Marvel and Politics

Maybe you've heard about the SOPA and PIPA acts going through the US congress and senate. It is sort of a big deal, and it has the potential to really mess up the internet as we now know it. If you don't know anything about it, you should probably take a looks see. This document is a pretty good start.

There was a pretty big blackout of Wikipedia yesterday to highlight the issue. 24 hours without Wikipedia, and it did some good.

Internet writer and angry person Maddox was not thrilled with the effort. He wants people to do more, to really drive home the point.

This is a good thing. People should do more.

He lists a bunch of companies that publicly supported these terrible acts, and he suggests making them pay by refusing to support them. One name that popped for me, was of course Marvel.

I get why Marvel would be for laws that protect their copyright, but the problem I have is that they support this act; one that is flawed and vague and brutally open to kicking the little guy around.


It's kind of gross.

It also could be a poor business decision. Most fans don't really know that Marvel (amgonst other publishers) are pushing for these acts to pass into law, but they should. The fans should also know that they have the real power here. Marvel Publishing is a great target for a boycott, each issue selling, what, 100,000 issues at the best of times. A few thousand people can make a real dent in that revenue, if they were so inclined.


I do believe I am going to cancel my (not insignificant) pull list of Marvel comics today. I like me my open and crazy and free internet, and, at the very least, I can stop giving my money to some people who are inclined to fuck with that.

Top Cow: First Look - Part 1

I picked up "Top Cow: First Look" last week, based on it's cover alone. The art didn't do much for me, but a 4.99 price tag was enough to entice me to give it a whirl. Actually, the rest of the cover design does leave something to be desired. It looks pretty lazily done, especially considering the goal of this book would be to entice new readers and sell them on what a great job Top Cow is doing.

The quick review: Top Cow is sort of doing okay, but not always.

I'll talk about the first three issues in the collection today, and save the next three for later.

First up is "Genius". Described by Top Cow:

"The Pilot Season 2008 winning team of Marc Bernardin & Adam Freeman (The Authority) and Afua Richardson (Cyblade) returns with Genius-a story of a young African-American military genius taking over LA's gangs."

It sounds liek a silly concept, but it was a fun read with bits of cleverness peppered throughout (even if some of those clever bits illustrated how to be a better domestic terrorist). The concept is basically a young woman, raised in South Central Los Angeles, has risen to take over and unify the gangs in her city, and declares war on the oppressors of her people, the LAPD.

Bernardin and Freeman obviously take a lot of their influences from "Boyz n the Hood" and N.W.A., and the dialogue feels like it's trying to be authentic, without it actually being authentic. The plotting is solid, however, and the Origin tale of a modern day Sun Tzu is compelling.

Richardson's art is pop-y and looks good on the page, but sometimes he makes strange decisions and the storytelling breaks down. Odd halos around characters, silhouettes, and confusing camera angles made me, at times, have to go back and reread the page to try and figure out what was going on.

"Genius" was a fun, but sometimes sloppy, read.

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Next up is "Sunset", tagged by the publisher as:
"Sunset by Christos Gage (Avengers Academy) and Jorge Lucas (The Darkness) tells the tale of an old Vegas enforcer on a quest for revenge in his twilight years."

I know Christos Gage from his work on IDW's GI Joe books, and I quite like the slow burn drama he's able to build. This one starts off very similarly to Clint Eastwood's "Gran Torino", but there's a good twist at the end that stops it from being a heartwarming tale of the redemption of a cranky old man.

I hadn't really run across Jorge Lucas prior to this, but his art is serviceable, with similarities to Alex Maleev. I think he uses a bit too much digital processing, and it could benefit from a little more economy of the lines.

The set up was good, and I'm interested to see where Gage is taking the character, so this one was a pretty good preview. The benign beginning of the story is contrasted by the shock of the "ol' uber-violence" that jumps in at the end.

Comic Book Resources has an archived preview of the book here, if you wanna check it out.

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Lastly, for today, is Mysterious Ways, which Top Cow describes thusly:

"Jason Rubin (The Iron Saint) and Tyler Kirkham (Green Lantern Corps) unveil the supernatural murder-mystery Mysterious Ways."

