The Four Color Media Monitor

Nor for that matter does IM's current writer Matt Fraction, IMO. The Colorado Springs Gazette writes a fluff-coated article talking about how Tony Stark is being "put through the wringer":

Tony “Iron Man” Stark is losing his mind — literally.

As noted before, it won't surprise me if it's worse than it sounds.

When Marvel’s monthly “Invincible Iron Man” kicked off a year and a half ago, Stark had prevailed in a superhero civil war and was in charge of the famed security agency S.H.I.E.L.D. — “the big man on campus,” writer Matt Fraction says. But that didn’t last long. In the wake of Marvel’s “Secret Invasion” big event, Stark was blamed for failing to prevent the alien invasion. The villainous Norman Osborn, aka the Green Goblin, became the government’s point man on superheroes and labeled Stark a traitor.

The more I think about what Tony's been blamed for, the more I begin to wonder if this is all a Blame Bush metaphor with Tony serving the role of the former president.

“Over the course of almost a year now, Tony’s intelligence has been degrading, which has always kind of been his superpower,” Fraction says.

His power has been to degrade?!? What an insult.

In “World’s Most Wanted,” Fraction’s aim was to strip Stark to his core and have him pay “kind of the ultimate penance” for a lifetime of sins.

“I sort of wanted to take everything from him, one step at a time.”

Fraction can say whatever he wants, but I don't think he's a real fan of Tony Stark, nor the reporter who wrote this puff piece. I guess everything Tony did throughout his career as a businessman and a superhero was wrong, right down to his being a capitalist, is that it? Simply awful.

“World’s Most Wanted” is followed by a story arc titled “Stark: Disassembled.” Fraction can’t say much about it without revealing the ending of the current storyline, but hints, “If ‘World’s Most Wanted’ is about Humpty Dumpty having a great fall, this is about all the king’s horses and all the king’s men trying to put Humpty together again, and having to deal with the fact that maybe Humpty doesn’t want to be put back together again.”

Yeah, I get it, Tony's becoming a quitter. Not something new, really, there were a few times when he was hesitant to don his armor and fight the baddies (I do remember one time in the mid-80s when he wanted to resist taking frontline action, and have at least one issue from then, Iron Man #193 from 1985, where he tried this and finally came to his senses to fight a dinosaur guided by Dr. Demonicus, who was menacing a tribe on an island the West Coast Avengers were trying to protect). But this is really, really stupid now, to depict Tony quite forcibly as a wrongdoer and then make him want to pay for his "crimes" by wanting to sacrifice his mind, if not his life.

“Invincible Iron Man” won the Eisner — the comic book industry’s version of the Oscar — for Best New Series — at this summer’s San Diego Comic-Con.

This awful story is what wins an Eisner? That just shows how far award ceremonies have fallen. The Oscars, the Emmys, and now the Eisners.

The worst thing about this article is how there's no genuine opinion given, over whether it's good or bad storytelling, whether it alienates potential fans and readers for Shell-Head, or even if it helps Marvel in the long term. Just a whole lot of suck-uppity blather by people whose fandom for comics is questionable in the extreme.

Labels: dreadful writers, Iron Man, marvel comics, msm propaganda

And they're Static and (just barely) Hardware. In the following Q&A with Dan DiDio (via Titans Tower Monitor), he manages to be lethargic as usual, yet signals that the Milestone entry to the DCU was but a short stay:

5. kryptofan1 asked:
Do you have plans for the Milestone characters (other than Static in the Teen Titans) after the Brave and Bold stories?

DiDio: At this particular time, we have Static in the Teen Titans, and we're looking at a storyline that might be built around Static later in the run. But right now, no other plans.

And Static may not last much longer in the Titans either. Dwayne McDuffie, just a few months after his dismissal as writer of the Justice League, wrote on his own forum that DC wasted his time (via Robot 6):

Plans for a Static monthly were scrapped by DC last spring. Based on their actions, they never really wanted to publish the Milestone stuff, they wasted my time. We could have done a little deal for them to use Static without me having to spend so much money on lawyers.

