:00.002-07:00

Last time, I reviewed a bunch of comics that had already been released for many weeks. This time, I'll review one of last week's Marvel comics, plus not one but two books you'll find in this week's releases at your local comic shop. Thanks go out to the inimitable Fred Van Lente for providing Comic Book Comics for review, and to Comixology for messing up and letting fandom assembled see Incredible Hulk a whole week early.

Now, in order of release...

MARVEL POINT ONE - Marvel Comics, $5.99
By Ed Brubaker, Jeph Loeb, David Lapham, Chris Yost, Fred Van Lente, Matt Fraction, Brian Michael Bendis, Javier Pulido, Ed McGuinness, Dexter Vines, Roberto De La Torre, Ryan Stegman, Michael Babinski, Salvador Larroca, Terry & Rachel Dodson, Bryan Hitch & Paul Neary

This special one-shot was conceived to give a preview of all kinds of titles and events that Marvel will be bringing to its line in 2012. It's named "Point One" to capitalize on their program of the same name, whereby they produce special new-reader-friendly issues of their series at a lower price point. This edition, while reader-friendly, is at a decidedly unfriendly price point. I hear, however, that due to Marvel shipping double the initial number of copies ordered by retailers, this book can be bought on the cheap at most shops.

Let's take this puppy down in order, shall we?

"Behold the Watcher" (Brubaker/Pulido) - Regular Captain America scribe gets to flex his sci-fi muscles in this framing sequence, illustrated in a very Ditkoesque fashion by Javier Pulido. While at first this sequence seems to be a mere means to an end, with a heretofore unseen group of aliens (?) monitoring what the Watcher sees, in truth this story may be yet another prologue. Not bad, but pretty vanilla. It does what framing sequences are good at: needlessly linking together unrelated stories. Skip It.

Nova in "Harbinger" (Loeb/McGuinness/Vines) - Kid Nova's back, and he's got bad news--first for Terrax, former Herald of Galactus, then for the cosmos! In all honesty, Richard Ryder is as much an adult as any in Marvel's stable, but McGuinness' redesign makes him look like he's about ten years old. The big draw in this story is the return of a certain entity from the X-Men's side of the Marvel U, and I have to say "It's about time." I also have to say I bet we can't take this apparent resurrection at face value. (Remember that the cosmic end of Marvel has been embroiled in a war with the "Cancerverse"!) It's a big, bombastic hint, but since the bad guys bite it in this one, does that really engender sympathy? All the recent cosmic sagas seem to run together and this one appears no different. Skip It.

Age of Apocalypse in "The Myth of Man" (Lapham/De La Torre) - In a world of mutants, how do you define humanity? That's the question behind this story, a primer for a series wholly set in the "Age of Apocalypse" universe of the 1990s. It's the first nineties revival in these pages but not the last. Lapham's script accentuates the dark subject matter, and De La Torre's scratchy linework evokes Bill Sienkiewicz--miles away from his work on Ms. Marvel. The identities of the X-Terminated are interesting to anyone well versed in X-history, but if you're looking for new-reader-friendly, this isn't it. Skip It.

Scarlet Spider in "The Scarlet Thread" (Yost/Stegman/Babinski) - Marvel brings back another dour nineties character here, just as in the previous story, but this time the results are much brighter. Easily the strongest story to come out of Point One, this spidery saga's all about redemption. Kaine, the failed Spider-Clone, gets a new lease on life courtesy his "brother" Peter Parker, as seen in the "Spider-Island" crossover event these last few months. Now, he takes on a role that is, on the surface, evocative of the other "brother" he hated, the late Ben Reilly. In just eight pages, Yost and Stegman show that this is the Kaine I remember, and they give him a radical new life situation I'm just aching to find out more about. Easy for new readers to pick up on, with stylish art, this story's the first real reason to pick up this book and Buy It.

Coldmoon & Dragonfire in "Yin & Yang" (Van Lente/Larroca) -The first story in this volume to not be beholden to previously introduced concepts in the Marvel Universe, "Yin & Yang" spotlights a pair of wondrous twins who grew up separated in a research facility but now find themselves united. They team up to stop the villainous corporation that kept them apart, or so the cliche goes. The core concept is clear enough, but I think this superhero saga is still baking. I do have faith in Van Lente, however, and Larroca seems to be easing away from the photorealism that's been a distraction in his work of late. We'll split the difference and say Read It.

Dr. Strange in "The Shaman of Greenwich Village" (Fraction/Dodson/Dodson) - One of the most criminally under-represented heroes in the Marvel pantheon, Stephen Strange takes the spotlight in this story only to act as lead-in to the new Defenders series. Strange has always investigated paranormal phenomena, and here Matt Fraction gives a glimpse into the magician's next great challenge with aplomb. While I'm not sure that the Dodsons are a good fit for a series primarily focused on the mystical, I can't say this isn't one gorgeous looking story. If you've been vexed by the depiction of Strange in other prologues for the new series, this one may change your mind. Buy It.

Avengers in "Age of Ultron" (Bendis/Hitch/Neary) - Bryan Hitch and Paul Neary have their art run through some digital filters to make it look like everything's shaking, and we get yet another hideous vision of the future that's built on that timeline Brian Michael Bendis came up with in the new Avengers series. It's clear that the Avengers are this year's X-Men, complete with apocalyptic, "Days of Future Past"-style visions. If you've seen it before in Uncanny X-Men, don't bother: it's still the same. Burn It.

Overall Ranking: 2.57...we'll round that up to a "Read It."

COMIC BOOK COMICS #6 - Evil Twin Comics, $3.95
By Fred Van Lente & Ryan Dunlavey

In the vein of their previous effort, Action Philosophers, Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey put their formidable talents together to establish the definitive history of comic books, and did it in comic book format! This is the sixth and final issue of the series, and features three stories exploring different facets of the comic book industry. If Van Lente and Dunlavey's purpose was to inform, then they succeeded in spades, because while I've researched the history of comics' direct market and the advent of digital distribution, the full history of the graphic novel (which didn't...totally...begin with Will Eisner) and the genesis of the Japanese Manga movement were largely unknown to me.

Van Lente took pains in researching various philosophy movements in Action Philosophers and he's done it again here, with a depth and breadth of knowledge that may at first seem overwhelming. (It's definitely a comic that you'll digest over the course of an hour, if not more, and you'll find yourself coming back to it again and again.) Dunlavey is a match for every concept thrown at him, slickly including gags both subtle and not so much, as well as just telling the stories.

If you don't know the history of the direct market, you'll doubtless find that story the most worthwhile story in this collection, but there's a lot to learn besides. For a long time, the Japanese Manga movement has outpaced the American comics scene, and through an analysis of talents including Osamu Tezuka and his many works, you'll learn why. You'll also learn the perils of filing graphic novels in the bookstore when no such format previously existed en masse.

Just as in their previous work, Van Lente and Dunlavey have succeeded in producing an educational product that everyone reading or working in comics should read. That's no cheap hype; it's the simple truth. Although I've only read this, the final issue, you can bet I'll be rushing to purchase the back issues, and/or a graphic novel collection. Or maybe I'll go digital.

Available 11/16/2011 in comic shops and 11/23/2011 on ComiXology digital format.

INCREDIBLE HULK #2 - Marvel Comics, $3.99
By Jason Aaron, Marc Silvestri and A Cast of Thousands

After the first issue of the new Incredible Hulk, I was cautiously optimistic about this new beginning. While Jason Aaron had a great voice for the Hulk, his Bruce Banner seemed like, well, a raving loon. Sure, it was interesting how, split apart, they were still sharing the same facial hair, but I felt the story could go off the cliff at any minute because Banner was heading into Villains-ville, courtesy the Looneytunes Express. Besides that, if the second issue was being solicited when, as Rob Liefeld noted on Twitter, artist Marc Silvestri wasn't even done with the first, and we ended up having another penciler and several inkers in a late-night jam-session for that first story, well, how much would this book suffer?

Here we are with "Hulk: Asunder, Part Two," and we've got five pencilers and six inkers struggling to finish a horrendously late book on time so Marc Silvestri can half-finish one more issue and be out the door with another artist taking his place.

It's sloppy work no matter who's to blame. Marvel should give its artists decent lead time, especially in the case of a high-profile relaunch such as this new Incredible Hulk has been. At the same time, an artist should be able to make deadlines without calling in every single helper in his studio. Whoever's at fault, everyone suffers. If readers think it's sloppy work, they'll drop the book, and circulation figures will fall.

But, well, three paragraphs in, and I haven't actually said anything about the story, have I?

"Hulk falls off cliff. Hulk go boom! Ha ha! Hulk make funny joke!"

Good artwork can cover a bad story, but bad artwork only makes a bad story all the more visible. I thought we'd glean a little more insight into the mind of Dr. Robert Bruce Banner, now separated from the titular Green Goliath. It was only natural after producing the previous issue's hook. Now, however, we don't just have suspicions that Banner's gone loopy: we have nine whole pages of around-the-bend behavior from our favorite nuclear physicist. Without the Hulk, it seems our boy's self-confidence has gone the way of the dodo. He's convinced himself that his life is absolutely worthless without the Hulk, and he'll do anything to get him back, including alienate the woman he loves, create monsters right out of The Island of Dr. Moreau, and if he has to, explode a brand new gamma bomb.

The sections of the book starring the Hulk are hardly any better. On the plus side, Aaron does introduce us to Amanda Von Doom's group of monstrous misfits, and we do get to see the Hulk face a bunch of gamma-irradiated sharks. But it only rings hollow, empty, unemotional. Hulk and crew go through the motions, and we only get a hint of what brought the Hulk into this new life circumstance. (He had help in separating Banner from himself. Thank you for calling "The Mr. Obvious Show.")

With such a wrongheaded look into the psychology of Bruce Banner, and an ever-deteriorating artistic situation, this book takes the place of The Weekly World News as my choice of fish-wrapping. In fact, it's not even worth buying to wrap fish in, because it's four whole dollars for only 20 pages of content! Wake me when we again have a single artist (or even one penciler and one inker), and a writer with a vision of Banner and Hulk that makes sense. And if it can be $2.99, let it be $2.99.

New rating, kids: Hulk Smash Stupid Comic! (For those keeping score, that's a notch below "Burn It.")

Available 11/16/2011 in comic shops and on ComiXology digital format.

~G.

A Weekend of Reviews: The Past (Angel & Faith #3, Hulk #43-44 & More)

2011-11-11T22:49:00.000-07:00

Hi Folks!

This weekend, I'm doing something a little special. Today, I'm posting some short reviews of some books from previous weeks that I've just plain missed reviewing. I wanted to make sure you knew about some of these books--good, bad, and ugly.

This time out, we've got special entries from Boom! and Dark Horse Comics, Betrayal of the Planet of the Apes #1 and Angel & Faith #3, as well as traditional Marvel fare like Hulk #43-44 and Fear Itself #7.1: Captain America. Rounding out this entry are Image's Savage Dragon #175 and DC's I, Vampire #2 and Swamp Thing #3.

As always, these books are rated, from great to awful,using my four-stage rating system: Buy It, Read It, Skip It, Burn It.

ANGEL & FAITH #3 - Dark Horse Comics, $2.99
By Christos Gage, Rebekah Isaacs & Joss Whedon

Did everyone know I'm a Whedon fan? No? I guess I'll have to ramp up the articles like this one, then.

Angel & Faith both have ample things in their lives to make up for, and this series, through its three issues, has ably demonstrated this fact. With Giles dead at Angel's hand (in the climactic finale of Buffy Season 8) and magic a thing of the past (see previous!), magical items are at a premium. They don't come more magical than the precious blood of the Mohra demon, famous in Angel lore for temporarily turning him human in the season one episode "I Will Remember You." Someone's selling the cure-all at premium prices, and it's up to the titular duo to take them down.

I lied: I missed the second issue, but thanks to the largely done-in-one nature of Gage's scripts, I wasn't lost at all. Rebekah Isaacs is a name unfamiliar to me, but I'll be tracking down her work from this point forward. And if it's one thing Gage (also famous for Marvel's sensational Avengers Academy) excels at, it's tight characterization in the Whedon mold. Who knew that, so many years after the characters' introductions in Buffy, they'd still be as engaging as ever? A solid story hook, solid art, and some snappy scripting don't lie--definitely Buy It!

BETRAYAL OF THE PLANET OF THE APES #1 - Boom! Studios, $3.99
By Corinna Sara Bechko, Gabriel Hardman & Jordie Bellaire

On the other hand--I hear the gasps from the crowd already starting--I've never truly been a fan of the Planet of the Apes film cycle. Oh, sure, I've seen the 1968 original with the screenplay by Rod Serling, and I've seen Marky Mark--excuse me, Mark Wahlberg--in the Tim Burton remake. Given that I tremendously enjoyed this summer's Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and also that I've been shouting and crying to give Gabriel Hardman's Hulk art the attention it deserved all of the last year, I had to pick this book up.

Based on the earlier film series, Betrayal picks up 20 years before the first film, telling the tale of General Aleron, a military man turned defense lawyer. His client is Dr. Cato, accused of the heretic crime of teaching a human to talk. He is able to convince Dr. Zaius (from the original films) and the council that Cato is not guilty, but that's only the beginning of the tale that turns more insidious with each turn.

Bechko and Hardman, a husband-and-wife creative team, don't just craft a solid story that wholly embraces the Apes universe I'm just learning about. They create an enticing yarn with suspenseful elements, and some of the best art I've seen from Hardman. It's clear they both dearly love the material. Similarly, colorist Jordie Bellaire matches Hardman every step of the way.

I may not have watched the second through fifth films in the Apes cycle, but you can bet I'll be remedying that oversight this weekend. If you can find it, Buy It.

FEAR ITSELF: CAPTAIN AMERICA #7.1 - Marvel Comics, $3.99
By Ed Brubaker, Butch Guice & Bettie Breitweiser

Did anyone not see this one coming?

Yes, that's a bit of hyperbole, but it's no less than this pointed epilogue to Fear Itself deserves. After Bucky's ignoble death in the middle of the summer event, you had to think to yourself, That's a waste. They brought him back, they had him wear the Captain America outfit, for this? The character's been a runaway success since returning early in Brubaker's Cap run, so why eliminate that potential revenue stream? I mean, erm, why kill a big ol' cash korova? Hell, I can't stop telling the obvious truth. (By the way, 'korova' is the phonetic spelling of the Russian word for "cow." Got it?)

For Captain America fans, this story should be all you've wished for, as it's by the same team as that series. There are two stories going at once here: the story of Bucky's funeral, and the story behind the story that everyone who wasn't deluding themselves knew was coming. It's a serviceable storyline aided by excellent artwork by Guice and lavish colors by Breitweiser. It sets up Winter Soldier #1. It exposes the middle of Fear Itself (and some of the ending) as a sham. It goes to show you that nobody really dies at Marvel anymore so long as the company imagines they can turn a profit.

God, I'm jaded! It's by-the-numbers with awesome art. But beware: You'll be paying four whole dollars for 20 pages of story. If that's your bag, well, I can't stop you. My recommendation: Read It.

HULK #43-44 - Marvel Comics, $2.99
By Jeff Parker, Patrick Zircher & Rachelle Rosenberg

It's been a while since last I reviewed Jeff Parker's perennially excellent Hulk. This time, I'll remedy that with two issues for the price of one! And I'll try to keep it brief so I won't be boring.

I've really been torn lately with Hulk. On the one hand, it's got an excellent, inspiring throughline of stories, with the many persistent threats of issues past, including some really novel villains. The book honestly reads like the best of Marvel's Silver Age Incredible Hulk stories from the seventies. On the other hand, the character is utterly derivative of the original, green-skinned Hulk, who's just had his own series relaunched yet again. I should be crying from the mountaintops for Marvel to cancel this book and restore Bruce Banner as the one and only man-monster. It's downright criminal that this series continues its numbering while Banner and (green) Hulk get a new first issue, right?

Ross goes against the wishes of the U.S. government in this storyline, "Hulk of Arabia," leaping into a politically-charged locale with the intent of avenging one of his old military buddies. Of course, because he crosses Steve Rogers, the Super-Soldier takes a few of his Secret Avengers pals with him to defuse the situation.Along the way, this Hulk picks up some characters who've been seen in Hulk tales past: Machine Man (who teamed with the original Hulk during Roger Stern's tenure) and Arabian Knight (whose first iteration was introduced by Bill Mantlo, also in the prior series).

The story is perfectly illustrated by Patch Zircher, an artist I've wanted to see on a Hulk book for many years. The art's terrific. The colors by Rachelle Rosenberg look great. And good grief, can Jeff Parker write pretty.

Like I said, I really want one and only one Hulk book, about a green and not red goliath. But not just yet. Buy It, won't you?

I, VAMPIRE #2 - DC Comics, $2.99
By Joshua Hale Fialkov, Andrea Sorrentino & Marcelo Maiolo

Shouldn't a series come out swinging or the fences with its best shot? Thanks for holding back, Fialkov!

But seriously, folks: The second issue of I, Vampire is even better than the first. That's not to say it's perfect--there are still some aspects creeping in that I don't like and which could prove to be the book's undoing--but overall, this whole creative team should step up and take a bow. They're batting 1.000.

The name of the series is I, Vampire, and with that title comes an intriguing idea: Each issue will have a different narrator, a different spotlighted vampire, than the previous. This time out, it's Mary Seward's turn. Mary, the self-titled Queen of Blood, whom Andrew turned into a vampire so they could spend eternity together, only to find out she really enjoyed the lifestyle.

Mary's narration is engaging, every bit as much as her former lover Andrew's in the previous story. It serves as a counterpoint to the previous, and a scary reminder of what's to come in future episodes. She has sass, she has swagger, she's utterly, terrifyingly gleeful about the state of the world and the part she feels destined to play. Overall, it's a thrilling character piece that picks up the narrative where issue one left off.

I did say there's a potential weakness to the book, didn't I? Unfortunately, that would be the work of artist Andrea Sorrentino. While I love the composition of each panel, the panels themselves are the source of my disdain. With precious few exceptions, every page is filled with the same "widescreen" series of panels from top to bottom, just like a movie storyboard. Having virtually every page filled with the same pattern of four or five panels per page can be truly monotonous, regardless of the artistic talent involved. Worse, it tells me the artist would almost rather be storyboarding movies. I know, I know, Kirby and the greats used to use the six-panel grid all the time, and they're still energetic as anything, right? Still, it would be nice to see a little more variety in the panel layout.

Ah, I've voiced my displeasure enough. This is one of the New 52's "must-buy" titles. Fialkov just gets it, and Maiolo accentuates Sorrentino's art just right. Buy It!

SAVAGE DRAGON #175 - Image Comics, $3.99
By Erik Larsen, Gary Carlson, Frank Fosco & Bill Sienkiewicz

I cannot believe that next year will mark the twentieth anniversary of Savage Dragon's introduction in Image Comics. Who'd have foreseen Erik Larsen's creation lasting so long? No offense to Erik, certainly, as he's the man of a million ideas, and I'm sure he could keep writing and drawing this book until he's old and gray. To be the sole Image founder to have truly stuck with his creation after all these years, that takes some determination. And having met the man, it's clear he's just as enthusiastic now as he likely was when he started this journey.

This book has seen its share of ups and downs, but it's always been, at the very least, entertaining. I remember the days of the over-the-top sexual innuendoes and the ever-evolving Vicious Circle gang. I remember when "This Savage World" was brand-new, feeling like a way for Erik to free himself from a continuity that seemed to box his hero in. And what a terrific play on a reboot it ended up being. I remember the big anniversary issues, I remember the Dragon/Urass ticket, and I remember Dragon meeting Obama (and being lucky enough to receive that first printing variant in my weekly comics shipment without having to pay over cover price). So, yes, I have every issue of Savage Dragon, from both series; every Freak Force; and just about every other Dragon-related miniseries there was. I'm a Fin-Addict.

During the last few issues following Dragon's "death" in #168, I'd grown comfortable with the book being passed on to Malcolm Dragon, our hero's son. Seeing how Erik mostly paces the series in real time, it felt natural that the torch would go to him sooner or later. Imagine my surprise when I saw the cover to this issue, and read the interiors. He's surprised us once again! Where he originally gave us Dragon's origin as a one-off story, he has wisely used it to fuel the last twenty-odd issues of stories, and has now given us an altogether new status quo. Dragon in a Buck Rogers-esque role? Something that must be seen to be believed.

This series never ceases to entertain, and that's what keeps bringing me back. From a great first story, to back-ups featuring the new Dart and Vanguard, it's got something for everyone. The big two don't make comics like this anymore. Thank God for Erik Larsen. If you love old school comics, Buy It. If you don't--there's no hope for you.

SWAMP THING #3 - DC Comics, $2.99
By Scott Snyder, Victor Ibanez & Yanick Paquette

Oh, Swamp Thing. I had such high hopes for you.

As a rule, I'm really enjoying DC's "Dark" subdivision of titles. Oh, sure, I've dropped a couple, and most of the greater line has gone bye-bye. But I've enjoyed Swamp Thing so far because it's been unconventional. It's been interesting through Brightest Day since DC played with the idea that this isn't Alan Moore's Swampy, that this is, for the first time ever, Alec Holland as Swamp Thing, "the way it was always meant to be."

However, at three issues of nearly constant setup, something's got to give.

Oh, sure, it's a well-told bit of setup, but still, the leisurely pace of this "new" origin of the Swamp Thing is clearly structured to appear in a graphic novel collection, and readers who pick up these single issues, well...does this method of storytelling really speak to you? It doesn't speak to me. I like my twenty pages jam-packed with story. I don't like the false advertising bit of having the hero look as he should on the cover but still be the human Holland throughout the issue.

I do like that we're meeting the old cast of characters from the original Swamp Thing, like Abby Arcane. The new character introduced in this tale, "William," is intriguing, and his story does take a dark turn. I'm curious to see how the tapestry is woven between the "Green" of this title, the "Red" of Animal Man, and the mysterious "Black" that's cropped up here and there. It's just, with all due respect to Mr. Snyder and his talented artist Yanick Paquette, I keep wishing they'd get to the point already. It doesn't feel like we've gotten a single complete story in this series yet.

Between the slow pacing of this story and the absence of favorite artist Paquette from well over half this issue's pages, I can't find it in my heart to recommend this book. Skip It until the action picks up.

Agree? Disagree? Sound off!

Tomorrow: This week's reviews, and next week's! Marvel: Point One! Incredible Hulk! And Comic Book Comics!

Be here! Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!

~G.

Kaine, Take 2: The Spectacular Psychoses of Spider-Man

2011-11-07T19:00:00.005-07:00

This year at New York Comic Con, Marvel Comics announced a new series featuring the Scarlet Spider. The hero's name is synonymous with an era that many Spider-Man fans would rather forget: The Clone Saga! That's right, it was a wild and wooly era when the clone of Spider-Man, birthed in a lab under direction of the villainous Jackal, returned after learning Aunt May was dying. Taking the name Ben Reilly, after his uncle's first name and his aunt's maiden name, he spent five long years on the road, learning about himself and divorcing himself from the name "Peter Parker," but he couldn't resist the pull of family.

All the gory details are available in the tenth and eleventh episodes of The Spectacular Spider-Cast, now or soon available for download on iTunes and on the podcast website. In addition, Marvel is currently rereleasing the entire Clone Saga in graphic novel format, with eight volumes currently produced, and at least two more on the way. Search Amazon.com for "The Complete Clone Saga Epic" and "The Complete Ben Reilly Epic."

We won't know for sure who the new Scarlet Spider is until the release of this week's Marvel Point One, which contains several stories including a preview for this new series. With that in mind, let the rampant speculation on his identity begin. If you don't want to know, go no further!

One of the most intriguing aspects of the Clone Saga was the introduction of an assassin called Kaine. His body hideously disfigured, he hid behind a black mask with streaks of webbing, as well as a tattered pink cloak. When he learned Reilly was in New York, he dropped everything to pursue him. He also found himself plagued by visions of Mary Jane, Peter's wife, dead and abandoned on the street. Who could this man be, and how could he have such close ties to Spider-Man and his clone?

