The Cool Kids Table

Should Have Beens: The Ray

2012-01-26T23:37:00.001-05:00

Probably (maybe?) hundreds of new characters are created in super hero comics each year, yet only a precious few (if that) catch enough to even become reserve Avengers or Justice League alternates, let alone headliners. A lot of times the most popular “new” characters are just old friends wearing new clothes or familiar names (though I’m not complaining, because I love me some Flash Thompson as Venom and Kaine as Scarlet Spider; thanks Steve “recycle, reduce, reuse and close the loop” Wacker). The true newbies are like so many little sperm struggling to reach the egg, with only one ultimately surviving (my wife is a labor and deliver nurse and I fear it’s beginning to affect my metaphors).

Take this situation and multiply by the fold of a hundred foil variants in the 90’s, where a larger market, more publishers and an exponentially wider swath of titles with new ones being launched seemingly every day (not just Wednesday) meant thousands upon thousands of characters we barely got 12 issues to meet before they faded off into obscurity.

In large part, the concepts that didn’t survive and haven’t experienced a renaissance since make sense in retrospect, as they had the feel of the assembly line, but in some cases, I remain somewhat baffled by the ones that got away.

The Ray was a legacy character before that was that big a thing at DC (you had the Silver Age successors and Wally West, but the concept didn’t full on explode until the JSA series). I was drawn to the character without knowing a thing about him because he had such a cool, striking look designed by current Marvel CCO Joe Quesada. During an era where most costumes were either more colorful than the set of Flashdance or simplified to a t-shirt and jeans, Ray bucked every trend. When he was powered down, he had the intriguing combination of mostly white with yellow plus a neat jacket and unique helmet, then while using his powers he went jet black offset by patches of white. He looked like nothing else out there and was expertly handled by Quesada, Howard Porter and others.

Ray also had a crazy origin wherein he grew up in his boarded up basement raised by his uncle and privately tutored because his father, the original Ray, didn’t want him exposed to sunlight which would activate his powers too early; moreover, he was told he was allergic to light, making his childhood lonely and downright freaky. He eventually meets his dad and refuses his request to succeed him as a hero—understandable given that this dude let him rot in a basement for the first 18 years of his life—but then eventually does it for the greater good.

It’s a very unusual genesis for a character with grim elements that weren’t gritty just for the sake of, but because they were story driven. It also set Ray apart personality-wise as he was leery and distrusting with good reason given his upbringing, but also genial and eager to experience the world; he could flip the switch from surly to naïve like your average teenager but there was story meat as to why.

Ray was put on the Justice League pretty quickly and became the centerpiece of Justice League Task Force not long after. I tend to think that was maybe too much too soon as he didn’t really have time to develop organically and become a true fan favorite before he was stacking up next to the (relative) big guns and instantly becoming less impressive by comparison. I remember a moment during the climax of Zero Hour where Ray is the grizzled “been there, done that” guy giving Damage a hard time and thinking how that seemed odd given that he’d only been in existence a couple years, but a lot of stuff was crammed into those years.

I daresay The Ray was a character a bit ahead of his time. The persona created by Jack C. Harris and later honed by Christopher Priest is one that could really have thrived in the more character/story-driven last decade as opposed to the flashy 90’s. If he debuted in the past 10 years, I believe The Ray could have caught on as a cult favorite with strong followings among the type of people who dig something like Invincible (story of a kid lied to by his hero father and forced to grow up too fast). I also think he was put on the Justice League too fast as it felt like a case of that brand name being used to foist a character upon us rather than it being awarded to him because we voiced our approval.

Every time Ray has shown up since his initial run, there’s usually a requisite nostalgia cheer, but more a stigma of coming from an era which wasn’t ready for him, which is a shame.

30 Comics I Dig

2012-01-24T19:10:00.000-05:00

100 BULLETS #86

THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF THE ESCAPIST #8

ANNIHILATION PROLOGUE #1

ARCHIE MEETS THE PUNISHER #1

AVENGERS #13

CABLE & DEADPOOL #21

DEADSHOT #1

FANTASTIC FOUR #67

THE FLASH #164

GREEN LANTERN #78

INFINITY CRUSADE #5

JLA INCARNATIONS #2

LEGEND #3

MADROX #1

THE MUPPET SHOW #1

NEW TEEN TITANS #33

NEW WARRIORS #37

NOVA #12

THE RAY #1

ROBIN III #2

SHAME ITSELF #1

STAN LEE MEETS DOCTOR STRANGE #1

STORMWATCH: POST HUMAN DIVISION #1

SUPERBOY ANNUAL #1

TASKMASTER #3

ULTIMATE X-MEN #10

UNCANNY X-MEN #297

USAGI YOJIMBO #100

WOLVERINE: SAUDADE #1

X-TREME X-MEN #8

The Best of Rock of Ages (or My Favorite Hair Metal Songs)

2012-01-22T17:10:00.000-05:00

On Friday, my wife, Megan, surprised me at the Marvel offices with my parents, who came down from Massachusetts to celebrate my birthday (it’s Tuesday, so don’t worry, you didn’t miss it). They took me out to dinner and we stayed overnight in New York City, but probably the highlight (besides seeing my folks) was getting to see Rock of Ages on Broadway, a show I’ve been wanting to check out since Bret Michaels’ ill-fated Tonys appearance a couple years back.

Rock of Ages is basically a loosely-scripted story of some folks trying to thrive in the 1980’s Los Angeles rock scene with requisite love story, kids who want to make it big, shady characters, etc.; really it’s just an excuse to put on a musical where the soundtrack is all hair metal and monster ballads from Poison, Journey, Bon Jovi and so on, which as anybody knows is music to my ears in more ways than one.

My mother asked me after the show where exactly my love for this kind of music came from—I was after all born in 1982, so I was pretty young during the heyday of hair metal—and best I could manage is that I probably had a camp counselor who liked it and turned me onto it. I can say that from about middle school on I devoured every bit of Guns N Roses and Motley Crue I could get my hands on plus any chintzy collection like Monster of Rock or Monster Ballads advertised on late night TV and there is no music I like more.

When I listen to music, my prime goal is to get pumped up or at least feel some sort of powerful emotion. I like to be able to picture myself doing something epic, to lose myself in the riffs and chorus so I’m squinting my eyes and looking like a fool to anybody around me. Lyrics and poetry are really secondary to me when they come up against rocking guitar or drum solos that make me want to go run a marathon I’ll get winded thirty seconds into; I want to hear guys (and girls) scream rather than sing.

Hair metal can totally be beautiful (the first dance at my wedding, after some persuasion, was a super slow version of “When I See You Smile” by Bad English), but all I’m really looking for is something that makes my arms tingle and makes me want to get up and jump. I don’t get that from today’s music, be it top 40 or indy, though much love and respect to people who do.

I had more fun at Rock of Ages than I’ve probably ever had at a show. The critic in me knows it wasn’t the best show I’ve ever seen (and I’m skeptical on how well it will translate to film this year since it was pretty light on plot and the rowdy, drunken crowd was a huge player in making it awesome), but I didn’t care because I was on my feet smiling, clapping along and scoring high fives from cast members as they ran up the aisle (so glad I took the aisle seat).

Here are my ten favorite numbers from the show, which incidentally are some of my favorite songs from the 80’s period (maybe I’ll get to a second post sooner than later on the songs I wish had made the show but probably got left out due to rights issues; 80’s rockers aren’t always known for their generous spirit with this type of thing).

“Sister Christian” by Night Ranger
Night Ranger’s one (real) hit is a perfect marriage of jam and ballad, with the flowing verses into a kick ass chorus. It’s also right off the bat an example of Rock of Ages’ ability to do what I was concerned they wouldn’t as far as shoehorning the actual lyrics of these songs into a story with very few alterations. The female lead is named Sherrie Christian, so her flight from small town Kansas to L.A. fits the song with her last name as the hook, the early parts following her parents’ disapproval, and the rev up into the “motoring” chorus transitioning her story into a love story with wannabe rocker Drew Boley (they get even more bang for their buck off her name by using Steve Perry’s “Oh Sherrie” for Drew’s second act pursuit of his girl).

“We Built This City” by Starship
Every time I’ve ever heard this song played anywhere, those opening staccatos never fail to get a big cheer, and the crowd I saw this show with went nuts for them. You get little tastes throughout, as the song initially gets subverted by the bad guys looking to demolish the Sunset Strip, but it keeps popping up later on as the voice of protest from those looking to maintain the rock. Great anthem for the cool used to perfection here.

“More than Words”/“Heaven”/“To Be With You” by Extreme/Warrant/Mr. Big
A truly epic mash-up that puts that crap on Glee to shame (and by the way, the reason “Don’t Stop Believin’,” the big show closing number, doesn’t make this list is because Glee ruined it for me, so screw those guys). On one side, you’ve got Sherrie realizing she’s got feelings for Drew with the combination of Extreme and then Mr. Big, two of the best ballads of the era. On the flip side, Drew keeps coming up with terrible lyrics to the tune of “Heaven,” then breaks through with the real deal by using Sherrie for inspiration and scores a gig off his righteous jam.

“Here I Go Again” by Whitesnake
Lonny, the narrator and general comic relief, breaks the fourth wall and sets this first act ending number up by explaining this is where “everybody’s shit is fucked up” and we get a killer montage of Drew selling out to get a record deal, Sherrie turning to exotic dancing, Regina protesting the development and Dennis lamenting the loss of his club; a bunch of different voices (plus the ensemble) meshing in glorious symphony as they march toward the second act.

“The Final Countdown” by Europe
Europe’s industrial rock epic serves as the backdrop to start the second act, with construction crews coming in to demolish the Sunset Strip as our heroes attempt to fight back against the establishment in exaggerated (and hilarious) slow motion. There’s a creepy quality to the booming industrial sound of “The Final Countdown” that makes it ominous, but it’s also overblown enough that it’s ripe to accompany physical comedy.

“High Enough” by Damn Yankees
One of the very best monster ballads of the 80’s plays for Drew and Sherrie’s near-reconciliation, and I’ll let bassist/vocalist Jack Blades (also of Night Ranger) explain why it was perfect: “‘High Enough' was about how you love someone so much and you just don't want to scare them away. And it's like, do I take the next step? And then she freaks out when you go, 'I love you.' And it's like, 'What!?!? I'm outta here!' And you're, 'Wait a minute! Come back!' But then the girl comes back, because in the bridge it's, (singing) 'The next thing I remember I was running back for more.' You know how you get scared at first when you fall in love, and everybody freaks out, and that can't be right. And then you go, Wait a minute, this is great, let's forget about the past. Can you fly me over yesterday? Can you take me high enough to fly me over yesterday?”

“I Hate Myself for Loving You”/“Heat of the Moment” by Joan Jett & The Blackhearts/Asia
A great spotlight mash-up for Sherrie as well as Stacee Jaxx, the rocker diva who she slept with after Drew said he just wanted to be friends and who got her fired from the club (he was one of the best characters in the show—played by the understudy no less!—and I’m super pissed I had to use the bathroom during his intro, which happened to be to one of my favorite songs ever, Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive”) as she asserts her new independence via Joan Jett and he fails at a last ditch grasp at dignity with Asia before getting punched out.

“Hit Me with Your Best Shot” Pat Benatar
One of the running subplots of the show is Franz, the effeminate son of the German developer who wants to level the Strip, falling in love with rebellious city planner Regina (“I’m not gay, I’m just German!”) and trying to find the guts to stand up to his dad. After a great slow burn, he finally does it here, tearing away his suit to reveal a spandex singlet and belting out Pat Benatar’s signature song as he makes his goofy and excellent stand. It looks like the Franz character got cut from the movie (from the trailer at least), which is a bummer, because he was one of my favorites (and portrayed by another understudy!).

“Can’t Fight This Feeling” by REO Speedwagon
Probably the two biggest crowd pleasing characters in the entire show are Dennis and Lonny, the aging rocker/owner of the Bourbon Room (where most of the action takes place) and his loyal, surprisingly nimble (dude busts out crazy pirouettes and whatnot) protégé. In the movie, they’ll be played by Alex Baldwin and Russell Brand, so that should be interesting. Here, they confess their “deeper feelings” for one another by singing and pantomiming along to REO Speedwagon’s song the same way my buddies and I used to when we did talent shows at camp (the pantomiming, not the confessing feeling part), i.e. actually acting like they’re opening a door every time they say that line. No number got more laughs and cheers than this one, and deservedly so.

“The Search is Over” by Survivor
A lot of people only know Survivor for “Eye of the Tiger” (if they know who sang that song at all), but as a proud owner of their greatest hits album, I can tell you they are a seriously rocking band who, like the Rocky movies, can pull off poetic as well as they do pump-up. This ballad about realizing the person you loved was right in front of you all along appropriately scores Drew and Sherrie’s romantic reconciliation scene and bridges to the end of the show.

All in all, an awesome experience that I would gladly repeat if any of my pals reading this feel like taking a trip to Broadway and floating me a couple hundred bucks (tickets aren’t that much, but I’d figured I’d go for it).

Who I Want Archie to Meet Next

2012-01-15T18:11:00.000-05:00

While I’ve expanded my comic book consciousness significantly over the past decade or so, I’ll always be first and foremost a super hero guy. That said Archie Comics has always been near and dear to my heart.

When I was a kid, while I was only picking up the occasional spare issue of Spider-Man or Avengers, I’d regularly grab all the Archie I could get my hands on, from Archie & Friends to Laugh to Jughead to Betty & Veronica (if nobody was looking). I totally went in for Jughead’s Time Police, Archie 3000 and whatever that weird sci fi book with Dilton was.

I vividly remember that I would take baths when I was a kid (not showers? I don’t know) and while I didn’t want to “damage” my super hero books, I’d always bring an Archie double digest in the tub and end up with my toes and fingers wrinkled because I wanted to finish the whole thing.

Something about the clearly defined characters, classic art, and easy-to-follow storylines appealed to me; it was like comfort food comics. At the same time, even at that age with my writing muscles barely flexed, I had a lot of respect for the guys who wrote Archie because they had to take a pretty firmly and inflexibly established set of guidelines and then create within those, but for the most part, they cranked out a ton of new ideas and stories each month (with the occasional unintentional repeat).

These days, I’m fortunate enough to know one of those writers: the immensely talented and congenial Alex Segura, a good friend as well as PR guru for Archie who has taken up the pen on several high profile stories as of late. Since Alex started at Archie, coincidentally or not they’ve been grabbing a lot of headlines with cool concepts like the stories set in parallel futures with Archie married to Betty and Veronica, openly gay character Kevin Keller and more.

Most recently, in a move right up there with the seminal Archie Meets the Punisher one-shot from the 90’s Alex has helped bring the legendary band KISS to Riverdale in a four-part story currently unfolding in the main Archie book. It’s been a fun read that made me realize how much I’ve missed these characters.

In that vein, with the sky seemingly the limit as far as who could show up in an Archie comic and a pipeline to the powers that be, I’ve compiled a list of crossovers I want to see. Now it would have been easy to come up with “Yeah, that makes sense” stuff from a pop culture standpoint just by surveying the stuff my wife watches on TV and suggesting Jersey Shore and Kardashian knock-off stories, but this is a purely Ben Morse fantasy list, so those ideas get benched regardless of financial appeal (but you can have them too, Segura).

MOTLEY CRUE
After KISS, this is the next logical step, right? To the best of my knowledge Archie doesn’t have plans to start a mature readers line, so I’ll likely never see them do the Motley Crue story I really want to see, but there’s still plenty of potential. Maybe it comes down to the Crue against the Archies against Josie & the Pussycats in a Battle of the Bands. Maybe Reggie becomes a roadie for Motley and has to spend a week trying to make sure Nikki and Vince don’t kill anybody in Riverdale. Maybe you can just get Tommy Lee to co-write the story with the part of his anatomy that co-authored Tommyland (look it up if you can’t guess). Regardless, Bret Michaels makes a last page cameo to set up the Poison guest shot to end the trilogy.

ANTHONY BOURDAIN
The well-known chef, food critic and crank is already doing some sort of gastro comic I believe this year and there’s few better known characters who love to eat than Jughead, so this seems a perfect fit. Bourdain could be coming to Riverdale for No Reservations and give Pop’s a savage review that prompts Jughead to challenge him to an eating contest. It’s classic “heroes fight and then team-up” stuff. Bobby Flay can be the real bad guys trying to open a chain soda shoppe down the street.

GOSSIP GIRL
Kiel will back me up on this one. I would love if there is a to-this-point-unseen Upper East Side section of Riverdale that houses analogues of the Gossip Girl cast and a school redistricting moves them into the orbit of Archie and friends. Archie and Dan switch places in their respective love triangles with Betty/Veronica and Blair/Serena. Chuck introduces Jughead to the world of true hedonism. Jenny and Cheryl Blossom have a mean girl throw down. Nobody from any of the bands has any idea who Rufus is. Nate and Reggie have a really boring storyline. Serena sleeps with Mr. Weatherbee. It writes itself!

WITCHBLADE
Because everybody in comics crosses over with Witchblade eventually. Also, Archie has two of the most iconic female comic book characters in history and I want to see how the artists handle this.

ZACK RYDER
Archie goes nuts when his favorite WWE Superstar comes to town, because you know he’s totally a Broski. Really I just want to see Archie with spiked hair and a Broski headband. I’m not quite sure what the story would be.

X-TREME
Foreign exchange student.

Paragraph Movie Reviews: Friends With Benefits

2012-01-14T00:22:00.000-05:00

If you don't have plans to see this movie, you can check the spoilers here and then come back.

Just not good. The plot was lame romantic comedy fodder--two friends decide to "just have sex" but fall for each an hour and a half or so later--but not irredeemable with a better script, which this did not have. Almost every line spoken by either of the main characters was some sort of sarcastic snark to the point where I was just angry at them. Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis are among the most likable performers I can think of, but in this film their characters of Dylan and Jamie are just irritating. It doesn't help that both leads seem completely unmotivated for the most part and deliver said crappy lines as if they're reading off cue cards. There are rare moments when they pick up a gag and make it work that had me mourning for the potential of this pairing if both were performing at 100%, but a lot more where I just wanted them to go away. The highlights are the supporting turns from Patricia Clarkson as Jamie's hippie mom and Woody Harrelson as Dylan's freewheeling gay buddy plus a great cameo from Emma Stone having more fun than anybody else in the cast, but Richard Jenkins, Jenna Elfman and others who should be better just whiff. With this cast, even a flimsy premise should have potential, but they came off as if the script had beaten down any enthusiasm they might have had, and less then 10 minutes in I felt the same way.

How an American "Misfits" Could Work

2012-01-10T23:54:00.004-05:00

After a comment on my previous post (shout out to Keith!) about my new obsession "Skins," I had intended eventually to write a post on another British television series Robin introduced me to that I really liked, "Misfits." I didn't intended to write about it this quickly, but hilariously enough, today I discovered some interesting news that ties into both "Misfits" and my "Skins" post. Specifically, "Misfits" is being remade into an American show—to which my initial reaction was, "of course it was."

In all seriousness, "Misfits" is a fantastic show. It focuses on a group of young delinquents all on court-mandated community service for committing various crimes and misdemeanors. A freak storm ends up giving them all different superpowers—ranging from invisibility to time reversal to, well, I don't want to spoil too much. The rest of the show goes off from there. Other people gain powers as well, but this is where "Misfits" differs from other shows in this genre. Instead of becoming superheroes suddenly or realizing that they must use their powers for some greater good or something, the youngsters pretty much just continues on as they always have—as misfits. Don't get me wrong, characters grow and change, but not so much because of their superpowers but more so because of their circumstance and environment, which happen to include said superpowers.

Anyway, what's really interesting about the coming-to-America announcement is that I actually think "Misfits" COULD work as an American show, or rather COULD HAVE at a certain point. Not so much anymore. After shows like "Heroes," "The Cape" and "No Ordinary Family," which all more or less played toward the standard superhero archetype, at this point, I think it's increasingly unlikely general audiences will give a show like "Misfits" a chance—despite the fact that it absolutely subverts the genre. Ads will mostly likely position it the same as any other superhero television show and most people might end up just passing it off as another "Heroes."

Then there's the fact that the potential remake will be done by Josh Schwartz, co-creator of "Gossip Girl" and "Chuck." Now, I've never seen either shows, but from what I've seen through marketing and heard from friends who do watch the show, "Gossip Girl" doesn't exactly scream "Misfits" to me in terms of tone and writing… at all. And while I am interested in seeing "Chuck," just because a show like "Misfits" features nerdy subject matter doesn't not make it a nerdy show. Again, to me, there is a distinctive clash in tone and style between Schwartz's previous projects and "Misfits."

Now, I don't want to make this post another one about how British stuff should stay British and America needs to stop. Instead, I want to talk about how I think "Misfits" could absolutely work in America—providing of course we ignore the two things I just mentioned earlier and instead concentrate on these two simple things that could make it work.

#1: NOT A SHOT-FOR-SHOT

I think a big problem with previous examples of remakes is that they tend to follow the episodes of the British version shot for shot, line for line. I'm talking camera-work, scenery, everything. This happened with "Skins" and with "The Office." In the case of the former, there was a lot that didn't work beyond that, but in the case of the latter, while I love the American version of "The Office," I really didn't get into it UNTIL it went its own way.

I think in order for "Misfits" to work I think they should keep the basic idea, the manners in which things happen, but make sure it's shot and written in an original way. So, young offenders get powers during crazy storm. That's the basic idea of the first episode. By keeping the idea, it's still "Misfits." They'll get the new fans either way, but by avoiding doing a shot-for-shot, they can also bring in the elusive old fans.

As a fan of the British version, I personally will appreciate seeing something new since, well, I haven't seen it before. Moreover, when a shot for shot remake happens, I think people naturally end up comparing it to the original. "Oh, I like how the original actors said this line better" or "Man, I've seen all of this before... EXACTLY THIS!" By changing up the directing and dialogue, they can provide those old fans with something familiar but also something new.

#2: NEW CHARACTERS

I've often heard the complaint that there are never any new ideas anymore. Maybe to a certain extent that's true, but to me what makes something new and different isn't always the idea but the characters. Look at "Misfits" itself. The basic premise isn't entirely new. Everyday people gain superpowers. That's been done a million times over. What made "Misfits" unique was the characters—characters whose personality and actions guided that original premise into a completely new direction.

In fiction, two characters should never react to something in the exact same way. They need to be unique. One of my favorite writers—and an all around AWESOME person—Geoff Johns once gave me a great piece of advice in regards to writing characters. He told me, you imagine your character walks into a room and sees something shocking, like a person just standing there naked. How do they react? A different character walks into the same room and sees the same thing. How do they react? Those reactions should not be the same. Every characters reaction should be different because their personalities are different, their mannerisms are different.

Therefore, if you take any basic premise and insert Character A, the story unfolds one way. If you take that exact same premise and insert Character B, then a whole new story unfolds. This is because Character A and B are two different people whose actions, personality and life will guide that premise in different directions. Writers often talk about the characters becoming so real that they end up writing themselves. That's sort of what I mean here. It's like the Butterfly Effect. That one change should send a ripple across the entire story that changes how things end up.