Do I spot a lawsuit on the horizon? If he's smart, he'll sue for full reclamation of his properties, and publish them somewhere else other than DC. I won't be surprised if a]Static and Hardware are both halfway out of the DCU already, b]Static won't last much longer in TT, especially if it's canceled, and c]DC may have difficulty even publishing any stories already written with them in trades because of the copyright suits that may well come up soon. But DiDio's done what to deserve that, and I won't feel sorry for him if he ends up in an embarrassing position thanks to his mistreatment of McDuffie.

Labels: bad editors, dc comics, Justice League of America, Titans

A writer for Big Hollywood presents some info and a few panels of a graphic novel Ditko first drew in 1988 called "In Principle: Unchecked Premise", co-published with Robin Snyder.

Labels: good artists

Marvel's character assassination of Iron Man continues in Invincible Iron Man #20, which features a cover with a scene deliberately meant to mirror the one in Civil War where Tony was shown standing above Captain America. Now, it's Thor standing above Tony as he lies unconscious and possibly dead on an operating table (on the cover anyway). And the story here is called "Stark: Disassembled", an obvious reference to the awful Avengers story by Brian Bendis that started this whole mess 5 years ago. The press release says:

"World's Most Wanted" saw Iron Man grounded and on the run after Osborn falsely implicated the iron-clad Avenger in the Skrulls' Secret Invasion. In order to keep any valuable information away from the current questionable regime, Tony downloaded top secret S.H.I.E.L.D files-including the identities of registered heroes-into his brain. And as desperate times call for insanely desperate measures, the valiant hero began deleting parts of his mind to keep the information safe.

Even if Tony isn't killed, I don't expect anything good to come out of this. Maybe he'll be reduced to a vegetable that needs to be reeducated from scratch. And it's possible that Iron Man, like Black Panther, Ms. Marvel, and She-Hulk, will become a victim of more contrived, forced replacements - a new protagonist may take up the armor in his stead.

The saddest thing that there may be no outrage from the fans, yet I realize that it's because many readers have given up on modern day comics because they feel they're powerless to stop this slow, terrible destruction of famous superheroes by the inmates now running the asylum.

Comic Vine's page on the issue asks an excellent question:

What will be Tony's final fate? Is he still deserving of all the bad things that are still happening?

The answer is: absolutely NOT. Because he's only a fictional character and the characterization forced upon him during Civil War was not his fault, nor was it inspiring or positive. He did not deserve this destruction to begin with, and it should be stopped. And the only way to do that now is to avoid buying the series, for as long as Quesada's destruction continues.

Labels: Avengers, bad editors, Iron Man, marvel comics

Stan the Man recently gave an interview on BBC radio, and made the following comment on One More/Brand New Day's aftermath:

Well, I think it was good in the sense that it made a lot of people sit up and take notice and it generated a lot more interest in Spider-Man. But I must admit I agree with you, it wasn’t typical of the Spider-Man we have known and I think they’ll either [be] going to get back to the normal Spider-Man and Mary Jane relationship or they’ve maybe already done it… they will, sooner or later they will, I’m sure of it.

And we the Spider-Fans hope it. Until now, I know that Stan, as a writer who worked at a time when there was a belief that you shouldn't speak negatively about the places you've worked/are working for, was either unlikely or couldn't bring himself to protest the actions of a current Marvel administration. But now, it does look like he may have come to realize that his reluctance to speak out would surely only ensure that the harm done would remain. If he's woken up and come to realize silence gets nowhere, I congratulate him.

Now, if he'd just take his words and record them for an interview stateside, maybe he'd be making even more of a difference.

Labels: marvel comics, Spider-Man

The Washington Post writes about how the big two are missing out on the big chance to capitalize on the success of movies based on their books/characters:

The film "Iron Man 2" isn't set to come out until next summer, but you would never have guessed that from a recent issue of Entertainment Weekly featuring Robert Downey Jr. summoning all the gravitas a man in red plastic can muster.