Eventually, Kaine stood revealed as the Jackal's first, failed clone of Spider-Man. Abandoned by his creator, he had mutated to be bigger and stronger than the original Spider-Man. His adhesive abilities changed, allowing him to leave a web-shaped brand on the side of his victims' faces, and his spider-sense became uncanny psychic visions. Having no claim to Peter's life, scarred from a degeneration factor inherent in almost all Warren's clones, he left to live the life of a mercenary.

He and Reilly had crossed paths many times since then, including in Salt Lake City, Utah, where Reilly met girlfriend Janine Godbe and Kaine framed him for the murder of police detective Louise Kennedy. That debacle would form the basis for Spider-Man: The Lost Years, as well as for the arrest of Peter Parker in Amazing Spider-Man #400 and his subsequent trial.

When tests "confirmed" that Ben Reilly was "the one, true Spider-Man," it became clear Kaine had always harbored this belief. He wanted his "perfect" brother to succeed in the role of Spider-Man, and having Reilly, whom he saw as the "original" Peter Parker, return was the worst thing that could happen. Hence, Kaine had dogged Reilly ever since he first left New York, and attacked him soon after his return there. He hadn't counted on the wrong man being arrested, but so great was his hatred for Reilly that he nearly jeopardized Peter's secret in the courtroom before admitting culpability for the murder.

The rest of Kaine's life during the Clone Saga was a blur. He tried to stop the Jackal's mad schemes during "Maximum Clonage" but the clone called Spidercide stabbed him through the chest. He lay dormant in a clone casket until rescued by representatives of the Great Game, a war between superbeings sponsored by wealthy individuals. He soon grew tired of having been recruited into the game, and disappeared, only to surface later in one final series of battles with Reilly, who had by that time become Spider-Man.

Shortly before Reilly's death, Kaine tipped off Janine to his whereabouts. Reilly believed Janine dead as result of Kaine's previous machinations, and was blindsided by her return. They both were ambushed by Kaine, who sought their deaths but relented after seeing their love for each other. He and Janine then both surrendered to authorities.

Ben Reilly died in battle with the original Green Goblin, degenerating into dust which marked him as the true clone. Kaine escaped from prison soon afterward, and reappeared during the "Who Was Ben Reilly?" storyline, stalking Raptor, a colleague of Reilly's who mutated himself into a human/dinosaur hybrid and blamed the change on Reilly. After a fierce battle between Spider-Man, Raptor and himself, Kaine killed Raptor and fled. Eventually, the Kravinoff family captured Kaine during their scheme to return their patriarch, Kraven the Hunter, to life. Kaine masqueraded as Peter, and the family sacrificed him to revivify Kraven. Believed dead, Kaine was buried, only to rise from the grave as a new Tarantula, whom the Jackal mutated into a huge spider-like creature and drafted into his ranks right before the "Spider Island" storyline.

Now, as result of "Spider-Island," Kaine has been cured of all previous afflictions including, it seems, his clone degeneration factor. For some reason, he's not six feet four inches and built like a brick outhouse anymore. For the first time since the day he emerged from one of the Jackal's clone caskets, he looks like Peter Parker. A long-haired Peter, but Peter nonetheless.

And because New York isn't big enough for two Spider-Men, Kaine is taking his show on the road beginning in the "Spider Island" epilogue, The Amazing Spider-Man #673, on sale now. And you can bet that he'll be the guy behind the mask in Christopher Yost and Ryan Stegman's brand-new Scarlet Spider series.

The Scarlet Spider will be doing his share of wandering, which keeps in line with the original Scarlet Spider, Ben Reilly. Kaine will obviously be out for a share of redemption for all the dastardly things he's done in the past, both to the late Ben and to many others. I sincerely hope Chris Yost remembers the character's rich history and complex psychology, and that Ryan Stegman ably illustrates this "twisted" Spider-Man.

How twisted could it get? I'm thrilled you asked!

We start with an intellectually intriguing angle: Kaine is taking on the costumed identity of the man who, for five long years, he really, really wanted to kill. I don't think that point should be lost on the creators. Does that screw him up? That's a good question. Thank God there's an easy answer, if they want to go that way.

Yes, it's true that Kaine hated Ben Reilly. But it's also true that thanks to the Jackal's machinations, he falsely believed Reilly was the real Spider-Man when in fact he was another clone like him. How does that revelation strike him? Especially when you consider that Kaine can't ever make up for his actions because Ben is dead? Does taking on the Scarlet Spider identity become a form of penance, a way of paying back Ben since he can't tell him "I'm sorry" in person?

Let's also not forget that Kaine, unlike Peter and Ben, has been a very, very bad man since the Jackal kicked him out. He's been an assassin. He's killed people. He's clearly shown underworld ties. He's made decisions that Peter Parker just plain wouldn't. He's not Peter, and he's not Ben; he's the anti-Spidey. Look at what he's done to Doctor Octopus, to the Grim Hunter, to Louise Kennedy, to Raptor. These actions shouldn't be forgotten. It isn't about "wallopin' websnappers"; this Spider-Man is mean. Let's see how he got that way, and his attempts to deal with how different he's become from Peter Parker, the man with whom he shares all his memories up to the moment of cloning.

And yes, we have that "redemption" angle on the table. After the events of "Spider Island," he's cured of being the Tarantula, and it would also appear he's cured from the clone degeneration that's caused him such intense pain over the years since his creation. What effect will that nugget of an idea have on him? Surely he won't turn all "sunshine and rainbows." He can't, else it would defeat the purpose of even having another Spider-Man out there wandering the country.

Kaine probably still has underworld connections in some parts of the U.S., but come to think of it, they wouldn't recognize him anymore. He's not scarred anymore, nor is he wearing the garish pink-and-black costume we first saw him in. In fact, looking like he is--just like Peter, only long-haired and scruffy--he's a dead ringer for "road warrior" Ben Reilly. And we know how much baggage he carried over the years. So, who will he be: Kaine "Parker," or Ben Reilly?

When all else fails, the Scarlet Spider creators should ask themselves one important question whilst travailing their own path: "W.W.J.M.D.D.?" ("What Would J. Marc DeMatteis Do?") After all, the man who gave us the most psychologically complex Clone Saga stories must have been doing something right, if we're still talking about Kaine all these years later...

Kaine, by Ryan Stegman, artist of Scarlet Spider! From NYCC '11.

~G.

(Recommended Reading: Spider-Man: The Complete Clone Saga Epic Vols. 1-3; Spider-Man: Return of the Black Cat; Spider-Man: Grim Hunt; Spectacular Spider-Man #231; Sensational Spider-Man #2; Amazing Spider-Man #409, 666-673; Spider-Man #66; Spider-Man: Redemption #1-4; Spider-Island: The Deadly Foes of Spider-Man #1.)

Ultimate Failstorm! (Or: The Failure of Firestorm)

2011-11-06T19:51:00.000-07:00

Since September's relaunch of every mainstream DC comic in the line, I've been reading, and reading, and reading still more. I started off reading nearly half the "New 52" and have pared my way downward from there. How's that coming? I'm still working on it, but I can tell you I've already dropped a few titles.

At the beginning, I had a master list of sorts. Books that I wanted to be really good. Books that I thought would surprise everyone. Books that I felt certain wouldn't last a year.

Some books met my expectations. Some exceed them by a mile.

One was an utter letdown in almost every respect.

Wouldn't you know, it's one I wanted to be good, and it really is surprising everyone. And based on the first two issues alone, I don't want the thing to last a year.

Enter: The Fury of Firestorm, the Nuclear Men.

Remember from many of my previous entries that I'm a huge fan of Firestorm. I came on board in the days when John Ostrander had just begun his tenure that would explore multiple permutations of what eventually was dubbed "the Firestorm matrix." I read all the back issues I could. After the key duo of student Ronald Raymond and Professor Martin Stein disbanded, the character floundered. Then DC Comics launched a new series with a new Firestorm, a teen named Jason Rusch, in 2004. Unlike what they'd done with the character during the intervening years, this new Firestorm merged with other people just like in the old days. When Ronnie became part of the new Firestorm, I cheered even though it didn't last long. And when Martin Stein returned from the abyss to merge with Jason in a brand-new status quo--well, "squee" sums up my feelings, however inadequately.

During the last year, Brightest Day returned the Firestorm character to prominence, with writers Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi telling a story of how the complex relationship between Ron Raymond and Jason Rusch was causing the Firestorm matrix to grow increasingly unstable. Although Prof. Stein died in the series, the plot hit all the right notes, and at the series' end I was thrilled at the seeds planted for the launch of a brand-new series.

It's just a shame that DC decided to go in a completely new direction with the new series, not picking up from Brightest Day but instead spinning out of the line-wide relaunch dubbed the "New 52."

Now, what we readers are getting is what you could call "Ultimate Firestorm." Co-writers Ethan Van Sciver and Gail Simone have jettisoned the past, and everything old is new again. This time, we have Professor Stein (still dead?) bequeathing a cylinder representing "everything nuclear physics can be" to young Jason Rusch, a nerd with a chip on his shoulder who inexplicably finds himself and jock Ronnie Raymond transformed into superheroes with complementary yellow and red costumes when he, um, holds the cylinder and says the magic word really loud.

Add to that complication that, when they get really emotional and really close to each other, they merge together inside DC's very own Hulk, a ten-foot tall, monosyllabic misanthrope called Fury. ("The Fury of Firestorm," get it?) He's got a flaming skull for a face (and Johnny Blaze wants his shtick back!), and six circles on his chest that apparently represent the multiple Power Rangers--I mean Firestorms--who are also supposed to be tied into the matrix at some point. (We even see five of them in the first issue. Which raises another question: If Ronnie's and Jason's are two slots and there are six total, why are there five other Firestorms?)

And because it wouldn't be cool to have a nuclear hero out there without some shadowy terrorist organization chasing him/them, Van Sciver and Simone introduce Zither and her army of black ops assassins, including a reimagined Cliff Carmichael, formerly a fellow student of Ronnie's in the "Flash" Thompson bully mold, but now just another cold, calculating guy with a gun. They also have a special unit called Team Hyena, because in an age of super-science that's so much scarier than having a duo of were-hyenas like in the old Firestorm's rogues gallery.

Immediately, having the teens in possession of a "rogue Firestorm Protocol" means bad news, like people with the authority to send the police to interrogate the families of Ronnie, Jason, and their friend Tonya. Jason says they can all never go home again, never be reunited with their families. With the previous era's Ron and Jason pretty much isolated from their loved ones, what was the advantage of relaunching with them as high school kids? Especially if they're not even going to keep them in high school?

The new Firestorm is nothing like the original. In fact, it may be closer in tone and scope to the Ostrander series that first hooked me. So with that in mind you must be asking yourself: "Gary, if you were such a fan of that stuff, why don't you like this new stuff?" Where would you like me to begin?

Say what you will about Ostrander's "blank slate" Firestorm with Ron and Russian Mikhail Arkadin trapped inside an amnesiac Firestorm. At least there, we had a human-looking, articulate protagonist whose identity actually ended up being meaningful in the larger scheme. This Firestorm is a rampaging engine of destruction and you better not let him out, ever ever ever or Hulk will smash puny humans. Oops, where was I?

Also, well, this is supposed to be a relaunch, and that's all well and good. The unwritten rule is that, if you have a first issue, then at some point you should stop to explain your characters' abilities and other details. Apparently the new creators never got the memo, because already over the first two stories we're seeing the Firestorms using all kinds of powers, including transmutation and the like, as if they've known how to use these powers all their lives. No looks of shock on their faces when they do something they haven't been able to do before! Everyone's jaded, as unwilling to articulate about their powers as their writers. "I have new super powers! It must be Tuesday!"

The biggest thing missing from the relaunched Firestorm is, simply, any sense of wonder or fun coming from the protagonists or any members of the supporting cast. From the first page where we see terrorists kill a family in Istanbul, the series is wholly about dire circumstances and the threat of death, either from the terrorists themselves or the nuclear threat of the mysterious "Firestorm Protocols." The terrorists have to round up the magnetic bottles, or life as we know it is doomed. And life is doomed because we've got Tonya having psychic visions about the end of the world.

This attitude bleeds through to Ronnie and Jason. From the moment they meet, they're angry character archetypes, the angry nerd and the angry jock, and they hardly seem to be able to stop arguing long enough for Jason to engage in unintelligible, faux scientific jargon and Ronnie to tell him he doesn't understand a thing he's talking about. And then they get angry again, and sooner or later they're in their cute matching nuclear outfits with the puffy sleeves again. There's no sense of fun in their interactions like there was between Ronnie and the Professor, or Jason and the Professor, or even the Ronnie and Jason of more recent, pre-Flashpoint vintage.

The problems with the new Firestorm are endemic. There's a vast, labyrinthine X-Files-lite conspiracy at the center of the story, with everyone mortally afraid of the unleashed power of the Higgs-Boson, the cliched and trite excuse at the center of this most recent origin of Firestorm. (Say what you will about the hoops Ostrander jumped through en route to making Firestorm a fire elemental; at least his logic leaps made a degree of sense.) Instead of one hero with another character providing the voice of wisdom in his head, we have two idiots who don't have a clue how to use their powers, led by an absentee mentor. And did I mention that when they get angry, they merge and become a bigger idiot over whom they retain little control?

At New York Comic Con this year I had a talk with Brian Clevinger, co-creator of Atomic Robo, who was asked to pitch a Firestorm revival for the "New 52" that was stopped when DC decided to totally relaunch the character. I remembered reading his plans for a six-issue arc over at his website, and came by to tell him how highly I thought of his ideas and wished that his had been the story that made it to series. With one more issue released since then, my feelings have only intensified. His research into the series made it clear he cared about who these characters had been, pre-Flashpoint, and was going to build upon their recent characterization. It was also clear to me that Brian would have taken pains to make the book an easy read for new fans as well as old-timers (relatively speaking) like myself.

If I had my way, I'd make up whatever feasible excuse I could to get Brian Clevinger aboard Firestorm posthaste. Were these two issues a fever dream like the eighth season of Dallas, or a part of some insidious master plan by a new villain? I don't know. What I do know is that I'm incredibly disappointed by the lack of context, the lack of fun, the lack of everything I used to look to Firestorm for being.

I don't want a hulking creature for a hero in Firestorm.

I don't want a trigger-happy group of terrorists in Firestorm.

I want crazy superheroics and escapism, not a book so overwrought with drama it makes me want to blow my own brains out when I reach the last page.

Come on, DC. Bring back my Firestorm to me!

~G.

Hulk & Switch; Or, Using a Name Artist As Sales Gimmick

2011-11-01T15:51:00.000-07:00

Howdy, folks.

There's regrettable news coming from Marvel today. Hot on the heels of January 2012's solicitation that clearly named Whilce Portacio as artist on Marvel's Incredible Hulk relaunch with issue #4 comes the semi-official word courtesy Top Cow editor Filip Sablik (click for link) that Marc Silvestri has not only left the title with its third issue, but also that he was only ever contracted to draw the first three issues of the series.

Is this what Marvel Comics has come to? Using a "big name" artist as a prop to temporarily push sales numbers for a new series higher? Already they released eight variant covers of the book in question, so it's like piling gimmick upon gimmick. (If only they used that "Still $2.99" gimmick. That's one I could get on board with.)

Obviously, Marvel is hoping that readers will be engaged enough by Jason Aaron's stories that they'll stick around regardless of a drastic artistic shift. If the first issue is any judge, Hulk fandom is now divided in the same way as Banner and Hulk are now separate beings. With Banner taking on an unfavorable comparison to H.G. Wells' Dr. Moreau, it's difficult to argue the character still has any sympathy. We'll see if the second issue improves matters.

I miss the days when good stories sold comics.

~G.

Hallowe'en: Ten (Doctor) Strange Tales

2011-10-31T14:51:00.000-07:00

Happy Hallowe'en, all!

Welcome to one of my Hallowe'en installments of Delusional Honesty. Originally, I was going to get to some comments on "I...Vampire!" the original series by J.M. DeMatteis, Tom Sutton and a host of other talent. It's still going to be a few more days until I can make that article just the way I want it, so I wanted to give everyone something else that's closely involved with the macabre.

Saturday night on Google+, Marvel and Aspen writer Greg Pak (whose Dead Man's Hand #0 is now available!) posed a question after having read a particular story: Which Doctor Strange stories are fans' favorites? Well, let me tell you, that suggestion made the wheels begin to turn!

Although most of you know me as a die-hard Hulk fan, and those of you who listen to me at Comic Book Noise know I'm well-versed in the ways of Spider-Man, you might not know I'm also of the opinion that Stephen Strange is one of Marvel's best, most underrated heroes. Indeed, between five volumes of Marvel Masterworks and hundreds of back issues, I've read every issue of Doc's adventures in his solo mags. (And from a certain Green Goliath's association with an unusual Non-Team, I've got each of his appearances in Defenders, too!)

Forthwith is my assemblage of Doc's ten greatest adventures, in chronological order. (Greg, don't let anybody tell you I never gave you anything.)

Shall we begin? Tamam Shud!

1. Strange Tales (1951) #126-146

By Stan Lee & Steve Ditko

Lee and Ditko, also famous for creating the amazing Spider-Man, created Doctor Strange in Strange Tales #110, cover-dated July 1963. Although it took them a few issues to get their feet under them, the first time everything really "clicked" for the duo was issue #126, "The Domain of the Dread Dormammu!" The storyline introduced Dormammu, an other-dimensional sorcerer, as well as the then-nameless girl who'd soon become Strange's student and paramour, Clea. A number of other noteworthy events occurred within these pages, too, like the Ancient One's gifting of the Cloak of Levitation that has become a trademark of Strange's look. Having then-established villain Baron Mordo as Dormammu's earthly servant sealed the deal. And even if it didn't, well, there's always Eternity...!

Currently available in graphic novel format in Marvel Masterworks: Doctor Strange, Vols. 1-2 or Essential Doctor Strange, Vol. 1.

2. Doctor Strange (1968) #175-178

By Roy Thomas & Gene Colan

After spending years as a co-feature in Strange Tales, Doc finally graduated to his own series in 1968, with the numbering scheme picking up from there. Roy Thomas first teamed with Wally Wood protege Dan Adkins, and then Tom Palmer, but then hit the big time with the arrival of Gene "The Dean" Colan. The stories, running from #172 until the series' premature conclusion in 183, were the most mature Doc tales we'd seen to that point, in large part due to Colan's influence as a visual storyteller, and Palmer's incredible inking style. Those talents were on prime display in "Unto Us...The Sons of Satannish!" where Doc takes on a demonic cult and emerges nearly a different character. (This is the birth of the "costumed" Strange you may have heard about, but believe me, nothing about it belies Doc's history.) The storyline comes to a head in Avengers #61 and Dr. Strange #178, wherein Doc teams with the Black Knight to face both Ymir and Surtur. What more needs be said?

Currently available in graphic novel format in Marvel Masterworks: Doctor Strange, Vol. 3 or Essential Doctor Strange, Vol. 2.

3. Doctor Strange (1974) #1-2, 4-5

By Steve Englehart & Frank Brunner

Doc may have been left his career as a sorcerer behind shortly after the conclusion of his first series, but once he came back as a founder of the Defenders, could a new solo series be far behind? After spending the first few issues in a quasi-adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, Marvel handed the reins to Defenders scripter Steve Englehart and artist Frank Brunner, then known for his work on Warren's horror magazines. The two deftly concluded the Lovecraft storyline before launching into a pair of epics: "The Sise-Neg Genesis" and this four-part storyline that introduced a dark analogue to Strange--disgraced man-of-the-cloth Isaiah Curwen, the Silver Dagger. This epic struggle starts with Strange's death, and stretches across other dimensions with their own challenges. (Ever wonder why an ankh sometimes appeared on Strange's brow during a battle? You'll discover that secret here.)

The Silver Dagger is handily defeated in this storyline, but he would return later to menace Dr. Strange plus Spider-Man and Ms. Marvel in Marvel Team-Up #76-77 and 80-81, which get an honorable mention here. In a story by Chris Claremont, Doc is driven to the edge of sanity and beyond, eventually becoming a werewolf. Unusual? Yes. One of my guilty-pleasure favorites? Absolutely.

Currently available in graphic novel format in Marvel Masterworks: Doctor Strange, Vol. 5 or Essential Doctor Strange, Vol. 3. The Marvel Team-Up tales are currently unavailable.

4. Doctor Strange (1974) #10-13

By Steve Englehart & Gene Colan

Englehart continued on the series after Brunner left, and the series only increased in intensity. Gene Colan and Tom Palmer returned, illustrating this book on even months and Tomb of Dracula on the odd. As books like Warlock and Captain Marvel flirted with cosmic concepts, so too did Strange's, with this gem among the most powerful. Eternity comes to the Doctor, telling him the world will end! Meanwhile, Baron Mordo, reduced to a babbling idiot after having glimpsed the birth of the universe, may not be so powerless as he appears. Doc faces iterations of his past selves as he fights to save the Earth, and it all climaxes explosively! (And hey, what is the secret of Adam Qadmon?) Certainly not to be missed by any "cosmic Marvel" or Doc aficionado.

If you're a fan of cosmic Marvel stories, you may also want to check out Jim Starlin's too-short tenure, as Doc fights the Creators with their "Cosmic Wheel of Change" and tries to disrupt their deadly scheme of transforming themselves into stars (which had the effect of changing stars into humanoid entities). Starlin only worked on #24-26, but the entire "Creators" epic took place over #19-20, 22-28 with work from writers Marv Wolfman and Roger Stern.

Currently available in graphic novel format in Essential Doctor Strange, Vol. 3.

Speaking of Roger Stern...

5. Doctor Strange (1974) #48-53, 56

By Roger Stern & Marshall Rogers

World's worst-kept secret: Once upon a time, comics superstar Frank Miller (no relation!) was to have been artist on Doctor Strange alongside writer Roger Stern. You can even see house ads in 1981 announcing this combo, accentuated by a thrilling piece by Miller. Unfortunately, that supreme duo wasn't to be, but we may have seen something better in its place. Enter: Marshall Rogers.

This storyline, in six parts with an unofficial epilogue in #56, began with the introduction of a new companion of sorts for Doc in Morgana Blessing. She, like Strange's friend Victoria Bentley before her, possesses a degree of untapped supernatural potential. Intrigued by Strange, she attempts to get closer, only to find herself in the middle of an epic involving the return of Baron Mordo, his transformation into a cat (!), and their travels through time to stop Dormammu from escaping the Dark Dimension (alongside Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos) as well as into Ancient Egypt where we see the Fantastic Four's first battle with Rama-Tut from a different perspective! The story also brings to a head developments with Clea, caught in the quandary of being both Strange's disciple and lover. Much of the storyline falls into "seen to be believed" territory, and the epilogue, an interview between Blessing and Doc with art by Paul Smith, is sublime.

Currently available in graphic novel format in Essential Doctor Strange, Vol. 4.

6. Doctor Strange (1974) #58-62

By Roger Stern, Dan Green & Steve Leialoha

Just as I've got two stories by Steve Englehart on this list, now we've got a second story by Doctor Strange scribe supreme Roger Stern! This one serves as an epilogue to the late, lamented Tomb of Dracula series, with Doc teaming with the Avengers, Blade, Frank Drake and Hannibal King to take down the Lord of Vampires, who'd seen something of an uptick in appearances with the absence of his own book. He appeared in Uncanny X-Men; he appeared in Thor. Doc and Dracula both race to find the demon bible called the Darkhold, but for different reasons. A passage inside, called the Montesi Formula, contains the secret to ending the vampire threat once and for all. But, what will that solution mean for heroic vampire Hannibal King...?

