Wash. Times columnist goes gushy over "Lightning Saga"

It's a real shame when a newspaper that used to be very good starts deteriorating, as the Washington Times is now, and the columnist they have for comics, toys and other pop items is certainly a letdown these days, as this incredibly dumb article about the incredibly dumb "Lightning Saga" indicates. He clearly is out of touch with the rest of the fanbase online, or he's being deliberately fluff-coated for the sake of good relations with DC Comics, when he writes this lunacy:

An assembly of some of DC Comics' brightest creative stars brings together a trio of superteams to resurrect one of comics' speedier stalwarts.

Which is certainly welcome, but not the way it took as many as 5 interminable, pointless issues to get to where Wally West and family turned up, and he introduces himself as if his friends didn't already know who he was!

Writers Brad Meltzer and Geoff Johns, along with artists Ed Benes, Shane Davis, Fernando Pasarin and Dale Eaglesham deliver roughly 30 heroes to the pages over a five-issue event.

This hardcover chiefly compiles the crossover event seen in Justice League of America, Nos. 8 through 10 and Justice Society of America, Nos. 5 and 6 that chronicles a time-traveling mission by some members of the Legion of Superheroes.

I defy anyone without a scorecard and advice from a string theory physicist to try to keep straight all of the universes and versions of characters presented here.

And I guess he defies anyone who's curious for an explanation about why he's being so sugary about a story that was such a cop-out too, does he? And won't even explain why he found some of the storytelling approach here, which was a rehash of some elements seen in Meltzer's earlier work on Identity Crisis, worth excusing?

Sure, it seems as though he's explaining why he liked this in the following quote...

Although events have major implications in the current DC universe, the reason for my Cheshire cat grin is just enjoying the celebrities mixing it up in the issues. For example, a knock-down, drag-out between Batman and the Karate Kid, or Red Tornado almost delivering a lethal blow to Red Arrow during a training mission, or Wild Fire taking part in raptor races in Gorilla City.

I got a bit giddy seeing a battle outside the old Secret Society of Super Villains swamp base (fondly from my Super Friends days), and an appearance by Triplicate Girl cemented my nostalgia trip.

...but what he tells is very, very superficial, and suggests that he's just saying he enjoys the book for image value only. How does any of the above make a story, really? Doesn't it just underscore the main problem with the Lightning Saga, that in the end, there was no real nemesis to deal with, which makes it anti-climactic? Comics Should be Good once wrote a much more convincing take on why the Lightning Saga fails.

This is the problem today, one that might've actually been around for a lot longer too: to some would-be fans, there is no good or bad when it comes to comic books, and everything like this is just a holiday party worth celebrating. They don't pay any attention to if there's bad forms of storytelling injected into the script at all; for would-be fans like that columnist who wrote that gushy garbage, everything, according to how selectively he makes up his mind, is good.

It has to be more, much more than just nostalgia, to say that the book is good. And by not telling any more beyond what he does, his "review" simply doesn't have any impact.

I notice, on the other hand, that in the same article, he gives a negative take on the TPB of Ultimate Power from Marvel Comics. Now that's odd, because for all I know, he could just as easily have gone gushy over that as well, if he wanted, yet there, if it's bad, he's admitting it. It's a very strange paradox when he's willing to admit if a Marvel book is bad but not when a DC book is the same. And that's exactly why I just can't accept his "opinion".

Another weird Marvel "plant"?

A couple years ago, a strange anonymous "insider" for Marvel called Felicia "spoke out" against former head honcho Bill Jemas on CBR and Broken Frontier. Now, something vaguely reminiscient of that, a blogger called Marvel_B0y has turned up, with a URL that's deliberately spelled with a number instead of an O, and is seemingly trying to provide spoilers for how Secret Invasion will turn out. The blog first turned up on Livejournal but was erased and then turned up again on MSN Spaces.

Looking at that weird blog, I have no idea, is this for real, or is it just a plant? I just don't know. And it really doesn't make any difference how Secret Invasion is written, I'm not plunking down my money on it.

Manga artists in the info biz

An article in the English edition of the Yomiuri Shimbun about young manga artists going into the information business at the Kyoto University.

More signs that Teen Titans is becoming less appealing

The Titans Tower Monitor posts some press info on what's to come in June, and the cover of the 60th issue of the current volume has what looks like Robin in a graveyard (Update: it may actually be the cover for the special appearing below it, but the way it's positioned makes it hard to tell. Nevertheless, there is still plenty of problems with TT as it is now). A sign of more deaths? They're becoming almost more predictable now. And the news clip describing the issue says, "And, when all is said and done, who will still be Teen Titans?" A better question might be, will most of them even still be alive?

The title lost ground a long time ago, already when Geoff Johns was still writing. By now, with the way things have been going, I have to wonder why it's even still around.

Possible sales inflation scam detected

Here's something you may not see being discussed on major websites that provides something to think about. A comics store manager of Nik'LBag Comics in Pahrump, Nevada, located near one of the casinos, had something to say about sales on Amazing Spider-Man on CBR's forum that raised my eyebrows:

I have been in the business for over three years, which is not very long relative to other stores in metropolitan areas, but long enough to have learned a number of Diamond and Marvel's little tricks.

Diamond _told_ people that ASM #546 was sold out, but they had reserves for the a give-away promotion that happened this week. Diamond doesn't give away free comics, so it must have been Marvel behind the promotion. When I uncover the details as to why Diamond was shipping free copies of ASM#546 first printings without notice or request, I will post it and let you all know. It's a mystery to me, but I have strong suspicions. It wouldn't be the first time a company over-printed and gave out free books to push or promote something. Pick up the Secret Invasion Saga as proof of this. In the meantime, if you doubt my claim about ASM #546, check your LCS, and I will bet that they also received free first printings of it recently.