It's hard sometimes, I find, to review comics. This is usually true when I find a comic that I really do not like, and such is the case with "Mysterious Ways".

Right off the bat, Kirkham's art rubs me the wrong way, as it gave me a 1992 "Extreme Studios"/ Rob Liefeld vibe. Too many lines, too sketchy, and... an interesting take on the study of anatomy.

Once the art leaves me cold, it's very hard for a writer to bring me back into the fold, and in this case, Jason Rubin was not up to the task. The story, about an ex-con/former cop turned alcoholic who is possibly framed for a grisly murder is seemed in "Spawn"-like melodrama and lacks any real emotional content. The min character spends nearly the entire book drunk and that prevents the reader from ever getting a chance to relate to or engage him, and the mystery just sort of falls flat because there's no one to care about.

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That's it for now. I'll review the other 3 issues in the book sometime later.

Quick Links - April 27th

The Cool Kids have a post about why Forge is the worst of the X-Men today. They're right, Forge was a terrible X-Man. Really, fuck that guy, he's always so whiny and he has led a life of failure.

Apparently, there is a Royal wedding motion comic app. Yeah, I knows. I knows.

Green Lantern is adding 9 Million dollars to it's special effects budget. A little late in the game to be messing with the SFX, I think. How bad did it look?

The first image from the Avengers movie set is out, over at Comics Alliance. I am giddy with anticipation.

Design: Fonografiks

Fonografiks has been reworking the design of trade paperbacks and giving them a decidedly retro feel. Worn out, decades old, and really cool looking. Check out their DeviantArt gallery for all of them, but these are my favorites:






There's a whole slew of them at the gallery, so check it out.

Wizard and Toyfare are Gone

Comics Alliance has breaking news that both Wizard and Toyfare magazines have been cancelled, effective immediately.

The Wizard website has little mention of the news, but their link to subscriptions information is returning a "page not found" error.

Sure it appealed to the most uninformed of fans, but I'm a little sad to see it go. My first taste of online comics discussions happened on the long gone Wizard World forums, and I remember chatting with people there and making a lot of friends that I lost touch with as soon as they forums were dumped without ceremony or warning in 2002.

So, Wizard magazine, it was nice knowing ya.

Quick Links - January 20th

X-Men: First Class has some new stills and the first poster out. See them here.

Dog Fort comics are the best comics. I seriously love Dog Fort. It fills me with glee.

Everyone is talking about Anne Hathaway in the new Batman movie.

Marvel unveiled the new international Thor poster.

No, seriously. Dog Fort.

Death and Cancer?

Looking at the New York Times today, I stumbled across this article on Archie Comics.

I was like, "Sweet, comics news. Archie is always good for a smile."

This is an except:

"In issue No. 6 of “Life With Archie,” which will go on sale Dec. 29, Archie Andrews, the famous redhead from Riverdale, will deal with a death in the extended family. Geraldine Grundy, one of the gang’s high school teachers, will lose her battle with cancer."

Yeah.

They killed Miss Grundy. With Cancer.

Yay fun Archie.

If you want to read about the sad and painful death of a beloved high school teacher, "Life with Archie #6" is on sale now.

Marvel: Fear

Marvel has been releasing teasers about their next event. A couple of images, and a short video clip. Other than that, no other details are out yet.

Cyclops in Magneto's uniform is pretty awesome, though.



I guess event comics have been paying off for Marvel. I think it makes them a little harder to follow, because every story is so massive, it can be a little daunting to dive into.

The move

I'm getting ready to move for the first time in 10 years.

This is awesome, and the new place is very sweet, and so is my lovely and talented girlfriend.

However, I have to move my comics.

They have been stowed away in long boxes in closets for a long time. In getting ready to move, I have taken them all out of the long boxes and stacked them up in the middle of the spare room. The pile big. It is heavy. It probably weighs more than a ton. In fact, I'm pretty certain that it does. I own more than a ton of comics.

I'm pretty awed by it, so I can only imagine the dismay my girlfriend has whenever she sees it, as she lives in a very spartan apartment, and I have...stuff.

The move is in two weeks. I've almost got my comics ready. Now to get on to the rest.