The "Destroy All Vampires" storyline took these things that go bump in the night out of the Marvel mythos for the better part of the eighties, and set up some interesting stories. Its direct sequel, "The Vampiric Verses" (its title a riff on the controversial Salman Rushdie thriller, The Satanic Verses) returned vampires to the Marvel Universe, and is also generally well-done. Roy Thomas and Jackson Guice's story is in Dr. Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #14-18, but its threads begin with #9. It also features the intriguing (at first, anyway) tale of Strange's heretofore-unknown brother, Victor.

Currently available in graphic novel format in Dr. Strange Vs. Dracula: The Montesi Formula. "The Vampiric Verses" currently unavailable.

7. Doctor Strange: Into Shamballa

By J.M. DeMatteis & Dan Green

J.M. DeMatteis has handled Dr. Strange for a number of years, going back to his tenure on Defenders in the early eighties. Is it any wonder he remains one of his favorite characters? I don't want to spoil much of the story here, as it's really brilliant and plays to the character's strengths--why, exactly, wasn't DeMatteis a Doc writer beyond this book and seven issues of his regular series in the nineties?--suffice to say, it's lyrical, it's brilliant, and it's very nearly everything a Dr. Strange story should be. When Strange returns to the Ancient One's former abode, he comes upon a puzzle box. Contacted by the Lords of Shamballa, he embarks on an odyssey whose ultimate goal is the enlightenment of humanity. But then, he discovers the Lords' terrifying secret, and finds himself faced with an awesome dilemma.

Just breathtaking. Go. Now.

Currently unavailable in graphic novel format.

8. Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #5-8

By Roy & Dann Thomas & Jackson Guice

Roy Thomas returns for his second go-round as Doctor Strange scripter, this time alongside his wife, Dann, as well as artist Jackson "Butch" Guice. Once Roger Stern departed the title, writer Peter B. Gillis trod Strange into dark waters, removing many of his mystic talismans, poking out his eye, having him rely on black magic and bringing him into mortal combat with Shuma-Gorath and other entities that roamed the Earth at the dawn of humanity. The duty fell to the Thomases to bring Doc back from the abyss, and they did it in style here.

In "The Faust Gambit," Baron Mordo returns to menace our resident Sorcerer Supreme, imbued with power far beyond anything he has demonstrated before. Doc is still able to defeat him, however, and traps his soul inside a small sphere before he learns the horrifying truth. Mordo's newfound power comes from promising his soul to not one, but two of Marvel's demonic heavies: Satannish and the mighty Mephisto! With the soul of one of Doc's friends also in the sphere, how can our favorite magician save the world from Mordo's mad scheme? It's an intriguing tale that brings together disparate corners of the Marvel Universe as only Thomas can, echoing various pieces of previous continuity. We even meet Mephista, the daughter of you-know-who, who's got a crush on Strange, much to her daddy's consternation! What more do you need?

Currently unavailable in graphic novel format. Go find the back issues!

9. Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom: Triumph & Torment

By Roger Stern, Mike Mignola & Mark Badger

Third time's the charm for writer emeritus Roger Stern, who outdid himself in this graphic novel which absolutely deserved the hardcover treatment it got upon its 1989 release. Picking up on plot points from several previous Doctor Doom stories (particularly from Astonishing Tales) and presaged by Stern's own meeting between the Doctors in Doctor Strange (1974) #57, Triumph & Torment tells the tale of Doom's annual attempt to free his mother's soul from the clutches of Mephisto. This time, through special circumstance, Strange assists Doom, and the results are unusual and mind-blowing. Add to this rich story some breathtaking artwork by a pre-Hellboy Mike Mignola as well as Mark Badger, and this graphic novel becomes a can't-miss fable in desperate need of being reprinted in the same oversize format as it was introduced.

Currently unavailable in graphic novel format.

10. Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #60-75 & Annual #4

By David Quinn, Melvin Rubi, Kyle Hotz, Peter Gross & others

Don't let the "Siege of Darkness" crossover stamp on the above issue's cover fool you: This Doctor Strange very much did his own thing during his time among the "Midnight Sons" horror line. The old gave way to the new when Roy Thomas and Geof Isherwood left the book, replaced by Faust writer David Quinn and a herd of artists including then-neophyte Mel Rubi (now known for his work on Dynamite's Red Sonja) and a pre-Lucifer Peter Gross.

His powers severely limited after he declined to participate in a cosmic war at the behest of the Vishanti he served, Strange coordinates many a dark scheme as result. Salome, previous holder of the title of Sorcerer Supreme, returns from the dimension to which she'd been banished, and begins an onslaught on the current title holder. Too weak to resist, Strange cedes his title to the madwoman and begins a series of schemes to regain his former power. Cue the disappearance of Stephen Strange as we knew him, and the arrival of two mysterious entities, each of whom seems to reflect a facet of the man we knew: Victor Stevens, a ruthless businessman, and Strange, a similarly ruthless being of pure elemental magick force. Add Clea into the mix, in the middle of a challenge to her own rule in the Dark Dimension, and what do you have? An intensely fascinating, and daringly different, Dr. Strange epic.

Currently unavailable in graphic novel format. Go find the back issues!

What are some of your favorite Dr. Strange stories?

~G.

NYCC '11: Advance Reviews - Dead Man's Run #0, Incredible Hulk #1

2011-10-24T18:07:00.006-07:00

At this year's New York Comic Con, this blogger had the honor and pleasure of sneaking peeks at not one, but two special projects that should be of interest to you, my assembled legions. (Or, you know, the two or three of you that read this thing.) I was trying to hold back in one case, because I didn't want Marvel editorial to get miffed at me for spoiling the beans far in advance. You guys know me--I'll spoil important details only when I warn, and never when reviewing a book before its release.

So, yes. Today I have two special treats available to you. From Aspen Comics, I've been able to read an advance copy of Greg Pak and Tony Parker's Dead Man's Run #0, which I'm told will be available this Wednesday, October 26. Many thanks to Greg for the advance peek. (I'm not the only one--NYCC attendees could score their own copies of the book, right at the Aspen booth on the show floor, complete with an exclusive cover by the very talented Tony! Did you get yours?)

The other treat? As many of you may have seen on Twitter, I attended Sunday's "Incredible Hulk" panel at NYCC, hosted by Marvel Director of Communications Arune Singh and featuring guests Jason Aaron (new Incredible Hulk writer), Jake Thomas (new Incredible Hulk assistant editor), Bill Rosemann (editor of the new Hulk Smash Avengers weekly event), and C.B. Cebulski (Marvel SVP - Creator & Content Development). They showed off exciting new projects (like the announcement of that weekly event featuring Hulk fighting the Avengers across different eras, all with delicious Lee Weeks covers), and talked up future happenings in both Aaron's Incredible Hulk and Jeff Parker's ongoing Hulk series. A select few fans in the audience saw something more special: a printed color proof of the entire first issue of Aaron and artist Marc Silvestri's Incredible Hulk #1. And guess who got his hands on it for a read?

Onward!

DEAD MAN'S RUN #0 - Aspen Comics, $2.50
By Greg Pak, Tony Parker & Peter Steigerwald
Created by Ben Roberts

"Jailbreak from Hell." Those three words, as Greg Pak states in his text piece in the back of this issue, were all he needed to spark his imagination. In this issue Pak introduces readers to the world beneath the Andrew Jackson Federal Corrections Facility. Captain Frank Romero is a prison guard who's about to get in way over his head when an explosion rocks the prison, leading to the catastrophic revelation of what exactly lurks below.

It's a "zero" issue, so readers have largely accepted what such an issue entails. In this case, it's a twelve-page prologue story by Pak and his artistic collaborators, Tony Parker (fresh off BOOM!'s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) and Peter Steigerwald (who subs for regular colorist David Curiel). Following the lead story are the aforementioned text piece by Pak and a four-page peek into Parker's sketchbook, with designs for many of the lead characters. Aspen delivers the goods with these materials, providing ample incentive to find the first issue when it premieres in January.

So, what about this first story? I don't want to spoil too much here. Not that there's much to spoil, mind you--only twelve pages, remember? If the sketchbook at the back is any indication, we get one page of introduction to the story's leads, surrounded by eleven pages where Pak and Parker skillfully begin to present their vision of creator Ben Roberts' world. Comparing Hell to a jail may have been done before--the comparison is nothing if not apt--but the creators immediately establish enough texture so as to avoid the obvious pitfalls. Pak is always skilled with words--never a word out of place. And what about Tony Parker? While Androids may have been a powerful artistic statement, Dead Man's Run will--hopefully--be the project that puts his name on everyone's lips as one to watch. While colorist Steigerwald helps, Parker brings a terrific sense of style to every page, matching Pak's script.

Supernatural overtones, check. Fascinating, if slightly goofy, high concept? Check. Terrifically fitting, "Twilight Zone"-type ending for this prelude? Check. A killer creative team to propel us along this insane journey? You bet.

Buy It.

THE INCREDIBLE HULK #1 - Marvel Comics, $3.99
By Jason Aaron, Marc Silvestri, Michael Broussard, Joe Weems, Rick Basaldua, Sal Regla & Sunny Gho

Every few years, lately, Marvel relaunches even its biggest sellers. They've done it a few times with the Hulk. Certainly Greg Pak's revolutionary "Planet Hulk" saga counts, followed by Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness' reinvention following the conclusion of World War Hulk. Just over a year ago, Pak and a bevy of artists teamed to bring a bi-weekly, 24-issue examination of ol' Greenskin as leader of a team of monsters. Now, although Red Hulk, Red She-Hulk, Skaar and all the rest are still out there in the Marvel Universe, the time has come to again cast sole spotlight on the one and only Hulk.

Cue Jason Aaron and Marc Silvestri's Incredible Hulk, picking up where the bizarre events of the summer event Fear Itself left off. (It's true, there's a four-page prologue to this story by Aaron and artist Michael Choi in the final issue of that series, but it's by no means necessary prior to reading this tale.)

In "Hulk: Asunder," Aaron opens with the Hulk doing what he does best: smashing. It's a Hulk who has sequestered himself apart from humanity, and found a home living on Monster Isle, surrounded by a legion of the Mole Man's subterranean creatures. "Hulk knows how to smash. Not how to dream," he says, long-haired, bearded, wearing a necklace of bones around his neck. "[T]his is where my story ends," he says...and right then, we know it's not, because if there's one thing the puny humans don't know how to do, it's leave Hulk alone. Cue...Commander Doom.

Of course, that's also right when the narrative takes a sharp right turn. That's because this Hulk doesn't change into Banner. "I killed everything inside me that was Banner," he says. If you've read the promotional material, or the ending of Fear Itself, you know this means that Hulk and Banner have been separated, as has happened a few times before. And it seems Aaron is trying to say something different about them than any of the previous times.

From the first narration, it's clear that Aaron is approaching the story from the Hulk's P.O.V. Should it surprise anyone that he sees Banner as his jailer, and himself as a prisoner? Aaron extrapolates well from the end of Greg Pak's tenure as writer, as Fear Itself had the Hulk's image once more destroyed after being possessed by Nul, Breaker of Worlds. While there's some dissonance between Pak's run and where Aaron begins, I have to admit a happy Hulk isn't particularly one that is enjoyable to read.

I've only been a sometime fan of Marc Silvestri, although I've been familiar with his work from the days of Web of Spider-Man and Uncanny X-Men. He's only drawn the Hulk a few times, so it was terrific seeing him do such a smash-up job here. I'm not sure if it's how his style just naturally is now, but he seems to very much root the story in a horror atmosphere, and it works eerily well. Especially eerie are the parts I can't talk about, featuring a scene that is very much out of H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau. The less said, the better. (I have to say, though, that having Silvestri abetted by not one but four assistants doesn't seem to bode well for artistic continuity.)

The back matter in this one consists of some words with Jason Aaron and a look through the Hulk's storied history. A solid way to pad out the remaining pages this month, even if the $3.99 price tag still irks.

Doubts? I still have them. It seems clear that Aaron wants to follow through on establishing the Hulk's animosity for Banner, and developing Banner as villain in the Hulk's mind. I'm just afraid that attitude will be borne out in a way that irreparably harms the character of Bruce Banner. While yes, we've seen a very obsessive side to Banner's personality surface during the time John Byrne separated man from monster, we haven't seen anything on the level you'll see this issue. It's scary and maybe, just maybe, crosses the line that shouldn't be crossed. At the very least, I'll say Aaron hasn't forgotten Banner is an absolute genius.

Can anybody buy me the Long Beach Comic Con variant to this one?

Big doubt? That abominable logo. The sooner Marvel brings back the logo from the seventies they teased on the video when news first broke, the better. This logo is just too generic. Sorry, guys. Boo. Hiss.

Still, for all my doubts, there's a lot to like here. The atmosphere is rich, and Jason Aaron has the Hulk's dialogue--emotionally worn, an undercurrent of savagery--down pat. There are monsters everywhere, and shades of gray abound. The mystery of how Banner and Hulk have been separated is incredibly intriguing and I'm on board. Definitely Buy It, but be warned if you're a first-timer to the Hulk that the depiction you're seeing of one character in particular isn't at all a traditional one.

Both issues in this review are on sale Wednesday, October 26 at comic book shops everywhere.

~G.

Fear Itself #7: Smart Marketing, Dumb Comics

2011-10-21T23:02:00.002-07:00

Howdy all!

This missive comes hot on the heels of this week's announced mass layoffs at the House of Ideas. Whether you believe it's a Disney thing, or all the work of that evil overlord, Ike Perlmutter (with tongue only halfway in cheek), I think we can all agree it's a sad day when people lose their jobs. All the best to victims of Marvelcution 2: Electric Boogaloo. May those who have been let go land on their feet, not their asses.

Now, let's turn the other cheek--as my reading of this week's finale of Fear Itself touches off a li'l firestorm of debate. Or, well, I'll let you be the judge; I'll just pontificate on the book and why it's such a perfect example of everything Marvel's doing wrong today.

Okay, so I'm not coming into this out of nowhere. You've seen my previous posts about Fear Itself, and if you've been hanging out at Jim Shooter's blog, you've probably seen me reply to Jim's insights about Brian Michael Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man series starring the new guy, Miles Morales.

Let's begin with the cover, yeah?

You'll notice straightaway--and it's been so for all my previous entries about the main event--I'm not posting an image of the regular cover, but rather the 1-in-25 "incentive" variant edition. That means that retailers had to order 25 copies of the "regular" edition to be eligible to order even one of these puppies. For earlier issues, there were also 1-in-75 variant editions. In one case, Marvel only made a "special" variant available to retailers who ripped the covers off 50 first printings of comics tied to competitor DC Comics' FlashPoint event and sent them in.

(It's not the first time they put forth such a stunt. And for what it's worth, the book fetched up to $300USD on auction site eBay before dipping down where it currently garners around $90.)

The variant covers are but one part of Marvel's perennial sales strategy. To hear retailers tell it, the variants are "gifts" from Marvel for inflating their sales numbers. They're supposed to sell them for inflated prices, to make up for the lack of higher discounts from distributor Diamond. A 1-in-25 book should sell at retail for $25USD, as would a 1-in-50 book retail for $50USD, etc. Of course, retailers should carefully gauge interest so as to not negate that "bonus" the variant editions provide. If one must order two or three extra copies of the book in question to snag one variant, easy peasy. If it's another 20 or 30 copies, not worth it.

Recently, there have been new variant covers meant to attract a niche audience. I'm talking about those "blank" covers. You've seen them at conventions. Fans buy them because they can get a sketch on them by their favorite artist. Artists buy them because they can draw on them and sell them for big bucks on eBay. It's all the next stage of the big ruckus caused by the Hero Initiative's "100 Projects," where creators were given blank editions to draw on, with the finished editions auctioned for charity.

When you have a whole part of your industry propped up by incentive variants, and retailers buy more copies than they can sell in order to appease that rabid fan who has to have that 1-in-200 edition, well, you can see how "not good" for the industry it is, right?

But onward we go, from the cover to actual content, or lack thereof.

In 1977, independent comic creator Dave Sim practically invented the fixed-length series with Aardvark-Vanaheim's Cerebus the Aardvark, a work planned to be 300 issues. Two years later, DC Comics made its first foray into the same concept with a notably shorter work: the three-issue World of Krypton series. Over the years, the big two publishers increasingly embraced the new format.

Everything changed in 1982, when Marvel published Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions, the first event featuring a large gathering of a company's characters. Super Powers (by DC) and Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars came in 1984, each buoyed by a line of popular children's toys. Soon, the big two scheduled regular events, consisting of either a "miniseries within a series" or one core miniseries with a number of satellite stories told in other, regular series. The idea was simple: if your favorite book featured a crossover to the company's big event, then you might just check out that event series, and that event series might feature another character you never read before, in which case you'd rush out to buy the new issue of their series.

Of course, it was easier to do such a thing when comics only cost sixty-five cents. If only the industry hadn't self-destructed with the speculator bust, the near-collapse of Marvel, and other events that led to the companies jacking up prices in order to stay afloat. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom, you know: increase prices to stay afloat, and more fans will leave, which means more price increases, which means more fans will leave, and so it goes. Soon you have 20 pages of comic for $3.99. (And of course, you can't decrease prices and expect circulation to magically increase to recoup that loss in profit.)

The limited series only increased in importance over the intervening decades, and is now the primary means of telling stories in the medium. Events such as Secret Wars and this year's FlashPoint and Fear Itself are just the tip of the iceberg. They've become so popular that, ever since Joe Quesada became editor-in-chief of Marvel in 2000, the single-issue story has become a dying art.

Maybe it was the assertion of artistic talent over the importance of writing--the perpetuation of the movement begun by Image Comics in 1992 which placed the artist squarely above the writer. Maybe it was the realization by editors that if you could hook readers for four or six issues instead of just one, you stood a better shot at increasing overall readership. Or maybe it was all about altruism, about "letting the story breathe." The size of the panels in the average comic increased, the number of panels per issue decreased, the number of words per panel plummeted, and the number of thought balloons became nonexistent.

The new age of comics had its champion in Brian Michael Bendis, author of Marvel's new series, Ultimate Spider-Man. It was a grand reimagining of the company's most popular hero, just in time to inform a major motion picture by Sony Pictures. Bendis, once a minor player at Caliber and later Image Comics, on his own Jinx as well as the Spawn spin-off Sam and Twitch and other books, soon was everywhere at Marvel, writing the first book in the MAX "mature readers" imprint, Alias, as well as the mainstream Avengers book and other series. He's penned three major crossover events since 2005 (House of M, Secret Invasion and Siege). He currently remains chief architect among the Marvel Universe in general, and the Avengers brand in particular.

As they say, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," and so the new management at Marvel, seeing early sales success with Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man and Alias, and Mark Millar's The Ultimates, quietly proliferated this new "decompressed" storytelling method throughout the "new" iteration of the company. Before long, everything was "Part X of Y," ready to be easily collected in graphic novel collections that were no longer reserved for the "best of the best" that the company had to offer. Every story forwent the conventions that stated characters' names, powers and situations had to be recapped early in any given issue; instead, often-dense text pages opened each Marvel comic, which could then be omitted from the collections and "preserve the flow" without resorting to "clunky exposition."

So, with the conventions of the medium being abandoned left and right, and with Bendis and Millar's style of writing a single storyline across multiple issues all the time fast becoming Marvel's house style, what could happen next?

Enter the apotheosis of the "new" Marvel: Fear Itself. A series designed merely to sell other books where the "real" events occur.

Oh, Marvel's been playing around with the format. Several events over previous years have consisted of one central miniseries supported by a combination of crossovers in ongoing series and specially-constructed tertiary miniseries and one-shots. DC even did them one better this year with FlashPoint, a whole event constructed almost entirely from various miniseries. And they've released one-shots after the conclusion of big events, which consisted of various tales related to the just-finished event which in turn spun off into their own series of varying length.

In Fear Itself, the well-oiled machine has come out to play, courtesy of writer Matt Fraction and artist Stuart Immonen. It's clear the event was meticulously planned. So clear, in fact, that to a superlative degree it's "by the numbers" comics. Except, of course, that virtually every important event occurs outside the main title.

Don't believe me? True, Bucky Barnes died in the main series. If you've read the final issue, you'll know somebody else died at the hands of the Serpent--but of course he's due to return because Fraction also writes his ongoing series.

Ask yourself: Did you see every one of "The Worthy" find his or her hammer in the main series? Did you see many of the major characters in the series formally introduced to readers outside of the text page in the front of each issue? Did Red Hulk do anything more than look dumb in the first and seventh issues of the series, without being referred to by name? Were any of "The Worthy" other than Sin and the Thing shown having their hammers taken away? And what about Nul's appearance in the Defenders preview in the back of the last issue? If you didn't read many of the tertiary tie-ins in books like Hulk Vs. Dracula or Fraction's own Invincible Iron Man, you'd be totally lost as many key plot points were only shown outside Fear Itself proper.

Heck, the Hulk didn't even appear anywhere for more than a panel or two in the last two issues, and yet, we get two epilogues devoted to him in that final issue. Really?

Don't tell me that there wasn't enough room in the seven-issue core series to show all of the above events. Just don't. If Jim Shooter could jam-pack all the key plot points into the nine-issue Secret Wars II series and make all the tie-in issues entirely optional, then why couldn't Fraction? There is only one reason why several key plot points were left out of the main Fear Itself series: Marvel wanted to sell more comics.

And they still want to sell more comics. Or hadn't you noticed that the ending of the event is bookended by four multi-page previews of upcoming series like Defenders and Incredible Hulk? They've finally taken out that step of having to buy a separate book to get previews of the new, "hot" series coming your way in the following months.

Oh, wait. Except they didn't do that at all. Marvel Point One is still on-schedule for next month, with previews of several series including ones already previewed in Fear Itself!

And just as there are truly new series coming up, Marvel has also taken the opportunity to cancel and relaunch books like Uncanny X-Men and Incredible Hulk in the aftermath of these big events. First issues have, then, become another crutch for the industry. Just like at DC with their "New 52," a first issue beats working hard to make individual issues accessible. It's a cheat designed to make people look. This book gets canceled, that book gets replaced! This series launches these others over here! Brilliant marketing strategy...for those who already read the books. For those just trying to get into the hobby? Not so much.

Look! First issues! Variant covers! More first issues! Previews! Collections released before the ink dries on the single issues! Woo! Shiny! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

I hope all of you can see just what has happened in this age of "decompressed" comics.

We have events that infest multiple titles and distill their most important events across them.

We have characters never introduced except in first issues of increasing frequency, and sometimes not even then.

We have stories that are best read in big graphic novel collections instead broken into bite-size chunks.

We have readers dropping books because they don't like a certain character and don't want to read through the next six issues of a series knowing that character will be there.

We have page after page populated with Photoshopped copies of the same few panels as characters talk back and forth when they should be hitting each other.

We have constant violations of "show don't tell" while in other books artistic styles run rampant because it's cool to have several double-page spreads of your characters without advancing the plot.

We have entire books where new readers might ask, "Who the hell are these people?"

We have a non-stop culture of events, often with several "big," "important" stories all being released simultaneously, each of which all but requires multiple purchases to understand.

We have stories that could take up less space, leaner and meaner, instead bloated to fill collections that render collectability of single issues virtually obsolete.

When did it become cool to have the new issue of a book that costs four whole dollars take all of two minutes to read?

Unfortunately, like with the pricing issue, it's difficult to put the genie back in the bottle when it comes to "decompressed storytelling." If you don't believe me, take a look at the overly-packed Superman #1 by George Perez and Jesus Merino, released just a few weeks ago. While you can argue that most of the dialogue across the whole issue just wasn't very well-written, it seems like a knee-jerk reaction more than anything when all reviewers out there made it their mission to tell fans that, by gum, there's a lot of reading to be done in that book!

By contrast, just take a look at Fear Itself. Most pages didn't have more than thirty words. Not panels--pages.

But ooh! Look! Art! Pretty!

SQUIRREL!

Did I say I was reviewing Fear Itself #7?

~G.