As to warehouses, I was referring to Diamond, of course, not Marvel, but in essence, Diamond's warehouses ARE Marvels, and DC's, and Images, etc. The whole of the comics industry is guilty of collusion, and has been getting away with it for years.

I can't go into any further detail, legally, on the subject of what I know or how I know it regarding that subject. All I can offer is my credentials and hope that a reasonable person would listen to what I suggest and dig further on the matter. Prove me wrong, if you think you can, or offer evidence that contradicts my theories.

Before declaring anything as a success just because some sales numbers for February were released and were moderately decent (they weren't very impressive at all), an intelligent person should read between the lines. Look at the other facts available and try to see a trend or pattern.

Fact: the entire comics industry noticed a significant decline starting in November of last year. This could just be the economy, it could have been somehow related to the impending writer's strike, it could have been the presidential caucuses and other national events. It could even have had something to do with the uncertain future of the Marvel and DC universes, key among Marvel's being speculation regarding Spider-man's future. I don't know the full answer, but I do know that Marvel manipulated figures as best they could to "front" a positive, successful image of BND Spider-man.

Some of you like it, and that's great, because you are buying and reading comics, which I strongly support. I'm not a big fan of this new thing, and I know that a tremendous number of other people agree with me. Quesada has been trying to put "spin" on this, fudge the numbers where he can, to be able to claim success, even if it results in a Phyrric victory. Executives do this sort of thing all the time, what makes people so naive to believe that it doesn't happen in the comics industry?

The numbers have been manipulated. The second printing was done for spin, and to have extra books to push to new readers later on, if sales started slipping. Quesada is playing for keeps here, and he will use whatever means necessary to make this single Spider-man permanent. He created a schism in Spider-man fans, lost thousands of readers, and hasn't been able to replace them with enough new ones to stave off the inevitable. I predict that sales will decline, steadily and substantially, until the three times monthly shipping and free give-aways can no longer disguise the hard truth that the idea was ill-founded and unnecessary.

And there's more by the same guy over here:

You know as well as I do, that I can't provide the kind of 'smoking gun' proof that you are looking for. I'm basically a peon in the comics industry, completely powerless to affect anything on a larger scale than simply 'nudging' a customer toward this book or that book when they ask me what's good. It sounds like your claim of having been a comic store owner that went through a recession is believable to a reasonable person. I have no way of verifying it nor do I require verification. I don't see why you need this from me.

If you look me up when you are in Vegas, I won't be in the Vegas yellow pages because I am out in Pahrump, about fifty miles outside of Vegas. If you drive out to Death Valley on your visit, however, you'll find me on Highway 160 across from the Saddle West Casino. You can also check Wizards of the Coast's website, since my store is a WotC Premier store and I will be running the Dungeons of Dread D&D mini Pre-release this coming weekend on March 29. I should be listed on their "find a store" page. If Diamond didn't charge a retarded fee for being listed in the "Comic Store Locator" service, you'd be able to find me in that too. I protest, however, against a fee involved for what is essentially a directory designed to help people find comics to buy. It should be free to all retailers, especially considering we each spend tens of thousands of dollars or more per year already with Diamond.

Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked because there is so much about this industry that is illogical and stupid that I can't nail it all down as succinctly as I'd like to be able to do.

Fact is: Diamond sent me 8 free copies of ASM #546 first printings last week, with no charge and no explanation. Where did they come from? We all thought they were sold out. This is proof, to me, that they were not sold out, as was previously believed. I could scan the Diamond invoice form and provide photos of the comics, if you'd like. Would that be enough proof? Do you require photos of my store as well?

I don't know why they sent free copies of ASM #546. I don't know where they came from, if they were supposedly sold out. I have a very strong reason to believe, based on what I saw last week, that they were not sold out at all, but were reserved instead for a low-key promotion based on ASM re-orders, since I actually ordered 2 copies of ASM #546 second printings and paid for them, as well as 6 other various back issues of ASM as customer requests. So I re-ordered 8 ASM books, including 2 copies of ASM#546 second printings (since the first were supposedly sold out and not available for re-order) and then mysteriously received 8 copies of ASM #546 first-prints for free. These weren't put in the boxes by mistake, either, they were listed on the invoice as $0.00 each. Now, why would I order 2 ASM #546 second printings if I knew I was getting a bunch of first printings for free? I wouldn't. So this must be some sort of secret promotion, presumably based on re-orders of ASM, possibly in order to boost sales of ASM back-issues. A cunning tactic designed to promote ASM in the long-term, making many copies available to potential new readers while simultaneously "rewarding" retailers who re-ordered ASM books from the past couple months.

The end result, of course, is that it looks like more copies of ASM #546 sold than actually did, which means that sales figures for that book are artificially high. Also, if comic stores are getting free books, it's a great way to drive up sales on subsequent issues if for every one you re-order you also get a free book. I can only assume, based on your query at your LCS, that that store placed no re-orders on ASM books recently if they received no free books. I can also infer from this, that they likely didn't sell out of subsequent issues, and thus had no reason to place a re-order. If they are not selling out, well that means the book isn't selling well, and they will likely lower their orders the following month.

I'm not making huge jumps in reasoning, here. This is the comics world. Companies do this all the time. There are risks and costs in any promotion, and a huge chunk of this business is the proliferation of product. Get as many of your books out in the marketplace as possible, to take up space that could be used by your competitors if you're not there. This is not unlike America Online sending out mass mailings of CDs to everyone in the country to promote their service. Secret Invasion Saga was a recent free comic given out at stores to promote the upcoming "event." Diamond was selling entire bundles of this comic to shops for a mere five bucks. Do you think that Marvel made money on that? No, they did it to generate excitement for the Secret Invasion, which they will make money on. Hell, the comic industry has an entire made-up holiday dedicated to giving away free comics at huge losses in the hope of attracting new readers.