Whiteout

A few weeks ago, Marisa and I rented "Whiteout" starring Kate Beckinsale, albeit with low expectations following the poor reviews it had received.

We both quite enjoyed the original comic book by Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber, and I sort of feel dutiful in regards to watching movies based on comic books, so it wasn't a big debate at the video store. We both kind of wanted a fun, popcorn movie.

The comic is a very good comic, and one that is routinely referred to as a "girlfriend book", in that it's one that a fanboy can give to his girlfriend and odds are they'll like it. It has a good story, a decent murder mystery, and two very strong, unique, and not over-sexualized female leads that you can get behind and root for, a US Marshal and a British Intelligence agent. They're tough and smart and are just generally cool characters to read about.

You can read the first issue of the mini-series at Steve Lieber's website.

Okay, so now, you've got this movie. You've got two female leads and one of them is a British Intelligence agent. Kate Beckinsale is signed on. You're thinking "Nice! Who's gonna play the US Marshal?" Yeah, that's where things go wrong. Beckinsale is cast as the American police officer. Seriously. Who get's to play the strong, female British operative? Gabriel Macht (of The Spirit... uh, fame?) of course!

Yeah, the studio decided that a story with two female leads wouldn't work, so not only did they make one of them male, they cast an actress from London and made her the American cop. Macht is...there? He doesn't add tension to the story. He doesn't really add a sexual element. He was more memorable as being awful in The Spirit, compared to the job he did on this film.

The movie chopped up the source material, and didn't evoke the same feeling of tension, isolation, or mystery. The characters were mostly bland, (Tom Skerritt as the Doctor was the exception, but even then, he was mostly just playing Doctor Tom Skerritt) and they sort of spoiled the whole idea of "Whiteout" as girlfriend-friendly by "sexing-up" the only female character left in the story.

I'm a sucker for all things Antarctic, it should be noted. From Scott and Shackleton to the March of the Penguins, if it's about the South Pole, you're already got some leeway with me. I was anxious to see the effect they would use for a whiteout (a blinding, lethal snow storm), and even that was just sort of meh, okay, whatever.

I should have known, if I had done my homework. The director, Domenic Sena, has done such gems as "Swordwish"and "Gone in 60 Seconds". Basically movies that had really good trailers, but you'd never really want to watch.

The movie wasn't awful, as many of the reviews put it. One could sit though it easily enough, sort of on par with an episode of CSI Miami. You know, not great, but it's on, so one might as well watch. My main issue is that the original source materiel was so good, that the movie was just an immense letdown.

In any case, The movie gets a "if it's on the movie channel on a Sunday afternoon while you're folding your laundry, I guess so" rating from me. Otherwise, just read the book.

The Move

Not really a review of anything comic related, but rather a more personal post.

I'm planning on moving in with my girlfriend when our leases expire this July.

This is actually an awesome piece of news, and I'm looking forward to it greatly.

The issue I'm having now is that I have a massive comic book collection, and I am worried about the options I will have in the storage of my books. I currently have close to 2 full bookshelves for my trade paperbacks, and 3 closets full of long boxes, giving me about 60,000 comics. Right now, I have a 3 bedroom apartment all to myself, with lots of room to keep my books as messy as I please, but the girlfriend is a meticulous housekeeper, and I will have to shape up in time for the move. (To be fair, I'm okay with this, and have been purging my clutter regularly over the last few months.)

But I don't know what to do about the comics. I'm not getting rid of them, but I can't keep them they way I am now. I am going to have to research my storage solution options.

Captain America: What went wrong? (cont.)

Continuity is my favorite part of comics, but I'll be damned if it doesn't make it difficult to catch someone up on what's going on.

Picking up from where I left off last time, at the end of the "House of M" there was a short period of "normal" life in the Marvel Universe. Good guys fought bad guys, Woverine said 'bub', Cyclops was a dick. Everything was hunky dory.

The most important thing that happened to the story of Captain America was the creation of a new Avengers team. After a raid on the maximum security prison "The Raft" a group of heroes gathered by chance to fight the chaos and capture as many of the villains as they could. Once the dust settled, Cap, Iron Man, Spider-man, Wolverine, Spider-Woman, The Sentry, Ms. Marvel, Luke Cage and the mysterious Ronin were the new Avengers, and operated out of Stark Tower. They fought some bad guys for a while. Everything was great.