In a Nutshell: New York Comic Con 2011

2011-10-19T20:48:00.000-07:00

Okay, okay, I can't quite squeeze everything into a single post. More likely, you're going to get a trickle as I start to follow up on my many, many leads from this year's New York Comic Con. I don't know how the other press do it! Anyway, those of you out there who have my card: you'll be hearing from me sooner than later. Today I was back to the grind, working and slaving. In a few minutes from now, I'll be watching some TV I missed.

The show was amazing this year and I really have to give props to the folks at ReedPOP for a job well done. This was my second year attending NYCC, and if this is any indication of how the show is only going to grow, sign me up!

Of course, this year my enthusiasm was also heightened by the fact that I actually got to explore. No, I'm not talking about exploring the convention floor, although I certainly did my share! I'm talking about traversing the length of Manhattan Island! From my arrival at Penn Station with my friend Don on Thursday morning, I really took advantage of having that extra day to familiarize myself with the territory and see some sights. The subway took us from midtown, south to the Staten Island Ferry. The ferry brought us out near the Statue of Liberty before returning us to the isle, where once again we rode the subway a few exits.

Shake Shack for lunch!

After walking by the construction zone around the 9/11 memorial, more subway time...this time riding to Central Park, where I saw Strawberry Fields. And then, back to the subway until arriving in Times Square. There was a TKTS booth, and I wasn't leaving until we had tickets to Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark!

After we got the tickets but before the actual show, we attended NYCC's Thursday night preview. Surprisingly, the place was pretty busy! But it was only a small taste of what was to come in the following days. That night, I met up with FoxyArt's Kristin Allen, who'd drawn a terrific Scarlet Witch piece for me a few months prior (and one that you'll see soon on this very blog!). I also finally met the talented David Gallaher, writer of High Moon (which I'll review shortly), Box 13, and various Winter Guard projects from Marvel, all with his collaborator Steve Ellis (who drew a terrific Rom sketch for me in '10). I also once again found the artist Franchesco, who'd drawn a piece featuring Dracula's daughter Lilith nearly a decade prior, and who was just itching for a shot at outdoing himself. Then there was Gabriel Hardman, who'd drawn Morbius for me last year, and--well, we'll get there.

What about Turn Off the Dark? We'll get there. Suffice to say, I ran into another one of my friends from the west coast in the lobby during intermission. Things have a way of working out.

After a long train ride back to Jersey and a short night's sleep, Friday beckoned--the first full day of the show. The highlight of the day was IDW's presentation of a brilliant Fox pilot that sadly never went to series. That's right: I saw Josh Friedman's adaptation of Joe Hill's Locke & Key! (I'll share that in a few days, too.) Oh, and I also picked up Hasbro's exclusive "Composite Hulk" figure at their booth. Nice little item.

Saturday brought more chaos, including a rendezvous with Hulk Vs. Dracula and brand new Scarlet Spider artist Ryan Stegman. (The man threatened me with bodily harm if I don't buy and review his new series when it arrives in January. He actually looks like he might be able to carry through on that promise.) There's a sketch from him you guys'll also see soon, one that may or may not have something to do with his upcoming series.

I also picked up a sketch from a longtime favorite artist. Geof Isherwood, who drew Dr. Strange when Roy Thomas was on the book in the mid-nineties, was ever so gracious, and I presented him with an interesting idea he couldn't pass up. You'll see it right here soon. (I'm full of teases, aren't I?)

Greg Pak even put in an appearance in the middle of Saturday, bringing with him a copy of his and Tony Parker's sure-to-be-a-success book from Aspen, Dead Man's Run. Expect a review of that "Zero" issue early next week.

There's more I could talk about. Like meeting a terrific Hulk fan who also used to be one of Marvel's editorial staff. Or trying not to gush like a fanboy when I met one of my idols after a panel on Sunday afternoon. There's also my secret project I've been seeding throughout the con. Yeah, there's all that stuff.

And, of course, I was one of a half-dozen souls outside the Marvel offices who were the first to read Jason Aaron and Marc Silvestri's Incredible Hulk #1. You'll get some of that early next week, promise. Can't spoil the details. Can't.

But enough with the teases. I leave you with two of the colorful costumes from the convention floor. Ladies and germs: Silk Spectre and Poison Ivy!

I do deliver the goods once in a while, don't I?

~G.

Review Special: Fear Itself: Hulk Vs. Dracula #3

2011-10-12T16:15:00.002-07:00

Good evening, campers!

As I type you these words, I'm mere hours away from attending this year's New York Comic Con. There, I'll be hobnobbing with the comic industry's best and brightest (and yeah, the ne'er-do-wells, too!). I thought I'd give you a review to get you in the mood, especially since it has been longer than usual between entries these past few weeks.

So, courtesy Victor Gischler, Ryan Stegman, Mike Babinski & Frank Martin Jr., here comes Fear Itself: Hulk Vs. Dracula #3, in which the hammer-ized Hulk--possibly, maybe?--faces the evil might of Count Dracula himself.

With the beginning chapter doing an okay job of setting up the key conflict of this miniseries, and the second piece a regurgitation of the first, Gischler and Stegman, et al. had their work cut out for them in this final entry in the series. While events occur in this chapter that do contribute a good deal to the overall tapestry of Marvel's summer event, so much so that I'm honestly shocked, the overall effort falls squarely in the realm of "too little, too late."

This story features the second-ever confrontation between the Hulk and Dracula (the first was in Peter David and Gabriel Hardman's one-off prose story from Monster-Size Hulk), and it's quite a bit different than that tale. The whole series long, Gischler has painted this version of Dracula as a master strategist, sending other vampires into battle in his stead with no regard for their well-being. This time he finally involves himself directly in the main battle. With the title of this miniseries being what it is, I would have honestly expected more of a battle than the handful of pages devoted to the event herein.

Last time out, I remarked how artists Stegman and Babinski weren't working up to their potential, probably due to the clash of their "comedy" sensibilities with the book's horror-oriented tone. While not perfect, this issue the duo balances their efforts much better, and achieves a stronger finished product. Stegman's artistic high point comes in the finale, where Dracula preys upon the Hulk's emotional core. Just like the titular monster, he manages to find strength in emotion.

The story isn't a total wash as in previous segments. True, the Hulk never finds a consistent voice, moving from "Hulk smash" to speaking fairly intelligibly, to grunting out those unusual Norse runes that mark him as a tool of the Serpent. It is also true that none of the vampires emerge as a credible threat, or a worthwhile protagonist, if there is one to be found in the narrative. Succinctly, I was surprised the story ended in the manner it did, if only for the reason that such an event should have taken place in the main Fear Itself series. Then again--and this is as big a hint as you'll get from me about the story's conclusion--I thought for sure all of "The Worthy" would be shown getting their hammers in that series' second issue, too.

I'm right on the line here. Nobody will remember the events of this miniseries in just a few weeks. On the other hand, this entry was better than the two before it, even if it only briefly delivered on its promises.

Go ahead and Read It.

~G.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

DCnU: Beating a Red Hood...er, a Dead Horse

2011-10-07T21:47:00.004-07:00

Welcome back, kids.

Tonight's impassioned entry was inspired by a conversation I had just an hour or so ago with Tim aka @Ikariniku, one of my followers over on Twitter. Anyone who enjoys my entries over here, please, get yourself over there and follow me there at @Gary_M_Miller, and follow Tim while you're at it! We have some fun debates, 140 characters at a time.

What makes a "great" first issue?

It's a deceptively simple question, isn't it?

As someone who, once upon a time, wrote a story during Marvel's Epic 2.0 initiative, let me tell you: a first issue isn't easy to write. Especially when you're "pitching," a first issue has to hit all the right notes. Depending on what a company needs, that story might become a one-shot, or the first issue in a miniseries, or if you're very, very lucky, it might become the first issue in an "unlimited" series. If the latter occurs, congratulations, because it means you can do a bit of world-building and seriously expound on the concepts in that first story.

DC Comics creators got very lucky this year, because up popped fifty-two magical lottery tickets. Last month, fifty-two series premiered. They were written by forty-two writers, including fourteen writers who took on more than one project (and two who braved three!) and seven writing duos.

With the sheer amount of new first issues coming out last month, and the onslaught of publicity that surrounded the DC relaunch, it was important--nay, essential--that the writers know how to write great first issues. To coin a cliche, the stakes were never higher.

In simplest terms, a first issue must introduce the key roster of characters, tell us why we should love or hate each character, provide at least one thrilling set piece, and tell an engaging enough story so that we, the readers, just can't live without picking up the second issue in a month's time.

And yeah, there's that whole "first issue of how many?" question.

With these tenets in mind, I started thinking about the DC "New 52." And just as there are some stunningly good examples of what a first issue should be, there are also some depressingly horrible ones. Because it's so much fun to beat a dead horse until it wakes up and barfs blood all over you and fifteen of your closest friends, I've chosen to level my criticisms at what I declared to be far and away the worst of the new lot.

That's right: Red Hood and the Outlaws #1 is again squarely in my sights.

You've heard from me before, and many other writers more loquacious than I, about the treatment of Starfire in this tale. By now, you've likely even heard from Red Hood writer Scott Lobdell on the hubbub. The comments Lobdell has provided show less a writer who's just insensitive about his portrayal of a beloved character, and more a writer who just doesn't know how to write a good first issue...nevermind a great one.

All right, that isn't quite fair, and I admit it. I'm taking the opportunity right now to say that I've never been one of Lobdell's biggest fans. I've never been a fan. Since he had the thankless job of taking over when both Chris Claremont and John Byrne abdicated the main X-Men books in 1991, adding the words to fit between Jim Lee and Whilce Portacio's pretty pictures, he's come off as a bit of a flyweight. More accurately, some comic fans--myself included--group him in with everything that went wrong with nineties comics in general and the X-mythos in particular. Scarcely a moment went by in that decade where the X-Men weren't embroiled in some long-running, editorially-driven arc, and very often Lobdell was front and center. He has the reputation--earned or not--of being able to write just what Marvel's editors wanted at any given moment.

Scott Lobdell, "company man." And now one of two writers--with Geoff Johns being the other--who writes the most "New 52" books every month.

Does he write good books, or just what editors think fans want to see? You decide.

I have big problems with "I Fought the Law and Kicked Its Butt!" and a great deal of them concern the middle third of the script. But let me begin with what the book actually does right, and we'll proceed apace.

I can appreciate the three-act structure of the book. Lobdell remembers the maxim well: if you're gonna do action, then by all means, start on a beat of action. The opening sequence reads just like the first reel of a move starring Jason Statham or any number of today's action heroes. In theory, the first sequence is the "hook," the second sequence expands upon the characterization hinted at in the first, and the third should give us a big bang of action before the big conclusion.

Where does the book fall apart? I don't like Lobdell's humorous sensibilities. From jokes about a team member's breasts ("Who do we know who carries a pair of 38s?") to bad puns ("Tanks!" "Don't mention it."), it's off-putting, it's sophomoric, and it's cringe-worthy at worst. Was his stand-up act so insipid?

The humor's the tip of the iceberg. I firmly believe if you're writing a first issue, you should keep one thought centered: people are probably going to pick up this book who haven't picked up any other appearance of the characters in it. And based on the impressions they receive from reading this first issue, they're going to decide if they like these characters, and if they will pick up the second issue. "You never get a second chance to make a first impression."

So, what's our first impression of these characters? Jason is a womanizing jerk. Roy gets in trouble and has to be bailed out. And Kori, she's an alien with a short attention span who likes to have sex.

Lobdell tells us--under duress--that Kori--Starfire--was being purposely evasive and sarcastic when addressing her past with the Teen Titans. He says there's a big reason why, and to reveal it now would spoil future issues of the series. That's all well and good, but it violates the keys of writing a good first issue.

Remember what I said about making a good first impression? First impression, first issue. You can make a good first impression in any other issue, but it's extra important to do it with number one. Number one is the blank slate. Even if a series has been around forever, the first story in a new volume should always go out of its way to establish character, motivation, milieu, etc. One of the things I think it's essential to convey is honesty.

It's hard enough being able to tell if a body's being sarcastic from reading words on a screen or a printed page. Lord knows there are ways to do it in print (he said, a smirk in his voice). It's harder in comics, especially if you have an uncooperative artist who can't fully realize your script or an editor who doesn't comprehend the subtext and changes your dialogue. But Red Hood? There's no hint of sarcasm here. None.

Ask yourself who is providing the information we're getting about Starfire. Jason gives us the first intelligence about her. She's an alien, she spent part of her life in captivity, and she doesn't like soldiers. He infers that he's slept with her. He tells us she has a "short attention span about all things Earth." He even suggests she remembers nothing about her time with the Titans. Does it occur to new readers to question any of the preceding? Because Jason takes an authoritarian tone on conveying the first facts about her, we're beholden to his point of view and new readers readily accept the rest as gospel.

Not to be outdone, Starfire is complicit in her own character assassination. Does she contradict any of what Jason says about her? She's got that carefree attitude about sex and initiates an encounter with Roy. When he asks "Aren't you...Jason's girl?" she retorts that the suggestion is "absurd" but doesn't refute it. (How many times have you known a woman who told you it was absurd to think she was sleeping with a guy--perhaps even told you with a slap--only to find later you were right on the money? Girls, feel free to switch genders and ask the same question, possibly minus the slap.) Also, she reinforces the idea Jason puts forth that she doesn't remember the Titans. ("You don't remember anyone named Dick?" "No." "Garth? Dustin? Vic?" "I can't recall.") With nobody casting doubt, with no hints in the art or story to suggest she's faking it, it must be true, right?

Why do we trust Jason? Because he's got the authoritarian captions, and because he's the guy whose name's on the front cover. Only those who have read his previous appearances would presume he might not be telling the absolute truth. Just like only those who have read Starfire's previous appearances might presume she's got a good reason for acting the way she does in this story.

The disconnect comes when you consider this issue is supposed to act as an introduction. It's supposed to largely be divorced from all that burdensome continuity and Superboy-Prime's reality-punches. Everyone should, more or less, act like themselves. The story should work if you have no preconceptions about these characters, if you've never met them before. Or, to put it another way: establish your characters before you go mucking with them. Have them do and say things that represent who they are. If someone's supposed to not be totally trustworthy, show us.

Simply put: Play fair.

There's an easy example to trot out here: Kurt Busiek's Thunderbolts #1. The story proceeds like a straightforward superhero epic, opening with action, introducing all of the members of this astonishing team that's stepped in to fill the void left by the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. They beat the "bad guys" decisively, and everyone vouches for the new team on the block. It's a terrific story...but then, Busiek pulls out the rug in the final few pages when he reveals the "heroes" to be the Masters of Evil, the Avengers' sworn enemies! Their real raison d'etre comes into sharp focus. While it's true you might get more out of the final revelation if you've been a longtime fan, Busiek clearly choreographs the events and gives new readers reason enough to enjoy the story without benefit of previous tales.

So it should be with all "number ones."

If you subscribe to the theory that Lobdell was trying to play with readers' expectations through his use of Starfire, then you're already making a key concession: that he was not, in fact, writing for a potential new audience. Rather, he was writing for the same old legions of fans who purchased hundreds of issues of Batman, New Teen Titans, and other series where these characters had previously appeared. Because if you are writing to play with readers' expectations, you're presuming previous exposure, previous opinions. That's where you end up with people seriously misjudging the work.

Because it's a new number one, and because everyone's being told the "New 52" is a fresh start--with characters like Firestorm being totally rebooted--it's easy to see why readers would throw a hissy fit over Starfire's apparent bimbofication instead of cogently debating the reasons for her change.

It's all about context. And with a number one, there should really be no context required.

Shame on Lobdell.

Introduce your characters. Show us why we should care. Give them something exciting to do. Make us come back for round two.

I guess it really is so difficult.

~G.

DCnU: Crisis? What Crisis? (The New 52 & Rampant DiDioism)

2011-10-02T20:25:00.000-07:00

Spoilers for the last four weeks of DC's books. Haven't read 'em? Look away, look away, look away, Dixieland.

Breaking news: Dan DiDio has just punched Superboy-Prime right out of the DC Universe. Film at 11.

Just over a month following my last mighty missive about DC Comics' relaunch of 52 of their titles, I'm back with some thoughts, after having read all but four of the titles I've signed on for. (To be read: Aquaman, Justice League Dark, Superman and Voodoo. Am I a masochist? Consider the books I've already read, noted below, and then attempt an answer.) What did I think of the books? Which books will I continue reading? And hey, just what did I think of DC co-publisher Dan DiDio's recent announcement that all company events bearing the umbrella word "Crisis" have been retconned out with the relaunch?

Those are all questions I'm just itchin' to answer. Shall we?

To date, I've read twenty-three "New 52" titles. The old cliche goes, some are good and some suck. Some of them--albeit very few--are fitting for the new audience that DC states they want to lure in. A few will appeal to those fans who are lapsed readers. For the vast majority, however, it's business as usual, with almost nothing really changed from August's books. And then, there are a couple--just one or two, mind you, and I think you know which ones--that are patently offensive and should be canceled as soon as possible.

Of course, they won't actually be canceled because DC has made it obvious that they thrive on controversy, and apparently every bad word about these books only serves to drive sales figures up, up, up. Joker's face ripped off and hung on the wall in Detective Comics? Controversy! Babs Gordon, out of her wheelchair and back to fighting crime as Batgirl, but with acknowledgment of her previous handicap? Controversy! Mister Terrific and an apparently unpowered Karen Starr (formerly Power Girl) possibly being "friends with benefits"? Horrors! Superman ran around in a li'l cape and jeans in his early days, and has never dated or married Lois Lane? Holy Toledo! Amanda Waller, formerly Suicide Squad's rotund leader, now a svelte, sexy lady who might weigh 100 lbs. after eating dinner? Great googly moogly!

And I haven't even gotten to Catwoman's sexcapades with Batman where they keep most of their costumes on in a fetishized scene. Nor have I told about former Teen Titan Starfire, who once had a long-term relationship with Dick Grayson, aka Nightwing, being reduced to a caricature who doesn't even remember who she fought or slept with--little more than, to be blunt, a pretty, curvy set of warm, wet holes that occasionally speaks.

It's been all over the internet now, of course. And hey, did anyone mention that Red Hood and the Outlaws #1 came out on the exact same day as Marv Wolfman and George Perez's New Teen Titans magnum opus, the hardcover graphic novel Games? You know, a book where Starfire is actually treated with some degree of humanity? For maybe the last time ever? And of course DC closes the book on their end with the proclamation that everyone should look at the rating on the book and take a big dose of STFU. Yes, hooray for tact, DC. You care about the bucks, not the content. We get it.

(Yes, I actually went out and bought Red Hood and the Outlaws #1. I didn't want to give DC a dime for the book. Alas, my decision was made a little better when I considered that my retailer had already paid for the drek that lined his shelves, and I'd be doing him a disservice by not relieving him of the book. I did, however, tell him that I most definitely would not return for any subsequent issues, so he need only take my copy in consideration when adjusting his future orders downward.)

There are, of course, equal-opportunity digs at male characters. Ray Palmer, the original Atom, is a mere scientist in Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. And...wait. Did any male character who was obscenely obese get trim? Did any paraplegic male character get up and walk? Is any male character reduced to humping the leg of any female in sight?

Don't misunderstand: there are parts of the new DC Universe I enjoy. As in my earlier review, I love I, Vampire. It's a brilliant reinvention of the original concepts by J.M. DeMatteis and Tom Sutton. I also really enjoy the stylishness of Batwoman by J.H. Williams III. Couldn't honestly imagine anyone else making the book quite so good. Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. is just goofy enough to work. I'm giving Resurrection Man another month or two, but boy, would it thrive under a more stylish artist. Speaking of stylish artists, Yanick Paquette is the next Kevin Nowlan in Swamp Thing, and the story by Scott Snyder fires on all cylinders even as it undoes everything Alan Moore did in "The Anatomy Lesson." Animal Man is the creepy polar opposite of Swamp Thing and I loved that cliffhanger. I even liked Snyder with Greg Capullo on Batman but at the same time I don't feel any compulsion to buy the next one. Aside from the astonishingly sexy art by Guillem March on Catwoman, there's little to recommend--for titillationists only. All-Star Western is okay enough and I could get it in collected editions, but I've the feeling I should reach for Jonah Hex Vol. 1 first. Nightwing? I'm really, really close to picking up number two. And Batgirl? Gail Simone takes into account the ongoing evolution of the character, doesn't throw out the baby with the bathwater, and gives me adventures of Babs monthly without my having to dig in the back issue bins. What's not to love? (Okay, besides the overcomplicated costume!) Yes, Batgirl is sublime. As for Grant Morrison's Action Comics...it's Grant Morrison, and I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. It doesn't match the complexity of Batman Incorporated, alas, nor is it meant to.

Still, there are a lot of misses. I couldn't stomach Justice League no matter how much I used to enjoy Geoff Johns' scripts. It just felt like a team-up between the two heroes everybody should recognize from the movies, with another movie hero at the end in case anyone started to fall asleep. Hawk & Dove is typical Rob Liefeld, and although I like the relationship between Dove and Deadman....it's Rob Liefeld. Green Lantern tries too hard to turn Hal Jordan into a jerkier Peter Parker. I'd almost be interested in picking up issue two if not for the fact that Johns has burned me out on Sinestro. O.M.A.C. is DC's very own version of the Hulk, right down to the sci-fi milieu, but the "lead" plays just a bit part in the book so far, hardly a character at all. In DC Universe Presents Deadman, Paul Jenkins and Bernard Chang don't give me anything better than Neal Adams & co. already offered in the seventies. Wonder Woman, I found guilty of trying way too hard.

In the "didn't make enough of an impression to care" department, I humbly submit Justice League International, Demon Knights and Stormwatch.

Aside from Red Hood, the biggest travesty I've discovered so far has been the book for which I held out the most hope. When DC promised a "reimagining" and a land of new and exciting concepts--when they said the character never existed before now in this post-"Flashpoint" universe--I should have known something would go horribly wrong. And, well, remembering the old jokes about a previous series being named after the fury instead of the character himself...just shoot me now.

The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men is the biggest dud of them all, if you don't consider the horrendous treatment of the women of the DC Universe to be worse offenses. (I kinda do.)

I've still got the next two issues of the series on order from the good folks at Discount Comic Book Service, but from reading the first issue, it was just too kooky, cliche, and derivative to stand a decent chance of working. Where would you like me to start? Cliff Carmichael is recast as a super-badass black ops guy who likes to kill people. Instead of being a potential mentor, Professor Stein is still dead. And Ronnie Raymond and Jason Rusch are about the most generic study in contrasts I've ever seen, all their attributes recited by rote. The Large Hadron Supercollider in Europe replaces the Hudson Nuclear Power Plant for a topical touchstone of superscience. And I haven't even gotten to Firestorm him/themselves!

Long ago, when the series was first announced, I looked at Jason and Ronnie's costumes and thought they were ridiculous. I get the idea: one character is mainly in red, and one is in yellow, and when they merge, hooray! Something vaguely resembling the original Firestorm!

Bzzt. Wrong answer. The bad news is that the costumes don't look any less ridiculous in the issue itself, which actually has capable artwork by Yildiray Cinar. The worse news is that when our heroes merge, they turn into Fury, a Hulky, Anti-Monitor-esque character that oozes nuclear fire and speaks in sixties slang. You can even tell right now that Jason and Ronnie won't be the only two characters to "plug into" this new entity. There are six circles on Fury's chest, y'see, and only two of them are now occupied by emblems that match the ones on their costumes. So I'm guessing we'll get to see four more nuclear characters. Firehawk, Pozhar...Atomic Skull, Tokamak anybody? (And if there are six total slots, why do we have seven nuclear men/women? Check the middle of the book...)

And, pardon me for drawing attention to cliche, but...Jason turns into Firestorm by saying the magic word? What are we, twelve?

Incredibly, "God Particle," the first story in this new era of Firestorm, is co-written by Gail Simone, who wrote Batgirl, which is one of my very favorite books in the "New 52." It seems she does her best, but I've really got my doubts about this new direction. I've got the uncanny feeling I'm about to drop Firestorm for only the second time ever. It's really that different and that unrecognizable to me. We'll see if Simone, Van Sciver and Cinar are able to make me reverse course, but it's not looking good.