I know from experience, based on the evidence I have seen, that Marvel is probably doing similar things with ASM. The trick is, if people find out the truth, that BND isn't the huge success that Marvel is making it out to be, Quesada's credibility will be in the toilet.

[...]

Looking at February's sales figures, I see decent numbers now but also a clear decline in sales. If the decline continues for several months, we will have a mess here that is difficult to resolve. Based on the evidence at stores, the evidently sparse number of re-orders for ASM, the sustained backlash in online forums, and of course the current economic recession, I think we will see sales dropping in the coming months. Only time will tell. I see evidence that suggests that the BND damage control and "spin" involved a manipulation of sales figures. If it is true, it may not be illegal, but it would certainly be unethical. I don't need to prove my case, though. This is not a trial and I'm not here to prove it. I'm only here to "voice" it, and perhaps get others to think and question things a little more.

Interesting. And if it does make sense, it means that Quesada may be mishandling management and how funds are spent, all for the sake of his own personal agenda. All those extra copies cost money, after all, and by printing more freebies for the merchants when they're not even making money off of them, that's not only deception and dishonesty, that's also hurting the company he works for even more. As the guy says though, only time will tell just what comes of all this.

This has also led me to wonder if other comics companies have ever pulled the same tricks: could DC have ever tried something like that with their own "event" comics? Maybe. If any companies are, it's not just clumsy and dishonest, it's also overspending money at a time when the industry is in recession.

Give Chuck Dixon another gold star

After almost 4 years, it looks like another positive act of justice has been done: Stephanie "Spoiler" Brown has returned, alive and well in Robin #172. If this is so, it means that, not only has Dixon done the service of redeeming Cassandra Cain, the new Batgirl, as he seems to have done in Batman and the Outsiders, he's also taken the positive step of righting two wrongs: the assassination of Spoiler in War Crimes, and the additional character assassination inflicted on Leslie Thompkins when Bill Willingham turned into a lunatic several months afterward, claiming that she let Stephanie die.

That's definitely a relief. I'd seen on Dixon's site board several days ago the suggestion that this could be another protagonist who might want to be a vigilante too, and was thinking of pointing out in response that putting a different person in the costume doesn't fix the damage done or counteract the bad taste left behind. It looks like now, that won't be neccassary.

Of course, if it hadn't been for the internet, I figure that, either the problem wouldn't have been solved, or it would've taken an epoch to convince them to repair it, if the character assassination of Hal Jordan and the decade it took to fix that is any idea of what kind of problems could've been faced.

One more thing: Regarding a memorial for Steph that could go in the Batcave, while I realize that some of those who'd asked for it weren't actually saying that they'd accept leaving Spoiler dead, I still don't think that made a strong enough argument - a demand to revive her is the clearer way to make the points. Fortunately, that's been done.

However, the road to repairs in the DCU is not yet over, there's still considerable work to be done: including...

Bringing back Sue Dibny and her stretchable spouse, Ralph, but not in different bodies, if I saw correctly last time. No, it has to be the two of them as we know them, a brunette and a guy with reddish-brown hair.

Exonerating Jean Loring, and Ray Palmer too, now that I think of it. In other words, if DC can fix the errors they made with Stephanie and Leslie, they can do the same with Sue and Jean, and Ray.

And also, one more interesting error that needs fixing:

Tim's father, Jack Drake. Yes, I mean it. His death was just as pointless and in bad taste (death by a razorang thrown by Capt. Boomerang in an otherwise out-of-character depiction), and stemmed from the same mindsets that led to the character assassination against countless other DC women to boot. What good did it do, really? Nada. And men like him who've been wronged can't be ignored any more than the women.

Also: even if Dan DiDio as EIC has allowed for repairs to be done...don't let him off the hook so easily. After all, he started many of these recent problems, and it's possible he could do it again, and come to think of it, he still is, if Big Barda's dirt nap in Death of the New Gods is any indication. If DiDio needs to vacate his seat, then that's what should be done.

Who would I recommend as a new EIC, if he's more reliable? I suppose...Bob Rozakis. As one of DC's leading editors for many years, he was one of the better contributors to their staff. If someone like him can be found to lead, and if he's a better bargain, I'd say to elect him as chief.

The battle for better storytelling taste is not over yet.

Anime ambassador

Here's an amusing article on the Times & Democrat about Japan appointing a cartoon ambassador in the guise of Doraemon, the robo-cat created in 1969 by Fujiko Fujio.

Another death in the DCU annouced, another problem with that

This article on Newsarama announces that there's going to be yet another Justice League title, but, there's a little problem:

Announced Saturday at WizardWorld: Los Angeles’ DC’s Countdown to Final Crisis panel, James Robinson’s second title at DC (his run as regular writer on Superman begins in June) will be the tentatively titled Justice League, a new series which will be true to its name.

“The book is about justice and seeking justice, rather than responding to emergencies, letting the problems come to them, and being almost entirely reactive,” DC Sr. VP and Executive Editor Dan DiDio said when asked about the new series. “The team is led by Green Lantern and Green Arrow who have in the past disagreed in points of view on what they can accomplish and what they, as heroes, should do, but when they work side by side, they have a very clear sense of goals. I think, with this group of heroes, you’ll see a more clearly defined mission statement for a team as put forth by these two. Plus, they’re motivated by an event in the DC Universe that makes them feel that they need to take a more active stance in regards to the need for heroes in the world today.”