This then works on a number of levels for "Misfits." For one, the storylines will be different. The tone and premise stays the same, but what happens will be different. Again, it'll be new. But mostly, you avoid the character conundrum. I talked about this with Cassie in "Skins." It was going to be impossible for the American version of Cassie to live up to Hannah Murray. A similar thing will happen to me with regards to the American version of "Misfits," specifically with the character of Simon.

Simon is easily my favorite character in "Misfits." He's super weird at first and get insanely badass later, but his lines are consistently pretty phenomenal and they're delivered brilliantly by actor Iwan Rheon. And I just know the American version won't live up.

Finally, there are characters that work in the UK but who won't work here. Nathan is the perfect example for this. That is a character whose entire purpose is to be super offensive and that type of offensive cannot translate to America because, well, he can't get away with half the stuff he does in the British version in the American one. And for a lot of fans, a tamed down Nathan just isn't Nathan.

So, there it is. I honestly would like to see an American interpretation of "Misfits," and that's the key thing: I'd like to see the American INTERPRETATION and not so much the American REMAKE. Take the theme, take the premise, but make it our own.

17 and a half years ago...

2012-01-09T22:09:00.000-05:00

I was going to try and write a real post tonight, but I've got a sinus infection and a new iPhone and the combination of the two is making it difficult to concentrate.

However, I also don't really want the poster for The Help to lead the site all week (no offense, ladies, great movie), so instead, let's fire up the way back machine and take a visual look at what comics 12-year-old Ben was picking up...

(Why 17 and a half years ago? Because I was only reading like three comics regularly 20 years ago, I wasn't reading any 15 years ago, and I wanted to stay in the 90's)

Americop, Azrael as Batman and Bart Sears on Silver Surfer covers--good times in 1994.

Books I know for sure I was collecting but for whatever reason skipped in June of that year (I looked it up): Avengers, Adventures of Superman and, of course, Nova. I have the issues before and after of each. Avengers was an anniversary issue (Proctor!) and probably cost more than usual, Adventures of Superman was in the middle of a crossover with the other Superman books which I didn't read...but Nova was tying into Time and Time Again in New Warriors, which I was totally reading, so, I have no idea.

Paragraph Movie Reviews: The Help

2012-01-08T23:07:00.000-05:00

If you don't have plans to see this movie, you can check the spoilers here and then come back.

In the wrong hands, The Help could have been a very bad movie. The script (adapted from a novel) is chalk full of moments that could have been sappy or overwrought, and in the pursuit of an accurate depiction of racism in 1960's Mississippi, there are times they skirt being too on the nose. However, it's a testament to the great work done by director and crew plus the wonderful, wonderful acting that for the most part, the film avoids those pitfalls, and even when they don't, you're enjoying it too much to notice. Octavia Spencer stands out as Minny, working sass and vigor into not just into her lighter moments but the ones where she was projecting rage; I didn't just appreciate her performance, she made me really like Minny. Viola Davis does a perfect counterpoint to Spencer, with Aibileen as the quiet and restrained half of their duo whose probably explosion of emotion has you anticipating intensely; Davis has a pronounced dignity about her that was perfect here. Bryce Dallas Howard has never been better than here as Hilly, creating a villain whose misfortunes you can laugh at without her stature and hatefulness ever being diminished. Jessica Chastain had me laughing out loud as naive Celia, the redneck girl who marries into wealth, but she also provided some of the most powerful scenes. I'd actually say the only person who fell a little short for me was Emma Stone, which is surprising; Stone is always great, and very versatile, but I felt like she played Skeeter's quirkiness for laughs maybe a few too many times and that upset the flow of the narrative slightly. So many other great performances though, from Allison Janney to Cicely Tyson to Sissy Spacek and on; even the little girl who played Mae Mobley was fantastic. A real joy to watch--and given the subject matter, that feels strange to say, but it's how I feel--The Help lives up to the hype.

Britain vs. America: The Battle of "Skins"

2012-01-07T04:35:00.005-05:00

For the longest while, my workmate Robin Wildman (shout out!) told me I should watch the British television series "Skins," and as it was on Instant Netflix, I decided that with the start of the new year, I would give it a shot. By the end of the first episode, I knew I was in trouble. I seriously said out loud, "Oh man. This is going to be bad." Two days later, I finished the first two seasons. I literally went to work, came home, watched "Skins," went to bed and then woke up the next morning to repeat the process all over again. I loved it that much... which is exactly why I knew how terrible the American version was going to be.

Don't get me wrong here. I'm not trying to be all super snobby "British TV is better than American TV." I mean that by its nature, "Skins" could just never work in America. I already had a few ideas why (MTV, MTV, MTV, Good lord, MTV), but the difference between American culture and British culture can be very vast. There are just certain things that work in Britain that just will not work here. Take another of my favorite British television programs, "Doctor Who." There's all that talk about making an American movie, but I really just can't see that happening.

There's just something fundamentally British about that show. If we brought "Doctor Who" over to America, one, he won't be in a police box because most Americans have no idea what that is and two, his personality would need to be completely different. The Doctor is to a very high extent a pacifist. Yes, when things get rough and people piss him him, he can become very vengeful, but his first instinct is always to try to find a non-violent way to solve the problem—and do it in the most awesomely quirky and brilliant way possible.

A character like that doesn't work in Hollywood. Americans want the action star. It's the very reason why Sherlock Holmes became one in the American films. Compare that to the Holmes found in the absolutely phenomenal British series "Sherlock," whose interpretation is much truer to the character despite taking place in present day. (Seriously, watch "Sherlock," it's amazing).

Anyway, today, while lying home sick, my medicine addled brain decided to man up and watch the pilot of the US version of "Skins."

I couldn't even finish it. I started, stopped at a certain point, took a break, tried again and failed.

What surprised me the most is that not only was it bad for the reasons I figured, but also for a few reasons I wouldn't have expected or known about had I not watched. Let's discuss, shall we?

WARNING! IF YOU INTEND TO WATCH THE VERY AWESOME TELEVISION SERIES "SKINS," STOP READING AT THIS POINT! SPOILERS ABOUND! ALSO, I APOLOGIZE, BUT THIS POST IS GOING TO BE CRAZY LONG. CONSIDER IT MAKING UP FOR MY ABSENCE.

REASON I EXPECTED: AMERICA

Here's how I would probably describe "Skins" to someone: It's a British teen drama that doesn't shy away from sex and drugs, but all that comes entirely secondary to the deeply complex characters and their relationships with one another.

Here's how I think the pitch went down when they decided to bring it over to America:

"It's a British teen drama that doesn't shy away from sex and drugs but…"

"What? Really? Hmm... Teens and sex and drugs! Yes! It's so racy and edgy!"

"Wait, no, it's not about that, it's..."

"Why are you still here?! Get this show made!"

After that, it devolved into "Teens! The sex! The drugs!" and finally just into "Teens! Teh seeexxxxx!!"

In all seriousness, this is exactly what I thought the problem would be in bringing "Skins" over to America. They would amp up the sex and drugs aspect. Gratuity is a huge thing in this country. Whenever it comes to sex and nudity, it usually gets, well, over sexualized. It's rare that someone just happens to be naked in the scene. It's usually a whole hullabaloo. "Oh my god! They're naked!" Even if someone was undressing, it's usually slowly and to some raunchy music—ESPECIALLY if the character is female.

The truth of the matter is that there's a huge difference between nudity and gratuity, but that concept gets lost far too often in American culture. I really didn't find anything in the first two seasons of "Skins" as gratuitous. The sex and drugs aspect isn't the focus of the show. The meat of the show really is about the development of the characters. And I know that many American shows can handle all that stuff properly, but add MTV into the mix, and well... you get what we ended up getting.

Here's two examples of this that really stuck out from that first episode: there's a scene at the beginning where Tea, a lesbian character in the US version (more on that later), is at cheerleading practice. At the end of the routine, the other cheerleaders lift her up… gripping her breasts in the process and she's smiling happily. You know, cause she's a lesbian. And they're feeling her up. Hopefully you can feel my eyes rolling through the text. Anyway, the second comes later when the gang arrives at a party. The hostess opens the door wearing an EXTREMELY low-cut dress and let's just say it was quite obviously very cold in that house. Little things like that are just unnecessary and only serve to further the "Hey! Teens! SEEEEXXXXX!!!"

REASONS I DIDN'T EXPECT #1: DIALOGUE

This is actually something really subtle and probably only noticeable if you've seen both versions. In the British version of "Skins" foul language is no big deal. The characters curse all the time because, let's face it, teens curse. Heck, most people curse. However, dropping f-bombs is a big no-no in America, so suddenly the dialogue must completely avoid swearing. Normally, there's nothing wrong with a show with no swearing, but when that show constantly features teen characters hurt, frustrated and angry, the dialogue becomes almost jarring and unrealistic. This is evident from the opening sequence alone, in which Tony's dad comes bursting in the room screaming at him to turn down his music. In the British version, the dad comes in yelling and cursing, furious to the point of exasperation. In the American version, he has to avoid swearing and instead replaces words with the "tamer" version and it just feels less… angry.

This happens throughout the episode. The nature of the characters have them swearing often, but since they can't do that in America, everything is tamer while still trying to retain the roughness of the dialogue. As a viewer, you listen and you start realizing it sounds very odd. "They said that, but I really know they mean this." Worse still, at a certain point, they drop the f-bomb, but of course, it's bleeped out. That's probably the worst thing they could do. That bleep absolutely pulls you out of it and reminds you "This isn't real! This is very much a TV show with TV show rules!"

It's a little change, a miniscule difference, but suddenly it doesn't feel real anymore. The dialogue doesn't feel real. The characters don't feel real. In the British version, the actors sometimes wrote their own dialogue and you feel the realism of it all. In the American one, you can tell teens didn't write it. The censors and studio did.

REASON I DIDN'T EXPECT #2: MAXXIE WHO?

This is one I didn't expect but should have seen coming. In the British version, there's a character named Maxxie Oliver, who is an openly gay male. In the American version, Maxxie doesn't exist. Instead, we get the "hot lesbian" Tea Marvelli.

Naturally.

The fact that Maxxie went from openly gay to closeted lesbian says a lot. You might be able to argue (poorly) that the change is only a stylistic choice to vary things up between the versions, but we all know the real reason. I also find it a bit...odd? disconcerting? To me, that change says, "No way will viewers be okay with an openly gay male. But a lesbian? Yeah! Girl on girl is hot!"

The worst part of the change is that Maxxie is a fantastic character. Brilliantly acted and brilliantly portrayed. There's an storyline between Maxxie and his best friend Anwar (played by freaking Dev Patel!) where Anwar reveals that his religion and Maxxie's sexuality come into direct conflict with one another, which leads to a big rift between the two. There's actually a fantastic line where Anwar, trying to convince Maxxie that maybe he's not gay, asks him, "Have you ever tried being with a girl?" and Maxxie counters with the line, "Have you ever tried being with a guy?" It's a great exchange that directly confronts some of the issues homosexuals face. And that exchange CANNOT happen in the American version because Maxxie does not exist.

Really, the entire storyline between Maxxie and Anwar plays out phenomenally well and teaches a lot about friendship and acceptance. It's one thing if that exchange won't happen, but the loss of that storyline is downright tragic. Again, you can argue that they wanted to change things up, do something different. So, going on that, I looked up what happens to the character of Tea.

She ends up starting an affair with Tony, who is, in fact, a guy. So the lesbian character starts having an affair with a male because, you know, that whole exchange I talked about earlier, well, maybe that WAS the case and just sleeping with the opposite gender a bit can test it all out! To be fair, in the British version, Maxxie did fool around with Tony for literally a minute, and that did cause strife between Tony and his girlfriend Michelle just like with the American version. But Maxxie and Tony messing around briefly in the British version makes sense because Maxxie is, you know, GAY.

REASON I DIDN'T EXPECT #3: THE CASSIE CONUNDRUM

Okay, this last reason is a bit unfair.

I cannot express in words exactly how much I love the character of Cassie Ainsworth. She is, without question, one of my favorite female characters in all of fiction. I tend to like girls that are either crazy or sadistic (yes, I have problems), and from her very first line of dialogue, I knew Cassie was going to be my favorite character in the show. By the end of the second episode, she already skyrocketed to my all-time favorites list. The only other character that's ever happened with was Azula from "Avatar: The Last Airbender." She actually didn't even need a line of dialogue.

Anyway, Cassie is a wonderfully written character and her relationship with Sid was definitely the highlight of the series for me and had me at the edge of my seat every step of the way. But as well-written as she was, Cassie's greatness is really attributed to actress Hannah Murray.

From Cassie's signature "Wow" to the way she moves to the nearly unnoticeable differences between her fake vs. real smiles to even her eyes, Murray added little, subtle nuances that really brought the character to life. This is all very immediately evident from her appearance in Episode 1 and all of Episode 2 (which focuses specifically on Cassie). And Episode 5 when Sid returns home to find her waiting and she flips out is an absolutely amazingly done scene and ranks as one of the best in the series.

All this considered there was NO WAY IN HELL the American version of Cassie was going to live up to the British version. And, well, she didn't, but it was more than that.

In the first episode, there was nothing identifiable about Cadie (American Cassie) as being crazy. Just the fact that the characters said she was. Which, hey, show don't tell. That's, like, a pretty well known rule in storytelling. She really just seemed like everyone else, except someone said she likes knives. That's it. And I don't blame the actress. There was nothing in her dialogue that distinguished her. She was just... there. And, honestly, I would have been fine if they took the character in another direction. In fact, I would have encouraged it. But if you're going to state a character as crazy, you should probably write her a little crazy. Or at the very least different from any other regular character.

So, there it is. I know this came out sort of like a bash-fest against the American show, but it all comes from a very passionate love of the British version, which I really do encourage people to check out. I normally don't find myself a fan of the teen drama, what with the "Gossip Girls" and "One Tree Hills," but the first two seasons of "Skins" is not only teen drama at its finest, but some of the best character-driven storytelling I've seen in a long time. So, hey, America, take some notes and rock it out the next time around.

The Best of 2011 Comics Gift-Getting Guide pt. 2

2012-01-05T22:26:00.000-05:00

Part one...

MYSTIC: THE TENTH APPRENTICE
When I was reading Mystic, I thought of it as a story that would appeal to fans of both Harry Potter and Hunger Games (had just seen one and read the other), but without being a rip-off of either; G. Willow Wilson accomplishes the task of tapping into multiple current sources of pop culture zeitgeist but only as building blocks to a new, vast world. I enjoyed all the CrossGen launches from Marvel, from the clever Ruse to the whimsical Sigil, but this is the one I think will hit the sweet spot of the broadest reader base, genre fans and civilians alike. It’s also another stop on artist David Lopez’s unrelenting tour of inspiring professional self-improvement.

THE PUNISHER VOL. 1
As Mark Waid did with Daredevil, Greg Rucka made a strong choice with his take on The Punisher—both books edited out of the Steve Wacker “Spider Office”—by making Frank Castle almost a secondary character or even backdrop against which the stories take place; he’s a grim presence who rarely speaks while the stories revolve around the people he affects, only roping him in for the big action scenes or major climaxes. It’s a bold, cinematic type of storytelling that has paid off in a comic experience that stands out in today’s climate. Marco Checchetto’s haunted art with a heavy Eastern influence is another completely new direction for The Punisher, really casting him as some sort of spectral angel of death and giving weight to his status as more than merely a man.

SECRET AVENGERS: SUBLAND EMPIRE
The one and done format is hardly common in modern mainstream super hero comics outside of all ages material and certainly not in a flagship franchise like the Avengers, but Warren Ellis did it to near perfection in his Secret Avengers run over the latter part of the year aided and abetted by some of the best artists in the business. Whether it was tech-based espionage with Jamie McKelvie, crazy kung fu action illustrated by David Aja or one of the trippiest time travel yarns I’ve followed in some time by Alex Maleev, Ellis delivered across the board with intelligent and entertaining standalone stories you need to give a look.

SPIDER-MAN: MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH
Over the course of just six issues in the early months of this year, Dan Slott demonstrated the versatility of himself as a writer and Spider-Man as a character in tales that ran the gamut of emotions as his awesome Big Time era of Amazing Spider-Man heated up and took off. Revenge of the Spider-Slayer was action-packed mayhem showcasing Spidey and an enjoyable New Avengers guest spot while No One Dies and Torch Song swung to the emotional side of the spectrum, tracking Peter Parker and his friends as they dealt with serious loss. The talented artists of ASM contributed with varied showmanship fitting each story, as Stefano Caselli brought his raw energy to the first while Marcos Martin delivered the stark pathos needed for the second (and a dream sequence in #655 that still has me applauding). Wedged in the middle: The debut of Flash Thompson as the new Venom in a story written by Slott with art by the great Humberto Ramos.

SPIDER-MAN: SPIDER-ISLAND
Continuing the Dan Slott love fest, Spider-Island was the textbook case of how to do a fun comic book event that also has major impact and pack metric tons of plot, character and action into every installment. It’s a great love letter to what makes Spider-Man a great hero and Peter Parker uniquely suited to his role with nice meaty parts as well for Venom, Anti-Venom, Kaine, Mary Jane, J. Jonah Jameson, Carlie Cooper and more, not to mention the villainous exploits of The Queen and The Jackal plus a boatload of great guest stars including the Avengers, X-Men, Future Foundation and tons others. Humberto Ramos turns in inspired art on the Amazing Spider-Man installments while Rick Remender and Tom Fowler tear it up on the Venom chapters also included in this main collection.

STORMWATCH: THE DARK SIDE
Paul Cornell’s Stormwatch is to me a great guide to and exploration of the burgeoning DC Universe provided by the New 52. It takes characters that lived on the fringe of mainstream comics as part of the WildStorm line and drops them into an environment skewing closer to the traditional DCU and we see how both affect one another. Cornell is create at brewing a strange but satisfying cocktail with strange moon eating monsters and angry towns come to life as excavated by a recast Authority, relocated Martian Manhunter, and an eclectic cast of newcomers. Cornell excels at building worlds, and here he gets to take that mandate a step further, rising to the challenge with aplomb.

SWAMP THING: RAISE THEM BONES
The other new DC horror staple that’s giving me good chills and more great work from Scott Snyder, who pays homage to the classic Alan Moore run on Swamp Thing and what came after but gets the opportunity to explore it from a whole new spin with Alec Holland as active protagonist rather than buried subconscious influence, an advantage he takes full advantage of. The ideas Snyder has come up with as far as gross new threats add to a vast tapestry begun in those seminal stories, and Yanick Paquette’s harsh, heavy lines provide the perfect style to convey the beauty of nature as well as its destructive force, plus the sick torture inflicted on these poor characters.

ULTIMATE COMICS ULTIMATES BY JONATHAN HICKMAN VOL. 1
Speaking of writers making everything old new again, witness Jonathan Hickman capturing the widescreen majesty of Mark Millar’s original Ultimates but swiveling the camera at just the right moments to provide a new spin and open up the universe. Hickman’s first issue started out with swaggering Nick Fury, cool as ever, ready to take on gods, and ended with a note of doubt in the Ultimates’ leader’s eye that told you the rules have changed. In the new Ultimate Comics Universe, Fury, Iron Man and even Thor have to work that much harder and are paying harsher prices for their hubris while the likes of Hawkeye and others need to step up. Hickman has made the threats bigger and brought the heroes down to Earth in a way that breathes new life. It doesn’t hurt that nobody draws epic like Esad Ribic, whose work alongside colorist Dean White is breathtaking, from a city full of gods to the aforementioned moment where Nick Fury realizes he’s only human.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN: DEATH OF SPIDER-MAN
After over a decade of writing Peter Parker in the Ultimate Universe, Brian Michael Bendis gave his “baby” a wrenching, emotional and utterly heroic sendoff. Ultimate Spider-Man as it was had in my mind certainly not run out of steam, and indeed the “Ultimate Aunt May Boarding House for Super Heroes” made for some of my favorite stories over the last couple years; thus, the pressure was on if Bendis wanted to take out a character still in his prime, and I believe he delivered. This story has all the action, humor and life lessons that were the hallmark of Ultimate Spider-Man, but more than anything it’s about the relationships among the extraordinary supporting cast Bendis has built, the ties that bind them as close as family, and how much they’re willing to fight for one another, Peter most of all. Mark Bagley back on art, sharp as ever, was icing on the cake. I’m enjoying Miles Morales’ early adventures as the new Spider-Man under Bendis’ pen, but he’s got a tough act to follow to be sure.

UNCANNY X-FORCE: THE DARK ANGEL SAGA, BOOK ONE
There is no story I followed with more rapt anticipation this year than the Dark Angel Saga, salivating over each installment as it was the pinnacle of serial super hero storytelling for me in 2011. Rick Remender is a genius and I do believe Uncanny X-Force to be among his finest work, telling the story of a team doing the dirty work other good guys don’t want to touch; what shatters the cliché and also makes them perhaps truer heroes than any others in comics is that they don’t shrug off the awful acts they commit, they’re genuinely haunted, but they keep doing what needs to be done. In the Dark Angel Saga, hard choices come home to roost as Archangel loses control and his teammates must journey to no less than the Age of Apocalypse itself, facing down an evil alternate reality Wolverine and more, in a story remarkably ambitious for being told simply in one monthly series. Remender balances nostalgia and modern sensibilities like a mad chemist, creating an essential X-Men classic in the process. Mark Brooks’ art evokes exactly the feelings of familiarity shattered by change needed and Dean White provides rock solid continuity in the book’s visual appearance with his covers. And this is just the first half of the story!

WOLVERINE: THE BEST THERE IS – CONTAGION
I consider myself a man of fairly refined taste (not at all), but sometimes it’s nice to kick back with pure graphic violence and ridiculous excess, both of which Charlie Huston and Juan Jose Ryp execute with aplomb in Wolverine: Best There Is. It’s an unapologetic string of brutal fights, gross-out moments and crude humor, framed by Wolverine fighting against a bunch of opponents who have healing factors similar to or slightly varied from his own that allow them to do horrible things to one another without repercussions like they were Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote with claws and swords. The first six issues feature a truly vile villain named Contagion who I think could be a fixture given how simultaneously impressive and repulse Huston makes him. Ryp is uniquely qualified to provide the visual window for this grind house flick of a comic, taking a horror background and channeling it perfectly to super heroes.

X-MEN: FF
In the shadow of larger events, Victor Gischler put together this fun, action-packed little four-issue yarn about the X-Men and Future Foundation going through a portal in the Bermuda Triangle to another dimensions where they team up with Skull the Slayer and fight a bunch of aliens. It’s Comics 101 as Gischler puts together an enjoyable adventure that has the right amount of character moments—great stuff between “reformed” Magneto and Doctor Doom—and humor between fights and twists to create a story with heart that stands nicely on its own. Jorge Molina steps up his game huge on art, drawing some beautiful heroes, male and female alike, and exotic landscapes galore.