To be fair, the magazine was covering the cinematic buzz coming out of the San Diego Comic-Con last month. The gathering served as a marketing vehicle for upcoming movies, including "Jonah Hex" and "Iron Man 2." But when people weren't gawking at Megan Fox ("Jonah Hex") and Scarlett Johansson ("Iron Man 2"), they may have taken in a panel with comics writers. After all, Comic-Con started as a way for comic fans to buy, sell and discuss the objects of their passion.

But the celebrity dazzle obscured the strange reality: Movies based on comic books often turn into box-office hits, but their sources rarely see a related boost. Why? And why aren't comics publishers doing more to sell their material to moviegoers when their business has been dampened by the recession?

[...]

The daunting task of diving into a story that is already underway is one reason moviegoers stay away. Unlike the authors of Harry Potter or Twilight books, comic publishers keep developing their franchises' story lines as they're shaped for the big screen. Customers expect their monthly fix. Plus it's hard-baked into their business model. Comics podcast host Brian Eison points out that Marvel's and DC's sales are pegged to series plotted for years at a time. Since the publishers have sunk capital into these series, it makes no sense for them to alienate their core base by suspending or rewriting series to tie in to a movie.

But it's equally senseless to waste the opportunity to cultivate new readers. If someone were to walk out of "Wolverine" and into a comic shop, they would have no idea what to read, given the character's colorful back stories. And a neophyte comics reader is at the mercy of the shop employee for recommendations, because there are few clear entry points. Plus, there aren't many comics titles aimed squarely at new readers.

They got that right, but it's a shame that, as people who are clearly outside the world of comics and understand little about what goes on inside, they can't do anything to provide the real answers, nor can they bring themselves to be seriously critical of the editors for doing things that don't suit their properties.

The funny thing is that, a decade ago, when the first X-Men movie debuted, Marvel actually did try to capitalize on it, but in the wrong way: they brought Chris Claremont back to the helm based on name value only. He wrote a few story elements that intended to mirror those seen in the movies, yet still managed to make them confusing and incoherent. And soon after, Grant Morrison took over and made them even more dreadful, while simultaneously draining the color by giving the X-Men uniforms like in the movie for almost 3 years. And yet, sales did not improve, and slowly began to drop below 100,000 in sales.

If they had really wanted to capitalize, they would've been wiser to refrain from putting in too many elements similar to the movies, while at the same time writing some coherent stories that were even stand-alone, and they could've just limited the cast to several of the most prominent members. Also, they needn't worry about remaining true to prior approaches used since the 60s, 70s, and 80s, certainly not in characterization. The idea that the audience wouldn't realize that there are differences to be found in the source material and couldn't get the hang of it is absurd.

So a decade ago, they almost tried to capitalize on the movies, but in the wrong way. Now, the irony is that they're not, probably because they saw that it wasn't working, yet didn't see it as their own faults, so they resorted to the crossovers and other publicity stunts for survival, even though that too is starting to lose ground. And as long as Quesada and DiDio are in charge of the big two, I think it's clear by now that there's no chance they'll be able to bring in new audience. The truth is, they're not interested in new audiences so much as they are interested in dumbing down and destroying what made their properties click in the first place. If the Wash. Post doesn't understand that, and doesn't point it out, nobody will ever be able to understand why so many opportunities are being missed.

Labels: bad editors, crossoverloading, dc comics, marvel comics, sales

The LeHigh Valley Express-Times fawns over Blackest Night Superman, where the Golden Age Superman is forced by James Robinson into a killer's role:

Now golden-age Superman has returned to Smallville as one of the Black Lanterns.

"Blackest Night Superman No. 1" is written by James Robinson with art by Eddie Barrows.

The story begins as a horror movie as Black Lantern Superman hides in the shadows and strikes without warning, taking his victims by surprise.

You never see what happens to Black Lantern Superman's victims.

This helps add to the drama and tension because by not knowing, your imagination fills in any number of horrible fates.