That event? A murder. Unsurprisingly, neither DiDio not Robinson are saying who will be taking the upcoming dirt nap, only that it’s tied to Final Crisis, and that the League’s response causes a schism.

Oops, big mistake. There are plenty of ways to come up with a good justice-seeking story without making it yet another plot involving a murder. Unfortunately, that's what they're doing here, and it's beating a dead horse already. And by now, I just don't trust them enough to deliver anything tour de force, as long as someone like DiDio is in charge.

And when it's tied in with another superfluous crossover, you know that something could be wrong.

“Hal is outraged and wants to immediately go after the villain and get justice for the fallen hero,” Robinson said. “Given the circumstances, the rest of the group is pulling back and waiting to see where things land when all the chips fall, but Hal refuses to, and goes off half-cocked with a plan that’s none too well thought out. The only hero to go with him to help him is Green Arrow. So the team and the book will have that tone from their partnership – a little of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

I don't know who it is who's going to die, but already: I object. Pure and simple. And I wouldn't be surprised if this turns out to be nowhere near as thought-provoking as Denny O'Neil's run on Green Lantern/Green Arrow in the early 1970s.

Conventions are declining

You know that the medium is losing audience when you see that comic book conventions may be getting less attendence than before. According to that news at The Beat, Wizard World and MegaCon may be getting noticably less of a crowd than in past years.

But it's understandable why. When the major companies don't do anything inspiring, and the smaller companies may not be far behind, that's what leads to decline in attendence.

Did the wives of the Justice Leaguers ever go up to the sattelite station on their own?

It's time now to address a little something more related to the implausibilites of Identity Crisis that I almost forgot for some time now. And it's this: did the wives of the male members of the JLA ever just go up to their Bronze Age sattelite station without anyone else present to supervise them? And I think that answer to that is, if anything, doubtful.

I went to the DCU Guide website, and looked at the chronology of appearances for Sue Dibny. Up to 1995, it's got pretty much all her appearances. Many of her appearances back then were largely excluded to just the Elongated Man's own backup stories that were published mainly in Detective Comics for many years. The only story where she appeared in Justice League of America at the time was in issue #105. In fact, it was the only time when she really went up to the sattelite station, and with other superheroes already present. Afterwards, it was several years before she had anything to do with the JLA again, beginning with two appearances in JLofA #191 and #194 in 1981, and later on during 1984-85. And as far as I know, if she, or any other wife of a superhero, teleported up to the station, it was usually when either their husband, or other heroes, or both, were around.

My point? As far as I know, even if the wives knew the secret IDs of the heroes/husbands, that doesn't mean they were allowed to just beam on into the station because they felt like it, using the devices either kept around the house or available at another location. It was otherwise an exclusive club, where civilian access was restricted. And I doubt that any of the wives ever went up there without permission, completely unsupervised.

And that's one of the many big story holes that took place in Identity Crisis, as big as a black one in space. But I guess the more important hole in the story is - would Dr. Light have ever pulled a rape crime, after he'd been established as a villain with some rationale for almost 2 decades after his first appearance? The answer to that should be pretty easy to figure out, and it's "no". If a villain like the Living Laser or the Wizard didn't do such things, neither would Dr. Light.

February's sales were pretty weak

Wow, sales are really going down now, if the following news from ICV2 is any indication. Did Spider-Man's sales continue to slide? Yes, they did, and are now under 90,000. Even Justice League of America continued to lose numbers, and is now also under 90,000. And even the new volume of the Hulk lost as many as 30,000 copies after starting out with 133,000.

It's clear that the One More/Brand New Day fallout has taken a toll on sales, not just Spidey's, but also on other comics as well. Similarly, even DC may have hurt themselves more than a bit with how they mandated virtually everything and anything for their pointless crossovers.

Other reasons for the decline in sales can include, but are not limited to: killing off and villifying characters for no good reason (Sue Dibny, Jean Loring, Jade, Bart Allen), bringing others whose deaths were plausible enough back from the grave most implausibly (Mar-Vell, Harry Osborn), writers, editors and artists who wield disrespectful personalities in the face of the audience, out-of-character depictions, late publishing schedules, etc.

I wondered earlier if the industry is on the verge of collapse. If it does, to be quite honest, it will be sad. But there's an important lesson to be learned from this on our part as readers, one I'm sure took place in comics as well: we have to grow up. And realize that we may have to get along and continue in life without what we once enjoyed.

I hope that a collapse can be prevented. But if not, that's why we'll have to realize and understand that...we have to grow up. Much more than how today's writers and editors have.

Review of Matamoros

I got a review copy of Darius LaMonica and Sleet's Matamoros, which is drawn by John Cox, and quite enjoyed it. The hero of the story, Charles Sobietti, is a war veteran who's served in Iraq as well, and suffered the loss of his arm in battle after being hit by a landmine made by Iranian terrorists. A senoir officer, Colonel Oldenberg, offers him the possibility to undergo an operation to restore limbs through some kind of strange new technology for regrowing/restoring limbs and other important organs.

Charles applies for the operation in Texas, and it turns out to be better than he expected - not only does it give him a new arm and repair his damaged lung, it gives him an ability or two vaguely reminiscient of the Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman, two TV series that, while based on a sci-fi novel, could easily have gotten some of their inspiration from comics as well.