X-MEN: SCHISM
Jason Aaron has spent a few years now writing Wolverine and the X-Men have shown up now and again, but he had a pretty big assignment for his first regular go with the team, and I’d say he proved his chops quite nicely. What I like about Schism is that Aaron writes Cyclops and Wolverine as two guys with opposite but legitimate points and he’s smart about giving each a valid argument; your guts tells you Wolvie is right to want to keep mutant children off the front lines, but if you’re being pragmatic, it’s hard to argue Cyke’s stance that an endangered species needs every soldier it can get. It’s a solid battle both philosophically and eventually physically that could carry the entire story if need be, but Aaron overachieves with a deviously cool new Hellfire Club of spoiled brats that I’m happy to see have carried over into Wolverine & The X-Men with other elements of this story such as Kid Omega. As for the art—it’s Carlos Pacheco, Frank Cho, Daniel Acuna, Alan Davis and Adam Kubert jamming, so it’s pretty tough to complain.

X-MEN/STEVE ROGERS: ESCAPE FROM THE NEGATIVE ZONE
There’s an old school feel to this over-sized three-parter written by James Asmus dropping the X-Men in the Negative Zone and pitting them against Blastaar hearkening back to the days when team-ups and Annuals were a big deal in and of themselves, not just because they lead into the next big event. Steve Rogers coming to save the day comes off like a feel good moment and the story itself is a nice bit of standalone cinematic storyline. Asmus also does nice work furthering the dynamic between Cyclops and Hope, exploring Rogers’ relationship with the X-Men, and having fun with the offbeat pairing of Namor and Doctor Nemesis. The art is top notch across the board, particularly Ibraim Roberson’s turn, which looks as if he sculpted the figures out of wood and placed them on the page.

XOMBI
John Rozum and Frazer Irving’s Xombi is just wonderful and weird; it’s wonderfully weird. It’s intelligent and there were times I had to go back over what I had just read to fully understand it, but I never felt completely left in the dark. It’s a musing on humanity, religion, friendship and love couched in a quest adventure with super powered nuns and spooky golem creatures; I could keep going on about the story, but frankly writing a sentence like the one I just wrote usually suffices for my money to unpack the appeal. As always, Irving’s work is like nobody else in comics; he has a unique approach that brings sensibilities of fine art to the page and instill Xombi with a pedigree that makes it stand out even more than it already did—which was a lot.

The Best of 2011 Comics Gift-Getting Guide pt. 1

2012-01-02T00:15:00.002-05:00

We don’t really do traditional “Best Of” lists at the end of the year here at the Cool Kids Table, though if you read most of our posts dealing with today’s content, particularly my Comics Worth Reading series, you can get a good sense for what we dig; we are after all very positive people who genuinely love the business we work in.

I do have a tradition, however, of kicking off each new year with a hopefully helpful guide to some of the good stuff that came out in the 12 months prior either already or soon to be available in collected form that you can use to divest yourselves of those newly acquired gift cards or wads of cash.

You’re welcome.

Though I’m sure there are plenty of people whom I avoid saying the sky is falling—this is the Internet after all—this was a great year for the craft of comics, as evidenced by the list of 30 books I’ve compiled. I’m trying to keep things a bit more brief this year, both as an exercise in restraint for me and a general favor for those of you who bother to read my work (thank you).

Also, before I begin, let me point you toward good buddy of the blog of Sean T. Collins for a list that covers more of the wide world of comics a super hero snob like me is too dull to dig into and Kiel’s team at CBR for the most comprehensive guide to this year’s best.

5 RONIN
It’s the ingenuity of writer Peter Milligan (and editor Sebastian Girner) that impressed me most about this series, integrating Wolverine, The Hulk, The Punisher, Psylocke and Deadpool with their powers and characters into five interlocking tableaus set in feudal Japan without anything ever feeling hackneyed or forced. The end result is a work that should prove timeless for Marvel devotees and fans of brilliant storytelling alike with uniformly beautiful art by Tomm Coker, Talibor Dalajic, Laurence Campbell, Goran Parlov and Leo Fernandez.

ANIMAL MAN: THE HUNT
Perhaps my favorite element of DC’s New 52 has been the expansion of its universe to cover other genres outside of traditional tights, from westerns to vampire love stories, but I don’t think any niche has been as successfully executed as horror, typified by Jeff Lemire and Travel Foreman’s Animal Man relaunch. If you like, say, American Horror Story, here’s another work that blends family dynamics with creepiness but adds in impressive mythology and grotesquely memorable visuals; Lemire is honoring Grant Morrison’s classic work while forging his out identity.

BATMAN: THE BLACK MIRROR
Scott Snyder’s Batman has been a big hit for me, with the time and detail he devotes to crafting mystery and building a world paying off in some of the most enjoyably dense comics I’m currently reading. This is a nice primer to his work with the characters, including a handful of cases that typify his approach, the fleshing out of the Gordon family and (re?)introduction of a bad guy with major potential in the process, plus heavy art from Jock and Francesco Francavilla.

BATMAN: GATES OF GOTHAM
Speaking of getting into Snyder’s Batman, here he and Kyle Higgins team for an ambitious ode to Gotham City and its history, expanding a world that has been around more than five decades now with new characters and relationships ripe for future storytelling. I’m a big fan of super hero comics that exist beyond the place and time where events are happening just in the current issues, and these guys do a great job with creating just such an expanse.

BATWOMAN: HYDROLOGY
J.H. Williams III—along with co-writer W. Haden Blackman—does a great job picking up right where he and Greg Rucka left off in crafting the continuing adventures of Kathy Kane as Batwoman. In the hands of Williams and Blackman, Kathy is a uniquely motivated and intriguing character in and out of costume, and I enjoyed seeing her cast both expand and contract as the art—also by Williams—is seriously second to none whether she’s battling a bad guy underwater or just having a conversation with her niece; impressive stuff.

THE BOYS: BUTCHER, BAKER, CANDLESTICKMAKER
There may have been no comic that hit me as hard emotionally this year as this one. Billy Butcher has always been the somewhat loathsome cipher of The Boys who I could never really generate an interest in, but in this simultaneous touching story of love and heartbreaking story of loss, Garth Ennis made me care. Darick Robertson’s art has become more and more of a unique treat of late, so his work here was a pleasure. If you think The Boys is simply about violence and sex, you need to read this book.

CAPTAIN AMERICA AND BUCKY: THE LIFE STORY OF BUCKY BARNES
No doubt one of the highlights of Ed Brubaker’s lengthy run on Captain America has been his work on the character of Bucky Barnes, not only in the present, but fleshing him out beyond innocent boy sidekick in flashback. This arc co-written by Marc Andreyko is a tremendous point of view tale that gives you Bucky’s entire experience and tremendous insight into the unique factors that shaped him. The writing is great, but I doubt either scribe would begrudge the sentiment that Chris Samnee’s art may be the true star, as he makes the journey from U.S. military bases to Soviet covert ops convincingly gritty with a tragic touch of innocence and tantalizing frame of beauty.

DAREDEVIL VOL. 1
Mark Waid rolled the dice somewhat in coming onto Daredevil this year and opting to deviate from the grim approach favored by most creators since Frank Miller made history in the 80’s, instead harkening back to the grinning Man Without Fear of his original incarnation. The gamble paid off big, as Daredevil is again one of the best comics available, and Waid had a major trump card in his deck by writing Matt Murdock not as a smiling innocent with his past wiped clean, but a guy doing his best to run from a tortured history he can never fully escape. The supporting cast is great, the villains are quirky and the art by Paolo Rivera and Marcos Martin is simply extraordinary; both men have re-imagined DD’s ability to see through senses other than sight into an incredible new visual shorthand that has produced some of the most memorable graphic sequences and images comics has seen in ages. A wonderful book all around.

GENERATION HOPE: SCHISM
His cast in place and the introductions out of the way, Kieron Gillen got to really branch out and play with what he’d established in the back half of his Generation Hope run. This gave us an eerie horror story, a unique trial scenario with a particularly memorable character turn, and appropriately writ large tie-ins to the blockbuster Schism before a final farewell. Through it all, Gillen’s primary focus is on creating a different kind of teen super hero group where the cast is anything but innocent and both loyalties and rivalries have deliciously sinister undertones.

HOUSE OF MYSTERY: CONCEPTION
I’m sad to see Matt Sturges’s House of Mystery go, as it was a book outside my particular norm I really enjoyed these past few years, but it went out on top, as seen in this penultimate collection that wraps up many of the series’ long-running plots and mysteries. Beyond the main saga, we get some particularly great stories-within-stories, the book’s trademark, from Sturges along with the likes of Enrique Breccia, David Lloyd, Ulises Farinas, Gene Ha and others. This collection also has the awesome Halloween Annual #2, which starts right on the cover and features an anthology of tales from various Vertigo creators starring an assortment of the characters they work on.

INVINCIBLE IRON MAN: UNFIXABLE
One of my favorite pure super hero vs. super villain battles of this past year was Iron Man against Doctor Octopus in the story that serves as the center of this collection. It’s both a nice example of taking a classic bad guys outside of his comfort zone and also finding two foils that complement each other perfectly as both rivals and opposites. Matt Fraction did nice work crafting a historical feud between smug overachiever Tony Stark and frustrated outcast Otto Octavius that segued into a great clash between the larger than life Iron Man and Doc Ock with the added twists brought about by the villain’s life-threatening condition and the stakes he presents the hero with. I love how Fraction isn’t shy about making Ock the guy with the advantage and Salvador Larroca perfectly translates John Romita Jr.’s creepy and desperate redesign.

JOHN CARTER: A PRINCESS OF MARS
Roger Landridge and Filipe Andrade’s series was my first exposure to the John Carter mythos, and I think they did a terrific job making a nearly century old character and story accessible and fun for a modern audience. Langridge does a great job marrying high adventure and swashbuckling romance with a touch of his gift for humor while Andrade makes Barsoom and its people truly exotic with his liquid style. Classic stuff in a package that feels brand new.

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY: FEAR ITSELF
Kid Loki is the sensational new character find of 2011. The spirit of the mischievous old Trickster God reborn in the little body of a young boy looking for redemption but ostracized by all the people he pissed off in his previous life is an idea that both screams and demands the genius of Kieron Gillen. It was a joy to watch Loki Machiavelli his way through Fear Itself, making deals and double crosses with Hela, Mephisto, Surtur and all the other places in Gillen’s chessboard as he alternately sweated how in over his head he was and smirked at getting away with it. Journey Into Mystery is one of my very favorite comics right now, and I know if you sample this introduction to it, you too will be hooked.

JUSTICE LEAGUE: GENERATION LOST VOL. 2
Ah, what could have been. I was really into Judd Winick’s take on the old Justice League International and how he found a great niche for them in the DC Universe somewhere between being headliners and comedy figures. The latter part of the year-long bi-weekly saga had big action, emotional twists and nice character relationships plotted like a television show or movie in terms of hitting all the right beats. I was really looking forward to the promised follow-up series from Winick, but alas, it was not to be; oh well, it’s still a great story well worth exploring for yourself.

MYSTERY MEN
Set on the fringes of the Marvel Universe in the pulp era unexplored previous, Mystery Men is a great collaboration between David Liss and Patrick Zircher, both brilliant creators who bring their particular skill sets to bear in crafting a noir tale populated by perfect archetypes of the form each with their own twists. This one has gruesome horror, angsty romance and plenty of punching, drawn beautifully and written with wit; a solid addition to the Marvel canon in an age where folks think everything has already been done.

To be continued…

New Year's Eve Paragraph Movie Review: Warrior

2012-01-01T00:44:00.001-05:00

If you don't have plans to see this movie, you can check the spoilers here and then come back.

Warrior is a good sports movie that missteps by trying to overreach and become a great film. It doesn't reinvent the wheel, mainly sticking to the Rocky formula underdog story in the beginning, but I like that formula, so I had high hopes. Indeed the basic building of the characters is solid and the fight scenes are superb; it's where they try to force in the family drama of The Fighter or the redemption story of The Wrestler that I think Warrior falters because it's just trying too hard. There is too much juxtaposing of hokey-but-fun sequences right alongside scenes that are supposed to be deadly serious; the former works for the most part, the latter doesn't always. The cast is good for the most part, but the script sticks them on a treadmill a lot of the time. Most of the attention in reviews went to Tom Hardy, who is indeed impressive with his committed habitation of his character, an intense cipher whom he makes terrifying and intriguing, and he clearly worked his ass off to get physically set for the role, but he's stuck playing out the same pissed off speech way too many times. I don't think the continually unraveling layers of mystery of Tommy's military past fit either. I found Joel Edgerton's performance as the underdog family man far more compelling and his story the one I wanted to follow; his scenes with the Conlon brothers' reformed scumbag father--Nick Nolte, doing nice work with what he's given--are probably the best in the movie. Frank Grillo was a standout in a supporting cast of quality character actors as Brendan's quirky but intelligent coach; Jennifer Morrison is a beautiful girl with some talent, but she makes me cringe with her facial expressions and emoting. Bottom line is that there's a good movie buried in Warrior that probably could have been told in about half the time; I'd have liked to have seen them accentuate the positives and go more Rocky IV than Rocky (or The Fighter), making a fun, memorable movie instead of one begging for critical acceptance. I wanted to see more fighting, less family drama. Also, the ending was pretty lousy.

Art Attack: March 2012's Coolest Covers

2011-12-23T01:06:00.001-05:00

-I was not at all familiar with the Extreme characters in the 90's (only one X-Treme character), but the covers for Avengelyne and Glory are so far askew from what I remember that I'm instantly intrigued. Absolutely what covers are supposed to do. Kudos to Owen Gieni and Ross Campbell, if I pick up these books it will be because of you.

-It feels sometimes like a lot of homage covers are drawing from the same pool of a dozen or so source images, but Avengers #150 certainly isn't one of them, yet there it is on Art Adams' variant for Avengers Assemble #1. Cool.

-Echoing what has already been said elsewhere, but Frank Cho's wood-etching-esque background for Avengers VS X-Men #0 is breathtaking.

-I haven't read Blue Estate, but Viktor Kalvachev's covers draw my interest just about every month. I love what he does with design, with message and visual metaphors.

-Daredevil #10 by Paolo Rivera. GUH. It's like he gets bored with being merely amazing and has to look around and see what isn't already being done so he can do it. I remember being blown away by his paintings and then being shocked when he did that Amazing Spider-Man issue with Punisher and I was like, "Holy crap, he can DRAW too!" Now I don't even know what he's doing with the surroundings of DD here, but it's incredible. I'm not sure if his dad inked this, but if he did, even more astounding; they both get better by the second (and are swell guys too).

-Few have knocked more covers out of the park in the last few years than J.G. Jones, but it's always nice to see him pull out his toolbox, whether it's doing Frankenstein like a movie poster or the layering on Mister Terrific. His old tricks still work and he's always trying new ones as well.

-Love the claustrophobic portrait of Wolverine, Spider-Man and Captain America by Alex Maleev for Moon Knight; a touch of Travis Charest almost, but distinctly Maleev.

-The Punisher is so casual pulling his gun out while driving a cab in that Bryan Hitch cover. It's an absurd set-up that Hitch manages to make deadly serious.

-Jock's Scalped cover creeps me out. I mean that as a compliment.

-Kalman Andrasofsky saved the best for last on X-23. I'd buy a poster of that.

AGE OF APOCALYPSE #1 by Humberto Ramos

AVENGELYNE #9 by Owen Gieni

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE #1 by Art Adams

AVENGERS VS X-MEN #0 by Frank Cho

AVENGERS: X-SANCTION #4 by Steve Skroce

BATMAN #7 by Greg Capullo

BLUE ESTATE #10 by Viktor Kalvachev

BPRD: HELL ON EARTH-LONG DEATH #2 by Duncan Fegredo

CONAN THE BARBARIAN #2 by Massimo Carevale

DAREDEVIL #10 by Paolo Rivera

DARK HORSE PRESENTS #10 by Thomas Yeates

FAIREST #1 by Adam Hughes

THE FLASH #7 by Francis Manapul

FRANKENSTEIN: AGENT OF S.H.A.D.E. #7 by J.G. Jones

GLORY #24 by Ross Campbell

HOAX HUNTERS #0 by Steve Seeley

MARVEL ADVENTURES SPIDER-MAN #24 by Ale Garza

MISTER TERRIFIC #7 by J.G. Jones

MOON KNIGHT #11 by Alex Maleev

THE PUNISHER #9 by Bryan Hitch

REBEL BLOOD #1 by Riley Rossmo

SCALPED #57 by Jock

SUICIDE SQUAD #7 by Ivan Reis

SUPERNATURAL #7 by Dustin Nguyen

SWAMP THING #7 by Yanick Paquette

TINY TITANS #50 by Art Baltazar

ULTIMATE COMICS X-MEN #9 by Kaare Andrews

UNCANNY X-FORCE #23 by Leinil Francis Yu

VENOM #14 by Stefano Caselli

X-23 #21 by Kalman Andrasofsky

RIP Joe Simon

2011-12-18T15:25:00.000-05:00

Captain America co-creator and comics industry legend Joe Simon passed away this week at the age of 98.

In 2007, I had the honor and pleasure of conducting an interview with Mr. Simon that I recapped in pretty thorough detail here. It's high up there as one of the most special memories for me of my time in comics over the past seven years getting to have a frank and pleasant conversation with a man who brought one of our most enduring icons to life and helped build this medium. I spoke in my previous post about the way Joe came up with Cap and how I got to be the one to tell him that his old protege Stan Lee eventually killed off Bucky, two stories that still make me smile. I also mentioned the nice note Joe sent me upon my getting hired by Marvel, something I will forever treasure.

Even though I probably only spoke to Joe for 15 minutes, it was more than enough time for him to make a very positive impression on me. Firstly, here was a guy who was already in his mid-90's at the time, but still sharp as a tack, responding to every question I asked him, be it about events that took place nearly seven decades earlier or stuff he was hearing about for the first time, with wit and eloquence. More than that, I thought to myself as the interview went on that this was the kind of ambassador the comics industry needed; a kind, polite gentleman whose words still crackled with the youthful enthusiasm of the guy who came up with the idea for Captain America on a New York City bus because he needed somebody to punch Hitler in the face. Even 70 years later, with a vast expanse of history between, Joe was still excited to talk about Cap and about comics; he maintained his joy for what he had done and the contributions he had made.

Comics lost a pioneer this week, but we also lost a representative of the creativity that should be inspiring us all in its purest form. Hopefully while Joe has passed, his example will not be lost on those who had the privilege to know or speak with him, and he will endure forever through his creations.

Rest in peace, Joe, I will certainly never forget you.

My condolences to Joe Simon's friends and family

Why I Left Comics

2011-12-14T19:52:00.000-05:00

Despite the bold and emotional proclamations we may make when our favorite character is killed or a book we loves get cancelled, I don’t believe comic fans on the whole tend to leave their passion for the medium behind in one grand sweeping gesture. Rather, I think multiple factors tend to contribute to gradual erosion in enthusiasm that dulls the flame to the point where it’s not worth nurturing for the time being rather than stomping it out entirely.

For me, it’s tempting to simply say high school was the cut off point for my first life as a comic book fan and college brought about my second chapter (well, not that tempting, I do want this blog post to be more than two paragraphs), but certainly there was more to it.

Make no mistake though, high school played a role. For one thing, I suddenly had a lot of other interests to occupy my time, be it sports (I played soccer my freshman year and wrestled all four), the school newspaper, plays, and so on; my time to sit around reading about super heroes became more and more limited as I had other things to do. There was also the transference of funds and energy to parties and other distractions that weren’t on my radar in prior years. I saw my social outcast status fade a bit once I turned 14 or so; I don’t think I ever quite reached big man on campus level, but people seemed to generally like me enough to let me know what was going on over the weekend.

More than anything though, the friends I bonded with over comics drifted from the hobby, and certainly if there was any high school stereotype that proved true for me it was the follow the pack mentality, at least in some cases like this. With my buddies no longer making the pilgrimage to New England Comics or wanting to talk X-Men at lunch, those things held less interest for me as well (although in a story I can now chuckle at, I did continue “covertly” trekking to the comics shop every couple weeks for awhile, acting like I had stopped reading comics when I was still buying a few, and ran into a friend of mine who was doing the same; we both were mortified and didn’t acknowledge the encounter for some time, actually until I ran into him at New York Comic Con last year and said “Remember when…”).

It wasn’t just social contributors though. Comics lost me in the mid to late 90’s because a lot of the stuff that had fueled my fandom seemed to coincidentally wind down around the same time. There was good stuff like Grant Morrison’s JLA, Kurt Busiek and George Perez’s Avengers and more I wouldn’t experience for a bit after they came out because a lot of the stuff I was reading conspired to provide me with a convenient jumping off point. Here’s where I abandoned ship on the books that had been my childhood/young adolescent favorites…

What would be roughly a year-long process of me slowly going from a healthy number of monthly comic book purchases to none began in July of 1995 with the conclusion of the Age of Apocalypse. Whereas today I’m able to appreciate that event as the fun alternate reality epic it was, at the time, it was one of the first proclamations to a naïve 13-year old that comics changed. To that point, while I had been aware on some level of creators coming and going, directions changing and so forth, for the most part I still saw my most cherished books and characters as remaining in a state I could recognize them, typified by the 90’s X-Men titles, driven by a never-ending soap opera about people in colorful costumes drawn by guys with a splashy style that matched at least in part the Saturday morning cartoon show.

I remember reading in Wizard how the plug was going to be pulled on the X-Men books with no real explanation beyond that and not learning about the concept behind Age of Apocalypse until a couple weeks later via the Marvel Hotline (as a former Wizard employee now, I have to wonder to myself how much of the story they knew at the time and held back to help Marvel build an air of history; need to ask Brian Cunningham or Pat McCallum next time I see them). Comics were still vitally important to me at the time and in a childlike way that the idea I would “lose” so many of my favorites really shook me up (if 13-year-old me had been around for the New 52, he may have had a stroke).

When the X-Men books resumed their normal runs post-AoA (and without the Internet we did not know at the time when that would be if ever at the time), I regarded them with caution, feeling they had burned me once and I didn’t want to experience it again (I’m aware of how melodramatic that sounds, but I was 13 and hadn’t had a girlfriend yet, so work with me). In particular, I was unwilling to give the new incarnation of X-Force, once among my top titles, a chance. Fabian Nicieza, my favorite writer at the time, jumped off and was replaced by Jeph Loeb, whom I knew nothing about at the time. Tony Daniel, whose art I was really getting into, was replaced by Adam Pollina, whose style was not just radically different than the “X-Men house style” of the time, but just about anything I’d ever seen beyond those Vertigo books I never bought; he also almost immediately ditched the varied costumes for a uniform purple and yellow look.

But more than anything, the mission statement of the book was changing entirely, with the team going from a group of teenagers living on their own (with their gruff cyborg mentor) to moving back into the X-Mansion. As I have come to know Jeph to be a talented writer and a swell dude to boot, I apologize for not giving his run more of a chance, but there are few things less cool to a 13-year old than his heroes essentially moving back in with their parents. As the capper, Cannonball, my favorite character in the book, was “graduating” to the X-Men, so it felt like it was time for me to do the same.