Okay, so granted, they keep the potential gore out of sight here. But still, no sale, because they're still implying that this is a horror story, and that the victims may have suffered a horrible fate, the most definite one being - what else? - the loss of their lives.

The only fault with the book is that it relies on the reader to know a bit of DC's recent history.

For most readers that's not a problem, but for anyone who has not followed DC for the past few years may have some difficulty understanding who everyone is.

Well gee, that's just the problem DC's had for quite a while now - their output of the past several years is not new-reader-friendly. And that's surely how they justify their actions.

The Golden Age Superman is undeserving of this awful storytelling, which is simply disrespectful of DC's past history and characters.

Labels: crossoverloading, dc comics, golden calf of death, msm propaganda, Superman, violence

The UK Telegraph reports that Britain's dhimmis are helping to spread the propaganda of Kuwait's ludicrous so-called comic book over to the UK:

Named the 99, as each possesses one of Allah's 99 attributes, the characters include a burka-clad woman named Batina the Hidden and a Saudi Arabian Hulk-type man named Jabbar the Powerful.

They have proved a hit from Morocco to Indonesia and were recently named as one of the top 20 trends sweeping the world by Forbes magazine.

Now they are being brought to British television by Endemol, the production company behind Big Brother, with a mission to instill Islamic values in children across all faiths.

Or, more precisely, to indoctrinate the children of Britain with this frightfest. If George Orwell knew about this, he'd be spinning in his grave.

Update: it's important to note that the creator of this propaganda is also a Hamas supporter.

Labels: Europe and Asia, islam and jihad, msm propaganda

Oh great. Not only is the overrated Johns co-scripting a Flash movie, he's also going to co-write the script for a movie based on Billy Batson!

Captain Marvel isn’t exactly on the forefront of the DCU but could work as a movie. The transition from the comic page to the silver screen has been eased by the news that the great Geoff Johns will be co-writing a script for the film. After Zak Penn’s successful turn as a movie scribe for The Incredible Hulk it looks like comic book companies are realizing that in house talent can make the jump from comics to movies and back again.

There may have been some comic scribes who made the jump successfully, but I can't say the same for movie scribes who've come the other direction. And though Johns wasn't exactly a screenwriter per se when he first worked as an assistant to Richard Donner over a decade ago on movies like Lethal Weapon, he did first begin his career in movies, and hasn't exactly proven himself capable of eschewing the influence he got from there.

I don't know if Shazam will ever make it to the big screen, but if it does, then I'd rather Johns not be part of it. I'd like to at least think this suggests he's going back to where he first came from in the movie industry, but for now, I'm sure it's unlikely.

Labels: dreadful writers

Sony's portable Playstation is going to have a digital download feature that'll be enabling users to obtain some of Marvel's publications:

NEW YORK (AP) - Sony is adding a digital reader service that will allow owners of its handheld gaming system, the PlayStation Portable, to download comics.

The service will start in December and will include content from Marvel Entertainment's Spider-Man, X-Men and the Fantastic Four.

Users will be able to read classic and new comics page by page or frame by frame. Sony says PSP owners will be able to access a range of media through the digital reader service, but it gave no further details.

Sony did not announce prices Tuesday. The service will initally be available through the PlayStation Stores serving the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

On the plus side, it'll be great to get hold of the older, better books in Marvel's archives through the Playstation, for anyone who owns the machine. But the newer material from the past few years that they're making available through the gameplay system, that'll be a waste of time for everyone, and could dampen enthusiasm by showing how many modern day Marvel comics are not even worth the megabytes they're uploaded on.

Labels: marvel comics, technology

In Ms. Marvel #43 Vol. 2, it looks like the attempt at a publicity stunt has been revealed. But it also looks like Carol Danvers, if she's still alive, has been subjected to a fate worse than death:

...it focuses on not only the evil Ms. Marvel (a.k.a. Moonstone), but also the good Ms. Marvel who somehow has been separated into two people: one a violent superhero persona, the other containing the more usual Ms. Marvel personality but contained within a regular seeming woman. Along with that we get very, very brief glimpses at the "dark" Ms. Marvel as she somewhat unravels now that she's not the only Ms. Marvel, and an even more brief glimpse at the New Avengers as they deal with the violence-focused good Ms. Marvel.