As much as Charles would like to return to the battlefield, he's discharged from the army, though they say they'll consider recalling him to duty. While spending time back home with the family in New York, he overhears two men speaking in Arabic at a diner downtown, discussing what sounds like a terrorist plot. But when Charles, after tracking them further and discovering more about their evil plans, tries to offer an anonymous tip to the police by phone, he's turned down on the grounds that there's a new law passed that prevents them from taking anonymous tips, because of a new law "passed after some passengers reported a suspicious incident on a plane," which is an allusion to the "flying imams" in Minnesota, an incident that may have been deliberately planned. If the police don't follow the procedures required, "the ACLU will be all over us!" So, Charles decides to take matters into his own hands and try to stop the thugs himself.

It's a very impressive story of a guy who undergoes a special operation and uses the abilities he's acquired in order to stop what could be a horrific terrorist plot. Now that I think of it, this could be the kind of story that Frank Castle, the Punisher, could've starred in if Marvel Comics had some more sensible management today. Unfortunately, they do not. I know that Frank Castle may have suffered some serious damage after 1995, when they turned him into some kind of a supernatural being, but it was after Garth Ennis took up writing Frank that things really took a turn for the worse. How would Frank Castle, a man whose family was murdered in a gangland attack in New York, feel if his family had been murdered by Islamic terrorists? And here goes Ennis putting Frank in a story where he refuses to take up on an offer to track down bin Laden. On the one hand, of course it could trivialize real life if he really had gone directly after bin Laden. On the other hand, the whole notion that Frank would consider Islamofascists less important than the gangland thugs he's usually dedicated his life to defeating is ludicrous and insulting, and creates a crazy double-think type of personality for him.

Matamoros ends with a special afterword by LaMonica where he tells of what led him and Sleet to write this book, which was Marvel editorial's killing off Capt. America last year, something that drew the following reaction from co-creator Joe Simon: "It's a hell of a time for him to go. We really need him now." Yet Steve Rogers' death was what made headlines last year. By contrast, look at how even much of the comic book medium has been largely silent about this gem of a book. For an industry that supposedly wants to save itself from the colossal slump it fell into since pamphlet comics were banished from major bookstores, it's hard to understand how they can turn their backs on something that might help save it.

I strongly recommend Matamoros for everyone and anyone who'd like to see a story with a premise much better than anything you'll see from Marvel, DC, and a lot of other companies that have shown little to no interest since 2000 in dealing with bold subjects like combatting terrorism. This is something that does a much better job than many mainstream comics are doing now.

IMO, nobody involved in Secret Invasion is trustworthy

Namely, the writers/editors, though that's already a moot point. The promo scans for Secret Invasion keep a-comin, including one that might be of a Skrull disguised as Doctor Doom. I'm really not interested in the umpteenth crossover being produced in so short a time, but all the pictures together have had me wondering if any protagonists with their own series will turn out to be Skrulls, which would mean that any story developments they might've had in their own series will turn out to be for nothing?

I wonder that because of how a lot of things at Marvel, for better or for worse, seem to have been "written off" in the past few years, or, nothing seems to stick, or, it's being done so half-heartedly without trying to establish any firm direction for any of the individuals. J. Michael Straczynski's having almost his entire run on Spider-Man written off can serve as one example of this strange "trend". Or maybe even Ms. Marvel, assuming that Carol Danvers turns out to be a Skrull, which would render all that's taken place in the recent solo book pointless. It might not happen, but something tells me it wouldn't be surprising if such a thing did.

And if it does happen, then that would mean...all that scriptwriting for nothing.

I hope people don't fall for this gimmick

Assuming such a gimmick actually takes place, that is. In this recent sales analysis on The Beat for DC Comics sales, when the writer brings up the results for sans-adjective Batman, he says:

Come April, a major storyline titled “Batman R.I.P.” gets underway, so perhaps DC are hoping to infuse the book’s numbers with new life by way of a mainstream press blizzard - after all, it worked for the competition’s Captain America last year, and Batman is a rather more recognizable character.

So far, there's no way to tell if the Masked Manhunter will actually be going MIA when this story takes place, but if it does happen, I'd say that such a move would be ridiculous, especially when there's another movie coming up this summer. On the one hand, of course DC's steps with their own serial fiction should not have to be bound by whatever goes on with movies based on them. On the other hand, I don't think such a move would be good for capitalizing on any moviegoers the movie might encourage to read the books. After all, they'd come in expecting to see Bruce Wayne as the star under the mask, wouldn't they?

And considering that there's been too many deaths of recent, even the death of a major character would be tacky at best, and could understandably alienate the fans they've still got reading their books. The death of Captain America was uncalled for, and I think the death of Batman would be just as unwelcome, even if it's only temporary.

Even if a death is only temporary, it's not something inspiring, and shouldn't have to be rewarded with sales.

Another college newspaper sugarcoats Civil War in trade paperback

The East Tennessean writes about Civil War, and shows once again that something is terribly wrong with university mindsets:

I don't want to spoil the ending, the ramifications are still playing out today, so I will just say that the writing was brilliant and the artwork was equally beautiful.

No need to spoil it, because Marvel's editorial already did.

Even if you have never read a comic book I believe that it has something to appeal to everyone, and the issues are very relevant in the real world.

But not in Civil War, I don't think.

Since then, I have gotten hooked on comic books. I make my weekly trip to the nearest comic book store to pick the current week's titles.

Boy, is this getting bad now. Earlier in the article, the writer spoke about how he couldn't afford to buy all the titles in the crossover, so he opted to just buy the main storyline in 15-dollar trade format. Just how many titles does he pick up now, and from what companies? And to say that he got hooked onto comics because of a dreadful crossover story with leftist overtones and too much of a focus on heroes battling each other instead of the villains, that really is weird. And considering that World War Hulk dragged a lot of titles into an expensive crossover yet again, can he still afford to buy whatever he may from Marvel even now?