Then a couple of things happened.

• The Illuminati, a secret cabal of heroes, shipped the Hulk off into space as a final solution to his rampages.
• The New Warriors, on live television, went to bust a gang of villains. One of them, Nuke, used his power to escape, and in the process killed hundreds of people (including a nearby schoolyard-full of children and all of the New Warriors save Speedball).

The latter sets off a furor in the Marvel Universe, prompting the US government to introduce the Superhuman Registration Act, forcing any metahumans to register their powers, as well as to be trained and evaluated before they are able to use them, as a security measure to protect the civilian population from rogue heroes (like the New Warriors) getting in it too deep and resulting in another Connecticut disaster.

Heroes across the board are conflicted about this, and quickly polarize towards either supporting the act and the security it brings or acting against it, seeing it as an affront to freedom. They fall in with the two icons on either side of the debate, Iron Man (pro) and Captain America (con). Things rapidly degenerate when military force is used to capture unregistered heroes at midnight on the day of the act becoming law. Captain America, Falcon, Luke Cage and a handful of others are assaulted and retreat into hiding, trying to marshal up a resistance force.

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I'll take a break here to express some thoughts.

Captain America, the greatest hero the United States has ever had, is against the act. He seemed to be taking a passive resistance towards it, sitting quietly as the deadline passed. Who's brilliant idea was it to send a tactical military force to detain him at 12:01?

Also, Tony Stark really starts acting like a dick here. He turns on his friends, trying to manipulate them and bully them into siding with him. He personally turns friend on friend, and alienates his closest allies in doing so. He and Reed Richards begin to play chess with their friends and family, and it gets vicious and perverse very quickly. Tony's a smart guy, and I can't help but think he's got some plan down the road, but it mostly seems as if he is just amassing power for himself. The General consensus on the internet is "Iron Man is a tool", and with every passing month, he seems to be digging deeper and deeper.

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Flash forward through the "Civil War" event, there were a few milestones here to cover:

• At Iron Man's urging Peter Parker revealed to the world he was Spider-Man. This was an attempt to show the transparency of the Act.
  
• Peter was attacked on all sides by his enemies, forcing Aunt May and Mary-Jane to move into Stark Tower for their own protection.
• Reed Richards cloned Thor, and this clone (Clor!) killed Black Goliath in a showdown between Cap and Iron Man's forces.
• The FF broke up, mostly because Reed was acting without even talking things over with his wife.
• Namor, Black Bolt and Black Panther all strained their US relations in some way as a result of the registration act.
• Spider-Man joined Cap's side after seeing how far Tony was ready to go, specifically killing another hero in Black Lightning.
• The government formed an officially sanctioned super-team to track down renegades in the Thunderbolts. The team included registered metas Green Goblin, Bullseye and Venom amongst others.
  
• Iron Man and Reed Richards created a super-prison in the neutral zone to hold non-conformists.
• Cap and his team attacked the prison, freeing everyone within and an epic battle began.

There is a lot more that happened in the series, but that's up to you to read. Again, wikipedia has it all summarized in great detail.

The important thing to remember is that real questions were being asked about the Marvel Universe's civil freedoms and how much were they worth when compared to the promise of security.

The Civil War ends when, mid-battle, Captain America realises that the collateral damage being caused by this mid-Manhattan brawl is too great, with hundreds dead and millions in damages, and surrenders to Iron Man.

Yeah, he just gives up.

And goes to jail.

That's how Civil War ends.

Back in his own book, he is taken to court, and upon making his exit, Sharon Carter (under the influence/manipulation of the Red Skull) snipes Captain America, shooting him 4 times with a high-caliber rifle and killing him on the steps of the court house.

Just like that.

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An interesting addendum to this is that Marvel leaked news of this story to the media the day the book hit the stands, so many readers heard about it in the paper or on the radio before they could get to the comic shop with nary a spoiler warning in sight.

The issue also sold out very quickly due to the interest generated by the press. I myself was not able to get a copy, the stores in my area selling out before I had a chance to get to the shop.