All of the above brings me to this week's news from Dan DiDio that none of the events labeled "Crisis" happened the way we remember. Is it really that much of a shock? It appears that, with rare exception centered around most but not all facets of Green Lantern and Batman, everything about DC continuity prior to last month is up for grabs. That means you're best off not even acknowledging any events that occurred before four weeks ago as part of DC continuity. Unless they happened to Batman or Green Lantern. And in those cases, only about seven out of ten of those things happened. Get out your graphing calculators, kids, it's gonna be a bumpy ride.

Look at what hints at the past we've got in the books, and we're only a month along. Already we know the original Dove (from Hawk & Dove) died during "the worst crisis the world's ever seen." In Red Hood and the Outlaws, Arsenal clearly quizzes Starfire about her previous team, the New Teen Titans, bringing up names including "Vic," which is likely a reference to Cyborg, a.k.a. Victor Stone. The only problem is Cyborg has been set up to be a founding member of the "New 52" version of the Justice League...so why would he have been batted down to the Titans? Similarly, if Final Crisis never happened, under what circumstances did Bruce Wayne "die" so that Dick Grayson became Batman for the better part of a year (referenced in Nightwing #1)?

DC is on a slippery slope with this new approach to continuity. If they really are serious about September being a new beginning, then they should keep the references to pre-"Flashpoint" events to a bare minimum. If they're trying to put the continuity genie back in the bottle--as I postulated in my previous post where I labeled the recently-finished event the "Anti-Crisis"--they should work hard to adhere to their own new set of rules. Without that commitment, the company fails in the same way as they did during the fallout to 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Already we're seeing all manner of new stories that dredge up new versions of the past. Superman showed up in Metropolis wearing a little red cape and blue jeans some five years ago. At the same time we've got him showing up in Justice League, also five years ago, wearing his armor.

I've heard that Batman has been around for ten years, but I don't know how much stock I put in that idea. He must have been around for some time, as he's on his fourth Robin right now...who just so happens to be his illegitimate son. I have to suppress a chuckle every time I see a reference to DC publicity painting Robins as Batman's revolving door internship program. Please.

My point is that if we're really not supposed to think about older continuity, then the whole line should have been rebooted like Man of Steel and Wonder Woman did in 1987, and like only a few books--Mister Terrific, The Fury of Firestorm, Supergirl and a few others--did last month. If we're not supposed to try and fill in the blanks what happened and what didn't, then there shouldn't be four Robins, multiple Batgirls, Batmen across the world, etc., etc.

And if they care about historical interpretations of classic characters, then they shouldn't take characters that are familiar to kids from animated series like Teen Titans and make them into thoughtless sex drones.

Lastly, let's please, please, please not clear the decks of "Crisis"-type events just for the sake of 2012's line-wide event, First Crisis, No, Really, We Swear, Why Are You Looking at Us Like That, Just Shut Up and Buy It Already, These Aren't the Droids You're After. You've already given us hints that everyone's going to start to crossover in the third and fourth issues of various series, but please, if I wanted to read interconnected chaos, I'd be a Marvel Zombie forever and ever, amen.

DC, really, with the relaunch, I'm pulling for you guys. If you're successful, then maybe Marvel will lay off the aforementioned chaos. Then maybe we'll start to heal the industry.

I'm getting the idea you're gonna blow it. Don't do that. Don't.

Or Hulk will smash.

~G.

Advance Review: Hulk #42 (& More Late Reviews!)

2011-09-30T21:34:00.002-07:00

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends...

Tonight I've got something of a treat. In advance, I've got a very special review for everyone! Y'see, brand new regular artist Patch Zircher is on board Hulk alongside regular writer Jeff Parker as of issue #42. So not only will I be briefly looking back at issue #41, not only will I be glossing over Hulk Vs. Dracula, I'll also be giving you an advance peek at next week's book! (Hopefully, next week will also bring my DC "New 52" reviews. Remember, you can still catch my review of I, Vampire just one entry previous!)

So, where were we? Ah, yes!

HULK #41 - Marvel Comics, $2.99
By Jeff Parker, Gabriel Hardman & Bettie Breitweiser

It honestly feels like the end of the road.

Sixteen issues ago, Jeff Parker, Gabriel Hardman and Bettie Breitweiser came together and took the reins from Red Hulk creators Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness. However you looked at it, Loeb and McGuinness' successors had their work cut out for them. If you believed they were the team supreme and had made you enjoy the Hulk like none before, how could anyone measure up? If you didn't like Red Hulk at all, how could anyone else take over and change your mind?

It's truly a credit to this creative triad that they were able to take what the previous team did--love it or hate it--and build upon the legend, creating a more well-rounded Red Hulk with a multifaceted set of motivations and a varied league of villains. It's true that Loeb was only able to write the revealed Ross as Red Hulk for two whole issues (#23-24), so sure, take that into account. Even still, you can't discount the contributions made and the acknowledgments to previous continuity.

In Gabriel Hardman's final issue, Jeff Parker is wisely able to wrap up the cosmic-league threat of Omegex while at the same time giving both Red Hulk and his antagonist Zero/One new beginnings (of sorts). And we've got General Fortean out there, plotting and scheming for another day.

I've truly enjoyed the previous two segments of this storyline, and "Finality" here is no different. Although the physical battle here is between Red Hulk, who's been trapped in his super-powered form since his battle with Fortean in #31, and Omegex, who's been established as a threat since #28, it's the verbal chess match between Red Hulk and Zero/One that steals the show. The duo have had an unconventional team-up in the interests of defeating the world-ending threat, but it's always come back to the similarities and differences between the characters. Parker plays the characters off each other so well, and although I could tell how Zero/One would "help" Ross from early in this storyline, it was still a shock to see how much that assist had a bearing on the conclusion here. Kudos.

As for Gabriel Hardman and Bettie Breitweiser, what can I say? These two artistic titans have taken Parker's scripts and amped up the emotional content several notches. The battle scenes are emotional, and the scenes that were meant to be touching to begin with ended up so much deeper. The looks into Red Hulk's past were especially sumptuous, and his own reactions to Zero/One's take on that past were priceless.

It's hard saying goodbye to two terrific talents at once like this, but at the same time, I'm certain that new artist-in-residence Patch Zircher and colorist Rachelle Rosenberg will acquit themselves admirably in "Hulk of Arabia" and beyond.

But hey! You'll have to read about them below. As for this issue, it could hardly be better. Echoes of the seventies Hulk under Len Wein! Modern sensibilities! Emotionally rich storytelling! Buy It!

FEAR ITSELF: HULK VS. DRACULA #2 - Marvel Comics, $2.99
By Victor Gischler, Ryan Stegman, Mike Babinski & Antonio Fabela

Uhm, next?

When last we left the Hulk, he was possessed by the hammer of the Worthy that made him Nul, Breaker of Worlds. After crash-landing in Transylvania, he found himself besieged by all kinds of monsters. Meanwhile, Dracula and his vampire legions ran around wondering just what they could do about this threat in their midst.

At the conclusion of this issue, little has changed.

Maybe. A little bit. Truthfully, not much.

And that's the key complaint I have about this three-part miniseries. So far, it feels like a one-shot's worth of material needlessly spread across three issues for the sake of making nine dollars instead of three. (Or four, if a double-sized one-shot's your thing.) Ask yourself: where is the Hulk at the end of the first issue? The second? And what about Dracula and the majority of his ilk? Not only are they in virtually the same places, physically, they're in the same place in terms of characterization, too. Hulk is still smashing monsters and Dracula is still plotting to stop him. Oh, Dracula sent a few of his vampire soldiers against the Hulk and he beat them? He did that last month, too.

Ryan Stegman and Mike Babinski step out of the comfort zone they found in such emotionally and comedically rich stories as the recent She-Hulks and Amazing Spider-Man work they did, and their work also falls far short of the mark. After a promising start, the art just doesn't hold together, which seems almost as much of a critique on their strengths as it does an indictment of the story being told. Horror just doesn't suit this team.

Again, the key fault lies in the two sides here. You've got a brainwashed Hulk blindly smashing things without any emotional underpinning. Add to that a vampire nation of characters who just aren't very interesting, nor do they possess enough honorable attributes so one might root for them against the Hulk.

Guys, with one issue left, I'm trying, I really am. But with this issue virtually a regurgitation of the first, you should really Burn It.

HULK #42 - Marvel Comics, $2.99
By Jeff Parker, Patch Zircher & Rachelle Rosenberg

Thanks to James Sime of that great bastion of San Francisco comics goodness, The Isotope, I got a B&W preview of this book this week. (If anyone went to San Diego Comic Con this year, you know the preview of which I speak!) As mentioned above, it's the first regular issue for new artist Patch Zircher, an artist I've long admired since the days of Evan Skolnick's New Warriors in the mid-nineties. He illustrated a recent issue (#36), and I've hoped he'd return. Here he is!

Loosed from the threats of Zero/One, Black Fog and Omegex, Thad Ross finds himself once more at odds with General Fortean. While that's nothing new, the situation he finds himself in as result is. When he discovers an old friend has died at the hands of a terrorist in the Middle Eastern nation of Qatar, he decides to exact righteous red vengeance. Of course, that'll end up going so well, right?

After the tension of the previous storylines including "Omegex," the beginning of "Hulk of Arabia" feels tame by comparison. Don't get me wrong--it's still a solid story by Jeff Parker that plays to Ross' military strengths--but anything after those emotional heights is naturally going to feel lacking.

The story comes alive with artwork by the aforementioned Patch Zircher. After getting his feet wet in issue #36, he really comes to play this issue. His Red Hulk is appropriately big and mean, Thad Ross is determined, and every sequence is convincingly rendered. Keep in mind, this is in black-and-white; I haven't even glimpsed Rachelle Rosenberg's colors yet, and won't see them until next Wednesday. Still, as powerful as the linework is, the look can only improve with the addition of a quality color artist.

If you've been longing to see Thad Ross use more of his military history as the Red Hulk, then look no further. "Hulk of Arabia" looks to be another winner from Jeff Parker. It starts off on the ground floor and just keeps rolling. For now, Read It, but if it's anything like previous epics from Parker, I'll be upgrading that rating on successive issues!

~G.

Advance Review: "I, Vampire" #1

2011-09-26T20:58:00.003-07:00

Yes, it's true! I've been remiss in my reviewing activities. If you must know, I'm writing a book here, and preparing for this year's New York Comic Con that hits in a few short weeks. In answer to your unspoken questions, I've been reading quite a few of DC Comics' "New 52" projects this last month. Why, you ask, have I not reviewed any of those books? Simply put, I haven't found any that have compelled me to put pen to paper (or, as the case may be, fingers to keyboard). But that's changed. Oh, ye gods, how that has changed...

Early on, it was the most derided of all the series DC announced. If it wasn't "DC, how could you try and cash in on the Twilight craze?" it was "DC, why in God's name did you bring that book back, out of all the old books that could've been relaunched?" People didn't "get" why they would bring back Andrew Bennett, who'd been on the scene in the horror anthology House of Mystery for all of two years prior to its 1983 cancellation. They thought, well, obviously we're going to get "emo" vampires, because they're so de rigueur today.

For those who've caught my previous references to this series, as far back as 2007, this one's for you. For those altogether unfamiliar with the first incarnation, this one's also for you. You want to be here for this. You really do...

I, Vampire #1
"Tainted Love"
By Joshua Hale Fialkov, Andrea Sorrentino, Marcelo Maiolo, Pat Brosseau,
Wil Moss, Matt Idelson & Jenny Frison
"Four hundred years ago my vampiric kiss transformed the woman I loved into a soulless thing called Mary, Queen of Blood! Today an unholy order follows her evil designs, and the blood they spill is on my hands! Thus I must stop her...I, Andrew Bennett...I...Vampire!"

Admittedly, the through-line of the series remains unchanged between the original iteration--whose saga sell is above--and this one. In this first issue, writer Joshua Hale Fialkov sets up the central conflict as a love story gone tragically wrong. Although there are bit players in the drama, the spotlight rightfully remains upon the protagonist, Andrew Bennett, and his antagonist, Mary Seward, for the duration of this story.

Fialkov establishes a dual narrative, as a conversation between the duo plays against a battle between Andrew and other vampires in the city of Boston. This cross-cutting technique allows Fialkov to both show and tell in his establishment of the status quo. The dialogue is smart and economical, and between words and deeds, we're given all we immediately need to understand the milieu. We know Andrew and his relationship with Mary. We know the "rules" concerning vampires in this new universe. We also learn the relation of the superheroic and supernatural elements, sure to clash in future episodes.

The inaugural script would be nothing without inspired artwork to bring the tale to life. Fortunately, to that end, artist Andrea Sorrentino is on the case, and he brings an eerie, evocative look to Andrew, Mary, and their world. He plays with light and shadow skillfully and, however dark Fialkov's script, he matches if not surpasses him in mood. With its short, wide, horizontal panels, the story takes on a feel that is both cinematic and claustrophobic. When the "wow" moments come--and they do--the panels heighten and the story really pops.

Marcelo Maiolo handles the color work over Sorrentino, and it's a revelation. He must establish continuity between the overlapping narratives, giving the scenes between Andrew and Mary a certain tranquility in blue hues, while Andrew fights his kind amid darker, crimson hues. And then the end. The end! Maiolo's palette nicely unites the narrative. Simply put, he's the unsung hero of this creative triad.

So, what do we have here? A story with a convincing emotional underpinning. Appropriately dark artwork that conjures Jae Lee and Jose Villarubia (and that's a very good thing). And a fresh retelling of one of my favorite obscure characters. That's enough to make me come back for round two.

Will you like I, Vampire? Although the central conflict comes back to a failed romance, there are ample elements of Gothic horror in play. It's wicked, wicked fun, and everyone should give it a look. It's the sleeper hit of DC's "New 52" and deserves your attention!

One final note: I really, really love that DC gave creators J.M. DeMatteis and Tom Sutton due credit in this story. I think they'd be proud of the finished product. (DeMatteis has voiced his approval on Twitter; Sutton passed away in 2002.)

Andrew Bennett lives again!

~G.

P.S.: If you liked my review of this issue, or if you weren't altogether convinced this book is for you, I hereby direct you to my interview with Mr. Fialkov at Comic Book Revolution about this very project!

An Open Letter to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings

2011-09-19T18:36:00.003-07:00

Reed,

(I think we can dispense with officiousness, since I've been one of your treasured subscribers since 2006.)

Thanks for sending that mass e-mail to all the...is it still millions, or has it dropped to hundreds of thousands?...subscribers to your revolutionary Netflix service announcing, for the second time, the total dismantling of the service as we knew it. You know, we've been looking for something even more earth-shaking than July's announced split billing and drastic price increases for your company's DVD and streaming services. And it looks like now we've got it.

I have got to applaud a company brash enough to do what you've done. It feels like this decision was made by a bunch of drunken frat buddies late on Thursday after your new subscriber forecast went live and your stock prices took a dive. It's really refreshing to see this kind of immediate, frenzied, drastic reaction instead of the more measured, cautious approach that most big businesses in this day and age employ. If people didn't "get" your plan to totally divorce the two arms of the company, well, they sure as hell do now!

CHOP! One half of the company devoted to instant streaming via high-speed internet connections gets to keep that all-important Netflix name!

CHOP! The other half of the company devoted to DVDs, which is still the predominant method by which movies and television series are distributed, gets divorced and set up with a new name.

Of course, now you've decided to offer video games along with DVDs! This decision is even better than the first, because I have absolutely no interest in renting video games! Wow, what unparalleled value!

The centerpiece of your efforts--which is truly brilliant--is this new name you've given to the DVD and video game division. Qwikster! It just rolls right off the tongue, dunnit? In fact, it's something I honestly wouldn't have expected coming from a CEO of a high-tech mass media company. It's not even something I'd have thought would be thought up after a night of heavy drinking with frat boys who can take as much vacation as they want as long as they produce results at work. It's more along the lines of something a pothead living with his mommy and daddy would use for a nickname on Twitter. So go you!

I can't wait to see how all of these changes are implemented. I hear that you're not going to be linking the Netflix and Qwikster sites at all. It used to be so convenient, because when I added something to my DVD queue, and there was an instant version of the same thing, it got added to my instant queue, too! Also, there was that uncanny algorithm you held that competition to get. You know, the one that keeps track of my preferences based on what I've looked at and rented. I'm so glad you'll completely be getting rid of one easy tracking system. Why use one, when you can use two? And two charges under different names where once there was one? Awesomesauce!

So, yes, it's refreshing to see a name that didn't get vetted by focus groups or dwelt-upon for more than an hour or two. In fact, it didn't take me more than that same timeframe to decide I'm canceling the DVD part of your service, effective just as soon as my next billing cycle begins. Just as immediate and drastic! You see, I signed up for Netflix back in 2006, and Netflix is still where my loyalties lie. I can't be bothered with any pretenders. Full steam ahead Netflix! Who cares if more movies and television shows are available on DVD than for streaming? Not this guy. Not this guy.

In fact, other than those swell Marvel animated series you just put up on the streaming service, I've only interest in watching Doctor Who on there. So after that? Well, you'll probably lose me. Good show, chap! Good show!

Keep flying by the seat of your pants, Reed! After all, who needs a good PR firm when they've got you?

¡Viva la Revolución!

~G.

Quick Reviews: Hulk #40, Fear Itself: Hulk Vs. Dracula #1

2011-09-18T13:16:00.000-07:00

Greetings, Hulk fans!

Many apologies for my absence these last weeks. Between family issues, health issues, and work-related stuff that couldn't be put off, it's been a rough time for the Delusionally Honest. The good news--that I can't really talk about--is that yours truly has decided to embark on an exciting new venture that will likely mean you'll see less of me around these parts for a while. On the plus side, the likely result will be that you'll see more of me than you've ever seen before! (How's that for a tease?)

Now then, two reviews for the price of one! Because I've been away, and these things are now weekly, ya know...

HULK #40 - Marvel Comics, $2.99
By Jeff Parker, Gabriel Hardman, Bettie Breitweiser & Jim Charalampidis

Gabriel Hardman's finale on art chores continues this issue with the climactic battle between Red Hulk and the cosmic threat Omegex. Along the way, writer Jeff Parker piles in various plot elements and characters from the previous fifteen issues of the series since the duo started on the book. General Fortean is here, blaming his old friend for the chaos. Dr. Kurinji, now better known as Zero/One,and the threat she created, Black Fog, are also on the scene...and helping the Red Hulk?!

With all the characters in this story, you'd think these twenty pages would be a cluttered mess. In fact, they're anything but. Parker uses the middle third of the Omegex saga to explore the dichotomy between Ross and Kurinji and their alter-egos, Red Hulk and Zero/One. He compares them with the question, "Are they better before or after their recent changes?" with Zero/One taking the side of cold logic while Ross addresses emotion. It makes sense, as Ross has always relied on his emotions, particularly toward his daughter Betty, whereas the original Hulk's alter-ego prided himself on logic. Can he convince Zero/One that there were advantages to her humanity? Whatever the case, this battle does give her a considerable depth and a fun little character arc.

The same can't be said for General Fortean, who through sheer brevity of his appearance here becomes a caricature of his former self, and by extension, a caricature of who Ross used to be. He's blinded by his desire to rid the world of the Red Hulk, to the point of ignoring the larger threat of Omegex. Unless we see some significant changes soon, I'm afraid Fortean will just be a sad echo: Ross 2.0.

With so many plates in the air here, the narrative momentum does slow to a crawl, with the only significant plot element being the conversation between Red Hulk and Zero/One. And that's fine, because it is truly important. But I do hope Parker is able to pull out a strong conclusion here. Will Ross again be able to change to his human self with the help of Zero/One? Will Fortean see that Red Hulk can do more than simply destroy? Such good questions deserve excellent answers.

An excellent plus, the artwork is as good as it's ever been thanks to Hardman, Bretiweiser and Charalampidis. The colorists' work blends together very well here, to the point I honestly couldn't separate one from the other. I said it before and I'll say it again: I'm going to miss Hardman's formidable talents on this book.

The verdict? Another issue, another instance where I gotta say Buy It.

FEAR ITSELF: HULK VS. DRACULA #1 - Marvel Comics, $2.99
By Victor Gischler, Ryan Stegman, Michael Babinski & Frank Martin Jr.

The book that would have been Incredible Hulk #636 arrives, transitioning the Green Goliath from Greg Pak's series through the first five issues of Fear Itself, Marvel's summer event, and on to this issue. For those not following that series, Bruce Banner and Betty Ross decided to escape to Brazil to sort out their relationship. However, a magical hammer fell from the sky, and when the Hulk picked it up he transformed into Nul, Breaker of Worlds, and swiftly went on a rampage through the rainforest. Neither Red She-Hulk nor the Avengers could stop him. He finally arrived in New York where he fought the mighty Thor alongside the Thing, a.k.a. Angrir, Breaker of Souls. Thor knocked him into orbit, but as we all know, what goes up must come down...

Victor Gischler is famous at Marvel for his recent involvement with the X-Men in "Curse of the Mutants," an event which brought the company's vampire nation in conflict with the mighty mutants. In those adventures, too, Marvel has shifted away from the previous depiction of vampires in books like Tomb of Dracula (itself taking cues from the classic depiction and Universal Studios' films). Now, Dracula appears as a white-haired, armored hybrid of several visions glimpsed in Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula. His history has been thrown in a blender, with his son Janus popping up again out of nowhere, and another son, Xarus, having figured in the earlier crossover.

The story here is straightforward: the possessed Hulk lands in the Carpathian Mountains, the homeland of Dracula and his assembled legions. Hulk smashes mindlessly, and the vampires mount their response. It's a very by-the-numbers response that reflects precious little of what is enticing about these two corners of the Marvel Universe. It's hard to root for Dracula and his ilk because of their infighting and their inhumanity; moreover, it's only slightly less difficult to root for the Hulk. Possessed, he's not really going to have any powerful character moments: as such, the only thrill can be had by seeing how much he can smash. In this issue, that's not much.

The story's sole saving grace so far is Ryan Stegman, who ably illustrates the Hulk's sheer power. I also really love the looks of the various monsters during the battle scenes. (Was that a Wendigo? What's it doing outside North America?) If this series is remarkable for nothing else, Stegman certainly brings his "A" game here.

Still, in spite of the energetic art, I can't see past the flat story. Unless you're a hardcore fan of Hulk or Dracula's legions, Skip It.

~G.

Double Shot O' Sketches: Spider-Man & One Of His Forgotten Foes!

2011-09-15T20:45:00.000-07:00

Regular blog entries will resume as early as tomorrow if this cold doesn't keep me down. Meantime, I have two sketches for you! Both inspired by events from the fabled "Clone Saga" (soon to be discussed on an upcoming Spectacular Spider-Cast)!

First up: Rob Jones draws Ben Reilly, the amazing Spider-Man! From Pittsburgh Comicon 2011.

Rob was the protege of late DC Comics great Dick Giordano, and is currently working under the tutelage of Marvel and Valiant's own Bob Layton. You can reach Rob for commissions via his website, Perfect Storm Publishing! (Tell 'im I sent you!)

Next up is a forgotten Spidey villain from the same era. From New York Comic-Con 2010, here's artist Brian Shearer's take on Doc Ock's very own muscle goddess, Stunner!

Brian can be found online at the GravyBoy website. From there, you can see his comic projects including Vex and Deputy Witch as well as see if he's got any commission spots open. Well worth it!

Thanks, guys! More sketches and miscellany soon...

~G.

From the Vault: Comixfan Reviews & Interviews

2011-09-06T09:13:00.004-07:00

Welcome back!

I'm going to be a bit busy this week, so I thought I'd regale you with tales from my illustrious past...which is to say, here are all the reviews, interviews & articles I contributed to ComiX-Fan, the website where I cut my interviewing and reviewing teeth in late 2005! The website was moved but all the links work all over again. Who cares if there are no pictures? Now you can see how diverse my comics tastes really are! Entries are sorted by type of feature and date. Dig in!