With many A-list writers from television and film, comics are not what they used to be.

They flow like a movie from issue to issue and the artwork is some of the best I have ever seen. Some critics have begun calling this the "New Golden Age of Comics" because of the acclaim of many story lines and the repeated second, third and fourth printings of some titles. Many comics sell over 100,000 copies per month.

I've seen fluff-coated coverage in papers outside the college circuit, but this is really missing the boat. Some other critics have said that 2007 could one day be looked upon as the year that killed comics, because of how they're doing things including - but not limited to - crossovers, that make it near impossible to get absorbed in any story, or allow for any independent flow or creative freedom for the writers on many of the mainstream series. And contrary to what this head-in-the-clouds writer for the college paper says, only a small number of books are selling more than 100,000 copies a month, while many more are selling just barely 50-60,000. But even if they were selling more than that, is 100,000 that great a number by today's standards? Not really. It's a very far cry from what comics sold almost 2 decades ago before they were banished from mainstream bookstores.

And if the whole purpose of Civil War was in order to lead to what happened in One More/Brand New Day, then what good was it to begin with? I'd suggest to that writer at the college paper to take his head out of the clouds and return to earth to take a closer look at reality.

Pure sleaze

Scripps-Howard News Service talks about some comics-to-film style projects coming up, and with just one sleazy word, the writer manages to reduce the whole subject to rock-bottom perversity:

I should also mention that New York magazine reports that Snyder has figured out how to work in "Tales of the Black Freighter" -- a comic book within the comic book, with a pirate story wherein the main character deteriorates physically and psychologically, mirroring events in "Watchmen" proper. It will likely take the form of an anime extra on the DVD, according to nymag.com, information that may or may not have originated at empireonline.com, or Heidi MacDonald's "The Beat" blog at publishersweekly.com. Ah, incest, thy name is Internet.

Wow, that sure is some way to dumb down the news, even about the internet. I think this can be summed up in one word, and that is: UGH!!! That is not funny, and has to be the sleaziest insult to the 'net I've ever seen, and no way to discuss items like these in the mainstream press.

Dave Stevens, RIP

Another sad passing of a comic book contributor: Dave Stevens, who drew the Rocketeer, has died at age 52. It's terrible that, like Mike Wieringo, another talented artist has died so young.

McClatchy News may have said something right about Wizard

McClatchy Newspapers wrote an article about a new book called Superman vs. Hollywood: How Fiendish Producers, Devious Directors and Warring Writers Grounded an American Icon that was written by a contributor to Wizard, and tells about how Tinseltown mishandled movie and TV productions of the Man of Steel. They say here:

In this account, originally written as a cover story for the hyperbolic, testosterone-drenched fanzine Wizard, Jake Rossen recounts the history of the character's big- and small-screen presence. In expanding his piece into a book, Rossen presents a panoramic view of the business and creative processes and their vicissitudes.

I don't know whether that was intentional, but they say pretty much the right thing about Wizard, though it'd probably make more sense to say that it's fluff-coated, un-objective, and not worth spending money on as a news source. The worst thing about it is how it perpetuates unpleasant stereotypes about comic book readers. I just hope the book they're writing about is well written, and offers more insight than Wizard ever will about movieland.

Dan Slott is beginning to show his true colors

On this thread at Spider-Man Crawl Space, which begins with an excerpt from a Wizard interview with Axel Alonso involving the controversy and outrage over Brand New Day, Dan Slott responds to the posters and to be quite honest, I think he's really sneering here. He says:

Marvel has been hearing the SAME thing from retailers over and over again. Much like that retailer in the article said-- retailers have noticed a drop in in-store Spider-Man subscribers. But when it comes time to ring up those SAME customers at the register, those SAME customers have ASM in their stacks! The SAME guys who are dropping AMAZING SPIDER-MAN from their pull-lists are picking it up off the racks!

This is what retailers KEEP telling us.

Hmm, I fail to see the logic here. Especially when via some of the same message boards, I get the impression that a lot of these stores have gigantically stacked decks of copies sitting around with nobody buying.

Also, Slott really should take into consideration that Wizard will do whatever sugarcoated acts it takes to aid and abet the publishers no matter how much wrong they've done to the audiences and even the retailers. Wizard, after all, is not on the side of the readers, and come to think of it, not on the side of the retailers either. So, it should come as no surprise if Wizard is being dishonest, and either warping words or taking things out of context if that's what it takes to try and aid Quesada on the road to nowhere.

I've already noted earlier that ASM took a drop in sales. And Slott has the gall to blatantly rub salt into the wounds of the audience? At the end of his post, he "thanks" a poster whom he says helped get them attention by saying:

You might just be the butterfly who flapped his wings on the internet, caused a hurricane in the real world, and gave ASM #546 the attention it needed to spike and reach the #2 spot in January! You might just be the guy who brought new readers in off the street, helped major retail chains sell out, and made us go back to press for a second printing on #546! Keep up the good work!

With that kind of an attitude, I think Slott may have easily turned me away from being a fan of his. Now, I'm beginning to think of him as a trojan horse, who first lulled readers into a false sense of security, and then took off the mask to show just how respectable a writer he really is. I think he's insulted even the retailers whose sales have been hurting thanks to Marvel's slap in the face to fans. Many of those copies, if I'd read the news correctly, are non-returnable, leaving many clerks to suffer from a stuffed storage room. That's not exactly what I'd call being fair to the store owners.

Orlando MegaCon

Here's an article on Florida Today about the Orlando Mega Con in central Florida that's for both comics and sci-fi products.