I started picking up Justice League America around the time Superman died to get a better sense of the DC Universe. Truth be told, I was never that into it and didn’t feel like it was fulfilling that goal by letting me know what The Ray, Fire and Bloodwynd were up to on a monthly basis. It became more of a reflex buy for me the same way Silver Surfer or Iron Man was; a book I didn’t love, but I did like having a lot of new comics to read every month. After Zero Hour, when Gerard Jones took over as writer and centered the book a lot around the weird love square between Nuklon, Fire, Obsidian and Icemaiden with The Flash maybe getting something to do every three issues, I lost interest quickly. I stuck around because they dangled the carrot of Guy Gardner coming back to the team, but once it became evident he wasn’t sticking around, I dumped the book in August of 1995.

I began reading Captain America in 1993 or so admittedly because of the stunt “Fighting Chance” storyline where Cap’s Super Soldier Serum was going bad and he only had a year to live. Yes, it was goofy with the pouch-filled vest, the armor and Jack Flag, but I ate up every chapter of Mark Gruenwald and Dave Hoover’s year-long story. When they jumped off the book (and Cap disappeared mysteriously) in September of 1995, I did the same, figuring I’d come in for this story only and didn’t have any interest in a long term commitment (I did the same thing more or less with the Death and Return of Superman). Ironically, the next run was the to-this-day highly regarded Mark Waid/Ron Garney collaboration cut short but Heroes Reborn and I would not get to read it until years later.

I had tried to give the main X-Men books a chance even after I dropped X-Force, but that didn’t last long. I was kind of intrigued by the Onslaught mystery and loved Joe Madureira’s art, but weirdly Age of Apocalypse really botched it for me as I just couldn’t get into the characters as I had before. Having gone back and caught up on what I missed during the years I was gone since, I kind of wish I had stuck with it, because stuff like Operation: Zero Tolerance and the later Joe Kelly/Stephen Seagle run was right in my wheelhouse, but I said goodbye to the comics that had really been my childhood lynchpin during the fall of 1995, though I would continue following their animated adventures for another two years.

I bounced in and out of the Spider-Man books for a lot of the Clone Saga, Amazing Spider-Man and Web of Spider-Man being my primary titles of choice. Because that era was my entry point, I knew no other Spider-Man, and just assumed it had always been full of mysterious strangers, shocking reveals and omnipotent villains just like X-Men. As I began to cotton to the fact that this was not really the case and the creative teams waxed and waned between restoring the status quo to “the good old days” but then lurched back into another clone showing up to keep that thing running, I strained a bit from feeling like I was caught in the middle of a tug of war. When Ben Reilly took over as Spider-Man would have seemed the ideal jumping off point, but I was still somewhat under the impression the saga was finally winding to a close; around the time Spider-Carnage debuted in April of 1996, I gave up.

I’m sure it won’t surprise any regular readers of this blog to learn that New Warriors was the toughest comic for me to give up—in fact, I never did. I stuck with the book all the way to its cancellation with issue #75 in September of 1996, the same month I started high school interestingly and poetically enough (childhood’s end and all that). The stuff that had driven me off other books didn’t faze me when it came to the Warriors. Fabian Nicieza left with issue #50, but I found Evan Skolnick to be a very capable successor. Nova, Namorita and Night Thrasher were written out, but I stuck around for Justice, Firestar, Speedball and the new recruits. Even the altering of the seminal logo wasn’t enough to get rid of me (and that was a big deal, I assure you). I may have missed an issue here and there, but that was only because I was going to the shop less and less, so sometimes I’d forget the shipping schedule and they’d sell out, as New Warriors was not a book my retailer was getting in bulk.

As I’ve said before, I felt New Warriors ended on an appropriate note, with Skolnick bringing the full team back together and I do feel like those 75 issues constitute a complete story for me that subsequent revamps have left untouched. Still, it was a seismic shift for me as a fan, with my favorite comic being cancelled (despite my letter writing campaign of one letter to Marvel Vision) and me re-evaluating how into all this I still was.

Superboy was my favorite DC character as a kid (I liked the concept of The Flash, but didn’t know the person behind the mask that well yet). It was oddly serendipitous that at almost the exact same time New Warriors was coming to an end, Karl Kesel and Tom Grummett, the creative team that introduced Superboy and crafted the first two-plus years of his book, were moving on. If I had still been buying a lot of comics, I likely would have kept up with Superboy, but as I was pretty much done by the fall of 1996, their exit seemed an appropriate sign. In fairness, I did give the new creative team a few issues and really wanted to like it given how much I enjoyed Ron Marz on both Silver Surfer and Green Lantern, but even though they kept the same supporting cast and setting, the book felt different enough that it wasn’t too hard to move on (little did I know that 15 years later Superboy would be completely unrecognizable to a kid who grew up reading about him).

Strangely, as best I can tell, the final comic I was reading on a reading on a regular basis was Legion of Super-Heroes. This was odd because I’d come into the book late (I didn’t start until after Zero Hour in 1994), the characters had no recognition outside of comics (I never watched a cartoon with them or anything) and…well, Legion was just an odd book for me to end on. Don’t get me wrong, I thought that era was great, but it’s wild to me that I hung on with Legion of Super-Heroes longer than I did X-Men, Superboy and New Warriors. The split of the team and marooning half of them in the past where they suddenly weren’t as unique likely contributed to my severing ties.

(I should note the fact that I dropped my final two DC titles during Final Night speaks not to a disdain for that story, which I like, it was just coincidental timing)

And so as 1996 drew to a close, I was out of comics. I would check in now and again if I happened to spy a rack in a CVS or something over the next couple years and always checked what they had when I went to a bookstore, but for the most part, I was comics-free from 1997 to nearly 2001.

That, of course, is another story…

Reader Request: Cable vs. Dracula

2011-12-11T23:37:00.000-05:00

In the comments section of my Avengers vs X-Men classic post, Shatterstar88 (great name) asked, “Can you do a post about who would win in a fight between Dracula (marvel version) and Cable?”

Indeed I can, Shatterstar88, indeed I can.

I like this matchup, because while there’s a case to be made on the surface that it would be a blowout either way if you look only at each individual combatant (“He’s the Lord of all Vampires!” “He’s an uber-powerful mutant messiah!”), once you line them up next to one another you see they’ve got more than a little bit in common and would counter each other quite nicely.

Both Cable and Dracula usually draw heavily upon their respective battlefield knowledge and fighting experience, given that one is a time traveler who has been fighting in wars since he was a boy and the other is an immortal despot who has led countless campaigns for power and land. Neither guy is a rookie by any means and thus both would be deprived of the chief edge they typically hold in other fights.

Nathan was trained from childhood by Blaquesmith, the Askani and others in forms of fighting that don’t even exist as of the 21st century, where this fight would presumably take place (as an aside, young Cable vs Karate Kid would also be badass). Vlad has been around multiple life spans and over the course of such has traveled around the world and become versed in all forms of armed and unarmed fighting. You could argue Cable knows disciplines that Dracula couldn’t possibly have learned yet, but you could also contend that Dracula has had more opportunities to hone his skills; I think in terms of pure repertoire, they cancel one another out.

Moving over to powers, both guys have impressive sets of abilities, but also the potential means to counter one another. Dracula has been known to mesmerize his foes, but Cable is a telepath (or possibly a former telepath, but he’s still got the mental discipline instilled), so he can probably forget that trick; likewise, Nathan may not be able to use his telepathy (provided he has it in this scenario) since Vlad has had years to build up his mental defenses and generally isn’t susceptible to that sort of thing (he got snookered by illusion when he battled MI: 13, but it was mystically generated, and Cable knows jack about magic). It will come down to telepathy and guns against the vampire cocktail of enhanced strength, senses, etc. plus perhaps a sword or two.

What I think it comes down to is that Dracula is primarily a schemer, while Cable is definitively a man of action. Don’t get me wrong, Drac is still a force to be reckoned with if you piss him off, but he’s much rather remain in the shadows and move chess pieces around than actually engage in fisticuffs. He concocted an elaborate campaign in Vampire State but that fell apart when the variables shifted on him; in the recent Hulk Vs. Dracula, he had to rely on sending others to battle The Hulk for him while he sat back in his castle preparing for the worst. Even in Curse of the Mutants, his temporary undoing—and death—at his son Xarus’ hands came about primarily because he was locked into the business of sitting around a big table and doing business rather than getting his hands dirty.

Cable, on the other hand, is all about jumping into the fray when circumstances demand and adapting to the circumstances. He kept himself and Hope alive for years jumping all over the time stream because he remained at least one step ahead of Bishop, but he was also able to engage his enemies when need be and generally has the tools, ruthlessness and cunning to come out on top in a scrap. When he led X-Force, Cable was always front and center, jumping right into the action with his team rather than just directing traffic and letting them wear down the enemy. Nathan knows how to flee and make the circumstances ideal for the battle he wants—see not just his entire last ongoing series but also Messiah Complex as well as Second Coming—but when he’s backed into corner, he’s often at his best.

So my answer would be that Cable has the slight edge if only because the loose definition of “a fight” implies both guys get tossed into a situation and go at it, meaning Dracula doesn’t have time to prepare and create a multi-layered plan. Also, if Drac bites into Nate’s neck, there’s a decent chance he’s getting oil or a techno-organic virus rather than blood, so that’s also a disadvantage.

I’d go with Cable by a plasma grenade. I would like to see Victor Gischler write this clash ASAP.

Grocery Store Comics: "General Mills Presents: Justice League" #1: "Unstoppable Forces"

2011-12-09T03:02:00.004-05:00

[You may not always realize it, but there are a number of random print comics on sale at general retail outlets across America on any given week. A lot of them are for kids. Whenever Kiel comes across such a comic at a grocery store, a stop n' gulp, a newsstand or anywhere else they sell Doritos, he buys it. This column is the place where he rambles about those purchases.

As always, reviews on The CKT should NOT be considered any of the following things: The opinion of anyone who works at DC or Marvel. Brief. Smart. Entertaining. Insightful. Spoiler-free. Or vaguely resembling something resembling actual comics criticism. We cool? - KP]

General Mills Presents: Justice League #1: Unstoppable Forces
DC Comics
Written By Scott Beatty
Art By Christian Duce
Free With Cereal...my box of Trix cost $3.99
Website Here

Hey! An actual comic from an actual grocery store!

When I was a kid, I LOVED it any time DC or Marvel would offer some throwaway comic as a publicity stunt whether it be mailaway offerings on the back of pizza boxes or random Toys R' Us handouts. So when I heard that DC was working up a handful of Justice League one-shots to stuff in cereal boxes as the latest in DC Entertainment's attempts to brand build with little kids (never forget attempt #1), I was all for it. I know a lot of people would write this kind of thing off as the most crass of marketing ploys, but I know from experience that little things like this can be both entertaining for certain kids and foster a deeper love of comics in the chase to nab the books up if not the execution of the story on the page.

But to my mind, for the actual comics of one of these promotions to actually work they need to accomplish two basic goals: some solid action comic entertainment value (not just basic competency but some honest-to-goodness storytelling thrills) and that indefinable quality that makes these characters seem radical in the eyes of America's eight-year-olds. And this installment of the digest-size giveaways doesn't really succeed on either account.

While I've always found Scott Beatty's work perfectly serviceable in general and have honestly dug a lot of his more YA-ish work (Batgirl: Year One and Son of Vulcan both come to mind), his script here doesn't ever cohere in a way that overcomes its structural flaws. Setting aside the broad plotholes you'd be willing to write off for this kind of thing (the story opens with the League burying the Shaggy Man under a mountain and then forgetting about the comatose villain for two years while an entire city is built atop his resting place), the arc of the whole comic falls flat. The Shaggy Man is put down, he breaks out, and then the League finds a slightly better way to put him down. It's basic stuff, made even more undramatic by some awkward storytelling moments both in dialogue and the art.

Speaking of which, I have never seen Duce's name or work around before, but from the look of it, the artist is on his first full gig here. Not only does his cartooning embody the sameness of most licensing art, his storytelling has some major hiccups in the fight scenes in particular. There's got to be room for growth with someone this new, but woof...not an auspicious start.

But hey, there are a few better points on the "make these characters seem rad" front. Starting with the inarguable fun of cut-out Batman masks on the back of the cereal box:

Sure, this isn't part of the comic in question, but I think this cheap but fun part of the promotion points to something about how DC has approached this kind of thing. As I'm sure you can tell, the image above isn't from the actual box of cereal I bought. But as far as I can tell, EVERY box that contained a Justice League mini had a Batman mask on the back – nothing for the Flash of GL even.

If nothing else, DC as a corporate entity gets that Batman is a bad ass to everyone. They won that battle sometime around 1989, and the sentiment is as powerful now amongst general audiences as it's ever been probably. So the challenge here becomes making the the rest of their properties (God, I hate referring to characters like that, but in a product like this what the hell else can you call them?) seem as cool as the Dark Knight. If DC Comics is really going to compete as DC Entertainment the way Warner Bros. wants them to, their recently rebranded "Big Four" of Batman, Superman, Green Lantern and Flash need to be able to hold their own in t-shirt sales against Captain America, Hulk, Thor and Iron Man at least if not Spider-Man and Wolverine to boot.

So it seems to reason that if this giveaway is going to justify its cost in the eyes of DCE, the characters should all get their due on the page in one way or another. And this comic almost pulls some of that off. Batman is uber-prepared and flies a jet. Superman can punch out anything. Green Lantern makes some fun, goofy stuff with his ring (and some inexplicable stuff...do kids think big metal spikes are cool?). Flash even finds a few decent moments in creating whirlwinds, though I'm not sure how awesome it is to declare yourself "faster than a text."

But Aquaman and Wonder Woman? Holy shit do they get the shaft here. The King of the Seas spends most of his page time running himself down for having lame superpowers. Honest to God, there's a whole page where he stands there and just complains about not being useful on dry land to which Batman replies "You're a last line of defense." And poor Wonder Woman's plane seems cooler than here in this thing. She's only in about five panels and has two lines of dialogue. I guess little girls don't eat cereal anymore?

Overall, I'm probably being too harsh on something that was put together under a handful of content restraints and on a tight budget/deadline, but I'd like to think that a comic with hundreds of thousands of copies in print which will doubtlessly land in the hands of thousands of kids would put a better foot forward.

I'd still like to read Paul Tobin and Derec Donovan's attempt at one of these as they were the creative team on this I thought would do the best job at the outset, but I'm not due for more cereal pickups for a while. Let me know if you find one, huh?

Avengers VS X-Men Classic

2011-12-06T21:58:00.000-05:00

It's time for another lame apology post about not posting more frequently lately, but if you saw the news today, you now know I was busy prepping for the announcement of Avengers VS X-Men, the major Marvel event of 2012. Further, I was getting ready for our very cool Livestream event tomorrow, during which we'll have all the creative big guns on to interact with fans in a neat new kind of format.

So while this week will still be packed with a lot of work that may keep me away from the Table, let me leave you with a very special CLASSIC look at Avengers vs X-Men...

...from issue #3 of the 1996 volume of Captain Marvel where Avengers Forever cast member Genis-Vell threw down with yours and my favorite not-really-an-X-Man-but-tried-to-help-during-Fear-Itself-and-he's-really-awesome...X-TREME! I've never read it, but dang, given my love for Adam-X, the former Legacy and all things Fabian Nicieza, why the heck haven't I?

Enjoy AvX!

Oh, and for those who are tired of seeing only the women of comics do the "brokeback" pose...

For the ladies! And fellas who like fellas! And weird Legacy fetish people!

Rasslin' Ramblings: WrestleMania XXVIII, Take Two

2011-12-04T23:26:00.000-05:00

It’s been a few months now since I first tried my hand at booking next year’s WrestleMania and already, as they tend to do in wrestling, things have changed pretty drastically. Here are just a few factors that have altered the card I proposed just back in August:

-Triple H and C.M. Punk already had their one-on-one match and it seems unlikely that feud will be revisited at the moment

-John Morrison has left WWE

-Mark Henry came out of nowhere to become the monster heel we never knew we needed

-Rey Mysterio and Sin Cara both look to be out with injuries that will extend past WrestleMania

That said, while the dream lineup I imagined four months ago may no longer be probable or in some cases possible, I do not mind going back to the drawing board and giving it one more college try…

JOHN CENA vs THE ROCK
Again, this is the set main event of WrestleMania XXVIII and that’s not going to change between now and March. Last time out, I talked about how this match does not need the WWE title involved, and I maintain that. I also said that I didn’t think John Cena needed to turn heel, and that’s where things have gotten a bit interesting. WWE is not shying away from addressing the issue of many fans booing Cena, swapping out their “most controversial superstar in history” rap at least a bit by having everybody from Miz to Roddy Piper put it right out there. I do think from a creative perspective, a Cena heel turn has a lot of potential to enrich the character. The guy who did everything right but still gets no respect and is bitter about it has possibilities, and the idea of Cena is the unstoppable juggernaut bad guy ala Brock Lesnar is intriguing. On the other hand, I get why from a business standpoint a Cena heel turn is not the best thing; beyond the merchandise issue, he is an incredible ambassador and it would suck for him no longer to be available for Make-a-Wish, etc. Normally I hate when corporate trumps creative, but maybe I’m just growing up—or getting boring—because I get it here. I do like that it’s all on the table, not being ignored, and I’m interested to see where it goes.

WWE Champion C.M. PUNK vs RANDY ORTON
First off, early reports have Randy Orton winning the Royal Rumble. Second, if WWE is serious about C.M. Punk—and at this point there’s no reason they shouldn’t be—it would be nice for him to hold onto the title through WrestleMania and give it some much needed stability. Third, there’s a dearth of big time heels to challenge Punk on the grand stage, as Alberto Del Rio seems to have crashed and burned out the main event and Miz doesn’t have that big time feel in this scenario. So how about Orton wins the Rumble then chooses to face Punk because “he’s the future” and/or because he’s beaten him before. Both guys have enough juice with the fans that I don’t think WWE risks turning either heel, but each are also edgy enough that they can go beyond the played out mutual respect angle. Punk can do what everybody loved seeing him do over the summer, blurring the lines between fiction and reality, getting on Orton about being “born into the business” and about his undisciplined early days; Orton can fire back by being his bad old self. We know they have good in-ring chemistry, so it’s a fairly guaranteed solid match between two legit stars worthy of the WrestleMania spotlight.

World Champion MARK HENRY vs DANIEL BRYAN vs WADE BARRETT
They’ve done a great job booking Mark Henry as a dominant heel the likes of which WWE hasn’t seen in quite some time, and again, I think it’s imperative he doesn’t get dethroned until WrestleMania (and it would be nice if he could get a decisive win over Big Show at some point). He can busy himself with a returning Kane beginning later this month into 2012 to set the stage for a showdown with Money in the Bank winner Daniel Bryan in March, a match that has foreshadowed nicely with the underdog taking his lumps thus far but getting shots in too. I would spice things up by having Wade Barrett—who is also on a monster roll right now and shouldn’t be an afterthought—win at Elimination Chamber, maybe getting the final fall on Bryan, and earning a spot in the World title match at Mania. This opens up the booking options to Bryan getting the emotional win (my pick), Barrett stealing the title, or even Henry retaining; you could have Bryan pick up a submission on Barrett and thus still needing to prove himself against Henry, providing another month or two of solid feuding.

TRIPLE H w/ SHAWN MICHAELS vs KEVIN NASH w/ SEAN WALTMAN
I would have preferred to see Triple H putting Punk over here, but barring that, they may as well go the distance with this Nash feud and pull out all the stops. If nothing else, it’s a good excuse to bring Shawn Michaels in and to have Sean Waltman back as well (in a perfect world you could involve Scott Hall as well, but likely he’s not up for it and his continuing health is more important). The promos between all parties involved leading up would be dynamite and then you hedge your bets for the match itself by making it a street fight, letting everybody go to town and HHH get the win after an HBK superkick for the big pop.

CHRIS JERICHO vs THE MIZ
This one comes courtesy of Jason Knize, who suggested it after my last post. The scuttlebutt is that while he’s been playing coy on Twitter and whatnot, Jericho could be on his way back to WWE, and he’s said in the past that if he does return, he wants to reinvent himself as much as he did going from Y2J to his serious heel persona in 2008. In interviews, Jericho has taken Miz (and others) to task on occasion for ripping him off as far as wearing suits, talking slow, etc. An angry return for vengeance on those who have taken his revolutionary actions and made them bland and assembly line could work nicely for Jericho, and Miz would certainly be a game opponent to kick off that new direction.

R-TRUTH & ZACK RYDER w/ HUGH JACKMAN vs DOLPH ZIGGLER & JACK SWAGGER w/ VICKIE GUERRERO
It’s not WrestleMania without token celebrity involvement, and personally I thought Hugh Jackman was fantastic during his Raw appearance and it would be awesome if WWE could get him back for an extended program. If he’d be up for it, Jackman actually working a match would be great, but barring that, seconding the wacky duo of Zack Ryder and a once again babyface R-Truth would be gold. I somewhat regret “wasting” Ziggler in another stunt tag match given how money he’s been lately, but you can also count on him to deliver the goods and he and Ryder would be excellent for promotional appearances in the mainstream.

Beyond those, I’d keep Undertaker vs Sheamus from my original card, and then things get a bit murky. It would have been nice to have Mysterio or Sin Cara available for a title vs mask match with Cody Rhodes, but maybe you slot Kane in there. With nothing better for either, perhaps Big Show and Christian wrestle one another? As for Alberto Del Rio, if Rey makes a miracle recovery they could face off, or otherwise maybe team him with Brodus Clay to go after the Tag titles, held by Air Boom or whoever.

What do you guys think?

The Hobgoblin: Knockoff Made Good

2011-12-01T00:17:00.000-05:00

When something works in comics, it has the propensity to spread like wildfire. This can be particularly true in the case of villains and even more so when it comes to Spider-Man’s villains. We’re talking a flock of Vultures, a pack of Kravens, Goblins of every make, a Scorpion and Doctor Octopus of each gender, not to mention symbiotes galore. In some cases, the copies make their own mark and turn out to be worthy successors to the mantel; in others, they end up cannon fodder so the original can make their way back into the limelight.

I’ve recently been reading the Amazing Spider-Man: Origin of the Hobgoblin trade and am struck by how Hobby is one “knockoff” who didn’t just pick up where his predecessor left off, he established his own distinct spot in Spidey lore.

A lot of “second generation” bad guys feel lazy because they seem to pick up their gimmicks for lack of their own ideas. Blackie Drago literally stole Adrian Toomes’ Vulture wings rather than come up with a different gimmick. The Kraven boys followed in daddy’s footsteps pretty slavishly out of tribute or tradition. However, while Hobgoblin swiped the Green Goblin’s gear and basic style, he went out of his way to make sure everybody knew they were not the same.