Enjoy, and I'll be back later this week with more fun stuff!

Reviews:

5/20/2005: Batman: Dark Detective #2 Review
5/22/2005: Manhunter #10 Review
5/25/2005: DC Special: The Return of Donna Troy #1 Review
5/25/2005: Incredible Hulk #81 Review
5/26/2005: Adventures of Superman #640 Review
5/28/2005: The Flash #222 Review
5/28/2005: The OMAC Project #2 Review
5/29/2005: Green Lantern #1 Review
6/2/2005: Firestorm #14 Review
6/2/2005: Incredible Hulk #82 Review
6/3/2005: Last Hero Standing #1 Review
6/3/2005: Dracula Vs. King Arthur #1 Review
6/9/2005: JLA #115 Review
6/13/2005: Batman: Dark Detective #3 Review
6/16/2005: Manhunter #11 Review
6/18/2005: Batman Begins Movie Review
6/19/2005: Day of Vengeance #3 Review
6/25/2005: Captain America #7 Review
6/25/2005: Spider-Man: House of M #1 Review
7/4/2005: New Avengers Guest Starring The Fantastic Four (Military Special) #1 Review
7/7/2005: Incredible Hulk #83 Review
7/21/2005: JSA Classified #1 Review
7/23/2005: Red Sonja #1 Review
7/28/2005: Hulk: Destruction #1 Review
7/28/2005: Wonder Woman #219 Review
7/30/2005: Giant-Size Spider-Woman #1 Review
8/6/2005: Spider-Girl #89 Review
8/12/2005: Captain America #8 Review
8/19/2005: Ultimate Spider-Man Annual #1 Review
8/21/2005: Defenders #2 Review
8/27/2005: Spike: Old Times Review
8/28/2005: Black Panther #7 Review
8/28/2005: Hulk: Destruction #2 Review
9/3/2005: The Flash #225 Review
9/5/2005: Daredevil: Father #2 Review
9/11/2005: Ghost Rider #1 Review
10/14/2005: Villains United #6 Review
11/10/2005: Infinite Crisis #2 Review
11/12/2005: Exiles #72 Review
11/12/2005: Incredible Hulk #88 Review
12/17/2005: Five Men Went To Moan: X-Factor #1 Group Review
12/22/2005: Fantastic Four #533 Review
12/24/2005: Spider-Woman: Origin #1 Review
1/1/2006: Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do #5 Review

Interviews:

8/19/2005: Stuart Moore: Infinite Firestorm
8/25/2005: Exiles Creator Tour I: Tony Bedard
9/28/2005: Exiles Creator Tour II: Paul Pelletier
10/19/2005: Exiles Creator Tour III: Jim Calafiore
11/6/2005: Jeff Marriotte: Hanging Out With Old Friends (Angel: Old Friends)
11/24/2005: Maneuvering the Maze: A Mike W. Barr Interview (Maze Agency)
1/19/2006: Writer of (More) Stuff: Peter David on the Comics Industry (Title & intro only)

Miscellaneous:

11/27/2005: Top Ten Extraterrestrials in Comics (Mar-Vell entry)
3/21/2006: Top Ten Alien Races in Comics (Kree, Skrull entries)
3/29/2006: Top Ten Cosmic Objects in Comics (Cosmic Cube, Mjolnir, Ultimate Nullifier entries)

~G.

Farewell, Greg Pak (An 'Incredible Hulks' #635 Review)

2011-09-03T20:50:00.001-07:00

Yes, due to family issues, and other stuff, I haven't been able to post my overview of the work that's gone unreviewed (Skaar: Son of Hulk and Incredible Hulk #601-609). But at the very least, I owed it to you guys to make the review of Incredible Hulks #635 as timely as I could. And I've failed at that, too! Alas, good things come to those who beg, snivel and cajole. Without further ado...

The Incredible Hulks #635
"Heart of the Monster" Part 6

Writer: Greg Pak
Artists: Paul Pelletier, Tom Grummett, Danny Miki, Cory Hamscher & Scott Hanna
Colorists: Morry Hollowell & Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Simon Bowland
Production: Irene Y. Lee
Assistant Editor: Jake Thomas
Editor: Mark Paniccia
Publisher: Marvel Comics

"It hurts to set you free
But you'll never follow me
The end of laughter and soft lies
The end of nights we tried to die
This is the end."

--The Doors, "The End" (1967)

After five-and-a-half years and eighty-six issues (excluding variant covers), writer Greg Pak has left the building. He's written more of the Hulk's adventures than any other writer save Peter David. That he'll be missed goes without saying. But did he go out on a high note? That is the question.

After reading issue #635 on Wednesday evening, I think the answer has to be a resounding "yes!" The finale of the six-part storyline, "Heart of the Monster," is about as fulfilling a story as there could be given the circumstances. We already know, for example, that Bruce and Betty were seen together in Marvel's Fear Itself event, wherein the Hulk becomes Nul, Breaker of Worlds and begins a rampage not even Red She-Hulk can stop. We also know that Jennifer Walters, aka She-Hulk, appears live and well in the Fear Itself: Fearsome Four limited series, so she must regain her lost powers before this series' end. And news broke last week of Fred Van Lente and Kyle Hotz's miniseries event Destroyers, which will feature both She-Hulk and A-Bomb, indicating Rick Jones wouldn't be cured, either. But really, are any of the above facts a surprise, given that Marvel and Disney are developing Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H., starring all of the gamma-irradiated heroes so prevalent in the last two years, as an animated series for 2012?

Alas, I've gotten ahead of myself. This issue features two related stories: the twenty-page, actual sixth part of "Heart" by Pak and the regular art team of Pelletier, Miki and Hollowell; and the ten-page epilogue by Pak and his "Spy Who Smashed Me" art team of Grummett and Hamscher (with Scott Hanna) that caps not only the current storyline but serves as a coda for everything since Incredible Hulk #92. Pak contributes an afterword dedicated to eighties Hulk writer Bill Mantlo, and the book ends with a pair of bonuses including a five-page "exit interview" and a cover gallery including almost every Hulk-related story Pak's ever written.

The lead story picks up where the previous issue left off, with Hulk and Red She-Hulk locked in battle in Umar's Dark Dimension. No sooner do they kill each other and everything else there with their power than is everything reincarnated so they can live to punch and hit anew. It's the Hulk's dream come true, inadvertently brought him by the enemies that wished him harm. The "Wishing War" begun when A.I.M. Scientist Supreme Monica Rappaccini turned Tyrannus' Fountain of Youth into a literal wishing well has reached its apex, and nobody is safe. That the Hulk is so at home, where he needs not worry about harming anyone, least of all the woman he loves, is awfully telling of the character's psychology. As one of this blog's readers noted, the Hulk seems to make a correlation between sex and violence--first with Caiera and now with Betty--and it all comes back to how his father used to abuse his mother. When you take that aspect into consideration, the relationship between Bruce/Hulk and Betty/Red She-Hulk becomes especially creepy, no?

Of course, an eternity of the Hulks smashing each other would quickly become repetitive, so Tyrannus must escape the Dark Dimension with Fin Fang Foom to begin the end run. They arrive at the government's not-so-secret stash of Gamma Bombs in Yuma, AZ, long ago thought destroyed in the wake of "Gammagate" during Peter David's epic "Ground Zero" storyline of 1988. Ol' Foomy munches as many as he can, and soon he can launch them out his mouth at his foes. Guess who has to return to Earth to save the day?

The story carries to an epic conclusion all of the Silver-Age silliness that Greg Pak has ably handled since he and Jeph Loeb teamed up on the uber-events "Fall of the Hulks" and "World War Hulks." "Heart" in particular--with its physics-defying wishes, impossible displays of power, and villains from across the Green Goliath's storied history--acts as an refreshing, insane counterpoint to all the "serious" Hulk tales out there that have cropped up ever since Bill Mantlo revealed the Hulk as victim of child abuse. What's more, Greg Pak accomplishes all this while acknowledging the character's terrifying history, his tragic self-loathing, and his propensity for emotional extremes. For, as the writer notes, when the emotional stakes are at their highest, that's when Hulk smashing is most satisfying.

Particularly, I loved the way in which the Hulk's final wish echoed Banner's, but at the same time highlighted a key distinction between the two. While Banner wanted his "family" to be cured only because he didn't want them to be monsters like him, the Hulk's wish (and I won't spoil it here) showed a surprising selflessness that was touching. It made Betty's realization afterward, about the nature of Banner and Hulk's relationship, all the more poignant.

A few points just seemed to fall through the cracks this issue, and that's unfortunately to be expected when dealing with the larger, more important through-arc that concludes here. Tyrannus' defeat was glossed over, Fin Fang Foom was more a generic force of nature than an actual character, and we never do quite learn what happens to all of the bad guys left (or so it appears) in the Dark Dimension from last issue. Still, the emphasis is where it must be: on the Hulk and his relationship with Betty and the remainder of his "family." Is the main story perfect? No, of course not. But with the following ten pages, it doesn't need to be.

In "Hulk Out," Pak and Grummett use a conversation between Banner and Pak stand-in Amadeus Cho to put an exclamation point on the last five-and-a-half years. Cho says what many a fan has likely wanted to tell Banner for years. The results are engaging, but in the last few pages the tide turns again. Pak shows he's a big ol' romantic at heart, and gives Banner and his emerald alter-ego an honest-to-gosh happy ending that's quietly evocative of Peter David's Incredible Hulk #372. And while we know the happiness won't last, the last page--you'll know it when you get there--made me smile. And laugh. And maybe a tear dribbled down my cheek.

Quite the counterpoint to "The Lone and Level Sands" (in Incredible Hulk #467), that's for damn sure.

As for the artistic chores, I thought Paul Pelletier and Tom Grummett served admirably in this finale. While nowhere near the heights of, say, Incredible Hulk #611 (still the high water mark for art since the book's most recent relaunch), Pelletier hit most of the right notes here, his layouts full of dynamism and power. On the other hand, Grummett's chapter relied heavily on emotion and body language. His was a quieter power, but the work was no less solid.

So, now that it's done, what does everyone think of The Incredible Hulks #635? Was it worth the hype? Was it all a final issue from one of the best Hulk writers could be? Sound off, Hulkophiles!

~G.

(P.S.: No, I didn't do an "exit interview" with Greg Pak, but that's because Comics Alliance columnist Chris Sims beat me to the punch. Check it out here! Alas, if I have my way, you'll see more about another new project coming soon. Stay tuned!)

DCnU: The Coming of The Anti-Crisis! Continuity's Last Stand (5)

2011-08-30T03:18:00.004-07:00

(DCnU Continuity Series: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5)

The end is nigh! The skies have turned red! Worlds will live! Worlds will die! Nothing will ever be the same again!

No, it's not another post about Crisis on Infinite Earths, which I covered two entries ago. It's true, it keeps popping up, and with very good reason. No, this is the fifth and, swear-to-God, final part of my discussion of continuity in comic books prior to the midnight launch of DC Comics' "New 52" initiative with the one-two punch of Flashpoint #5 and Justice League #1. Herein, I'm going to try my best to tie together all the disparate ideas I've brought up in previous sections. If you need a refresher course before we begin, well, that's what the links at the top of the page are for!

Before we pick up where we left off, I figured I'd state, as you've probably heard elsewhere, that the initial orders for DC's "New 52" are in and they are very high. SpecificallyJustice League #1 appears to have pre-orders in excess of 200,000 copies, and six other titles have pre-orders in excess of 100,000. This appears to be encouraging news for the relaunch event. My opinion? Wait six months, take a look at sales figures across the line. Then we'll talk "success" or "failure." (And then we'd probably also be talking "Marvel Relaunch," but as yet, that's neither here nor there...)

In part four, I reviewed a key issue plaguing the industry, and one that's become increasingly tied to the concept of an overall continuity: the proliferation of the "event comic," which began in the early eighties in such series as Marvel's Contest of Champions in 1982 (thought I forgot about that one, huh?) and in earnest with DC's--yes, here it is again--Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985. As the years passed, the concept of doing some large event involving multiple heroes combating some larger threat became all but inextricably linked to the larger continuity, of bringing up elements from past stories. Some were meant as homages, like Marvels, while others like the Spider-Man "Clone Saga" were meant to conjure a grander mythology rooted in the past, akin to what was being done on television at the time with Fox's The X-Files. Many were editorially-driven, or even fostered at higher levels, to produce more riches for people like Marvel's then-owner, Ronald Perelman.

After the speculator boom went bust in the mid-nineties, events such as Zero Hour and The Infinity Gauntlet fell out of favor. Artist Joe Quesada, whose ironically-named-in-retrospect Event Comics had been outsourced the newly-minted "Marvel Knights" label, became Marvel's editor-in-chief in 2000. With company president Bill Jemas, he overhauled the entire line and established a four-year period with minimal crossovers. If there were events that united disparate parts of the Marvel Universe, they were in a series of their own, like Jim Starlin's Marvel Universe: The End and Infinity Abyss, or in a regular title, like Kurt Busiek's "Kang War" in Avengers. The events of the past would seem to be quite dead in favor of a more "new reader friendly" mentality that brought the company back from bankruptcy.

When Jemas left the company in 2004, Quesada must have remembered the name of his former company (the one that produced Ash and Painkiller Jane--oh, what modern-day classics everyone remembers) and events returned with a tragic vengeance. Today, it's not unusual to see three or four events occurring in the Marvel line at one time. Right now, "Spider-Island" is occurring in Amazing Spider-Man and related series and one-shots; the X-Men are going through a Schism; and everything that remains, mostly in the Avengers' corner, is at the mercy of Fear Itself. Take a look at the average month's output from Marvel, and you'll see it's an amazingly incestuous grouping. Twenty-four tie-ins to Fear Itself, eleven to "Spider-Island," and just a couple to Schism, all in the month of September.

It's hardly been any better down the street at DC, where for the last three months, the fallout from the latest crossover event, Flashpoint, has effected a record number of spinoff miniseries to tell all the extra stories in that particular "alternate-universe" story. I nearly choked while drinking a glass of milk as I looked at the double-page spread in the first issue with a checklist of the first two month's crossovers. May: two books. June: twenty-two books! (Twenty of them were the all-important, collector's-item first issues.) They decided to take it easy on poor readers the final two months, with only eighteen books in July and nineteen in August. Keep in mind, too, that this spate of new issues was released in addition to all of the books that DC regularly published, so as to not disturb those series' ongoing--er, hastily-concluding storylines.

They tell us that all of the crossovers outside of the main series aren't essential. However, if you've been following this blog, you've seen commentators like Jay Boaz say that's not precisely true, particularly in the case of discovering Loki's motivations during Marvel's Siege event that all but required fans to purchase the Siege: Loki tie-in. I've also ranted about how Marvel's Fear Itself is not written straightforwardly but rather in such a way that it directs fans to other series that are really the only way they'll even see a few of the members of the villainous ad hoc team called "The Worthy." (Not all of the members were shown obtaining their hammers in the main series, and the appearances of some in the main title have been scarce at best.) Flashpoint is a little bit better at this, but really, just take a look at how many series are out there and it's easy to see DC doesn't want you to buy "just" the core event miniseries. If they did, why publish the rest?

Most intriguing is that, outside of the uber-event called Flashpoint, DC seems to be actively attempting to distance themselves from a tightly-knit continuity, but using just that device in order to get there. Meanwhile, Marvel's new editor-in-chief Axel Alonso and his staff continue to push the idea that continuity is not only a good thing, that it's what the readers want to see. And I think to myself, when so many of Marvel's titles are now $3.99, which amounts to 1.53% of a minimum wage earner's weekly paycheck (computations derived from Von Allan's brilliant article about why the average person isn't buying comics for themselves or their kids)...is that what fans really want? Or is Marvel Comics just completely out of touch with the current economy that they want to take their fans' last dimes? What's more likely, a fan spending beyond his means to get every part of Fear Itself, or the fan looking at the number of books, looking at his budget, and saying screw it all, he's quitting comics altogether because everything's just too tied together for anyone to get one coherent narrative from one title? If you ask me, there's been far, far too much of answer "B" over the last several years that explains the very reason most of Marvel's line currently costs $3.99!

Another detail that has been glossed over in recent times is that both Marvel and DC have in fact been hard at work at "rebooting" their characters on a nigh-annual basis. If you don't believe me, take a look at Spider-Man. In Civil War he unmasked, then they kept that status quo only through "Back in Black" before clearing the decks with "One More Day," which led to the two-year-plus "Brand New Day" with its whirlwind of creative teams before one writer emerged with an altogether different status quo in "Big Time." At DC, the Flash has had more changes, with Wally West being retired during Infinite Crisis in favor of Bart Allen, who lasted all of a year before he was replaced, again, with Wally, who lasted another year-plus before the powers-that-be decided to return the previous Flash, Barry Allen, who then zigzagged around a few short series before Flashpoint hit, at which point he'll again be changed in various ways. And to use my dear old favorite character, the Hulk, after Bruce Jones crashed and burned, Peter David came in for a year, then was replaced by Greg Pak, who told a story on an alien world for a year before Greenskin returned to Earth for a big event. After that event he went away and Marvel replaced him with a Red Hulk, who remained in the spotlight for a year before the real Hulk was depowered and Banner spent nearly a year in a separate book helping to train his own son, after which for the last year Hulk's been cavorting around with a group of gamma-enhanced beings. And in October, Banner and Hulk will separate and all traces of the previous status quo will disappear. Anyone else getting whiplash?

It's like the big companies have too much happening, and that no sooner do they introduce a new status quo, than something else happens and they must abandon those elements before they have a chance to fully explore them. Sometimes it's sales-related, or sometimes it's just that seventeen different writers have dibs on a single character and they take turns pulling rank. Frankly, it's depressing and confusing.

Similarly confusing--and getting back to my key point about continuity--is Marvel's practice in recent years of splitting up their product lines and essentially cannibalizing their base. Under the guise of "providing something for everyone," they have introduced, at first, multiple Spider-Man and X-Men titles in the same universe, and then they did themselves one better by launching alternate continuities. There's the one that started it all, the Ultimate Marvel Universe, which as of this week will be home to a new, multiracial Spider-Man in the wake of Ultimate Peter Parker's death. (In this way, Marvel could have all the publicity associated with killing their most popular hero and replacing him with a minority while keeping "Joe Public" ignorant that the traditional Spider-Man was alive and well.)

There's also the "Marvel Age/Marvel Adventures" Spider-Man in a specially-designated "kids' line" of comics where every issue must be a standalone story. I could say a lot about the concept of a separate line of Marvel comics aimed at kids--it's probably a whole other article. (Although, well, I kinda like Sophia "Chat" Sanduval. We'll leave it there.) Right now I'll just say that I didn't need a kids' line of comics when growing up. I read Amazing Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, Fantastic Four and many more at a tender age. I may not have understood every last nuance or every bit of subtext, but reading those stories, I feel, helped me reach higher and ultimately helped me in the long run. Establishing a separate line just for kids doesn't do them any favors and in fact shows a marked lack of respect toward the younger generation. Doesn't anyone remember comics, the mainstream monthly ones, were once for kids? (DC, by contrast, has their "DC Kids" line established with many Warner cartoon properties, including whatever DC animated series is currently airing. Hardly the same thing, although yes, they're dabbling with the "Earth One" series of original graphic novels.)

What's the theory behind a "kids' line," anyway? Is it that things have been going on for too long in the mainstream comics universe that it would be impossible for a child to grasp the history? That they should prefer a purified, simplified version of a character's history? Refer to the points above.

It's true that Marvel Comics in particular has done a number of things, mainly early in the company's renewed existence in the sixties, that violated established yet unspoken rules about characters in ongoing fictional series. They allowed the teenage Peter Parker to graduate high school, proceed through college, and get married. Reed Richards and Sue Storm married and had two children. Even Bruce Banner married Betty Ross, who herself became a divorcee over the intervening years. These steps aged the characters, some might say in so doing alienating the younger fanbase. Heck, Marvel editorial interfered in Peter David's tale in which Betty Banner was to give birth, instead having her suffer a miscarriage. (Later, of course, new editor-in-chief Joe Quesada would enthusiastically endorse Greg Pak's plan for the Hulk to have, essentially, an adult son in Skaar, in the aftermath of World War Hulk.)

Oddly, Marvel had it both ways for the longest time in keeping Peter Parker in his adolescent role as a photographer instead of exploiting his scientific aptitudes. Being a photographer has almost become as much a part of Peter's identity as is being Spider-Man. However, it seems he's finally doing a little growing up in Dan Slott's "Big Time." We'll see how long that lasts; it's hard fighting nearly fifty years of continuity.

Over the years, Franklin Richards, Reed and Sue's first child, would have an especially problematic history, shown at different ages at different points, and even temporarily aged to adulthood at one point! Although the Richards children reinforce the "family" status of the Fantastic Four, many of the other dramatic changes to characters have been undone, such as Spider-Man and the Hulk's non-divorce divorces. (Once, there was a plan for Spider-Man to again become a teenager under Howard Mackie & John Byrne. Thank goodness Marvel didn't go that far.) By this reasoning, it's only a matter of time until Marvel edits out Skaar, likely by killing him so nobody ever references him again. That's just the way it goes.

All of the above finally brings me to my grand statement about Flashpoint and the "New 52" initiative. It's interesting that what we've got is the marriage of one of the most complex and intrusive narrative devices in all of so-called "event" comics with sixty-one related comics over four months (or to make it appear as drastic as it is: fifty-nine books over three months), all set as prelude to a different kind of event, one not tied together with one overarching story but instead of a line-wide relaunch of characters and concepts.

Like Crisis on Infinite Earths, Flashpoint aims to reboot continuity, to simplify and streamline elements from seventy-six years of ongoing adventures. What Marv Wolfman was unsuccessful at, Geoff Johns and Jim Lee have succeeded in doing: namely, relaunching all titles under the main DC Universe umbrella with a new first issue. Although not necessarily relaunched from word one, DC has stated their intent to begin each series at an easily-accessible point. In this way and a few others, I consider Flashpoint to be most appropriately labeled an "Anti-Crisis," doing in reverse much of what the original eighties Crisis did.

Follow me here...

Two titles--Justice League and Action Comics--will both begin five years in the past, establishing new origins for the League and for Superman, respectively. With the seventh issues of those series, and the first issues of all the rest, storytellers will pick up as if the first superheroes were introduced only five years ago. Certain events will remain canonical--that is, they will still "count"--and I'd guess that they'd be the most popular storylines readily available in graphic novel collections. The stated aim is that DC wants their heroes to not seem as experienced, to be earlier in their respective careers, so they might actually risk failure.

Except in a very few cases (mainly the Batman and Green Lantern series of titles, both best-sellers prior to September), continuity will be radically changed and/or simplified. Superman's parents will both be dead, and his marriage to Lois Lane will be no more. Firestorm's component halves, Ron Raymond and Jason Rusch, will both be high school students (whereas originally Ron was a few years older than Jason, and both had graduated high school). There will as yet be no Wally West. And most strikingly, since DC announced these new heroes will be the first generation of such characters, that statement signals a substantial change, for it means the Justice Society of America must undergo a major change if they return. Last weekend at this year's FanExpo Canada, we learned just what that change was: the return of Earth-2 as a home for the earlier generation of superheroes! (Could Earth-2 be just a harbinger of alternate Earths to come?)

I'm disheartened at one major detail I haven't heard much about in the "New 52": namely, while there are 52 books out there, there's not a truly original character, team, or concept in the bunch. Even the most "original" of the group, Batwing, is predicated wholly on the existing concept of Batman. Now, really, couldn't DC have produced some original concepts that don't hinge on existing corners of their universe for the grand relaunch? Or are they out of good, new ideas? Maybe Alan Moore's right and maybe we're just retreading everything that came before ad nauseam. In which case, I say: BAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRF.