Eighteenth Comic Book Carnival

Welcome to the March 6, 2008 edition of the comic book carnival. Here's the entries for this month.

Jim Squires presents Sunday Funnies: Justice with a Vengence posted at bits bytes pixels & sprites.

AM Caro presents The Psychology of the Hulk posted at A Phd in Comic Books, saying, "This is a look at the psychology of how the Hulk is haunted by his past as seen in Peter David's Tempest Fugit story line"

Foolio presents Finally on Time: Wonder Woman #17 posted at Fun With Foolio.

Tali presents I’m Not Bad- I’m Just Drawn That Way posted at The Pinup Shop Blog, saying, "Long before Jessica Rabbit uttered that immortal line, even cartoon pinups were struggling. Today the animated cheesecake has gone through some changes."

VFOH presents The View From Over Here: The Avengers posted at The View From Over Here.

MacManX presents Why I Stopped Reading Spider-Man posted at MacManX.com.

Action Button presents Sad, Sad Day - Spider-man?s Deal with the Devil posted at Press The Action Button.

Theodore Pappas presents Happy Birthday, Stan Lee (Superhero of Comics) posted at Britannica Blog, saying, "The title of this post explains its theme very well. A fine post about a seminal cultural figure, Stan Lee."

Theodore Pappas presents Mad about Mad Magazine posted at Britannica Blog, saying, "A fine post about the incessant appeal of MAD magazine."

Hube presents New "Iron Man" trailer posted at The Colossus of Rhodey.

Hube presents Whaaat? An anti-jihad comicbook? NOOO!! posted at The Colossus of Rhodey.

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Meet Charles Sobietti, anti-jihad comic book hero

Jamie Glazov at Front Page Magazine interviews Darius LaMonica about how he and Sleet thought to write Matamoros. LaMonica mentions something Sleet alluded to that I agree with:

FP: What made you produce Matamoros? Tell us exactly what it is about.

LaMonica: My co-writer, Sleet, actually made the decision with an off-hand remark. Last year we were having a discussion about how popular culture has ignored the war with radical Islam and our talk turned to the death of Steve Rogers, Marvel Comics' original Captain America. Sleet was particularly annoyed at this event and said to me "You're a comic book fan. Why don't we write our own comic?" So we wrote a script and I decided to contact the popular political cartoon team of Cox & Forkum for an artist referral since neither Sleet nor I can draw. John Cox read the script and really enjoyed it so he decided to come on board with the project instead of referring us to another artist.

I think what Sleet was bothered about, and rightfully so, is how the death of hero who could fight what Charles Sobietti, the hero of Matamoros, is now, was considered a story worth writing about by the MSM. Just what makes the death of Capt. America more important than the real problems that could be focused upon, yet which Marvel, with its current management, are unwilling to work on?

As of this writing, I tried looking through some of the major comic sites, such as Newsarama, to see if they had anything to say about Matamoros, and guess what? Nada. It's been almost 3 months since the book first came out, and none have said anything. That shows just how badly biased they are. If one of the leading messages of comic books is to show courage and fortitude, today's mainstream news sources dedicated to comic books are really blowing it badly.

I'm very glad that LaMonica and Sleet, as well as John Cox, thought of doing this project, and I hope that in the future, it will lead to more stories like it in comic books.

January sales for ASM were even less than previously thought

The Beat blog discovered that ICV2's previously published sales chart turned out to have to some technical errors in it. Reading the corrected chart provided by the Minnesota-based company, it turns out that sales for Amazing Spider-Man as a weekly series were even less than previously thought. What are the exact sales for ASM #548? Well first, the numbers ordered for #546 weren't 136,000, but rather, 127,958 issues. Then, #547 dropped to 101,213. Finally, for #548, it dropped to 97,959 copies. That's an overall drop of as many as 30,000 issues.

I think this does tell something: the readers have begun to speak. They do not approve of trashing the Spider-Marriage.

John Ostrander sinks into "liberal guilt"

John Ostrander, who wrote Suicide Squad during 1987-92, recently came back to the concept with a miniseries. And what's sad here is that he seems to be apologizing for his masterwork of yore. In a recent thread written on the Dixonverse board, the topic starter describes the book this way:

I am loving reading the Suicide Squad by John Ostrander again...but...

*sigh*

Why are the villains a bunch of fat, cigar chomping, brandy swilling, white guys working for a company that rhymes with Halliburton and headed by a dude who looks just like and is almost named Dick Cheney, who all gather in a lab and watch brown-skinned test subjects dying of a virus while they discuss how much money they can make from it?

This is so over-the-top it's hard to even be offended. (Rather like that Justice League of the Amazon book where the bad corporate guys have a table made from the stump of an old-growth Amazon tree.)

What bothers me is that this seems passe. Doing a lame attack on Halliburton and Cheney in 2008?

I guess it just bothers me that a great book goes out of its way to offend a large portion of its readers with needless politics.

Dixon himself explained why: because Ostrander is a lefty:

He doesn't keep it a secret.

The topic starter continues:

I know you and he disagreed about "Seduction of the Gun", with John thinking he did a fair and even-handed job and you...er, not agreeing.

Frankly, if he's been trying to spread the gospel of liberalism in his work, he's been doing a piss-poor job of it. I'm not kidding: aside from Amanda's crack to Reagan in her first appearance ("You DO remember social programs?") and the rather silly J. Danforth Kale as an allusion to Dan Quail, I would have thought that Suicide Squad of the 1980s was written by a raging conservative! I mean, you've got the Squad fighting The Jihad, Commies, cultists, third world strongmen, and doing it all by conscripting criminals into fighting for their country against their will. The criminals are scum, and that's clear even after we get stories that delve into their sad histories. Presidents Reagan and Bush were portrayed so believably and fairly that I would have held it up as an example of someone NOT slamming them in comics for once.