One of the things I’m really digging in these early Hobgoblin stories—written mostly by his co-creator, the great Roger Stern—is how he analyzes where Norman Osborn went wrong and takes measures to avoid the same pitfalls. It gives the character credibility that he not only recognizes insanity but also how it can be limiting, as opposed to just another nut seduced by promise of power. He’s cagey and deliberate whether it means avoiding a pointless fight with Spider-Man before he’s ready or cleaning up every last loose end. The Hobgoblin doesn’t want to live up to any legacy, he wants to surpass it; he wants to be better.

Something else I credit Stern and folks like Tom DeFalco with is how they gave Hobby a definitive arc in those first appearances. There are under a dozen comics collected in the trade I’m reading, but they really do account for the definitive Hobgoblin epic. For a year or two, the character was very much at the center of Spider-Man’s world, particularly in Amazing Spider-Man, involving himself with the ongoing soap opera and retaining a significant role in the background of issues even where he wasn’t the star. He comes into Spidey’s life, makes a huge impact, then fades out having left an impression.

I’m not clear on the exact circumstances surrounding the length of the original Hobgoblin stories; the fact that DeFalco took over midway through and Stern returned over a decade later to conclude it his way tells me there were probably non-story factors at work, but that’s irrelevant to me. The fact is the way Hobby steals the show and then exits before wearing out his welcome works perfectly. While there would be subsequent Hobgoblins featured in the Spider-Man books and elsewhere, that sense that the guy Stern knew to be behind the mask only made a handful appearances and then vanished for so many years adds tremendous mystique. Even now, when the original has come back and even died, the character carries a weight because your mind doesn’t go to whatever he was doing in the 90’s, it flashes right back to that first strong run.

Of course the mystery of the Hobgoblin’s true identity was central to his early success as well, with Stern doing his riff on the original Green Goblin in another way but with the nuances comics had gained and bringing his considerable strength at crafting the story to bear. Even reading this material in retrospect and knowing the answer to the questions being posed, I’m impressed by the suspects Stern lines up, the clues he leaves and the way it really does feel like it could be any number of folks. This also helps weave Hobgoblin into the tapestry of not just Spidey’s world, but Peter Parker’s, with the sense that a close colleague, old foe or even trusted friend could be the one unwittingly—or wittingly?—responsible for his woes. The paranoia is palpable and makes for a stronger story.

Kudos as well to John Romita Jr. as well as his dad on Hobby’s design. I always thought the color scheme of a pale face with orange and grey tunic both set the character apart and trumped the green and purple look favored by Norman Osborn and many other practitioners of evil. The first time I saw Hobgoblin was on the 90’s Spider-Man animated series—fantastically voiced by the great Mark Hamill—and I thought he made Venom look tame in terms of creep factor.

Recently Dan Slott seemingly brought the career of original Hobgoblin Roderick Kingsley to a bloody close—“seemingly” because it’s comics, not because I know something you don’t, because I don’t—having former heroic Green Goblin Phil Urich slice his noggin off and swipe his gear. It’s a nice full circle routine since Kingsley stole his shtick from another Goblin too, but more than that it’s been neat to see Phil step up and fill those Hobby boots as the wild card of the Spider-Man world, even maintaining that air of mystery since while we know who he is, nobody around him does.

So-called “knockoff” villains indeed don’t always have the highest success rate, but I’d say the current Hobgoblin stands a more solid chance than most not only because I personally enjoy him, but because he’s walking down a path whose trailblazer created by bucking the idea bad guys can’t borrow a costume or name and not also be their own baddie.

Five Comics Worth Reading - November 2011

2011-11-28T23:34:00.001-05:00

ANGEL & FAITH
There’s a longer post to be written about this, I’m sure, but while I recognize that pound-for-pound Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a stronger TV series than Angel was, I always had a soft spot for the latter, often over the former, probably in large part because I watched both when I was in college, so supernatural aspects aside the “brooding young man with an old soul striking out in the world” motif resonated more with me at the time than “young girl and her friends finding themselves post-high school” for whatever reason (don’t get me wrong, I loved both). Now, once again, while I dig the Buffy Season Nine comic, I think I’m enjoying Angel & Faith that much more, not just because one has a prominent male protagonist though, it’s just well-done and exploring fresh ground. Aside from his Angelus periods, Angel has always been the stoic mentor, from his earliest appearance on Buffy guiding her into the world she’s embracing to leading his team on his own show, only really losing that control when he goes full evil. Conversely, Faith has always been the protégé in need of redemption, whether from Buffy, Giles or Angel himself. Here, Christos Gage is establishing a new dynamic where a reluctantly responsible Faith must look out not only for a band of neophyte slayers, but a penitent Angel, who is not just heaping his usual self guilt on for recent actions, but getting reckless without turning bad in his desperation to make things right. The plot is tight, but it’s getting to see both leads so out of their comfort zones and the characterization gold Gage is skillfully mining that makes this book tick. Rebekah Isaacs is also doing a slick job on art, walking that line between depicting characters with real life counterparts and finding ways to still own them yourselves.

BATMAN
This is probably the most dense comic I pick up, and I mean that as a total compliment. Some books I breeze through, but not Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s Batman, which I need to really pore over to appreciate every detail and development. The fact is, Batman has been around going on seven or eight decades now, and I don’t have much interest in most stories directly tackling his mindset or stuff of that nature because they’ve all been done to some extent. What does get me going is what Snyder is doing, and that’s focusing on the mythology of Gotham City or the Wayne legacy, making Batman the explorer rather than the discovery and in the process adding layers to the character as he builds the world around him. Snyder’s enthusiasm for the minutiae of detective work, forensics, or even architecture make the stories pop as it really is an almost interactive adventure you can follow rather than just having to be a passive observer of guys in spandex kicking and punching (though there is that too). He’s doing a nice job integrating the various generations of supporting cast as well as adding his own creations, again making Gotham feel like a living and evolving organism. I was a big mark for Capullo’s X-Force as a kid, so it’s cool to see him back with quite a few years experience and refinement under his belt knocking out dark, beautiful work that also has some nice bounce to it.

THE FLASH
I may have to rethink my top five Flash artists, because honestly, few people have ever captured the pure energy of the concept in my mind like Francis Manapul has. Other guys may have conveyed speed better or drawn better figures and fight scenes, but I can’t think of anybody whose work at its essence feels like it is the burst of light, movement and pure joy I think of better than Manapul and Steve Buccalleto’s. The innovation and verve they bring to the visual aspect of The Flash undeniable, but as anybody who has read this blog for a little while knows, the real challenge is getting me to even tolerate Barry Allen; well, I’m still not the guy’s biggest supporter and can argue why he shouldn’t be wearing the red and yellow with the best of them, but I’m slowly coming around to some degree. I believe few characters have benefitted from the DC re-launch quite like Barry, as the removal of his Crisis sacrifice status as well as the Silver Age albatross of moral boredom goes a ways toward giving him a shot at being a likable protagonist. Right now, Manapul and Buccaletto’s art is so strong and their story hooks have enough pop that I’m going to try to like Barry Allen—I can give few higher compliments.

MAGNETO: NOT A HERO
There are few characters in comics more interesting and complex than Magneto. His actions make him an ostensible villain, but it’s hard to argue with his justification. At his best, he invokes conflict in readers where you’re torn between rooting against his evil plots but for his gaining vengeance for past atrocities. At his best he is also more charismatic than brutal as far as “bad guys” go; you perhaps want him to reform—and are disappointed when he ultimately can’t—but there’s also that part of you that enjoys his wicked streak. Skottie Young—best known for his exquisite art but rocking his writing muscles here—captures all of this, every last bit, in this series. He gives you Magneto the philosopher, arguing his case for why any means really are necessary, but also throws enough cold inhumanity behind those words that you question your support almost immediately. He plays with the idea of the character’s reformation, both how possible it is and even if it’s necessarily right or needed. He explores all sides of Magneto, from the ruthless and violent crusader who tears through human lives to the eyebrow-raising rogue who mocks Iron Man’s rubber suit of armor. It’s a fascinating character study from start to finish just in issue one, but there’s also great action, an intriguing mystery and skillful use of continuity and the concept of the shared universe; again, for a guy who has made most of his name drawing beautiful pictures, Skottie Young has incredible skill and finesse as a writer. He also doesn’t need to fret over the visuals for this book, as Clay Mann turns in his finest work to date; as my friend and co-worker Ryan noted, the level of detail he puts just into one of Magneto’s boots blows you away to the point where when you get the full figure it’s just something else.

SIX GUNS
Whereas once upon a time young Ben Morse could not stand for any other genres to get mixed in with his super hero comics the same way he freaked out if a mushroom found its way into his soup, I’ve matured and reversed my position on both, allowing me to enjoy my wife’s delicious fried mushrooms as well as a great books like Six Guns. This series isn’t just a Western done in modern times or within a world with guys who can fly, it’s a mash-up of a noir story, a crime procedural, a mystery and straight action with the sensibilities of cowboy lore driving it. It reminds me a little bit of 100 Bullets in some regards—high praise—but with its own distinctive flavor to be sure. Andy Diggle is a master of taking tropes like sci fi or Western and knowing not only where to take a sharp turn in a new direction but also where to not fix what ain’t broke; Six Guns delivers fun stuff you’d expect from a story about cowboys, bikers and other thugs trying to out-tough one another, but it’s also smart in where it diverges. There are only the most tangential ties to the Marvel Universe in the form of the female Tarantula being a player and somebody who would seem to be a modern Two-Gun Kid showing up at the end of issue #2, but it’s enough to give a cool edge for a fan. Davide Gianfelice is in the zone on art and this certainly seems like the stuff he was born to draw. He’s seamless when it comes to bad looking dudes, hot ladies, nice bikes and dirty action—everything a book like this needs.

Happy Thanksgiving from the CKT!

2011-11-24T01:00:00.000-05:00

I'm currently up in Massachusetts stocking up for Turkey Day and who knows what those other scamps have planned, but from all of us here to all of our American readers, have a safe and happy Thanksgiving. And for all our British readers, remember that we won. The rest of you, just have a nice day.

Art Attack: February 2012's Coolest Covers

2011-11-21T22:29:00.001-05:00

-Jonah Hex should fight giant bats and whatnot 24/7. Anybody remember when he was in that post-apocalyptic future? Me neither, but they should try it again.

-For my money, that's Adam Hughes' most inventive and inspired cover of his Batgirl run thus far. The snow filter adds a lot and seems like it motivates him to raise his game overall.

-I love when Georges Jeanty goes high concept on Buffy. I also love that logo.

-Captain America and Carnage U.S.A. are a pair of covers that stand out for being disturbing for completely different reasons. With Cap, Alan Davis takes a familiar, reassuring icon and subverts him, taking away the physical prowess we count on Captain America to display, though he's still clearly got his strength of will displayed in a more subtle way. Clayton Crain, on the other hand, just knows how to make Carnage straight up creepy with muted colors and horrifically twisted features.

-Fear Itself: The Fearless #7 is the current wallpaper background on my work computer.

-I'm only one issue in as far as reading the new Flash series, but the writing aside (and it's pretty solid), Francis Manapul conveys the ideal of what I imagine the character to be through his visual images better than anybody in recent memory. And when I say "the character," I'm not talking about Barry Allen or Wally West or any other single person, I mean the concept of The Flash, the kinetic energy of which he seems to have distilled down perfectly.

-What the heck is going on in Nathan Fox's Haunt cover? I dig it.

-I keep saying how the design for the new Venom seems to bring out the best in every artist who draws him, and it holds true even for a legend like Art Adams working on Secret Avengers. Can't wait to see that cover in full cover.

-You don't see sound effects on covers enough--well-played, Kaare Andrews! And that's a strikingly pretty Ultimate Scarlet Witch as well.

-Venom, Red Hulk, X-23 and the new Ghost Rider are a pretty quirky group, but Stefano Caselli makes them look like they belong together.

-Lee Bermejo all day long, man. He draws the hell out of just about anything, but dang, that's one bad ass Winter Soldier. Hot Black Widow too. And hey, Gabrielle Dell'Otto draws a nice Winter Soldier too. Kudos to Steve Epting on a great design.

-Lot of guys doing great work this month, from Adams to Andrews to Simon Bisley, but Bermejo gets the slight nod as my artist of the month.

ALL-STAR WESTERN #6 by Ladronn

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #679 by Mike Del Mundo

BATGIRL #6 by Adam Hughes

BATMAN AND ROBIN #6 by Patrick Gleason

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: SEASON NINE #6 by Georges Jeanty

CAPTAIN AMERICA #8 by Alan Davis

CARNAGE U.S.A. #3 by Clayton Crain

CONAN THE BARBARIAN #1 by Becky Cloonan

DC UNIVERSE PRESENTS #6 by Ryan Sook

DEATHSTROKE #6 by Simon Bisley

FEAR ITSELF: THE FEARLESS #7 by Art Adams

THE FLASH #6 by Francis Manapul

GLORY #23 by Ross Campbell

THE GOON #38 by Eric Powell

HAUNT #23 by Nathan Fox

HELLBLAZER #288 by Simon Bisley

JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #6 by Mikel Janin

NEW MUTANTS #37 by Kris Anka

PENGUIN: PAIN AND PREJUDICE #5 by Szymon Kudranski

SECRET AVENGERS #23 by Art Adams

THE SHADE #5 by Tony Harris

SIX GUNS #5 by Butch Guice

SPACEMAN #4 by Dave Johnson

SUPERNATURAL #5 by Dustin Nguyen

ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #7 by Kaare Andrews

ULTIMATE COMICS X-MEN #7 by Kaare Andrews

VENOM #13 by Stefano Caselli

WINTER SOLDIER #1 by Lee Bermejo

WINTER SOLDIERS #1 variant by Gabrielle Dell'Otto

WINTER SOLDIER #2 by Lee Bermejo

Rasslin' Ramblings: Favorite Survivor Series Teams

2011-11-20T17:30:00.000-05:00

The first wrestling pay-per-view I ever watched was Survivor Series 1990. It was Thanksgiving night and my dad, who alternately supported my love of wrestling having been a fan himself (he still tells me about seeing Pepper Gomez at the Boston Garden) and thought I watched it too much (or maybe my mom thought that, can’t remember) got it as a special treat. He, my sister and I brought some leftovers out to our den and settled in to enjoy three hours of WWF action including the one and only Ultimate Match of Survival where Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior overcame the odds to end the night on an up note.

In the 25 years since Survivor Series got its start, I’ve seen just about every one either live or via the magic of VHS or WWE Classics (I’ve still never seen 1988 and missed 2004 and 2005). I remember watching the Gravest Challenge at 1991 with my elementary school chums, seeing Bret Hart get screwed in 1997 with buddies from the wrestling team, booing Chyna beating Chris Jericho in 1999 with my high school pals, and catching 2006 and onwards on a couple months delay apiece from the privacy of my New Jersey apartment.

While Survivor Series has undergone many a format change since 1987 and the team elimination matches have become a special attraction as opposed to the norm, they’re still the first thing I think of when it comes to the event, so to commemorate tonight’s edition, here are my favorite squads from through the years.

1987: Team Macho Man (Randy Savage, Ricky Steamboat, Jake Roberts, Jim Duggan & Brutus Beefcake)
This is the kind of upper mid card dream team I don’t think you could even assemble today. Every guy on this team was a future World champion at best and a guy who could have been a solid Intercontinental champ at worst. It was a round robin of hot tags between five guys the fans legitimately loved each of whom had a distinct and memorable character. They had pretty crappy opposition in the form of Honky Tonk Man and the likes of Danny Davis and Ron Bass, but they were fun to watch.

1989: The Rude Brood (Rick Rude, Mr. Perfect & The Fabulous Rougeaus)
First of all, you’re not going to find a better string of entrance themes than Rougeaus-Perfect-Rude—just melody to my 80’s music-loving ears. Second, it’s a great collection of skilled technical wrestlers who also happen to mesh well as a group of egomaniacs who run the table as far as variations on narcissism. Third, they had the perfect opponents in the unruly Roddy’s Rowdies (Roddy Piper, Jimmy Snuka & The Bushwhackers), and since I love rooting for jerks, I had it made.

1990: The Warriors (The Ultimate Warrior, The Texas Tornado & The Legion of Doom)
Going by pure childhood nostalgia, my favorite Survivor Series team ever, I do believe. As mentioned, this was the first PPV I ever watched, and these were the guys I wanted to see. Kerry Von Erich was my favorite wrestler when I was a kid. The Legion of Doom were the crazy WWF newcomers who I was quite intrigued by. I wasn’t the biggest Ultimate Warriors booster, but he was the WWF champion, and that earned a certain cred in my book. I was cheering my little head off as these guys steamrolled Mr. Perfect and Demolition, though I was bummed the Tornado was the first dude knocked out.

1997: Team Shamrock (Ken Shamrock, Ahmed Johnson & The Legion of Doom)
Taking a look at this crew, I had trouble imagining anybody had the stuff to take them down. Shamrock was just hitting his stride as a bad ass, LOD was back as close to top form as they could get and Ahmed, while on the last legs of his brief run in the big time, still came off as a powerhouse who could take anybody’s head off. Not a lot of finesse, but with those grimaces, did they need it?

2003: Team Stone Cold (Shawn Michaels, Booker T, Rob Van Dam & The Dudley Boyz)
This is kind of an all-time greatest hits Survivor Series team, almost. You’ve got Shawn Michaels, my favorite wrestler ever and one of the WWF’s greatest performers. Booker T was the standard bearer of WCW in their final years. Rob Van Dam was the embodiment of ECW and arguably the biggest star they ever produced. The Dudleys also had the ECW legacy, but more than that, you’re not going to name a more decorated tag team. To top it off, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, the biggest star of the 90’s, was in their corner. Can you believe they lost to Eric Bischoff’s team? So much for playing the odds…

2006: Team DX (Triple H, Shawn Michaels, C.M. Punk & The Hardy Boyz)
The finest Survivor Series team of recent vintage and likely one of the coolest of all-time when it comes to popularity. With DX leading the charge they were guaranteed major fan support already, but adding the recently reunited Hardys was gasoline on an already raging fire. However, most will agree the coolest aspect of this grouping was hearing newcomer Punk get the loudest reaction and seeing him get at least a momentary rub from his veteran partners. They dismantled the competition—a pretty game squad themselves with Edge, Randy Orton, the future John Morrison, the underrated Gregory Helms and, well, Mike Knox—handily, had a good time doing it with a wealth of fun spots and earned a standing ovation from the crowd after surviving all intact.

Justice League Task Force was not very good

2011-11-18T00:29:00.000-05:00

I’m not talking about Justice League Task Force the comic book, mind you. While I only own a few issues, Christopher Priest had a run as writer, and that generally ensures a certain degree of quality at least for a stretch. And while I loathe the “pro-active” super team chestnut, the Secret Defenders rotating line-up one is fun. Hey, did Justice League Task Force steal that gimmick from Secret Defenders or vice versa?

But I’m getting off topic—allow me to set the stage…

It’s 1995, I’m 13 years old, I’m huge into comics and while I’m only really versed in video games as far as my spare time at my friend Matt’s will allow me since I’ve only got an original NES with a partially rabbit-chewed wire, I do have some favorites, among them Street Fighter II. Thus the announcement of a fighting game featuring the Justice League seems like a slam dunk to me and I’m counting the days until Blockbuster gets their rental shipment in.

Any fan of comics and/or video game who has played Justice League Task Force is likely now cringing at my misplaced anticipated excitement.

To first give credit where credit is due, I liked and still dig the graphics on Justice League Task Force. The figures are colorful and energetic, looking like they’re straight out of a comic book, but the right mix of cartoony Street Fighter with more realistic Mortal Kombat living in harmony. The characters moved well enough—the women are in a kind of permanent uncomfortable looking crane pose—and the special moves look suitably neat. The mini movie that kicks the whole thing off is pretty well done too, with the cuts to all the locales and looming Darkseid promising a dope story to move this thing along.

And that’s where the good stuff ends.

The plot is that you’re a member of the Justice League going around visiting your friends to get info, but they all attack you and you need to fight them before gradually realizing they’re all android clones created by Darkseid. Then you beat Cheetah and Despero. Then you fight Darkseid. It ain’t Shakespeare, but it’s good enough for a 90’s fighting game, I guess.

You can play as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Aquaman or Green Arrow. No Green Lantern or Martian Manhunter, which is a shame as both ring constructs and shape shifting would have made for some diverse special moves, but as I’ll get to, a variety of fighting options is not really this game’s strong suit. It’s 1995, so Superman has a mullet. Also, Aquaman carries a trident around because that’s presumably easier to program than getting whales to jump on and off the screen.

Each character has their own location-specific background, which is pretty slick as far as Gotham, Metropolis, Themyscira, Atlantis and The Flash Museum—complete with statue of dead Barry Allen—but I guess they ran out of budget because Green Arrow gets a forest clearing. Cheetah is in the desert, Despero is on a spaceship and of course the final battle with Darkseid is on a so-so Apokolips.

So far not terrible, but keep in mind I’ve really just given you the set up—now it’s time to play the game.

Remember back in the 60’s where those old school Justice League stories paired off the various members of the team and so none could be distinguishable from the others they not only had the same personalities but virtually the same powers as well? By that I mean that even if Green Arrow was teamed with Superman, GA would have “fire arrows” and “ice arrows” so anything Supes could do with heat vision or arctic breath he could approximate. Likewise they’d use comics super science to explain how anything Green Lantern could do with his ring, Flash could do with speed. And maybe Batman had a magic lasso or something, I don’t know.

While I’d like to think the creators of Justice League Task Force were paying in homage to Gardner Fox and company, in reality, they seemingly just got really lazy, because everybody in this game has the same moves.

Superman has heat vision and arctic breath, while Green Arrow has fire and ice arrows and Batman has fire and ice Batarangs—all are the same. You can do the same shit with Aquaman’s trident you can do with Wonder Woman’s lasso. The only guy who really has his own move set is Flash, who has an awesomely cheap one where you can just keep running across the screen in continuous motion so whoever you’re fighting keeps getting punched and can’t stop you; it’s the JLTF equivalent of playing Street Fighter as E. Honda and doing that million punches thing (which I always do). Also, Flash can create tornados—who knew.

Anyways, you’ve basically got six characters with about six total moves between them and it gets real old real fast.

Oh, also Superman and Wonder Woman can fly, but they can’t really attack well while flying, so it’s somewhat useless.

Long story short, Justice League Task Force is a pretty game to look at, but you get sick of actually playing it really quick. You’d hope they’d redeem that somewhat with cool character endings, but again, they all have the same one.

I may not know much about video games, but I know what I like, and this wasn’t it. I will, however, throw a bone to the game’s developers because they also made Death and Return of Superman, which was awesome and my friend Chris and I stayed up through an entire night of college to beat it. I don’t see a world where I will ever grow tired of beating up thugs named Molotov as Superboy in the leather jacket and John Lennon glasses he should still be wearing today (and forever).

Underrated/Overlooked: Psionex

2011-11-15T00:24:00.000-05:00

In most iconic super hero-super villain archenemy pairings, the two individuals or teams involved are bound by their stark differences, cracked mirror similarities, or in some cases a little bit of both.