Time will tell if DC is truly successful in establishing a successful relaunch of their line and if they are able to sustain sales and reverse the trends that placed Marvel ahead of them in sales on a regular basis since the early seventies. I think the new line's success will be heavily impacted based on whether DC decides to keep having large-scale events that link the titles together. (I'm not the only one who feels this way.) Keeping the books largely unconnected and running their own storylines independent of each other would set DC clearly apart from Marvel. It'd be a battle of ideology between those who believe series should be deeply interdependent and those who believe each series should stand on its own merits. (The ideological split seems fait accompli when you ask: When's the last time DC published a "Who's Who"? When's the last time Marvel published one of their "Official Handbooks"? I rest my case.) With "event fatigue" setting in heavily down the street, I don't think I have to tell you--and it breaks my heart to say this, being a lifelong Marvel Zombie--who I'd be rooting for. (If for no other reason than it might cause my favorite company to extricate their heads from their posteriors.)

My other sincere hope is that this is the last storyline we'll ever see from DC that directly emphasizes continuity. Flashpoint was odd in that Geoff Johns & co. created a second, twisted timeline in order to facilitate a finished third timeline--heck, a whole other multiverse, if Earth-2 is any indication. It's like they had to stress how bad things could get before they settled on a happy medium! It may be too much to hope for, but I've certainly had enough of relaunches and the umpteenth attempt at retelling the origin of, say, Superman. The best continuity I can wish for in the "New 52" is akin to architect Grant Morrison's view, what he has called "super-consistency": a fidelity of the core concepts that make the characters and their accompanying situations work. Keep the same elements everyone's familiar with, but at the same time, not be slavish to every little story that's been published over eight decades. If the ongoing adventures are faithful to the spirit of the characters and entertaining in general, those two qualities go a long way toward overcoming any lapses in continuity.

With DC all but doing away with the ongoing continuities of its characters, I have to ask: can ongoing numbering schemes be far behind? Marvel is already using a variation of this idea in relaunching key series every time a creative team turns over. We've seen it with Iron Man, we've seen it with Thor and Captain America, and now we're seeing it again in coming months with Incredible Hulk and various X-Men series. What if DC decides to abandon long-running numbering schemes in favor of relaunching, either as creative teams change, or as major storylines change, or even just once a year, in the way that television shows change seasons? It's an idea some others have had, but I think it has some merit in the current sales climate, even if I disagree fundamentally with the idea of constant relaunches. (I much prefer to see a book with a high numbering scheme as it denotes a sense of history, but alas, I appear to be in the minority here.)

Over the years, fans of superhero comics have become indoctrinated to the pitfalls of continuity. When they see several events happening at one comics company at the same time, the first question asked is often "How do these things fit together?" (Take a look at some of Comic Book Resources' threads discussing what order events such as Siege, World War Hulks & other stories fit together. Or don't.) It'd be nice if the companies simplified continuity, untangled events so fans didn't have to concern themselves with how everything fit together. And maybe DC's "New 52" and this "Anti-Crisis" is the first step along that path. Truly, fans should think less about what stories fit in DC's new five-year plan, and more about just fondly remembering the stories they enjoyed, and forgetting the stories they didn't.

Bottom line: If you liked the original story, then for you, it happened. And if that fact alone doesn't allow you a sound night's sleep (or day, for the vampires in the crowd), then get in the Mark Gruenwald Omniverse frame of mind. There's gotta be a DC Universe somewhere out there where Flashpoint never happened. And maybe, just maybe, DC will return to that universe one day. But if not...!

To paraphrase MST3K: "Just repeat to yourself it's just a comic; I should really just relax."

~G.

(DCnU Continuity Series: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5)

Fred Van Lente on "Untold Tales of the New Universe: Nightmask"

2011-08-28T15:39:00.005-07:00

***CAUTION!!! You are entering a TIME WARP!***

The year is 2006 and Marvel Comics has just announced a number of one-shot specials centered around the New Universe, an initiative begun by editor-in-chief Jim Shooter twenty years prior, to celebrate that anniversary. Many intriguing creators signed up to tell the stories, and a writer by the name of Fred Van Lente was among them. Being a reporter for Comixfan at the time and a New Uniphile besides, I jumped at the chance to interview the talents involved. Bless his heart, Mr. Van Lente was one of the few who agreed to be interviewed. I took him through the wringer over this dinky little one-shot! Alas, he did give it his all, and I could not let this lengthy interview languish in my Yahoo! Mail inbox forever. Only five years and change after it was conducted, I bring you Fred Van Lente talking about his one-shot special, Untold Tales of the New Universe: Nightmask! (Say, whatever happened to ol' Fred, anyway...?)

DELUSIONAL HONESTY: To start. how did you come to work for Marvel? How has the journey been so far, with the recent "Scorpion" series in Amazing Fantasy now under your belt?

FRED VAN LENTE: With my longtime artist pal Steve Ellis I created a series about superpowered mob enforcers turned freelance operators called The Silencers, that's been published both by Moonstone and Image. Senior Editor Mark Paniccia really enjoyed the book, and when pitch time came around for Amazing Fantasy he asked me to participate. Ultimately, my take on the character was the one that was chosen.

The journey has been quite a dream come true, having grown up a huge Marvel fan. Getting to play in this sandbox has been the biggest kick of my professional writing life, thus far.

Scorpion has been featured in other places around the Marvel Universe since her debut, most notably Incredible Hulk and in one of the Captain Universe one-shots. How does it feel, having developed the character, to see her gaining such high exposure?

FVL: It makes me a proud papa... That's my baby girl! >sniff!<

What's even better is to see secondary cast members of hers, like S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Khanata and A.I.M. Scientist Supreme Monica Rappaccini pop up everywhere, like House of M: Hulk. Having a popular super hero is one thing, but to have your supporting cast be just as popular is almost cooler, being more of a challenge.

It really is. How did you come to work on the Nightmask special?

FVL: Basically, editor Mark Paniccia gave me a pick of a couple New Universe titles, and I chose Nightmask. He seemed like the character with the most untapped potential.

Were you a fan of the character when he was introduced? What intrigued you enough to give him a look?

FVL: Yes, Nightmask was one of the N.U. titles I followed the first time around--I had pretty much every issue. The problem I had with him as a reader was the reason I was excited and interested in writing about him: I really felt he never had a chance to shine, since the series was plagued with never-finished storylines and revolving-door creative teams.

Let's get to the meat of the original series. Who is Nightmask, in your view? His supporting cast?

FVL: Nightmask is Keith Remsen, the eighteen-year-old son of dream researchers. A bomb rips through the airport when his parents and little sister are seeing him off for a summer internship at a respected sleep institute in Switzerland. The elder Remsens are killed, Teddy is crippled, and Keith is plunged into a coma for months, only to be awakened by the worldwide astronomical anomaly known as the White Event. When he comes back to the waking world, he discovers that he has the ability to enter other people's dreams. Thanks to this power he becomes a much sought-after "psychic therapist" of sorts, working at the clinic of his guardian, Dr. Lucian Ballad.

Teddy, Dr. Ballad, and Keith's physical therapist-cum-love interest, Lita Mercado, all feature prominently in my Untold Tale.

Have any of the cast members in Nightmask been especially fun to work on?

FVL: Teddy. I have a little sister myself, so it was fun to work our bratty banter into Keith and Theodora's relationship.

How is Nightmask different from the other work you've done?

FVL: It's the project that sort of most viscerally brings me back to a specific point in my life--1986-7, my early high school years, when the New Universe books first came out. I've always been the kind of reader who enjoyed new titles, getting on board with a series from the get-go, so I was very intrigued by the N.U., and sampled a bunch of titles, including Nightmask. Like most people, I think the N.U. suffered from extremely uneven execution, but there was some good stuff in there--stuff ahead of its time, even. DP7 was hands-down my favorite, a solid comic from start to more-or-less finish.

How much "homework" did you have to do before writing the one-shot?

FVL: The N.U. part of my comics collection has long since disappeared into the mist of time, so Marvel loaned me the complete series from their archives. I read all twelve issues--but it was through trawling an Internet fan site that I stumbled across a simple fact of Nightmask's original run that made me think, "Oh, this is just too good to pass up. This will be my story!"

And what fact was that? Where among the original stories does your tale take place?

FVL: The first few issues of Nightmask built toward a final showdown between Nightmask and Dr. Horst "The Gnome" Kleinmann, the psychotic sleep researcher who planted the bomb that killed his parents. Kleinmann was able to walk in dreams just like Keith, but he did it through cybernetic technology.

In Nightmask #4, the stage for the big sleepytime smackdown had been set. Kleinmann had sicced sexy psychic vampire Mistress Midnight on our hero. Nightmask defeated her, but not before Ms. Midnight had beamed Teddy's psychic signature to Kleinmann's laboratory in Zurich. The next time Teddy fell asleep, her psyche would be captured by Kleinmann. The last panel of the fourth issue showed Kleinmann and his goons cackling evilly over the bigtime payback about the be exacted on the Remsen kids...and the next issue blurb screamed: "NEXT: THE KINGDOM OF THE GNOME!"

But then Nightmask #5 came out, and...nothing. No Gnome. No Mistress Midnight. No duel to the death with the man who killed Nightmask's parents. Instead a totally different storyline, with a totally different creative team. In fact, those villains are never mentioned in the series again!

What the hell?!? Can you imagine that happening today? Hell, no. The Internet would spontaneously combust with fan flames.

So, my story--entitled "Kingdom of the Gnome," natch--is truly an Untold Tale, telling you what happened in between Nightmask #4 and 5 when Keith did battle with the Gnome with Teddy's life hanging in the balance. It's basically Nightmask #4 1/2.

Nightmask's original series was canceled after only a year. Why do you think the character couldn't achieve sufficient readership to continue?

FVL: I'd have to say that unceremoniously dumping the main storyarc right before its climax without explanation and for no apparent reason might have been a major contributing factor. (grin)

When you put it that way, it's hard to disagree. You mentioned earlier that the character has untapped potential. How so?

FVL: Well... I feel that there's too much negativity floating around comics in general so I am loath to criticize other creators' work, but "untapped potential" was a euphimistic way to indiciate that Nightmask's original series, uh... (coughs, mumbles into sleeve) wasn't very good.

It's a shame, really, given the sterling reputations of the creators involved--some legends and legends-to-be [including Archie Goodwin, Tony Salmons, Cary Bates, Roy Thomas, Mark Bagley, Ron Wagner, Keith Giffen & Kyle Baker, among others ~G.] worked on that book. They had a character with a terrific premise--a dream walker who could, in theory, be exploring the nether regions of the collective unconscious--and it just seems like no one really could decide what to do with him.

Honestly, having recently re-read the whole series, it looks like an editorial decision was made to take that "world outside your window" stuff a little too seriously, and eliminate all of the science fiction and fantasy from the title, thus turning Nightmask into a glorified super-therapist making facile diagnoses on ham-fisted dream symbolism, the kind a 12 year old girl wouldn't be impressed by.

Yeesh...sorry, guess that was a torrent of negativity there...I should probably shut my big yap...

But before I do (laughs), let me just add that Nightmask predates Neil Gaiman's Sandman by several years. There's no reason why the N.U. series couldn't have explored the same type of material at the same level of sophistication.

That's a fair point. I agree that the character was really ill-served and could have been dealt with more effectively. At the other end, what parts of the larger New Universe went drastically wrong?

FVL: Ultimately, I think that the premise of the "White Event"--that everything was exactly like our world until people got super powers--hindered the writers from the standpoint that they really had no rich fictive universe--no backstory to work in.

You could say, "Oh, well Stan and Jack had to do the same thing"--well, not really. They weren't really operating at square one in terms of the fantasy. With no backstory of allowable "paranormal" stuff beyond the first issue of, say, Fantastic Four #1, Dr. Doom couldn't have become the ruler of Latveria or become the world's most feared mad scientist-cum-black magician. There'd be no Monster Island for the Mole Man to discover. There would have been no Atlantis, so no Sub-Mariner for the Torch to discover in a Bowery flophouse. And that's within the first five issues there! (laughs)

The fun of the super hero genre comes from this crazy melange of fantasy, legend and science fiction. If you say, "nutty stuff doesn't happen until--now!" that's incredibly limiting to the writers. I understand why they made the decision, it was unique, from a aesthetic standpoint, but, I think, in the big picture, creatively crippled the franchise.

Do you think today's readers would be more accepting of a character like Nightmask?

FVL: See my previous response. (laughs) Look, in a lot of ways the New Universe titles were way ahead of their time--people have said this before me. They were comics in which characters had super powers but were not super heroes. Nightmask was a therapist. D.P.7 were fugitives trying to make sense of their lives. Merc was, uh, a merc.

I think, post-Vertigo, well post-Watchmen (although Watchmen and the New Universe were contemporaries, both starting in 1986), post-Marvel Knights, et cetera, today's readers are more willing to accept super power stories that don't necessarily involve foiling bank robberies and such. I believe Marvel is going to be pleasantly surprised by how well these one-shots do.

DH: Let's discuss your artistic partner on Nightmask, Arnold Pander. Were you familiar with his work previously? Have you seen his pages yet?

FVL: Yes and oh my, yes! To coin a cliche, Arnold is kicking much butt with his pencils. His fluid style is proving to dovetail perfectly with the ever shifting-dreamscape--and frenetic action and violence--of my script. I couldn't be more pleased.

What do you think the New Universe one-shots have to offer new fans who haven't seen the characters before?

FVL: I know that Mark is making sure that all the creators establish the stories in such a way that new fans won't have to have read the other series in order to hit the ground running. So, hopefully it'll be something new--and fun--for them to sink their teeth into!

Sounds like fun! What other projects are you working on at present?

FVL: My Xeric Grant-winning series Action Philosophers continues to go great guns, telling the lives and thoughts of history's A-list brain trust in a hip and humorous fashion. The fourth issue should be out...uh...soon, once Ryan finishes drawing it; that one features Karl Marx, Machiavelli and the Kabbalah.

Action Philosophers? Tell us more!

FVL: Action Philosophers is my self-published, non-fiction comedy series I do with my bud and longtime Wizard cartoonist Ryan Dunlavey. In each issue we profile three famous thinkers with our patented combination of insightful analysis and bathroom humor. In our third issue we did Sigmund Freud, C.G. Jung and Joseph Campbell, so I was definitely inspired to work their ideas into my Nightmask tale!

Interested readers can learn more at our official website: http://www.eviltwincomics.com/ap.html!

I am also working on projects for two big publishers--Marvel being one of them. But men in black came to my door and told me not to speak of them under pain of death.

Alas, I'm sure we'll discover those other projects in the fullness of time. For now, you've given us plenty to think about. Thanks, Fred!

Post-Script: The "Untold Tales of the New Universe" series of one-shots was moderately successful, paving the way for Warren Ellis' reinvention, newuniversal, which ran for ten issues between 2007-2008. The project is effectively dead, as writer Ellis lost his files in a computer accident and Marvel has not requested additional scripts.

Of course, Fred Van Lente would soon join with Incredible Hulk writer Greg Pak to embark on a fruitful partnership that included Incredible Hercules, Chaos War and the currently-running Alpha Flight, the latter of which was just upgraded from an eight-issue miniseries to an open-ended series. He's also written two Marvel Zombies miniseries (3 and 4), Super-Villain Team-Up: M.O.D.O.K.'s 11, X-Men: Noir, and bunches of other good stuff. Also announced at this weekend's FanExpo Canada is the upcoming Destroyers miniseries featuring characters from across the Marvel Universe.

As for Action Philosophers, the series wrapped after nine issues, but Van Lente and Dunlavey are currently collaborating on a history of comic books called, naturally, Comic Book Comics, about to wrap with its sixth issue.

I'd say he's done awfully well for himself.

For past, present and future projects by the esteemed Mr. Van Lente, keep checking this site and visit his website at http://www.fredvanlente.com.

~G.

A Whole New World Of Hurt (Finally: 'Planet Hulk')

2011-08-26T22:56:00.005-07:00

And I do mean finally! After all, I've interviewed writer Greg Pak about it, but until now I've never really written, longform, about the Hulk story of a generation.

Now's the time. You guys deserve a big bonus, on account of August being a record-breaking month for Delusional Honesty. The little blog that could has just passed 50,000 hits--most of which have come in the last year alone! What's more, the site's enjoyed continuing growth, and tomorrow will likely pull ahead of March 2011's record-best month so far. In a crowded blogosphere, Delusional Honesty is rising to the challenge. Not bad for a homespun little one-man endeavor. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Back in September 2005, Marvel announced their plans for the coming year at the Diamond Retailer Summit in Baltimore, MD. I remember seeing the news that the next summer's event would be "Planet Hulk," "the seeds of which are planted in November's Hulk issue." They provided the above graphic, that didn't give anything away. What was "Planet Hulk"? Did some catastrophe involving gamma bombs occur, making a bunch of characters into Hulks? (Yeah, yeah, I know. It happened later.) Nobody knew quite what to expect.

The solicitations in August for Incredible Hulk's November issues were ominous enough, but the creative team of Daniel Way and Keu Cha was less than satisfactory. Then, Cha dropped off the book right after his second issue, with the remainder of the four-part storyline "Peace in Our Time" drawn by Spanish artist Juan Santacruz in Cha's style. One wondered: was Way "Planet Hulk"'s architect?

No! Along came Greg Pak, a relatively new writer to Marvel's ranks, fresh off series like Warlock, X-Men: Phoenix Endsong and especially Marvel 1602: New World. In the latter, Pak tackled the Hulk--well, "a" Hulk--for the first time in print. I remember hearing somewhere how he wanted to work on the Hulk. At the time, after suffering writer Bruce Jones, who'd been on record as being--let's be kind--not particularly fond of the Green Goliath, having someone who actually wanted to write the Hulk on board? I was cautiously optimistic.

I was also on staff at Eric J. Moreels' Comixfan site then, and when Marvel made the announcement, I aggressively pursued Pak for an interview, which ended up being one of the very first published. You know the rest.

(Hint: Now's the time, if you haven't already, to read that first interview. I'll wait.)

"Planet Hulk" was, from the very start, a revelation. In previous years since Joe Quesada took the editorial reins at Marvel, he kept the Hulk in the mold of the Kenneth Johnson-produced television show, mixing in elements of The X-Files show for good measure. Rave reviews arose, then petered out as Bruce Jones' conspiracy storyline went on and on. Writer Peter David took over after Jones' arc hastily concluded, telling three stories--"Tempest Fugit," a "House of M" crossover, and "Destruction," a retconned origin of the Abomination--before he was overwhelmed with more work and elected to again leave the book he'd once spent twelve years writing. In sharp contrast to Jones' stories, this Hulk was crafty and intelligent, his adventures set in the indisputably "comicbooky" milieu of an alien world.

It was a big, bombastic arc where the Hulk could do what he couldn't in many a year: smash, and smash hard. However, the planet Sakaar was also a world where the Hulk was greatly depowered, at least when compared to many of its denizens such as the ruthless Red King and his right hand, the Warbound Shadow, Caiera. Hulk had been sucked through a cosmic portal that likely siphoned his strength, but he was no longer unquestionably "the strongest there is."

Still, we knew from reading that first issue where the story was headed. Brought into a huge alien arena before the Red King, the Hulk found himself swallowed by a Great Devil Corker, an enormous creature. He burst forth from it and leapt toward the king before being struck down by his Shadow's weapon. The king donned an exoskeleton and battled the Hulk, slashing his cheek before having the same done to him. When Caiera, the white-skinned, green-eyed warrior woman told him, "This isn't your world," ol' Greenskin just replied, "Not yet." Bam. Right there, we knew a lot. Pak had recast the Hulk as Maximus in a sci-fi version of Ridley Scott's Gladiator, in a world of blasters and battle-axes. Only this time, the hero would not falter, would not be satisfied until he bested the Red King for humiliating him.

The original "Planet Hulk" storyline was split into three four-part arcs and one two-part finale. In "Exile" (Incredible Hulk #92-95), the Hulk began as a gladiator, amassing a close-knit army of monsters who would become united in combat and dubbed "Warbound." These included the Hulk's first friend on Sakaar, the insectoid Miek; the rock-skinned alien Korg of Kronan, one of Thor's first opponents as the Stone Men of Saturn; No-Name, representative of the Brood, menace to the X-Men; Hiroim the Shamed, a disgraced Sakaarian Shadow Priest; and Elloe Kaifi, a young Imperial woman. Implanted with "obedience disks," the group fought battles in the gladiatorial arena until the Hulk fought the Silver Surfer, who'd also fallen through the portal and been captured by the Red King. The Hulk smashed the Surfer's obedience disk in battle, and his friend rewarded them all by deactivating all the disks. The Hulk and the Surfer led all the freed aliens out of the arena, tearing it down in the process.

In the second arc, "Anarchy" (Incredible Hulk #96-99), the evolution of Miek took precedence. On the run from the Imperial armies, the Warbound found a group of young hivelings Miek thought dead. The young insect took all his cues from the Hulk, who thought that he should never stop making his oppressors pay. Finally, Miek--who was every bit as slight as his name implied--gained the power to impose his will when he metamorphosed into the giant king of his hive. His change echoed that of Banner to Hulk, perfectly setting him up--as Pak would follow in World War Hulk--as the Hulk's dark mirror.

With more force on his side, the Hulk--now known as the Green Scar for the injury inflicted on him by the Red King--marched to war. He met Caiera on the battlefield, and both nearly died even as his blood made strange vines grow from the soil. The Red King interrupted the battle by launching a ship filled with Spikes, alien creatures that mutated any people unlucky enough to make contact. After learning of her master's brazen actions, Caiera joined the Warbound to take him down.

"Allegiance" (Incredible Hulk #100-103) was the third and most important arc of the series, wherein a number of incredible events occurred. After Miek discovered a queen of his race, he lost her to an infection by the Spikes. The Hulk and his Warbound took the battle to the Red King, taking the Shadow People's stone ship and using it to reach more Spikes, with whom he would make an alliance. Along the way, we learned Sakaar's prophecies of the Sakaarson, or savior, and the Worldbreaker, or the destroyer, leading us to wonder which the Hulk might be. The Spikes revealed themselves as beings that once wandered the stars, but whose children became insane when they were marooned on Sakaar. They joined the Warbound in their battle against the Red King, which ended in Hulk's victory.

Since he overthrew the king, the Hulk was crowned Green King, and consummated the slow-burning attraction to Caiera by taking her as his queen. And in that ceremony, the Hulk showed the ultimate act of trust, revealing his dual identity to her. Meanwhile, he declared all of the Imperials and the native insectoids to be Warbound, and hence, brothers.

And did I mention that, during the battle with the Red King, the Hulk held together the planet's tectonic plates? Not bad, not bad. Very safely I can rank Incredible Hulk #102 among the Hulk's finest moments. It's nearly the perfect battle, and one of the most important in the long history of the character. I thought it then, and I still agree with my younger self today.

For the grand conclusion, "Armageddon" (Incredible Hulk #104-105), the Warbound began to make the peace in the power vacuum left in the absence of the Red King. Reminded of his home and his exile at the hands of his "friends," the newly-crowned Green King considered leaving Crown City with his queen to head for the steppes outside the city where he'd never need to fight again. But Caiera convinced him to stay, showing him that people now plowed verdant fields where his blood was spilled...and revealing her pregnancy. After they rounded up the Spikes and returned them to the depths of space, the Hulk and Caiera were ready to live happily ever after. But as they stood in the Crown City square, the ship that brought the Green Scar "home" began to beep, its "warp drive" compromised.

The Hulk barely had time to heft the ship into the air before it exploded in a ball of white fire.

A million people died. Many Imperials. Many natives.

And Caiera.

Caiera, who was the Hulk's physical equal in a way that none of his previous loves came close. In many ways, the Hulk's perfect companion, whose development was so poignant, so perfect. sigh.

"BRING THEM BACK!" the Hulk howled. Sinking deeper into despair amid seas of lava, he said silently, "Bring her back." We knew just how you felt, Hulk. Really, truly.