When this new mini started up and the first thing the narration makes clear is that Qurac is misusing the name "The Jihad" for their team of criminals... well, it doesn't seem like the same writer. For crying out loud, the first Suicide Squad had The Jihad staging a terrorist attack on an airport! Is it REALLY so necessary to divorce that team from radical Islam?

It's like Johnny O feels guilty for ever making terrorists the bad guys, and so he'll make sure that the bad guys are American ex-Defense Department corporate fatcats while also sneaking in an apology about the whole Jihad thing.

As Chuck explains, the world today has changed:

It was harder in the 80s (at the mainstream companies) to put political messages into comics. Today the climate has changed. Creators wear their beliefs on their sleeves if they're liberals and hide them if they're anything else and want to continue working.

Also the audience for comics is primarily liberal and much smaller because of that.

John probably feels (and rightly so) that his political beliefs are a boon to his career since they're in sync with his editors and audience.

Dixon is right, that the constant leaning, and domination, of many publishers by leftists has resulted in far less of an audience, because they're willing to alienate potential customers for the wrong reasons. It wouldn't surprise me if it's gotten to the point where even liberals have become alienated. Unfortunately, there are still some liberals who've not made it easy to be a conservative and to put their own viewpoints into comics as freely as liberals can. As one of a handful of conservatives in the industry, one who's bold to make his opinions clear, Dixon has taken a bit of flak at times, most recently because he may have criticized the lesbian relationship that Judd Winick, who previously wrote the Outsiders, put into the book whose cast Dixon is now writing, and possibly even for his writing an unreleased book for Crossgen called American Power that was about fighting terrorism. I've sometimes wondered if DC editorial allowed for a couple characters he'd introduced in the 1990s to be killed off because they resented his political views: he was the one who introduced teen vigilante Spoiler in Detective Comics 15 years ago, and also a handful of regular villains who appeared in Nightwing, such as Torque and Double Dare. Many of the disasters that his creations went through began to take effect just a short time after he'd left writing them 6 years ago, and no one contributing to DC at the time ever seemed to lift a finger to help him out.

As for Ostrander, that's a real shame if he's apologizing for some of his best work of yore. I own some of Suicide Squad, including the first 2 issues, and it's very good for a suspense comic about covert operations where crooks are made to be the operatives, combatting terrorists and communists in the latter days of the Cold War. It began with a group of criminals being conscripted into making a surprise strike against The Jihad in their mountain bunker in Qurac before they could carry out a real assault against innocent people abroad, with government agent Amanda Waller working as their mission instructor. And now, Ostrander is apologizing for a well-written story and premise? That's quite a comedown from the time that he first began his career on Grimjack and was hired by Bob Greenberger to work at DC Comics in the mid-80s.

I wonder if any of this explains why the series hasn't been released in trade paperbacks yet? There was supposed to be a black-and-white Showcase edition published last year, and then I found out it had been delayed, for reasons I don't know. I do hope it's published in trades soon, because it was one of the best series published in its time, and Ostrander is doing even himself a really big disservice by apologizing for some of the bold ideas he'd featured there. I can understand now why the recent miniseries ("Raise the Flag") didn't do well.

Will Justice League movie producers omit America from its title?

Uh oh, it looks like another comic book, in its transition to film, could undergo a shameful tampering job. In the New York Times, it's reported that:

The project’s title has also undergone some rethinking over time. According to some involved with the film, the word “America” may drop out, to make the film more palatable abroad, an ever more important consideration for the big studios.

Haven't they learned from the controversy that arose from when they omitted "Truth, Justice and the American Way" from the Man of Steel's slogan in Superman Returns 2 years ago? Now, it's possible that they may repeat that mistake with the movie based on Justice League of America, under the pure fantasy that foreign audiences won't see the movie simply because of that. It's not just insulting to domestic audiences, it's insulting to foreign moviegoers too. One more reason why the movie could tank.

While we're on the subject, the MTV Movies Blog found last month that the logo for the upcoming GI Joe movie may not have any red, white and blue in it. I was afraid this could happen, and won't be surprised if it does.

Where have the heroes gone?

That's what the Denver Post is asking now.

The simple answer is: it's not like today's publishers want to depict them that way now.

Simply hilarious: Brother Eye absorbs Apokolips

A little over a decade ago, I read about a story that had been commissioned for a DC/Marvel crossover wherein Galactus would try to devour Apokolips. That might have been clever, but this current story in Countdown to Final Crisis #10, where the one of the Brother Eye devices that were apparently created by Batman himself combines itself with Apokolips, pretty much creating a gigantic eye-in-the-sky, has got to be one of the silliest, laughable ideas to come down the pike in recent years.

So this is the "Fifth World" that DiDio was talking about? I'm sorry, but this is more of an insult to everything Jack Kirby went to such pains to create in the early 1970s. It's also little more than a boomeranging back on the elements seen in Infinite Crisis, such as the Omac Project (which was basically a ripoff of another of Kirby's creations, first written in 1974, and here turned into a robot concoction). This is what the New Gods have to perish for?

And while we're on the subject of elements seen in the past few years that the editors are not letting go away, we could even add the following problems to the list that are seen in Teen Titans, such as:

Robin/Tim Drake missing his best pal, Superboy, who's not even referred to by that name anymore, but not missing his father, if at all.

Wonder Girl/Cassie Sandsmark being only defined by her own affair with Superboy, and little else.

How exactly can any serious character study or stability be maintained if they're either going to let an error remain unfixed, or refuse to move past another detail and let it hang?