Superman is the alien who is an everyman while Lex Luthor is the human who sees himself as above his fellow man. Spider-Man is the hopeful optimism of youth in the face of adversity battling old men like Doctor Octopus or The Green Goblin who have given up on altruism and are driven by greed. Batman is the imposition of order while The Joker is the embodiment of chaos. Doctor Doom is the intelligence of Mr. Fantastic without morality and civic unselfishness keeping him in check.

The New Warriors never really had an archenemy. Some might say it was The Sphinx, and in that case you could argue the dynamic was the young agents of change versus the timeless champion of inevitability, but he was really Nova’s bad guy first and foremost. If you look at the bad guys in other big Warriors storylines like Tai, the Poison Memories or the Dire Wraiths, they were all basically one and done adversaries.

Breaking it down to numbers, the villains who plagued the New Warriors the most frequently and were their opposite number at least in the sense of being a team of young people were Psionex, introduced in issue #4 of the original series and recurring for the remainder of the volume as foes to our heroes, reluctant allies against a larger threat like Terrax, and even Night Thrasher’s attempt at a rehabilitation project.

If there was a weakness to Psionex in their core concept, it was that they didn’t really stand for much of anything, whereas the Warriors had a very strong sense of identity. Certain buzz phrases would recur through all of that classic first Warriors series—“making hard choices,” “searching for the truth,” “the power of love over the love of power”—creating not only a clear mission statement for the good guys, but the potential for an antithesis that was never really filled outside of in part with stuff I mentioned like The Sphinx and other little cases.

The initial hook to Psionex was a simple one: They were unbalanced young people given super powers by Genetech, the faceless corporation who would bug the New Warriors because why not. As it said on the blurb of their introductory issue, “They were bred for one purpose: To destroy the New Warriors!” but aside from having powers that gave various members of the team trouble, you never got the whole “bred for one purpose” thing. This wasn’t like the Injustice League or Dark Avengers or some incarnations of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants where each member of the villain team was picked specifically to target an opposing player on the good guys; it was just a bunch of randoms with cool powers.

However, it’s in those powers and their relative inventiveness that Psionex raises a notch or two up in my mind. Fabian Nicieza clearly put some time into coming up with these guys’ abilities, and in an era where “generic energy blast” was the flavor of every month—I’m looking at you Acolytes—it was refreshing and appreciated.

Asylum was a mental patient who never spoke but had a body composed entirely of Darkforce matter that induced hallucinations in anybody she came into contact with; similar to Cloak but with a twist of mental imbalance. Coronary at first glance seemed like the team powerhouse, but who was actually a “bio-telepath,” capable of messing with people’s internal functions so as to make them vomit, give them a heart attack or do other nastiness. Impulse had an enhanced metabolism which gave him fairly generic heightened speed, reflexes and healing, but his crazy thrill seeker personality coupled with his gang background made him interesting and led to classic moments like him trying to take on Terrax singlehanded and getting his back snapped (he got better). Mathemanic not only had a great name, but the most bizarre and intriguing abilities, as he practiced “mathematical telepathy,” messing with statistical regularities so he could do things like forcing his foes to perceive interstellar measures of distance and thus not see what’s in front of them or slowing the passage of time by altering perceptions. Last but not least you had Pretty Persuasions, an exotic dancer with an energy whip who could increase and then draw power from the “erotic urges” of others, making her one of the most straightforwardly sexual characters in comics at the time, but in an odd “what you see is what you get” refreshing kind of way.

Psionex had their initial clash with the Warriors, then a rematch that ended with Terrax’s rebirth and a temporary truce/half the villains fleeing. Later, after Asylum dissipated during a fight with Nova, Firestar and Speedball, another New Warriors villain, Darkling, found her mask and took up her mantel, getting Psionex back together and attempting to make them into heroes who would use the excessive force the Warriors were unwilling to; this period showed some potential for the group to really forge their own place in the Marvel Universe—or at least in the New Warriors mythos—but while it made for a few good stories, they were heavily focused on Asylum, with the rest becoming more or less window dressing. After Asylum accidentally killed a child by inducing an unknown heart condition while trying to scare him straight, we got a pretty emotionally hard hitting story—Nicieza’s final issue—where Mathemanic tries to turn back time by affecting perceptions across New York City, but ultimately is convinced that he can’t undo what is already done.

From there Psionex joined up briefly with Night Thrasher and Rage before gradually receding into a background role in the Marvel Universe for the past couple decades, generally only showing up for cameos when Nicieza is writing a book like New Thunderbolts or part of huge villain armies in titles being penned by New Warriors fans like when Christos Gage had the reins of Avengers: The Initiative.

In addition to their powers, the other thing Psionex really had going for it was that Mark Bagley did a bang-up job on their designs. They really were a motley crew of misfits, as befit their status as nut jobs, with the nerdy Mathemanic looking like he belonged nowhere near a group that also included S&M bombshell Pretty Persuasions. Asylum’s lack of physical form anchored by that golden mask was cool, as was Coronary’s evolving crystalline shape—although the weird skirt he rocked at first was bizarre—and even Impulse’s fairly traditional super villain get-up had neat touches like the evil Spider-Man bug eyes or weird wrist gauntlet blades. Richard Pace would ramp up the exaggerated elements of Psionex during his all-too-brief run on New Warriors and breathe even more life into Bagley’s work.

But again, while Psionex had plenty of potential in the abilities and visual departments, their lack of personalities, individually or as a group, and no real direction hurt their lasting legacy. It wasn’t enough just to be crazy, particularly in the 90’s, and after that initial Genetech-sponsored fracas, it wasn’t even quite clear why they were always tangling with the New Warriors.

Still, there’s something there in Psionex, even if it’s just that they bring something different to the table in terms of abilities that go beyond the tired cocktail of super strength, mind powers and, yes, energy blasts. I’m not saying they’re ever going to anchor a line-wide crossover or anything, but maybe next time an Avengers writer needs to kill half a standalone issue that’s really about the heroes’ relationships anyways, rather than use the Wrecking Crew yet again, they give Psionex a shot.

RIP Les Daniels

2011-11-10T23:06:00.000-05:00

When I was a little kid, my mom would drag me along with her when she went to the Newton Public Library. It was a big, beautiful building that was cool to get lost in, but she'd usually take awhile and I'd get bored. I figured out the computer system that looked up books as well as the map of the joint easy enough, so I'd always be trying to track down stuff that interested me to hold my attention. I'd spend my time leafing through books of Greek myths, art manuals, guides to movies and whatnot, but of course what I really wanted to find was comics.

I searched the magazine section and found nothing. I braved the children's room (hated that place) and came up empty. Finally, tucked away in the center of the big section of books devoted to painting and drawing, in the middle of a big black stack, I found a tiny row devoted to cartoons. Mostly that meant old stuff from the 40's, newspaper strips and a lot of European comics, but when I was lucky and it wasn't checked out, I'd grab the big, bright hardcover with Spider-Man scaling the wall towards you and find a quiet corner that my mom would eventually have to drag me away from.

The book was Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades, written by Les Daniels, who passed away earlier this week. Though I already had tremendous affection for super heroes and their adventures at this point, it was Daniels' writing that first opened the door for me on the realization that there was a place where the comics I read came from and minds behind crafting these stories. While I may have met Spider-Man and Batman through the comics my Dad brought me home from the grocery store, it was quite frankly Les Daniels who introduced me to the comics industry and made me decide it was a place maybe someday I'd like to work.

Five Fabulous Decades tells the story of Marvel, from the Golden Age of Atlas through the birth of the Marvel Universe right up to the then-burgeoning period of 90's excess; it's a tale I've read and heard many times since, but never exceeding the clarity and color Daniels brought to the table.

Daniels' bibliography hardly begins and ends with Five Fabulous Decades. In addition to his own fiction work, he was a legit and accomplished comics historian, from his breakthrough Comix: A History of the Comic Book in America in 1971 through chronicling nearly 70 years of DC in the late 90's and into the current century. I haven't read any of these works, but in remembering the significant contribution just one of his books made to my life, I'm now anxious to.

This is a paltry remembrance for a gentleman who contributed a great deal to the business I work in and fandom I'm a part of (as always, Tom Spurgeon did a better job), but it's my way of saying thank you for giving me a dream to follow, Mr. Daniels, may you rest in peace.

My Five Favorite Subway Sandwiches

2011-11-09T01:25:00.000-05:00

“I think I’m going to Subway.”

“You’re going to take the Subway?”

“No, I’m going to the Subway sandwich emporium.”

A conversation between Ben Morse and Rickey Purdin on Monday, November 7, 2011. Ben ended up going to Qdoba after all.

When last we left my saga with the Subway sandwich chain (Eat Fresh), the relationship was anything but healthy. I went on at length ruminating about the pangs of loss I felt from a childhood filled with bread cut from the top that gave way to an adult life consumed by rolls sliced in the traditional fashion. I had forsaken Subway, preferring to find my heroes (double meaning) across the counters of non-chain delis and the like.

But things change.

Primarily, I remained working in New York City on a regular basis where I realized that there are more Subways than there are trashcans, foot long sandwiches cost five dollars, and most delis charge like $30 for a pickle.

Also, I am told Subway is relatively healthy (by everybody except Dave Paggi and Ryan Penagos, who are food snobs).

So my love affair with Subway resumed, and I must say, while the passionate romance of my younger years may have subsided, a sensible and mutually beneficial adult relationship has taken its place.

To celebrate this renewed union, my five favorite Subways subs of yesteryear and today(year).

HONORABLE MENTION: Old School Steak & Cheese
The only sub that could lure occasionally me away from the Meatball when I was a kid (keep reading) was the Steak & Cheese. However, I remember the halcyon days where the steak was practically shredded as opposed to the cubes or uniformly sliced strips they use now; a sad loss.

Cold Cut Combo
The Cold Cut Combo is where I go once in a blue moon when I really want to let my hair down and go wild. That turkey-based bologna is the key brother; I don’t think it’s on any other sandwich and it’s probably illegal in some countries. Don’t order a Cold Cut Combo unless you’re ready for an experience.

Subway Club
In the summer of 2004, I helped work pre-camp at my beloved Camp Frank A. Day up in East Brookfield, Massachusetts, which basically meant I spent my days mowing grass, repairing cabins, setting up docks and doing other manly tasks, then found myself more or less alone in a spooky cabin in the middle of the woods as soon as the sun went down. It was a 20 minute drive to civilization and the nearest non-mess hall food, so when I grabbed dinner, I needed to make it count. Enter the Subway Club, a mountainous concoction containing turkey, roast beef and ham that when supplemented with veggies and mayo could keep your belly full and your mind keen (I also got one of the local girls who worked the counter to give me her Subway visor). I haven’t had a Club in years, but it got me through some tough nights in the (relative) wilderness.

Meatball Marinara
A sentimental favorite, the Meatball sub from Subway (we didn’t use fancy terms like “Marinara” back in the 90’s) was a staple of my childhood. After basketball games on Saturday mornings (I was terrible at basketball and gave it up the minute I was old enough to wrestle, but my dad, bless him, held out hope during those early years), my father would take me by either Burger King or Subway to combat the physical fitness I had just taken part in, and if it was the latter, I always got a Meatball sandwich. It doesn’t rank higher at the moment because my two favorite components of the sub were the top cut bread which I’m complained about being gone already and coating it in American cheese that would melt right on. Time and lactose intolerance have robbed me of these simple pleasures, but I’ll still fire up a cheese-less Marinara now and again for old time’s sake.

Black Forest Ham
My favorite option at the moment off the $5 Foot Long menu. As I have already mentioned several times already, I am lactose intolerant, meaning I need to find sandwiches that can give me that hit of flavor even when devoid of cheese, mustard or mayo (I think I can actually have the latter two, but I don’t, because I’m paranoid). Ham is nice and salty with a kick if done right (and Subway does everything right), so you don’t need to rely on dressing for flavor. Throw some lettuce, cucumbers, pickles and black olives on for added value and nutrition or whatever, toast the bun and singe the meat a bit, and you’ve got an ideal lunch for your hungry comic book web site editor on the go.

Roast Beef
For years, I struggled with the fact that I love to eat hamburgers and would gladly have them for lunch, but for the most part they are too heavy/filling for me to go back to work after having, and thus I relegated them to dinners and special occasions. Imagine my joy at experiencing the revelation about 20 years after most do that a roast beef sandwich is essentially a hamburger you can eat without resulting fullness-induced lethargy! The Subway near the Marvel offices slings a mean Roast Beef foot long, and you can further simulate the burger experience by topping it with lettuce, pickles and ketchup (I don’t like tomatoes on my burgers/roast beef sandwiches, that’s what the ketchup is for) and making sure the bun is nice and toasted. I also get black olives because I love black olives. This is my current go-to when I’ve got enough to splurge outside the $5 menu (during October, it was Anytober, where all foot longs were $5, including the Roast Beef—it was glorious) and thus at the moment it tops the list.

Leather Fetish

2011-11-06T23:03:00.000-05:00

I’m currently in the process on working on a fairly epic series with Marvel.com video whiz Rich “The Dragon” Herrera that should hopefully be up in the next couple weeks on the site in time for the 600th issue of Fantastic Four. Without giving away the game, we’ve got about three hours or so of footage interviewing Tom Brevoort about the history of the FF from start to finish with plenty of anecdotes and neat facts along the way. It was basically like taking a master class in Marvel from a gent very qualified teach it and one of the cooler experiences I’ve had in a very cool career.

One of my favorite bits from the whole thing, oddly enough, was when we got to the 90’s and Tom spent a substantial spot of time talking about the period where the Fantastic Four got leather jackets and specifically that The Human Torch had a leather jacket (“Was he cold? He’s on fire!”). Tom of course acknowledged that the folks working on the book at the time, Tom DeFalco and Paul Ryan, were just going with the general trend in the industry at the time, but as those were the comics coming out when I was a kid and I was part of the audience who more or less said “we would like to see The Human Torch in a leather jacket,” it got me thinking (again).

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again (right now, in fact): If you wanted your comic book character to look cool in the 90’s, you gave them a leather jacket with option of earring, ponytail and possible razor stubble. But did “looking cool” actually translate to “being cool”? Heck, did it even look cool? Let’s examine…

FANTASTIC FOUR
Y’know, from a functional standpoint (if not a fashion one), leather jackets really aren’t that out of place on the Fantastic Four. After all, they’re more explorers than super heroes at heart, so it does make a degree of sense they’d want plenty of pockets to carry around gear for wherever they’re headed and whatever they’ll encounter so they can always be prepared (and also stay warm, I suppose). Although Tom is right that a jacket offers very little use to the Torch, since he’s got built in weaponry and it would take excess time to treat anything he’s going to be carrying around or picking up in asbestos or whatever. And The Thing would never actually use anything but his fists so long as those are handy, plus he’ll tear through those suckers frequently enough to make the Hulk’s purple pants budget look frugal. And a jacket would actually hinder The Invisible Woman since at least part of her power hinges on not being noticed, which becomes more difficult with something making noise, causing wind resistance, etc. Ok, so maybe Mister Fantastic could wear a leather jacket from a functional standpoint.

WONDER WOMAN
Covered this recently, but the answer is no, Wonder Woman should not wear a leather jacket (in my opinion). Her gear is more than just a costume, it’s a uniform; the honor guard of a proud people symbolizing their greatest champion yada yada yada. You can alter it slightly (as has been done currently), but in story there’s a certain level of prestige and heritage that’s integral to Diana’s character, while on a real world level Wonder Woman has one the most recognizable costumes in comics and you shouldn’t be covering that up with a leather jacket (or bike shorts). To be fair, there was a very valid story reason why she wore what she wore—she wasn’t Wonder Woman anymore so keeping the garb would be disrespectful to her mother and her people—plus it was only ever designed to be a short term gig, but Diana should never be a slave to fashion trends.

THE X-MEN
X-Men and leather go together like peanut butter and jelly; it’s a beautiful and symbiotic relationship. In the 80’s, you had Mohawk Storm’s gear, in the 90’s you had the brown jackets that carried over from the comics to the animated series, and this century you had the black and yellow (and white) gear Frank Quitely introduced. It’s my belief that the reason the X-Men floundered commercially in the 60’s and early 70’s was not due to lack of Wolverine, but because they were hung up on spandex. Also, Gambit would probably curl up in the fetal position and weep if you took his duster away from him, and that’s a story nobody wants to see (unless Mike Carey has a really good angle on it, maybe).

SUPERBOY
A thousand times yes. That Superboy to this day is not sporting a leather jacket, an earring, John Lennon sunglasses and a fade cut is a crime against fashion. And since he was supposed to be not that much older than me when he was introduced, it made total sense he would emulate the same looks I did (particularly when his genetic role model had a mullet). I only wish his aesthetic dynamic had stopped aging along with his physical body.

THE AVENGERS
No.

THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES
There are aspects of the Five Years Later run of Legion of Super-Heroes that I enjoy, but on the whole, making the best bright and shiny future in comics into the typical dystopian fare was a misstep. It felt wrong all the way to the way the characters dressed, since colorful attire with potent symbolism was central to the “carrying on for the greatest heroes ever” Legion conceit while the drab gear the FYL crew wore signaled how out of place they were. Only Ultra Boy and Timber Wolf are street enough to rock leather jackets (Karate Kid could if he wanted to, but he would never want to).

CAPTAIN AMERICA
What I said about Wonder Woman, probably magnified. Cap is literally draped in the American flag; play that all out, or don’t play it at all. Covering up the symbol he’s proud/brazen enough to wear in that manner is not Steve Rogers at all. He’s also all about grace and agility, so all that extra weight is no good (again, there was a reasonable story reason, and the character was actually against the change, but it was still not so hot).

NIGHTWING
Actually never wore a leather jacket, but he made a disco collar and mullet reasonably cool well past their respective expiration dates, so if anybody is gonna bring it back, Dick Grayson is the man. Also: pixie boots.

Halloween 2011: Jesus Left Chicago & Other Adventures

2011-11-04T04:36:00.001-04:00

All right!

Once again, the collective crew of The CKT have made it through our traditional Halloween adventures. Well, Ben has been unfortunately delayed in his costuming, but I believe he's rocking out in some kind of Satanic getup this weekend (NOTE: I have no actual confirmation of Satanism in Ben's life). As in year's past, we're happy to provide the highlights of our ongoing attempts to act like more like children the closer we get to 30. Let's run down our nights one Cool Kid at a time!

Kiel!

So over the past few years of living in Chicago, my girlfriend Jami and I have gotten back into Halloween in a major way. And while we've had some pretty decent couples costumes the past few years (recall: Flint & Lady Jaye, Chuck & Blaire, Scott & Ramona), this year I think we took things as far as we could in assembling pieces to be Ned and Cat Stark from "Game of Thrones." The actual choice for costume came late in the game, but once Jami decided this was the one, she also decided to make a lot of the costumes herself on a sewing machine she got last Christmas.

Baby did a good job too! The capes and my tunic and other bits and bobs were put together by her, and she painted up my shield to be a bit more Winterfell-ish (you can't read it in his pic, but it says "Winter Is Coming" across the front). My main contribution was super-gluing the world's cheapest Hand of the King broach. More on that in a minute.

Jami was a little bummed we couldn't find some suitable fish flair into her costume, but she pulled Cat off pretty great (that wig was super long and out of control!). Overall, our goal at Halloween parties has become tallying how many people actually know what we're supposed to be. This year about ten folks knew, many of them from the Song of Ice And Fire books and NOT the TV show. Props.

On Friday night, we went and saw my buddies Wally Dogger play in the musical costume of ZZ Top at a bar in the Loop. The openers were a band dressed as Doctor Teeth And The Electric Mayhem (who I was told played some Muppets shit but were rocking some modern pop song when we showed up) and a band of dudes in USPS shirts who played as, you guessed it, the Postal Service. They were all right, I guess.

But the Dogger crushed it as ZZ Top. Pauly was in character as Billy Gibbons all night, and they made their way through most of the big hits: Tush, La Grange, Gimme All Your Lovin, Cheap Sunglasses, Sharp Dressed Man and you know what they closed with. Solid night.

Also: at one point, Dogger guitarist Swerve came up to me and said, "What's that pin for?" I say, "I'm the Hand of the King." Swerve says, "You give the King handjobs?" And I say, "No, I said I'm the Hand of the King." And Swerve says, "Yeah, but what if the King wakes up some morning and is like 'Hey, where's my hand?'"

While we were at the show, we saw a couple good costumes. This new guy to the crew named Brandon impressed with a Starfleet uniform. I've said it before and will say it again: Star Trek cosplay is the original cosplay. Also: my pal Thumbtack is up there and his costume is...well...it's Thumbtack's costume.

Here's Pauly's fiance Megan as Mrs. Potato Head and Swerve's girlfriend Elise as Harry Potter. I know the latter is pretty obvious from this pic, but when I first saw her, I thought the tie signified she was a waitress or something? Megan's also a pretty involved Halloweener (a few years back she came to our party as a functioning beer pong table), and this year I thought her hat really pulled Mrs. PH together.

Saturday night, we headed out to the 'burbs for a party with Jami's grad school crew. I don't know if you can tell, but her friend Lauren as Snow White above is like seven months pregnant. She's hiding it well up there, but it made for a super adorable costume at the party. Tiff is Snooki for the second year in a row, but I fucking loved it both times because of all that bronzer. She's actually quite pale!

The party was full on with folks in costumes and fire tossers and stuff. There were some folks dressed up as Spike and Dru (those "Buffy" fans aren't going anywhere, guys) as well as this hilarious kid of about 11 who was super pumped I could tell that his costume was supposed to be Steampunk (Steampunk Van Helsing to be precise, which I should have known from the crossbow). But the award of the night went to these folks:

I think Scott Pilgrim's costumes are going to be around for a while at Halloween. This pair was great because duder was a super big comics fan, and he said last year he got really bummed because he went as Mr. Sinister and no one knew what he was supposed to be, but I spotted Todd Ingram from across the room, and we high fived.

Late that night, I stopped off at one more party to see my buddy Guy Zach Nie, and guess what?

"Do you know a girl with hair like this?" BOOM! It was pretty spectacular catching up with The Guy for the first time in maybe three years.

Rickey!

My girlfriend Sam and I went to a costume party at a friend's house on Friday and we dressed as Gonzo, the Great and Animal! Sam even made the Muppet costumes from scratch!

On Saturday, we braved the snowstorm and went to the Chiller Theatre horror convention with two objectives: Meet/take a photo with Elvira and buy some DVDs.

Sam convinced me to dress in my Pee-Wee Herman costume from last year cause it would make a more fun photo with Elvira, whose appearance at the show would be her last in costume EVER.

The show was STUPID fun. Every single person there was nice and excited to be around. And Elvira! We found out she was doing one of those photo op things where you go with her behind a curtain and take a photo with a backdrop. But that was at 6 PM and cost $40, and we wanted to leave earlier than that, so we found where she was signing and walked into that area. Dominique Swain, Martin Landau, Furio from Sopranos, Robert Carradine and a bunch of others were in the same area, but Elvira's line was so long it stretched from one side of the room to the other and then back again. So we fought the crowd to get in it.