Captain America: What went wrong?

When a comic book makes news, every fanboy begins to get asked to fill their non-reader friends in on what's going on. Some hidden need to feel a sense of belonging through knowledge kicks is, and worried about perhaps saying something ill-informed down the line and even though they will in all likelihood never read the comic in question, they must know.

The was the case with Captain America when news of his death was published in the news papers the morning issue 25 was released. I was asked to tell my friends and coworkers what was going on, feeling a little like a front-line analyst with a khaki vest and rugged five o'clock shadow.

Now, it's not at all that I mind talking about comics, but rather the opposite. If I could, I would surrounds myself with interested people and talk comics all day long, so when asked to break down the events leading up to the death of Cap here, I was on that like white on rice. White rice. But, as is customary, I must provide the standard spoiler alert, as I will be going into the plots in order to cover what happened.

*Spoiler Alert*

There. Sigh. Huh, now that I'm at the part of this post where I'm actually going to write about the comics, I'm no longer sure of where to start. Captain America has been around since 1941, so there's a lot of Cap history. Between his own book, being in the Avengers, and all the appearances he's made in other titles, he's got a huge library already written about him. I'm just going to assume you all know his origin and skip right up to more recent events.

There's sort of a timeline of "events" that set Captain America towards his fate, and they are as follows:

*Secret War
*Avengers Disassembled
*House of M
*Civil War

If you would like a detailed account of those story lines, I don't think I could do it better than the wikipedia articles, so don't don't be afraid to take advantage of the hyper-text, it's good reading. Basically, Nick Fury took some heroes on a covert mission and then mind wiped them. Then the Scarlet Witch lost her mind and in the ensuing battle between her and the Avengers, with her reality warping hex magic going wild, Hawkeye, Ant-Man and Vision were killed and Captain Britain and Wasp were badly hurt, and She-Hulk was taken into custody after hulking out and ripping Vision in half in a rage.

They beat her, and gave her over to Professor X and Doctor Strange to tend to her now shattered mind. When all hop had been lost, a discussion about what to do with her led to some dark suggestions, and her brother, Quicksilver, decided to wake her up. Bereft with guilt over what she had done, Wanda decided to call a big "do over" on the world, and ushered in the "House of M".

Boy, this is long. It's taken me like a week just to get this far.

In the House of M, Wanda remade the entire world, trying to give the people she knew what they wanted from life. Magneto was a king and mutants were revered, Spider-man was happy, Hawkeye was alive, and Wolverine was the head of SHEILD, etc. But cracks in reality started to show and a band of heroes realised that this world was fake. The went after Scarlet Witch, and had to cut through her father's forces to get to her, but when it was all said and done, she returned the world to normal, disappeared and all but a few hundred mutants had their powers, down from the millions they numbered before her meddling. Notable mutants to lose their powers were Xavier, Iceman, Quicksilver and the Blob.

Okay, I'll get to Civil War and Cap's murder in the next post.

Comic Book Ramblings: Conan, X-Men

I had some friends over last night, and one of them grabbed a copy of "Conan" I had lying around as we waited for supper to be ready. It got me thinking that "Conan" from Dark Horse is really one of the easiest comics for non comic readers to get into. There is no convoluted continuity that would prevent you from diving right into the story, but read sequentially the plots do flow into one another. Every issue offers the reader what he or she wants from Conan. Sword and sorcery, Conan fights something, and sinister plots unfold.

He sat there reading without looking up to ask me "Who's this guy?" or "What's that?" as other books would have caused him to be lost in the narrative. Aside from that, Cary Nord is a brilliantly gifted artist, whose work has really evolved whilst on Conan and just makes it that much easier to slip into.

So if you're not reading it, why not? It's fun, it looks great, and it's easy to get into.

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I used to be such an X-Junkie. Now, I'm only reading "Astonishing X-Men" and that only comes out once every couple of months. What happened? How did such a fan of the series drop the books without remorse?

I'll try and break it down.

Saturation. Too many damn x-books out there made it too hard to follow what was going on from month to month. Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, Astonishing X-Men, X-Men Unlimited, New X-Men, Excalibur, X-Factor, Wolverine and Cable/Deadpool are just too many titles to follow. Even at my peak, I wasn't able to pick them all up.