Then the Warbound came by, in their great stone ship, having saved all the people they could. One of their team, a robot named Arch-E, had a map of the whole universe in its memory banks.

"I bet you can figure out someplace you'd like to go," No-Name said.

The rest, as they say, is history. World War Hulk exploded the very next month all across the Marvel Universe. (You can find my interview with Greg Pak here and the reviews of each issue of the series starting here.)

Upon its release, I revered "Planet Hulk" for its no-nonsense look at the Hulk and its attempt to definitively show what fans knew all along: the Hulk was a hero, and would do the right thing when given the opportunity. The story picked up pace every month, advancing naturally, and yet the ending was never in much doubt. As many heralded, the storyline immediately became a sensation, rightly called one of the best in the character's forty-odd-year history. (And yeah, I had my first-ever letter printed in a Marvel comic in issue #94. So, there's that.)

And although it may seem I've neglected the side-stories in Giant-Size Hulk #1 and Incredible Hulk #100--well, they're no less of gems than the rest of the storyline. "Banner War" in the former spotlighted the Hulk's seldom-seen human half, wisely demonstrating Pak's familiarity with continuity, including a clever cameo by the Hulk's earlier love, Jarella. In the latter's "Planet Cho," Pak's own creation, the whiz-kid Amadeus Cho convinced Reed Richards that the Hulk was still alive and was not where he was supposed to be. "He's a hero," Cho said. "He may hate us puny humans...but he saves us anyway." Insert several nods to the Hulk's heroic actions. I had goosebumps. (Did I mention, I bought the 1-in-50 Michael Turner "Grey Hulk" variant to ish #100? And the green one? And the sketch variant to #98? Well, I have now.)

The arc was a jump-start that the Hulk and his world sorely deserved, and would catapult Greg Pak to the forefront of both Marvel's talent pool of writers and noteworthy Hulk writers. Yeah, I'd say "Planet Hulk" was, very literally, a "smash."

Coming soon: Since I've already reviewed World War Hulk, it's time to say a few words about Skaar: Son of Hulk as well as the resurrection of The Incredible Hulk's original numbering scheme, with Skaar teamed with a powerless Bruce Banner. It's the only era of Greg Pak's tenure I haven't directly addressed, so...get ready, Hulk fans!

Keep spreading the word, and I'll see everyone at 100,000. We'll have a party, have a real good time...dance in the desert, blow up the sunshine. Or something like that.

~G,

DCnU: The New Continuity - Crisis Of Infinite Events (4)

2011-08-25T22:20:00.003-07:00

(DCnU Continuity Series: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5)

This article is the fourth in a series analyzing a concept that has been one of the major underpinnings of comic books since Stan and Jack decided to have each series in their new line of Marvel Comics build on the others before. Here, I'm going to transition from the continuity craziness of the nineties...to the continuity craziness of the 2000s. And you'll see special attention paid to crossover events, a throughline from the last few entries. We're running a bit long, so within the next few days I promise to bring it all home with how DC Comics' "New 52" figures into the mix.

Before the sixties, comics stories only rarely referenced each other, but with a new breed of comic came a new breed of comics fan interested in seeing how disparate elements in the universe connected. While Marvel developed their own, at first tightly-knit continuity, DC experimented with alternate realities across which their adventures took place. In the seventies, when comics' direct market took shape, the shared universe concepts especially took root as did a more fan-centric atmosphere. This was the age of the Omniverse fanzine and the Superman Vs. The Amazing Spider-Man tabloid-size crossover. The crossovers between companies stopped in the eighties, with companies finding value in having their own characters all team-up in line-wide events that haven't stopped to this day. In Crisis on Infinite Earths DC sought to do away with their Multiverse concept in favor of a streamlined, more "realistic" lineup, but only created more problems that would plague them for decades.

In the nineties, artists left the Big Two companies to flex their creative freedoms, largely doing so by inventing their own knockoffs of the characters they'd abandoned. Driven by a whole new breed of fans during the speculator boom, the cross-company events began anew with the likes of Deathmate and DC Vs. Marvel, but then the market crashed. That which survived turned to desperate measures, furthering the line-wide events in hopes that a high-selling event would lift circulation of the lowest-selling titles. There were "zero" issues, "minus 1" issues, even "one million" issues, and more first issues than ever before. (Don't forget the "Alphas." the "Omegas," the 1/2 issues...am I missing any?) Companies whose titles had been ongoing for twenty or thirty years suddenly gave the order to renew, to reinvigorate, to slash and burn and start anew! Those expatriate creators who stormed away were drafted back to companies they left, signed to year-long contracts some couldn't even finish. Circulation plummeted but the companies kept plugging, eventually finding the bottom and climbing back to the surface...only to find themselves incapable of avoiding the same mistakes that led them down the road in the first place.

But, I'm getting way ahead.

The nineties were the first major era of "continuity porn," as I discussed last time. It was the era where, if you broke it down day by day, Mary Jane Watson-Parker was pregnant for over a year, "Marvel-Time," during the Spider-Man Clone Saga (and closer to two years in the real world). It was the era where the ongoing narrative ground to a screeching halt in Avengers Forever for two whole issues while the writers regaled us with "The Secret History of the Avengers" and "Reflections of the Conqueror." It was the era when X-Men editors decided to pick a mid-eighties concept, "The Twelve," which was never really developed, and construct an entire new event around it just because.

Then, kaboom. The event cycles petered out, the last from DC being "Our Worlds At War" and from Marvel, "Maximum Security." Under direction of new editor-in-chief Joe Quesada and president Bill Jemas, Marvel took a "back to basics" approach that saw them eliminate virtually all crossovers for a few years. They also imposed a "dead is dead" rule where no older characters would be resurrected. Graphic novel collections (also called "trade paperbacks") exploded during this era, going hand-in-hand with so-called "decompressed storytelling," wherein fans argued writers had largely abandoned writing single-issue stories in favor of "writing for the trade."

Most noteworthy to continuity enthusiasts was the development of the Ultimate Marvel Universe in 2000. Primarily starring new versions of Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four and the Avengers, its raison d'etre was to introduce a new generation of fans to comics' greatest icons, as Jemas saw the original characters as having too much history for the average person to easily start reading. Ultimate Marvel started and remained a small line, but its influence was large, its success leading to the "continuity light" angle the rest of the Marvel line would soon share. It also began a continuity schism of sorts in that Marvel was now actively telling stories about two current continuities, unlike previous flirtations with alternate product lines like the New Universe, 2099, and various kid-friendly "Marvel Universe" anthologies.

It was only after Brian Michael Bendis' success on Ultimate Spider-Man and Mark Millar's success on The Ultimates that J. Michael Straczynski took up residence on Amazing Spider-Man, Bruce Jones jumped aboard The Incredible Hulk, and Geoff Johns (yes, the same continuity enthusiast as in the last section) went wild with The Avengers. Four- and six-part storylines became de rigeur so they could easily be collected in graphic novels.

Jemas and Quesada's approach was hugely successful. With no-overprint rules, circulation rose. Without linkage to several other titles every month, circulation rose as continuity came untangled. They said they'd focus on the characters, but they'd also aim for the sky. Some titles like X-Force were radically changed for the better; some, like Thunderbolts, for the worse. Some books were really, truly great, while others couldn't be called more than an interesting experiment.

Then, after Jemas and Quesada brought back the focus on the characters, you knew what would come next.

Crossovers. Lots and lots and lots of crossovers.

It was like Marvel was making up for lost time, how they started coming up with new events predicated on the new continuity. Avengers Disassembled was the first domino to fall, a series-within-a-series by Brian Michael Bendis and David Finch, which in turn begat House of M, a miniseries tied into not just Avengers but also the X-Men franchise, newly re-energized by Joss Whedon. These weren't just stories: they were events, crossovers like in the eighties, version 2.0. Not only did Marvel involve issues of other series in the events, but starting with House of M they also created other miniseries just to tell tertiary tales without interrupting the main series' ongoing storylines.

It was a sharp turn away from the Marvel of the previous few years, where all of the titles virtually kept to themselves. The walls came tumbling down, and suddenly it made sense to Quesada that everyone should cease being social wallflowers, play nice, get together for a war every now and then. I don't think it's a coincidence that the drastic shift took place in mid-2004, shortly after president Bill Jemas left the company due to disagreements with staff including Quesada and Ike Perlmutter, then VP of Marvel's board of directors.

DC jumped on the crossover bandwagon again in 2005 after going minor-league in the interim with stories like "Bruce Wayne: Fugitive" and, ahem, "Hush." (I know I'm going to get it for calling "Hush" "minor-league.") They revived the "Crisis" brand in 2004 with Brad Meltzer and Rags Morales' Identity Crisis, a seven-issue event. Going bigger and badder than their brethren down the street, new VP - executive editor Dan DiDio and Geoff Johns then plotted out Infinite Crisis, a thematic sequel to Crisis on Infinite Earths that would begin in the Countdown to Infinite Crisis one-shot and continue through four six-issue miniseries and a few issues of other titles before culminating in the main event series. (Again, the series was seven issues in length. Seems like a focus group-tested number, right?) Whereas Marvel's events did play loosely with some older aspects of continuity, Infinite Crisis embraced the older continuity wholeheartedly under the pen of Geoff Johns.

The event culture of the 2000s ramped up in the wake of Infinite Crisis, with 52, a weekly series, spinning off from the former and focusing on a group of new and old heroes during a "missing year" cleverly inserted during the larger event. For a few months, DC emblazoned a "One Year Later" logo on all its main titles. Once 52 finished, another weekly series began, counting down to yet another event: Grant Morrison's Final Crisis (no, really), an ode to Jack Kirby's "Fourth World" saga of the seventies. Meanwhile, they started another event with Green Lantern: Rebirth, which led a few years later to a larger event, The Sinestro Corps War, that in turn led to the next major DC event, Blackest Night. Both Final Crisis and Blackest Night had additional crossovers in either special one-shots or limited series, again, not to disrupt the ongoing regular series. 52 even had a special "spinoff" title during its fiftieth week in World War III. And Morrison's Final Crisis also resurrected Barry Allen, the Silver Age Flash, leading to The Flash: Rebirth, a new Flash series, and ultimately, Flashpoint.

Not to be outdone, Marvel kept trucking past House of M with a looser "umbrella" event, "Decimation," exploring the main series' aftermath. In between various other series, Bendis became a major force in establishing the company's overall continuity, writing or contributing to crossovers including Secret War, Secret Invasion, "Dark Reign," "The Heroic Age," and Siege. The Ultimates' Mark Millar wrote Civil War in between, while Greg Pak contributed to World War Hulk and Chaos War. Meanwhile writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning perpetuated event after event in the cosmic side of the Marvel Universe in Annihilation, Annihilation: Conquest, War of Kings, Realm of Kings, and Thanos Imperative. The X-Men went through events like they went through dirty laundry, with Endangered Species followed by Messiah Complex, Messiah War, Second Coming and beaucoup others.

And when traditional events couldn't "do it" anymore, Marvel turned to headlines, beginning most famously with the short-lived death of Captain America in the aftermath of Civil War. Earlier this year, writer Jonathan Hickman drew attention to the Fantastic Four with the death of Johnny Storm, Marvel's second-generation Human Torch. And a few short weeks ago, Bendis wrote the death of Spider-Man (albeit his Ultimate Marvel version) and he is credited as chief creator of Miles Morales, the new Spider-Man (again of the Ultimate Marvel Universe).

Anyone will tell you, a series of "events" such as these are no substitute for good, solid storytelling. (Which isn't to say that there aren't some good, solid stories being told against the backdrop of said events. You may have to look hard, but they're there.) At some point, when every series tries to have a "special event" then nothing is special and everything is the same. That's why Marvel has been reaching for mainstream news exposure. Like a junkie, they need to try bigger and bigger things to achieve the same "kick."

What's more, they appear to be convinced that every single book in their line must inevitably feed back to another, to demonstrate that they have continuity between their titles, that they all "matter," and moreover, that a reader's experience may be enriched by picking up as many times as he can. What occurs to me is that this view, shared by editor-in-chief Axel Alonso, is so diametrically opposed to the way Quesada worked with Jemas, it's laughable. The events all blur into each other, coordinated for maximum sales potential. Marvel almost seems afraid to let a series stand on its own without being under some event umbrella of some kind that's designed specifically to help launch a whole group of series. Write some stories in a couple of major series that lead into one big event, hype the hell out of said event, release a bunch of crossovers in existing series or in new miniseries, then spin off or relaunch several series out of the end of the event, preferably under some new event umbrella. Lather, rinse, repeat.

It never occurs to the powers-that-be that stories or characters might be able to stand on their own without constantly being a part of some larger event or continuity. You know, like it was when Quesada and Jemas started working together. When they invented Ultimate Marvel. When they diversified the Marvel line. When they experimented, and ended up lifting Marvel out of the doldrums in the early 2000s.

When everything's an event, nothing is an event. When the whole Marvel or DC line becomes an endless series of events, nothing's noteworthy. And something's gotta give.

And that, my friends, pushes us inexorably toward Flashpoint and "The New 52."

~G.

(DCnU Continuity Series: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5)

Guest Blog: Samurai Comics Steps Up In AZ With A New Mesa Store

2011-08-23T21:01:00.004-07:00

Considering all the big news coming out of Phoenix this week with the closing of Mike Malve's Atomic Comics chain of stores, I thought it was important to give all the news and insight I can. To that end, tonight I'm turning my blog over to Harold "Ole' Greenskin" Kayser, a good friend who's been following the ongoing drama. He and I both thought it necessary to correct some of the erroneous stories that have been published today. Please read the following and spread the word. At Delusional Honesty, we're the little engine that could, and I like to get the full picture. Thanks for reading.

Samurai's Camelback location, with boxes & boxes of Atomic's shipment.

"Bleeding Cool Gets it Wrong...."

The comic world was rocked by the closing of Atomic Comics, the largest retailer in the southwestern US, on Sunday. That's all I'm going to say about the closing specifically, as I can't add anything else that hasn't already been covered by numerous sites. Atomic Comics customers and the East Valley especially faced a proverbial black hole with the sudden closure.

Mike Banks, owner of Samurai Comics, talked with his Diamond Comic Distributors representatives about the situation and feverishly tried to work out a deal to help fill the void. They were successful, and Samurai Comics received the entire Atomic Comics shipment today. He's in the process of getting the product set up and ready for distribution on Wednesday. Also, Mike and his wife Morhya struck a deal late today to open a "pop-up" Samurai Comics directly adjacent to the Atomic Comics location on South Country Club Drive in Mesa. Fret not, Atomic Comics customers! You can go to almost the same location and get your new comics on Wednesday starting at 9:00am.

Now, I feel the need to set the record straight regarding the postings on Bleeding Cool, a comics news site run by Rich Johnston.

Bleeding Cool posted an article that Phoenix retailer All About Books & Comics had reached an agreement with Diamond to handle all of the product for Atomic Comics and their customers:

The updated Bleeding Cool post, which includes a few little bits about Samurai Comics.

"Local Phoenix store All About Books & Comics has come to a deal with comics distributor Diamond over the store’s outstanding orders..."

At least for this week this statement is completely inaccurate and false. Samurai Comics has received the entire shipment for Atomic Comics and new product will be on hand in the morning. Now, All About Books & Comics might be increasing their shipment orders to handle any extra customers from the Atomic store closings, but they did not receive the shipment this week.

To take it a step further, according to Mike Banks, Samurai Comics will be acting as a mini-distributor for all the other local retail stores. If any store runs out of product, Samurai Comics will be on hand to get them what they need from the excess shipment that they are handling.

This is big...why? It's not, "Hey, send your customer here so we can get the sale." It's basically working with each retailer for the betterment of the whole, something you don't see every day in the business world. That's integrity, a willingness to help out the competition because it's the right thing to do. Kudos, Mike!

AAB&C's site post. Nowhere do they mention they're getting Atomic's shipments.

It is my understanding that Diamond will be working in coming weeks with all retailers that are willing to step up and handle extra product that Atomic was handling.

It is a sad state...the one store that is truly stepping up and going above and beyond is Samurai Comics and their owners Mike & Morhya Banks. It is unfortunate that other stores are getting the bulk of the credit for riding the coattails of the one taking all the risk and doing all the work. In many of these articles they are not even mentioned first.

I personally exchanged several emails with Rich Johnston regarding his Bleeding Cool postings and he basically added the Samurai Comics information after the fact. According to his e-mail, all of his information came from the owners of All About Books & Comics. Once confronted with the truth he basically turned it into a battle of who is the better store rather than focusing on correcting his blog.

-Harold Kayser

So there you have it: Samurai Comics has Atomic Comics' intended shipments and will be open Wednesday from 9am to sell them in the storefront right next to the original Atomic Comics Mesa Superstore.

Please, don't make this a battle of which store is best, like Rich Johnston seems to want it to be. Support the retailer you feel is best deserving of your hard-earned money. It's that simple. For the nonce, Samurai Comics is getting the orders meant for Atomic Comics stores. They're a class act, run by great people. Samurai was one of the first retailers spotlighted by Marvel Comics in their special retailer program last year. That speaks volumes for Mike Banks' commitment to his customers and the industry.

Now as far as prepaid stuff goes, that's all to be determined. As Mike Malve did file for bankruptcy, the bank may own the full contents of the stores including your merchandise. You may wish to consult with your credit card company to see if you can get your money back for anything you weren't able to pick up before the sudden closures. Good luck.

If you want to contact Samurai Comics, please call the Central Phoenix location at (602) 265-8886 or the West Phoenix location at (623) 872-8886. For now, there is no contact information for the Mesa location, but I'll update this site with any changes.

Happy collecting!

~Gary M. Miller

Unlimited Alpha Flight?

2011-08-23T18:57:00.000-07:00

Very interesting post courtesy of a news tidbit submitted me by The Daily P.O.P.'s own Jameson Lee. Did anyone else catch this comment on Formspring? Should we take the question asker's observation with a grain of salt? Will there be more to Marvel's "Pint O' CB" panel at this weekend's FanExpo Canada than an announcement regarding the recent "Destroy" promo that has the #FVL hashtag attached?

Stay tuned...

~G.

Eve Of Destruction

2011-08-22T13:52:00.001-07:00

Marvel Comics is now hyping an event set for 2012 with the tagline, "Destroy!" featuring a number of their more monstrous characters. I have a preview image, but due to SPOILERS mainly for Incredible Hulks #635, you'll have to click to see it after the jump!

Click for larger version.

As you can see, the image features some well-known characters, like the She-Hulk (Jennifer Walters), the FF's Thing, and the Beast, late of the Secret Avengers (but also an X-Man). It also features some not-so-well-known characters, like Karkas of the Eternals and Devil Dinosaur, both Jack Kirby creations from the seventies. Most interestingly, it features Rick Jones, the "A-Bomb," which means we can conclude that the perennial superhero sidekick will not lose his powers in the final segment of "Heart of the Monster," on sale next Wednesday.

The image, drawn by Carlo Pagulayan and Jason Paz and colored by Chris Sotomayor, teases a project that will be announced this Saturday at FanExpo Canada during the Pint O' CB panel. Marvel encourages fans to "Join the conversation on Twitter with #FVL!" The only "FVL" relevant to Marvel I know is one Fred Van Lente, writer of good stuff like Herc, Alpha Flight and Comic Book Comics and lotsa other fun tales. While it seems like just the kind of nutty line-up ol' Fred would love to write, we'll have to wait and see for more info.

So, what do you think, sirs?

~G.

No Delusions: Atomic Comics Has Closed

2011-08-22T12:48:00.002-07:00

The rumors are true. As of last night, August 21, Atomic Comics, the largest comics chain retailer in the southwestern United States, is no more. Owner Mike Malve verified the chain's closing in a statement issued early this morning, citing the current financial climate as primary reason for his stores' collapse.

This wasn't the first sign of trouble for Malve and his stores. A car crashed into the Mesa Superstore location in late 2006, causing incredible damage including a water main break that damaged over a million dollars in inventory. The store closed for five months, after which much of the clientele never returned. Add the current economic downturn to the precipitating event, and it isn't hard to see it was all a perfect storm that led to Atomic's collapse.

Even before moving to Phoenix, I'd always stop by one of Atomic's locations when vacationing here. I still have many a back issue with an Atomic Comics price sticker on the bag, or a backing board with the mighty words "BUY ATOMIC OR DIE" stamped in red. The store's employees, like managers Julian Moraga and Nick Hartrick, and others like Tobias Robbins, always were a great source of information and made me feel at home. Others have described Atomic as the "Cheers" of comic book stores, and I suppose that's pretty accurate. And none was more pleasant or easygoing than Mike Malve.

Since moving here, I truly enjoyed talking with Mike. He knew the big boys at Marvel, DC and Image, and regularly compiled an "industry insider" newsletter telling how books were selling at his stores. Some of the highlights of being here in Phoenix included the talent he was able to attract for events. Geoff Johns and Sterling Gates came to town for Free Comic Book Day 2009 (a year after I missed out on the Image Comics founders reunion). Jason Aaron signed the first volume of Scalped for me last year while we talked about Daimon Hellstrom and Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (yes, he's a fan--what of it?). Most worthwhile were the writing seminars held on late nights at the Mesa store, where I was able to discuss writing techniques, both in a group and one-on-one, with the likes of Jonathan Hickman and Brian Michael Bendis.

Yet, for all the elbow-rubbing with the bigwigs, Mike was able to relate to his customers, and I enjoyed speaking with him when I'd see him in one of the shops or at a convention. I know he was worried about the ramifications of the DC "New 52"--he and I agreed that DC's efforts would be better served relaunching the entire line over several months and not in one big push--but overall he was optimistic for the industry. He said that retailers should consider taking out loans so they could order as many #1s as they could because he felt the industry and the fans were good for it. That's confidence in the product.

Behind the scenes, obviously, trouble was brewing, for all the reasons I've cited above. Now, the signs seem painfully apparent. Most telling appears to be the below ad, which advertised the extension of the July "$1 Sale" on back issues until August 21--coincidentally, or perhaps not so coincidentally, Atomic's last day in business. Scary, huh?

Certainly, Mike's superhero status in the comics community, not just in Arizona but across the country, means Atomic's closure leaves a tremendous hole in the heart of the industry. It is not, however, a signal of "the end times" the like of which I prognosticated in earlier columns. This was not (solely) about DC's "New 52," which is too easy a target (although reports suggest the owner was finding it difficult to pay for all of DC's September releases as the Final Order Cutoff date loomed). Digital distribution may have been threatening, true. And once a business finds its cash flow severely curtailed, it's difficult to find ways to build the base back up.

But I know Mike was trying. Just last year, his store had a huge presence in the film adaptation of Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.'s creator-owned comic Kick-Ass, and there was an Atomic Comics casino in this year's X-Men: First Class. Still it appears the advertising didn't pay off when it mattered.

Now, Mike Malve has filed for bankruptcy, a difficult but necessary decision. I understand he's lost all inventory in all the stores as well as his family's house, which was secured against the properties' leases. I can only hope he lands on his feet and once again finds a way to substantially contribute to the ongoing growth of the medium he loves so much.

Similarly, I hope Phoenix comic fans don't submit to the same kind of despair that occurred in the wake of Atomic's 2006 temporary closure. I hope they realize there are other comic shops in the area that practice excellent customer service and offer all the books they used to have on their pull lists at Mike's stores. Two stores I can personally vouch for include Mike Banks' terrific Samurai Comics (for whose website I wrote the original version of my "Who Is Red Hulk?" article) and Alan & Marsha Giroux's incredible All About Books & Comics (which has the largest inventory of back issues in town). They deserve your business in the wake of the bad news coming from Atomic Comics yesterday.

So if you're in the Phoenix metro area and are thinking of giving up the hobby, or ordering from some online retailer that offers bigger discounts, think twice. Support your local retailers, otherwise, if a chain of four stores can disappear...!

God bless, Mike. You're one of the good ones. You'll find your way back.

~G.