The line was so long that being in the back of the line meant we were snaked back to the front of the table and got to stare at her for a second. She's so gorgeous in person! I mean, that woman is polite and energetic and just breath-taking. I asked Sam to go over and ask her handler how much it cost to take a photo with her. The lady told Sam it was $60 at the table. Holy shit! I don't have that much money!

But as Sam's about to walk back over and ask how much it costs just to say hello to Elvira, someone grabs my arm from behind. IT WAS ELVIRA!

She'd gotten up to take a picture with a fan at the front of the line and spotted me. "I want to take a picture with Pee-Wee," she said out loud so her handler could hear her and get the Mistress of the Dark's cellphone camera. Sam looked back in the chaos at me - her eyes wide.

So, I'm standing there. Elvira's got her arm around me to my left. "Can you do the laugh?" she asks. And I can, really well, so I do it. She's cracking up. "That's great, I love it!" she squeeled.

So, in Pee-Wee's excited voice I say, "If you love it so much, why don't you marry it?" And she's dying! She's laughing hard! So I put my hand on her left hip like it's a prom picture.

Her booth lady snaps it, but there's no flash. "Do you mind waiting while we get the flash on? I want to put this online," she tells me up close. "Sure! That'd be so rad!" I tell her. By this point I have no charm left and my brain is melting and holy EFF, it's ELVIRA! And she's asking ME if it's okay to take a photo!

So in the second picture attempt, I raise my free right arm in a screaming pose and she's laughing and I know it's better and the flash goes off and she says thanks so much - Elvira's thanking me!!! - and I can't think straight and I say thanks to her. Just a real fast, "Thanks!" And she'll never know how much that whole series of events meant to me - how heartfelt and sincere my thanks was.

Cause I've this lady has been an idol of mine my whole life! And I never made it a point to meet her, let alone try and get a picture with her. And this was her last appearance IN Elvira make-up on the East Coast. And this whole thing happened during THAT!

So Sam is pretty dumbfounded, too. And I feel like I'm dreaming. And she asks if I want to stay in line since I didn't end up taking a picture with her on MY camera phone. And I tell her nah, this story is better than ever getting a picture with her. And so we walk away.

A little while later, the electricity went out - TWICE. The whole con floor went BLACK. The snow knocked down power lines. But everybody kept having fun. The electricity came back up and everything was fine. Cause like I said, everybody was completely polite and fun. Just a really nice crowd.

And later that night, Elvira Tweeted this:

Kevin!

Halloween is my favorite holiday. Hands down. Dressing up in costumes. Decorations. Haunted houses. Costume Parties. I absolutely love it all. But along with the usual festivities, there's another reason I look forward to Halloween each year.

Not too long ago, my friends and I began a yearly tradition for Halloween: every year, we all head to Orlando, Florida, and do a three-day extravaganza at Disney World--specifically hitting up the very, very awesome Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party where we all dress in themed costumes and rock out at the Magic Kingdom! It's tons of fun and we have a blast walking around the park in our costumes, going on rides and taking photos. Past themes included Peter Pan (I was Tic-Toc the Croc), Disney Villains (Scar) and Prince and Princesses (Beast).

Now, you may have noticed an non-human theme in my costumes. Keeping with that, this year, when we decided our theme was going to be X-Men, I immediately jumped at the chance to dress as one of my favorite characters: Kurt Wagner, aka, the incredible Nightcrawler! I decided to go with the movie version of the costume because not only was Alan Cumming absolutely amazing in the role but also because I would have looked TERRIBLE in tights. Completing the X-Men was: my friend Chrissy as Emma Frost; her boyfriend Dustin as Cyclops; Dustin's best friend Johnny as Gambit; and my friend Amanda as the very awesome Kitty Pryde.

Before we get to the pictures though, I want to share my favorite story of the night.

The evening was coming to a close and before heading back to the hotel we decided to hit up one more ride: Splash Mountain. Now, if you've never been on this ride, let me sum up. It starts off as this nice water ride through an inside cavern. It's very peaceful, and there's nice music, animatronic woodland creatures frolicking about and a innocent story about a rabbit playing a prank on a Bear and a Fox. Then all of a sudden, the tone changes, the storyline gets really dark and you suddenly go on this massive drop straight down and get soaked to the bone. Normally, it's insanely fun and totally cool, but considering my costume, I really, really didn't want to get wet. To make matters worse, Kitty Pryde and I were in the front seat. Thankfully though, Nightcrawler's a teleporter.

As we were going down the drop, we all threw up our hands for the picture, and as soon as I saw the flash of the camera, I curled into a ball and ducked, which caused the massive splash of water to fly right over me and smack Gambit in the face. I then popped back up like I was there all along. Whereas the others were soaked, I was totally dry. It absolutely looked like at the last moment I BAMFed away for a second. It was awesome.

So, anyway, it was a really great trip and I can't wait for next year! And now, pictures!

The Crew

Hey, it's Kiel again! I put out the call to some of our rad bros in the comics biz to share their Halloween's with us too, and they killed it!

Above is Marvel TV bad ass and "Thundercats" writer Todd Casey as Peter Parker, which he wore to be a photographer at a fancy, shmancy Hollywood party. Oo la la. Included is his buddy Ben in a Flash costume that Todd helped him glue together after Ben's boyfriend made it from scratch (maybe they read our Ben's post?).

And it wouldn't be a holiday without a hugable photo of Archaia's Mel Caylo which we have here as our boy snuggles up to a chick-a-dee while dressed as a Hawaiian. That lei joke never gets old on Halloween, y'all.

Finally, to remind y'all of what the holiday is really all about, here's my niece LuLu in a Rapunzel costume she begged my brother to make, and which he dually begged my mother to chip in on (and that's great, because Lynn Phegley thought she was all done with Halloween when I went to college).

Hope you guys got lots of apples with awesome and useful razor blades! See you next year!

First Impressions (and more): Wonder Woman

2011-11-02T23:50:00.000-04:00

My first memory of Wonder Woman (as a comic book fan—blah blah blah usual disclaimer about how I saw her on Super Friends and lunchboxes as a kid) is her wearing a baseball cap and serving tacos at a fast food joint. I’m referring to the Brian Bolland cover pictured above to Wonder Woman #73, an issue set in the midst of William Messner-Loebs’ mid-90’s run with the character.

I didn’t read Wonder Woman growing up so my exposure came solely from DC house ads and seeing the covers, which more often than not featured her doing stuff I’d more expect out of Batman like fighting the mob or posing for sight gags like the aforementioned waitressing gig or having a delicious pasta dinner with Flash.

As a reader (rather than a cover viewer), I made Wonder Woman’s acquaintance when she became leader of the Justice League following the death of Superman. Now this was a ways before I understood what “pre-Crisis” and “post-Crisis” meant, so the concept that Wonder Woman wasn’t part of the Justice League already and further that her joining was a big deal first time thing baffled me a bit, but I rolled with it. More puzzling to me, I suppose, was how she come off almost as a bit of a wallflower with super strength. Fun Bolland covers aside, my abstract concept of Wonder Woman was still that she was a bad ass—she was an Amazon warrior after all—yet to my mind she was written in Justice League America as a figure whose name and reputation intimidated those around her, but she would then win them over with how down to Earth she was, which was a perfectly valid characterization, but seemed still off to me. I wanted to see her punching Guy Gardner in the face like Batman did, showing him there were women who could stand up to him physically as well as verbally, but instead she tended to reason with him.

Not long after this, Wonder Woman had her Death of Superman/Knightfall/Emerald Twilight prerequisite mid-90’s DC shakeup storyline wherein she was replaced in her role by a redhead named Artemis and took to just calling herself Diana and sporting a leather jacket and biker shorts as her look. I read the stories years later, and as is generally the case with Messner-Loebs (along with a young Mike Deodato) it was solid stuff, but again, at the time it was strange to me how there seemed to be this trending pattern toward making Wonder Woman/Diana “just one of the gang,” and humanizing her whether through comedy, fast food jobs, complacency on a team or losing her status; even at that age, I held the opinion—even if I couldn’t articulate it yet—that Marvel characters fit the “feet of clay” mold better while DC heroes were cool when they were aspirational, so humanizing Wonder Woman didn’t really work for me personally.

Apparently, somebody at DC in the late 90’s thought teenage me was right on, as the next era of Wonder Woman—which coincided with my getting out of comics temporarily, so I didn’t witness it first hand—brought her back in the direction of being a formidable and imposing figure who commanded respect through words as well as actions, both in her solo title under the reins of John Byrne and particularly as Grant Morrison penned her in JLA. Morrison’s Diana was certainly more along the lines of what I always expected, with her being an advocate for peace, but also somebody who understood it may take a smidgen of aggression to get there, at least in the short term. I dug how Wonder Woman fit into the team dynamic, with Superman and Martian Manhunter as her buddies, holding even Batman’s respect, flirting with Aquaman and then reducing Flash and Green Lantern to nervous man-children with her beauty/brassiness combo (Mark Waid was pretty great at writing that last one as well).

I finally jumped into the Wonder Woman well as far as her solo title when my good friend (not then, but now) Phil Jimenez was serving as both writer and artist. I’m a little nervous about using hyperbole here, particularly since I’m talking about a pal, but honestly, Phil’s Diana was the one I’d been waiting for.

Initially I picked Phil’s Wonder Woman up for the art—I’d been a fan since he did Robin fill-ins for Tom Grummett when I was a kid—but I stayed for an endearing take on a character I’d always been flummoxed by in regard to where her following came from. Ok, first off, the art was gorgeous, but I’ve talked about that before. What worked for me was that Phil was able to make Diana the fierce warrior I’d read about in JLA but also give her the softer side I’d always understood she was meant to have without having her roll over when challenged by her friends and teammates or depowering her. The key as I saw it and see was that where past creators had tried to make Wonder Woman more relatable in some way by “humanizing” her and attempted to bring her closer to somebody we felt like we knew, Phil made her empathetic by playing up that while the world may see her as a goddess, this can often make her feel more apart than embraced.

(This is about when I’ll get an e-mail from Phil explaining who this isn’t what he was going for but he can totally see where I’m coming from because he’s the nicest, most charitable person in comics)

She appreciated and loved the people who stood in awe of her, but felt a sad distance from the friends who had grown old while she remained young, the supposed peers who got weak-kneed around her, and the family she had reluctantly put at a distance so she could do her work. Phil’s Wonder Woman was powerful, regal and graceful, but she also had a loneliness in her eyes that made me feel like I knew her more than wearing a baseball hat ever would. This was a woman who could stare Lex Luthor in the eyes and not be intimidated, but didn’t know how to ask a normal man out on a date and was devastated when he said no (both scenes and several other terribly insightful ones occur in Wonder Woman #170, an issue narrated by Lois Lane who follows Diana around for a day and jots down observations, many of which I’ve cribbed for this article; I consider this essential reading for anybody who wants to tackle the character).

I would later read George Perez’s late 80’s reimagining of Wonder Woman—which came directly before the Messner-Loebs run—and see where Phil got a lot of his inspiration from. Perez brings Diana to Man’s World for the first time and grounds his story in her journey of discovery and her relationships with ordinary people. She is very much the foreign exchange student who is fascinated by everything around her and makes mistakes because she doesn’t understand, but she’s also still definitely Wonder Woman, able to stand up inspirationally to any challenge through strength and wits; just because she may be naïve doesn’t mean she’s not plenty clever. It was certainly a far cry from the Wonder Woman I remembered playing second fiddle to Captain Atom in my Justice League comics.

When Allan Heinberg launched a new Wonder Woman series back in 2006, I did a retrospective piece on the character speaking with him, Phil, Greg Rucka and others who had worked on her. It was an article about what was upcoming and what made Diana tick, but inevitably a lot of the familiar questions about her relative lack of commercial success against Superman and Batman came up. I explored the gender issue—character and fanbase—as well as the lack of a “Dark Knight Returns” (i.e. classic pivotal story), but also examined the other side of the coin: when Wonder Woman was a success. Two points came up specifically: Wonder Woman was a hugely popular character in the Golden Age, specifically during World War II, and that the Lynda Carter TV series remains a fondly remembered and cherished piece of Americana. While the character has been around over 70 years and had some great stories (and not so great stories) along the way, my conclusion was that her prominent place in the public consciousness came from images ingrained by those earliest tales and her multimedia portrayals in animation and live action TV shows.

I’m no expert on Wonder Woman, I’m just a guy who can kill an evening rambling 1500 words about her while waiting for the new episode of Happy Endings. But the take away I got from that article and really all my experiences reading the character is this: On Wonder Woman either go big or go home (coincidentally enough, a patented Phil Jimenez expression). She succeeded in the 40’s because perhaps even more so than Captain America she was over-the-top American propaganda, but also plain fun. She succeeded on TV because Lynda Carter embraced the role quirks and all. I love the work Perez, Jimenez, Morrison and others did because they enjoyed the fact that they were writing an Amazon princess who had a magic lasso and fought Greek gods; they didn’t feel like they needed to ground her in mundane trappings so readers wouldn’t be intimidated.

I’ve said it before, but it applies double to Wonder Woman: You don’t want to relate to every comic book character, sometimes you just want to read about them having crazy adventures. I’d much rather watch Wonder Woman hanging out with centaurs and fighting Joker with snake hair than serving fast food in a leather jacket.

How to make a Flash Halloween costume

2011-10-28T22:59:00.000-04:00

If I did it when I was seven, you can do it too! Here we go...

1. Get a pair of red sweatpants or pajama bottoms.

2. Get a long sleeve red shirt.

2a. If you can, use a pair of red pajamas, preferably a onesie, but a two-piece can work. If it's got footies, bonus.

2b. No footie pajamas? Locate a pair of yellow rain boots (or just wear your sneakers).

3. Grab some paper, cut out a white circle; color a lightning bolt in yellow--or use yellow paper--cut that out and then glue it on the circle. Use staples, tape, glue, whatever you prefer to adhere the symbol to your chest.

4. The secret weapon: A red swim cap.

5. Cut a domino mask out of red paper and either tuck it in under the cap or cut holes on the sides and run a rubber band or string through to hold it on your face.

6. Take some yellow pipe cleaners you can make little wings out of and stick them behind your ears.

7. Take remaining yellow pipe cleaner and make a "belt" that you can stick by your method of choice to the waist.

8. Voila!

NOTE: I did not make this costume for Halloween, I was just bored.

Be safe out there and have fun!

90's Animated X-Men: Where are they now?

2011-10-26T23:23:00.000-04:00

While I grew up in the Blue and Gold era of the X-Men and tended to follow Adjectiveless mostly because Fabian Nicieza wrote it and Andy Kubert drew it, I never really acknowledged Psylocke as a true member of the team and constantly wondered where Storm, Jean Grey and Jean Grey's ponytail were. Why? Because the core team on the 90's Animated Series were my X-Men.

And while Morph was on that roster for a sec before getting destroyed (can't say killed) to the degree that even Sinister's science couldn't cure the bags under his eyes and Cable guest-starred enough to seem like he was legit, I only truly acknowledge the X-Men who had their own rad name sequences during the theme song montage (including Wolverine in his underwear and Beast reading a book).

That means Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, Rogue, Gambit, Beast, Jubilee, Jean Grey (no code name) and Professor X with blue lines radiating out of his head.

With the X-Men getting a new line-up and because I was feeling a bit nostalgic, I figured I'd do a quick visual check-in on the gang...

Dammit, Cyclops! Why can't you get along with anybody/keep your pants on/prevent Jubilee from becoming a vampire?!

Oh well, at least he and Storm are still getting along...

Also, here's Gambit

Things will be fine if you guys just support each other...

...right, Morph?

Five Comics Worth Reading - October 2011

2011-10-24T15:09:00.000-04:00

BIRDS OF PREY
When Duane Swierczynski was announced as the new writer of Birds of Prey and the direction of the book in the re-launched New 52 line-up became clear, it was one of those “duh” moments for me, a creator-title-mission pairing that seemed so obvious and tailor-made. Two issues in, I think Swierczynski is not only fulfilling the lofty expectations I had for him on this series, but it’s a success story of DC’s attempt to infuse their line with more than just super hero material, as this is an espionage thriller infused with just the right dash of spandex and illustrated with nice detail by Jesus Saiz. The Black Canary seen here is one whose portrayal respects all the work done on the character by everybody from Mike Grell to Gail Simone, but also seems to have evolved to the next level as a capable leader possessed of the human compassion we expect but not consumed with proving herself. Swierczynski is doing a nice job revealing one member of the team an issue, giving them a nice bit of spotlight and allowing the cast to build organically; both the outgoing starling and dark Katana provide contrast to the grounded Canary and I look forward to seeing what Poison Ivy adds to the mix. Saiz does great work here as his women are beautiful in a way that’s natural rather than bombastic and he draws nice action. The driving mystery/conspiracy thus far is one that grabs me and I’m not entirely sure where it’s going—a good thing—but the dynamic between characters is what has really sold me, and I’ll eagerly follow that from arc to arc.

DC UNIVERSE PRESENTS
I recently got a collection of the original Deadman stories by Arnold Drake, Carmine Infantino and Neal Adams from Rickey and took a shine to them even more than I expected. I enjoyed the metaphysical exploration angle and of course the great art, but more than that, I could latch onto the character of Boston Brand as a rough and tumble imperfect guy different from most DC heroes struggling to find his place in the greater tapestry of the universe more so than really serving justice for the sake of or trying to avenge a wrong. The initial stories by Paul Jenkins and Bernard Chang in this title hearken back to that material and have Deadman challenging the “natural” order of things and searching for answers in a way that holds my attention. Jenkins does a nice job balancing Boston’s personal quest both to resolve his situation and at the same time challenge the inconsistencies he’s discovering while also presenting “cases” and examining a broader view of DC’s mystical landscape. There’s a nice mix of fun and gags as well as action and mystery, but I’m most enjoying the character work; I grew up with a wry Deadman who only showed up to guide other characters on journeys, but I really like this more desperate incarnation who doesn’t have all the answers and distrusts even the ones he’s got.

JOHN CARTER: A PRINCESS OF MARS
I have no familiarity with the John Carter mythology whatsoever, but this series has me wanting to dive into it, however it’s also a fun story on its own that I need no context to enjoy—what more could you ask for? As he showed on Thor: The Mighty Avenger and even with his Muppets work, Roger Langridge is great at taking fantastic elements as well as generally weird stuff and making them seem like the natural backdrop to a fun story rather than overwhelming set pieces that distract and detract from the narrative. Here we’ve got a human trapped on Mars, surrounded by crazy looking aliens, plunged into the middle of some sort of war, and smitten with an alien princess, but that’s all just window dressing for a hitting on primal themes like the stranger in a strange land, missing home, the inherent unfairness of class struggle, and of course the unlikely love story. Carter is a great everyman, at times charming and wry, but also way out of his depth, overwhelmed by the enormity of his situation, and prone to emotional overreaction that leads to those around him paying the price. Langridge takes care to introduce the world slowly, taking us on tour with Carter through a personal space that gradually expands from his room to the city to the battlefield to all of Mars. Though Dejah Thoris has really only just been introduced, again, Langridge plays her with the right amount of mystery, spirit and standoffishness that we can understand why Carter feels an instant attraction. Filipe Andrade’s art is so unique and suits this story perfectly as it’s bizarre enough to make things around Carter seem truly alien, but there’s an inherent beauty that shines through in everything from the characters to the buildings to even the monstrous creatures.

VENOM
The idea of Peter Parker’s teenage bully/Spider-Man’s number one fan Flash Thompson, grown up to be a decorated military man who lost his legs, becoming a black ops government-sponsored incarnation of Venom is one of those ideas that sounds pretty awesome on paper as a high concept, but you wonder if it can sustain beyond the initial story; Rick Remender’s answer to any doubt on that score has been a resounding “heck yeah” that nearly a year in I both agree with and don’t see changing any time soon. Rick and his array of artists have delivered on the promise of Flash being a neat choice for a hero role as well as the slam dunk prospect of the Venom symbiote with military/secret agent applications, but more than that, they’ve created a series with tremendous heart and depth. Flash Thompson had come a long way from one-dimensional jock jerk way before Remender got his hands on him, but as Venom, he’s quickly becoming one of the most compelling protagonists at Marvel and in comics. Here’s a guy who has spent all his life wanting to be a hero, did everything by the book to get there, suffered tremendous loss and then when he was finally offered what he figured would be his big change, it came with the caveat that he’s not so much the champion on the front lines, but the monster necessary to do the dirty work (that he wanted to be called Spider-Man but had to take the name Venom instead because it strikes more fear and thus fits his mission better says it all). Here’s a guy who has struggled with addiction and now has been thrown into another form of it where “going sober” not only dashes his dreams, it hinders his ability to save lives; it’s a pretty intense inversion of the usual “addict story.” The issues of Venom tying into the Spider-Island event provide a perfect glimpse at how the book excels on multiple levels: tremendous all out action with Venom against Anti-Venom and The Queen, but at the same time a very human story of Flash Thompson racing to the bedside of his dying father and struggling to forgive a man who let him down so many times. This series is working on so many levels and exceeding expectations.

X-MEN
Sometimes lost amidst the shuffle of Schism and Regenesis and whatnot, Victor Gischler’s adjectiveless X-Men book is telling fun, action-packed stories with great guest stars, cool character pairings, and nice Easter eggs plucked from the vast scope of Marvel history. The most recent storyline that took the X-Men and Future Foundation into a lost world amidst the Bermuda Triangle to tangle with extra-dimensional invaders was a great example of what Gischler and this series do so well. First off, the story traded on old continuity with vintage X-Men supporting character Lee Forrester serving as the motivator to get jumpstart the action, and Gischler did a nice job cluing newcomers in that she was an old girlfriend of Cyclops and Magneto without making the point crucial to the plot, just a nice little side dynamic. Next, Gischler gives service to both the character dynamics you were waiting to see explored—Doom and Magneto feel each other out as “good guys”—as well as perhaps those you didn’t know you wanted to get a look at, but they’re worth one—I’m thinking of Emma Frost getting under the skin of perpetually polite Sue Richards with lines like “You’re lucky no women are interested in Reed.” Throw in a forgotten guest star like Skull the Slayer, include some requisite twists and questions of loyalty, build to some solid fights and then have Jorge Molina draw the heck out of it all. X-Men may not always be in the thick of things as far as the big continuity shake-ups, but I like that, and I enjoy the service it provides greatly.

Paragraph Movie Reviews: Footloose (2011)

2011-10-23T20:01:00.000-04:00

If you don't have plans to see this movie, you can check the spoilers here and then come back.