Quality. I'll be damned if the books didn't take a nosedive over the past five years in terms of their quality. Rotating creative teams and a lack of a-list talent on many of the books sapped my excitement from month to month, eventually losing their spots on my pull list to titles that seemed to give a damn. I would be on the message boards commiserating with other fans about how much we longed for the good old days and invariably someone would appear in the thread and say "Then why are you still reading them if they leave you so unsatisfied?" Why indeed.

Characters. I say "X-Men" to the people in my office, and they think "Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm." They don't think "Polaris, Mystique and Bishop." There is a place for second-tier X-Men, but you have to keep the marquee players in play, or else the branding fails. The books have the teams watered down to a point where there are so spread out, it's hardly worth it to read about them any more.

Marvel, if you want to steal me back to the X-Books, you had better realize that Astonishing has it right, and that once it's over, if you don't have the big hitters lined up to replace Joss Whedon and John Cassaday, I'll be long gone.

My suggestions: Cut back to three team books and Wolverine and Cable/Deadpool. Uncanny X-Men, X-Men and New Mutants. Get one of your top writers on one of the books. Bendis, Heinberg, Vaughn or Millar. Get a stable artist on each of the books. Regulate the look of them and lock them in for a couple of years. Have editorial stop all the roster changes. When I read Spider-Man, I know Spider-Man is the star. X-Men should be the same. Don't be afraid of Wolverine, but don't overdo it either.

That's all for now, folks.

A Comics Blog - Day One

Several years later, I'm back. It's been a hard time with out a place to rail and rant about comics, but after a few other opportunities died on the table, I figured I would have to take matters into my own hands and, *gasp* start a blog about them myself.

If you're looking for my old archive, you can find it here. Though it is a few years old, there's still some fun there.

To the matter at hand: comic books.

Well, what can I say? I love comics. Stories of action and adventure, very nice art, modern allegory and nostalgia all play into the medium. I haven't had cable TV in years, but I have to have my comics. I'm a fanboy, and there's nothing you can do to fix that.

I'll start of simple, I guess, and tell you what I'm reading these days. I'll get more structured later on, or less structured, or, well, I'll get more interesting, but I think my pull list is a good place to start.

52 - DC Comics
Mighty Avengers - Marvel
New Avengers - Marvel
Avengers: The Initiative - Marvel
Conan - Dark Horse
The Goon - Dark Horse
The Spirit - DC Comics
Savage Dragon - Image
Justice League of America - DC Comics
Star Wars: Legacy - Dark Horse
Usagi Yojimbo - Dark Horse
Astonishing X-Men - Marvel

As well, I always am on the lookout for a spicy looking trade paperback to add to my book case.

So you can see, I have what I would like to consider a wide variety of taste in genres for my comics. I started out an x-fan, but most of the new books fail to call to me. I'm not historically an Avengers fan, but Brian Bendis brought me on board a few years ago, just like Geoff Johns did for his stuff at DC. Also, in the spirit of clairity, I didn't get "Identity Crisis", but got "House of M". I also got "Infinite Crisis" and "52" over "Civil War". What does that say about me? I'll let you decide.

All right. I suppose I should say something here that has some content.

I declare 2007 the year of Iron Man. He is the most prominent comic book hero thus far, and I believe he will continue to be a major catalyst for a long time to come. Sure, everyone thinks he's a jerk and a bully, but I like the way he's being written. He's a guy who made a bad decision, but said so much about it, that he cannot back down from it without losing face. Like that time I grew really huge mutton-chop sideburns. I talked the talk, and then I had to wear them for weeks longer than I wanted to.

Iron Man will continue to be the focal point of the Marvel Universe for a good long while. Tony's stepped up his game and taken on the mantle of the elite hero, the first amongst Avengers, and leader of the most powerful people on the Earth. Watching him scramble and fight to stay there will be a lot of fun. New Avengers #29 had Danny Rand and his lawyer shut Iron Man down like nobody's business in one of the best scenes I read in weeks. I don't want to spoil it, but it was fun.

So I'm calling it now. The biggest story of 2007 will be the fall of Tony Stark.