Hey, no fooling, this is quite a good movie! It's not anything heavy, it will unlikely be an all-time classic, but it's fun and accomplishes that rare remake feat of paying tribute to and respecting the original work while distinguishing itself and even improving in some areas in a way that doesn't come off heavy handed. The primary strength of Footloose v2.0 is that Kenny Wormald and Julianne Hough as Ren and Ariel have enough swagger and charisma to light up a small city (if technology allowed such a thing). Their chemistry is great; it may even surpass that of Kevin Bacon and Lori Singer from the original. I'd definitely argue that Hough tops Singer on her own as Ariel, approaching the character and her inner turmoil with superior ease, making the 2011 incarnation more believable and multi-dimensional than her 1984 counterpart. It's not really fair to stack Wormald against Bacon in one of the latter's signature roles, but the newcomer does fine in just about every respect (his angry dance, while technically excellent, falls short of the original, but that's near cinematic perfection), bringing where needed an even rougher edge to Ren that brings him into the 21st century nicely. It is a little tougher, admittedly, to accept the whole "kids died in a car accident clearly because of alcohol so we're going to ban dancing" premise without the benefit of being able to wave it off as 80's foolishness, and attempts to justify it don't hold up too well, but they make up for that by including scenes to flesh out the characters and their relationships I wish were in the original, most notably the pre-prom pow wow between Ren and Reverend Moore. Unfortunately, the one performer I'd say fell a bit flat was Dennis Quaid as Moore; John Lithgow was one of the pillars of the first film, bringing an ambiguity and conflict to Moore that Quaid can't seem to latch onto, instead just settling into brow-furrowed concern and disapproval. The rest of the supporting cast is top notch though, from Miles Teller admirably filling the late Chris Penn's comic relief shoes as Willard to Ray McKinnon stepping up as Ren's uncle in a role greatly expanded from the original to provide a father figure who fits in nicely. Indeed this movie seemed to excel at knowing when to follow its predecessor line-for-line, when to veer off to the extreme, and when to toss a wink but then still do something different; kudos to Craig Brewerfor treading that line. One more weakness I'd chalk up would be that pretty much every cover of a song from the original was inferior, but Wormald, Hough and company make up for that by bringing the intensity when it's time to dance. I'd be curious how somebody who has never seen the first Footloose would come to this movie, as I clearly spent a lot of time comparing the two, but obviously I dug it.

Art Attack: January 2012's Coolest Covers

2011-10-22T13:41:00.000-04:00

-When I was a little kid and saw The Little Mermaid, my mother, an artist herself, sat next to me and pointed out during the first scene where people were swimming how an animator had illustrate every single bubble around the figures and every movement; it was a moment I'll always remember as when I truly came to respect people who create visual art and how much work the smallest details are. Anyways, Ivan Reis' Aquaman cover here reminds me of that moment, and certainly that is meant as a high compliment.

-I'm not sure of the story in Greg Pak and Mike McKone's first arc on Astonishing X-Men, but Agent_M and I like to imagine it is set in prospecting times where Wolverine has a handlebar mustache and golden claws. Action figure, please.

-That Avengers cover by Daniel Acuna is one of the most striking images of Storm I've seen in some time, and that covers impressive ground.

-Clayton Crain's cover for Carnage U.S.A. and Art Adams' sea monsters from Fear Itself: The Fearless are going to combine to give me nightmares.

-I love how Ryan Sook is experimenting with persepctive and the sense of reality in his DC Universe Presents cover work. It's the right character for it and the results have been great.

-As awesome as Skottie Young's cover to John Carter: A Princess of Mars is, I also need to give a quick shout out to the comic itself, something I'll need to expand on soon.

-Amanda Conner draws fun stuff.

-That Six Guns cover by Butch Guice is not just rad, it's so different than anything he's done lately or maybe ever. How did he do that?

-Kaare Andrews' cover to Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #6 isn't just pretty, it's well-constructed; it presents not only the character in action, but demonstrates his powers, gives a nod to the guy behind the mask and conveys his demeanor in just his facial expression.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #677 by Lee Bermejo

AQUAMAN #5 by Ivan Reis

ASTONISHING X-MEN #46 by Mike McKone

AVENGERS #21 by Daniel Acuna

BATMAN AND ROBIN #5 by Patrick Gleason

BATWOMAN #5 by J.H. Williams III

CARNAGE U.S.A. #2 by Clayton Crain

CHEW #25 by Rob Guillory

DAREDEVIL #8 by Paolo Rivera

DC UNIVERSE PRESENTS #5 by Ryan Sook

FEAR ITSELF: THE FEARLESS #4 by Art Adams

iZOMBIE #21 by Mike Allred

JOHN CARTER: A PRINCESS OF MARS #5 by Skottie Young

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #633 by Stephanie Hans

KING CONAN: THE PHOENIX ON THE SWORD #1 by Andrew Robinson

LOBSTER JOHNSON: THE BURNING HAND #1 by Dave Johnson

MAGNETO: NOT A HERO #3 by Clay Mann

MY GREATEST ADVENTURE #4 by Amanda Conner

PIGS #5 by Dave Gibbons

SCARLET #7 by Alex Maleev

SIX GUNS #4 by Butch Guice

SWAMP THING #5 by Yanick Paquette

ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #6 by Kaare Andrews

VICTOR VON DOOM #3 by Sebastian Fiumara

X-FACTOR #230 by David Yardin

Still tired...

2011-10-19T22:31:00.000-04:00

Some days it's like you're Adam-X fighting the Juggernaut, gang.

Working hard at the day job, hoping to be back to night writing (that sounds awesome) soon as well.

Survived New York Comic Con, I'm Exhausted

2011-10-18T22:51:00.000-04:00

It was an awesome show, but a long, long show. Posting may take longer to resume than normal as a result.

As always, please enjoy this picture of Adam-X the X-Treme in the mean time.

The CKT @ NYCC!

2011-10-13T00:45:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow kicks off the 2011 edition of the New York Comic Con, and while it will shut down this blog for a bit, you can find us Cool Kids across the board covering the action and doing what we do.

I'll be reprising my role from San Diego Comic-Con as Ryan "Agent_M" Penagos and I host Marvel Live from the start of the show all the way to the end. We'll have dozens of great guests from comics, movies, video games and more, so tune in here.

Kiel will be decked out in his Sunday best filing news and video reports for Comic Book Resources and you can follow his adventures as well as all the latest headlines there.

Finally, Kevin and Rickey will be manning the DC Comics booth, shaking hands, kissing babies, signing autographs and educating fans on what's up with the New 52 and more, so stop by and say hey!

We'll "see" you guys back here next week, but hopefully we'll see some of you at the show! Have fun!

My first comic book crush

2011-10-12T00:51:00.000-04:00

I can already sense this is going to be an embarrassing entry I will probably regret; I do this for you.

When boys begin to come of age and feel that rumbling in their loins—I swear you have not clicked on the wrong in all sense of the world blog, bear with me—as girls stop being gross and start being terrifying, they often become timid around the young ladies their own age who spurn their advances—seriously, you guys were the worst—and find comfort by crushing on figures of womanhood out of their league for whatever reason. Perhaps they’re older, perhaps they’re famous or perhaps they’re even fictional; that’s totally normal, right?

Right?

Well, I guess we’re going down this road now, might as well continue, for better or for worse (I originally wrote “far worse” in a revealing Freudian slip).

I thought real girls were cute, but as a comic book fan around the tender age of nine or so, of course no woman could compare to the flawless four color beauties whose adventures I followed (or more accurately they could but wouldn’t talk to me). Since New Warriors was my favorite comic, ergo the lovely aquatic princess Namorita was my first comic book crush.

If you’re looking to shrink my childhood head at all as far as what I was looking for in a woman—or at least an unrealistic and implausible crush—I liked that Nita was bold, outspoken and aggressive with a sharp wit and cutting sense of humor. If she had an opinion, she expressed it with words or fists where Firestar might have held her tongue. Her physical power carried over into an emotional strength that manifested in a deep bond with her cousin, Namor, passionate defense for the environment, and a willingness to stand up and by her friends and teammates without question.

Perhaps it also says something about me that I preferred the girl who wasn’t shy about pursuing what she wanted romantically, but also demanded to be pursued herself in return. Yeah, the love of Namorita’s comic book life happens to be Nova, a character of whom I am somewhat fond, but I swear that’s kinda a coincidence (sorta). When I started reading the book, they would flirt now and again, but it never seemed like it was going anywhere serious. Marvel Boy and Firestar were the alpha couple of the book, the “too cute” made for each other fairytale love story; Night Thrasher and Silhouette were number two because they had an intense history and thus deep bond. Nova and Namorita were just the attractive singles who were never going to settle down with anybody, let alone one another.

But as ever, Fabian Nicieza wrote a great story when it came to Nova and Nita’s romance. They were both too strong to admit they needed each other and both suffered before they could get to a place where that admission came; and then once they did express their true feelings circumstances conspired to keep them apart.

Oh, and speaking of those circumstances, certainly it was mildly—MILDLY—traumatic for me when they decided to transform Namorita into the blue-skinned, web-footed Kymaera, seemingly in an effort to impart on young Ben the lesson that beauty is skin deep, yada yada yada. Hey, the bulk of my childhood crush came from the fact that Namorita was saucy, smart and a bit sarcastic, but I’d be lying if I said the fact that Mark Bagley and Darick Robertson knew how to draw a sexy blond in a green bikini didn’t help.

I’m making it worse; time to bring this home.

As I grew and my interest in comics waxed, waned, and returned stronger than ever, I of course discovered an ability to connect with real girls along the way, and it was eventually time to leave childhood crushes on made-up mermaids behind. Did that young infatuation inform my future relationships? Maybe? I’ve definitely always been drawn to women who speak their mind and generally have a wicked sense of humor. By the same token, I’ve never been seriously involved with a blond or anybody who counts swimming among their most frequent hobbies.

Of course the girl I married had dyed blond hair when I met her and was on her junior high swim team but is now a brunette who rarely goes in the water, perhaps a commentary on my childhood fantasy blossoming into the woman I would fall in love with.

Or maybe my wife is just awesome. Besides, she has her own comic book character.

Hopefully this blog post made you as uncomfortable as it made me.

Underrated/Overlooked: Legion Worlds

2011-10-10T01:04:00.000-04:00

After being quietly appreciated for the better part of a decade, Legion Lost, the 12-part series by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and a young Olivier Coipel that reinvented the Legion of Super-Heroes for a new century, has in recent years gained a deserved higher profile. Lost presaged a lot of DnA’s later work with bold science fiction in their later Annihilation, Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy stints, placing the relatively optimistic Legion I grew up with and dropping them into a foreign universe with exotic challenges that forced the teenagers to grow up and face unspeakable tragedy and sacrifice. It was a powerful story with aggressive art by Coipel that topped many fans’ “why hasn’t this been collected?” lists until just recently; today, not only can you grab the trade at stores, one of the new series launched by DC bears its name.

DnA would go on to launch a Legion ongoing building on the darker edge and emphasis on character drama they brought to Lost, but first as a bridge, they penned the six-part Legion Worlds, an anthology that explored the 31st century landscape the missing Legionnaires had left behind and what had become of their teammates. The sprawling art team included a mix of untapped talents like Yvel Guichet, Enrique Breccia, Paul Rivoche, Jamie Tolagson and Kilian Plunkett with established names such as Coipel, Darwyn Cooke, Rick Burchett, Duncan Rouleau, Rick Leonardi, Steve Dillon and Mike McKone, plus covers by then up and comer John Cassaday.

It’s a clever storytelling device on DnA’s part as the Legion—and thus the readers—has been away from their universe for over a year (real time) and there’s a lot of ground to cover to set up the new series. They had fun with the vastness of the Legion’s landscape, setting each standalone chapter on a different planet housing one or more members of the scattered team and familiar to fans. As with any series of the format, some stories were not as strong as others—I don’t remember the M’Onel-centric Earth story in the first issue much, though that was mostly a primer for the rest of the series, and recall not investing too much in the Magno/Cosmic Boy spotlight on Braal—but the stuff that stood out did so strongly.

The second issue has Ayla Ranzz, the Legionnaire known as Spark, returning to her home on Winath, with both her twin brother, Live Wire, and erstwhile love interest, Chameleon, among the Lost. It’s the kind of thoughtful, psychological, and slightly creepy story DnA excels at, with Ayla trying to pick up the pieces of her life and finding it hard to do so as something of an outcast in her own home where everybody is born with a twin and “solos” are shunned. Ayla’s older brother, Mekt, a solo himself and formerly the villain Lightning Lord, has also returned, supposedly reformed, somewhat mentally addled and hoping to bond with his sister over their common sense of loss. There’s a mystery plot about natural disasters and whether or not Mekt could be responsible, but the real meat is in the family drama, and the tension Ayla feels both over being adrift and at the possibility her brother may not be as innocent as he claims is palpable.

Issue #4 shifts the action to Xanthu, where Star Boy—one of my favorite post-Zero Hour Legionnaires—has returned home with lover Dreamer and teammate XS in tow to help his world fend off the threat of Robotica, a race of artificial intelligence that has gained sentience and rebelled against the beings they feel have oppressed them. It’s very much a war story, as the heroes face overwhelming odds and basically go on one suicide run after another, but it also shows another side of how much the Legion defined these characters and kept them as well as the universe optimistic and bright; in its absence, people like Star Boy and XS have struggled with their purpose, but keep fighting because it is in some sense all they know and all they have left. Robotica is a new take on a familiar trope—the robots go crazy because we don’t appreciate them enough—done with visual panache by Duncan Rouleau, a master at drawing robots and the like.

Next up the focus falls on Karate Kid, who has journeyed to the isolated and peaceful planet of Steeple, bringing along Ferro for a period of contemplation and prayer as they deal with the loss of the Legion. I’ve always loved Karate Kid in all his various incarnations, and this story highlights all the cool stuff about Val Armorr, as he is the one Legionnaire who seems to have moved on in a healthy way with his strong sense of self and devotion to continued enlightenment; of course he also still gets to kick stuff. A bruiser from Takron-Galtos makes his way to Steeple, and while Val is initially reluctant to raise a hand against him, having devoted his energy to quelling rage and violence, the overmatched Ferro gives it a shot and gets badly injured in the process. Karate Kid is now faced with the dual challenges of facing down the bad guy and also saving his friend’s life; the former he does in a great fight sequence illustrated by Steve Dillon, and the latter forces him to make a powerful choice that adds punch to an already rocking tale.

The finale heads to Rimbor, birth world of the Lost Ultra Boy, and the place his pregnant wife Apparition has chosen to hide from mercenaries hired by her mother. Consistent with its portrayals across Legion history, Rimbor is already a nasty place, filled with gang wars and violence, and a pretty crappy place for a pregnant lady to hang out, even if she can become immaterial at will, but Apparition has made an awesome ally in Timber Wolf, who makes his post-Zero Hour debut here and whom DnA as well as Kilian Plunkett do a great job with. After five issues mostly touching on how much was taken away by Legion Lost, it’s cool to end with the reintroduction of a classic character in a fun way, as DnA make T-Wolf every bit the badass he was in the old days, but add in some charm and a quirky paternal concern for Apparition’s unborn “cub.”

I didn’t actually buy Legion Lost, as I was just getting back into comics at the time and just missed it by a couple months, so when I did decide to track down the modern incarnation of another comic I’d loved as a kid, Legion Worlds was my first exposure. I’ve since gone back and read Lost, but even on its own, World did a fantastic job giving you a tour of a universe both somewhat recognizable and completely altered, moving several pieces in place to ensure you’d be invested in the ongoing series. With the creative talent involved and awesome array of characters that play parts big and small, this is a hidden Legion gem for sure.

Paragraph Movie Reviews: Bridesmaids

2011-10-08T22:34:00.000-04:00

If you don't have plans to see this movie, you can check the spoilers here and then come back.

Thoroughly underwhelming. The way this movie was hyped, I was expecting to be busting a gut laughing for over two hours, but instead it was an ok flick with a few standout bits performances but a disjointed flow and fumbles on the emotional payoffs. I don't overly fault Kristen Wiig the performer, as she was funnier and displayed more dimension here than she has in several years on Saturday Night Live, but she still seemed to panic and fall into her stock characters more than I would have liked. I do blame Wiig the co-writer as the story lurches without a through line essentially from skit to skit as--to be fair--most of this genre of comedy does nowadays, but the success ratio of said bits isn't strong enough to justify it. The airplane sequence, for instance, is hysterical, but the dress scene is cheap gross out humor (and no, I would not have liked it if it was dudes; I never dig that stuff personally) and I couldn't name you much else from memory. The rivalry between Wiig and Rose Byrne wears thin really quickly and drags the plot down around it while Wiig's friendship with Maya Rudolph, the other big emotional centerpiece, is uneven, blowing up and repairing without much rhyme or reason. However, there's still a lot to like about Bridesmaids, in large part from the well-cast supporting players. Melissa McCarthy is the best part of the movie, the only thing that lived up to the hype for me, throwing herself into her role completely and making you wish she got more screen time. Chris O'Dowd totally won me over after a slow start and his courtship with Wiig is the truest thing about the entire movie. Jon Hamm proved once again he is hilarious, while bit players Rebel Wilson and Matt Lucas stole every scene they were in. But the most pleasant surprise? The late Jill Clayburgh turning in a quietly funny and heartfelt performance as Wiig's mother in what I believe was her final role. So yeah, if you watch the highlight reel, Bridesmaids isn't bad, but as long as it runs, there's way too much dead air and "huh?" moments for it to come anywhere close to being the comedy it was sold to me as.

These folks led the X-Men too

2011-10-06T00:30:00.001-04:00

This week in X-Men: Schism #5, the physical scuffle between Cyclops and Wolverine comes to a temporary end, but in the process splits the X-Men in two as the book’s name implies. Over the next several months, we’ll get to see each guy take a stab (or optic blast) at leading their own team and continuing their game of “can you top this” on the ideological level.

Speak with most fans that came in to comics over the last couple years, particularly if it was through the movies, and they’ll tell you Cyclops is the only leader of the X-Men they’ve ever known. He was the guy in the films—even if he never really did a great job of it and I got to laugh at my buddy and Cyclops’ biggest fan, Jordan, as we watched until he chucked the red shades he actually bought at the floor of the movie theater in disgust—he was the guy in the much-read Astonishing X-Men and he’s been the guy for the past several years through Messiah CompleX, Utopia, Second Coming, etc.

Dig a bit deeper and you’ll get to folks like me who entered via the 90’s and remember Storm as head of the Gold Team and the person who took charge more often than not in the animated series. Readers with even more tenure are most familiar with her as their X-Men leader of choice as she dominated the role for most of Chris Claremont’s run throughout the 80’s and then stuck around through much of the following decade as well.

Most people don’t realize there have been other people to lead the X-Men besides Cyclops and Storm. In many cases their tenures were short and not terribly distinguished, but hey, if we still have to acknowledge the Florida Marlins as former World Series champions—two shots at Jordan in one blog, beautiful—why not these guys too.

NIGHTCRAWLER
When Storm lost her powers for a bit, she turned the reins of the team over temporarily to Nightcrawler. Kurt Wagner only got to lead the X-Men for a short period that time around, but I kind of wish we could have seen a bit more, as it was an interesting dynamic shift. With that particular group of X-Men, you had very strong personalities from Wolverine to Rogue to even the never quiet Kitty Pryde, and on the other side you had Cyclops and Storm, who both used the respect they had earned through grit and hardnosed decisions to ride herd. Nightcrawler was a contrast as while his teammates did respect him, they followed his leadership more because they liked and trusted him. He would get a chance to flex this somewhat more casual and congenial style of command during many years as the head man in Excalibur and then did eventually get the X-Men baton back, but we’ll cover that elsewhere.

WOLVERINE
Logan has had a turn at bat before, as when Storm took another sabbatical and the team had been somewhat decimated during the Mutant Massacre, she put him in charge to shepherd them through a tough time. While Wolvie gave some great tough guy pep talks as one would expect, my main memory of his stewardship of the X-Men was when they were en route to Dallas and he made them land the Blackbird in the middle of nowhere so he could go fight The Hulk alone and then had to be pulled out of the fracas by Rogue and reminded that they were supposed to be saving the world; after that, they finished the trip and made it to Dallas where Forge got them killed. Hopefully this time around a few more years of experience and a headier goal will served Wolverine better.

PSYLOCKE
After the X-Men believed Storm killed by Nanny, Psylocke skirted any nomination process and instead used subtle telepathic suggestion to prod the remainder of her team—just Havok, Colossus and Dazzler at that point—into the Siege Perilous, erasing their lives and memories, effectively disbanding the group. Not the strongest example of leadership, but it was kind of the worst of times, and Psylocke’s karmic payback ended up being the whole Lady Mandarin thing anyway.

FORGE
Just the Muir Island team, but yeah, this happened, and of course somebody died on their very first mission.

BEAST
While Cyclops was away on his honeymoon after finally marrying Jean Grey, Professor X made the eminently logical decision to put founding X-Man Beast in charge of the Blue Team. It made a lot of sense: Hank McCoy was a veteran, a genius, a team player and well-liked by those around him. Unfortunately, this was around the time Beast was devoting the lion’s share of his time to curing the Legacy Virus, so he didn’t get any real time in the saddle before Cyke came back; the only thing I vividly remember was him instituting a no smoking policy for the X-Mansion and Gambit bitching about it.

GAMBIT
Speaking of everybody but Ryan Penagos’ favorite Cajun, he did lead one of the two X-Men squads during Chris Claremont’s “Revolution” comeback. I wasn’t reading comics at the time and this is one of the few periods I’ve never caught up on, so I don’t know how Remy LeBeau fit in what seems like an odd role for him; can anybody enlighten me?

ROGUE
As with her star-crossed lover, Rogue led a team during “Revolution,” but she also circled back around and headed up the X-Men’s troubleshooting division in the pre-Messiah CompleX days while Cyclops handled the primary team. Say what you will about selecting a roster that included Sabretooth, Mystique and Lady Mastermind among other loose cannons, but Rogue did a pretty impressive job managing a difficult group and getting results in the process. Yes, they eventually turned on her and Mystique shot her, but that was really more a matter of when than if, and that she got a few tough missions accomplished in the meantime is still laudable. She also put Iceman and Cannonball on the same team, so she gets props from me there. Even these days, Rogue is gambling on former villains and leading them on interstellar rescue missions; give the girl credit for guts.

ARCHANGEL
During Joe Casey’s bold and quirky run as writer of Uncanny X-Men, he installed a familiar but unexpected face as unofficial leader, having Warren Worthington III take lead on several cases. As this team went up against threats like bigoted churches and Vanisher trying to become a drug boss, Archangel’s business savvy came in handy, and he ran his crew more like a corporation than a super hero group, which was exactly what the situations called for. After Casey departed and Chuck Austen replaced him, the X-Men went back to their more traditional modus operandi, with Warren seeming less sensible in the lead position, a sentiment backed up by Iceman laughing at him thinking he was the leader at all and letting him know they all thought Nightcrawler was.

HAVOK
I’m actually not sure if Havok ever technically led the X-Men. I think for a second in between Storm’s “death” and Psylocke’s coup de tat mentioned above he may have been in charge, then again during the aforementioned Austen run he seemed to take the reins, and finally when the team pursued his brother Vulcan into the Shi’ar Empire he was the natural candidate, but I don’t think his leadership was ever explicitly stated in any of those cases. Well, if he never has, Alex Summers should get at least a shot at filling his big brother’s shoes some time; he did pretty ok with X-Factor and managed to not get the Starjammers all killed when by all rights they should have been a few times.