This sounds like a ripoff of the old Star Trek episode "The Enemy Within" where Captain Kirk was split into two beings by a transporter malfunction, one mild and calm, the other nasty and violent. I guess they must think that's better than Moonstone being the baddie here. (I assume though, that the dark side of Ms. Marvel comes from her drinking habit a decade ago?)

The review also talks about how the book's suffered from inconsistency:

Another problem with superhero comics these days that this series is a prime example of is its inability to keep a steady level of quality. Again, if you look at just this one issue, the artwork seems okay. To be frank, Arino's art seems somewhat low level for Marvel, but it's alright. However if one looks back to this series' earlier issues and sees the work of Roberto de la Torre and Aaron Lopresti, you can't help but think that Marvel started off with its top-tier talent for the first part of the series and has now let the quality drop after they figure they have the readers hooked. This goes almost hand-in-hand with another big problem in today's superhero comics: complete changes in direction. Looking back at the first issue of Ms. Marvel I can't help but feel like I'm now reading an entirely different series. Heck, even if we just went back a dozen issues or so the series feels completely different. She had an actual supporting cast at that point for one thing.

All of that wouldn't be as big an issue if it weren't for yet another problem that this series highlights: No definitive conclusions. I realize the comic publishers want to keep their readers hooked, but instead of simply continually making sure they publish the best stories possible, they use cheap tricks such as never having any conclusive feel to any of their issues so readers never feel like they stop collecting without it feeling like it's just hanging there. I feel sorry for anyone who has faithfully collected Ms. Marvel from its beginning and now looks at the various issues and sees there's almost nothing cohesive from the beginning of the series to the present.

For heaven's sake. The book may have had supporting cast members earlier, but it still had problems with editorial interference almost ever since the beginning, when it was dragged into Civil War, and Carol was one of the leading victims of contrived and forced characterization. But complete change in direction is correct: if this has become part of the Dark Reign crossover and just fills in the blanks with a silly story about split entities, then that shows how they didn't care about establishing a steady direction for Carol to begin with. In that case, how could the book have had the impact it could've had under a better editorial board? I think it's a shame that Ms. Marvel's been misused so badly. Carol Danvers is one of Marvel's most notable working women in the MCU, and as a second or third tier, had some potential as a solo star. But while this volume may have run longer than the 1977-79 series that ran alongside Black Panther's series of the same time, it still fared less well, and is not worth the paper it's printed on.

Labels: crossoverloading, marvel comics, women of marvel

A writer on the Newsarama blog is asking if they piled on too many pages in the first issue before dropping them in the second, similar to Marvel's way of publishing Secret Invasion, while the price remains $3.99.

Well, I wouldn't put it past them. Given the chance, they'll rip off Marvel's absurdist tactic of overcharging at the drop of a hat.

Labels: crossoverloading, dc comics

Here's a short article in the Manning River Times from Australia about the upcoming anime festival taking place all the way over in Oz.

Labels: Europe and Asia, manga and anime

An article in the Press-Citizen about the now beginning AnimeIowa 2009 convention in Coralville, which also tells a little bit about how manga and anime productions gained traction in the US.

Labels: manga and anime

Marvel's latest silliness in their publicity stunt parade is Dark X-Men, a companion piece to Dark Avengers, where Norman Osborn's assembled a team of mutants to serve him, including Dark Wolverine!

Come on now. The X-franchise has been so associated with darkness for more than 2 decades now, how is this supposed to be surprising?

Labels: crossoverloading, marvel comics, X-Men

They're celebrating the 70th year since they first began as Timely Publications. But after all the damage they've done to their properties and franchises over the past decade, I can't help but wonder, just how great will this anniversary be?

In fact, according to this press release they have here:

To celebrate its 70th anniversary, Marvel Comics will commemorate the milestone event on Tuesday, August 11th with special anniversary parties taking place around the world! Over 500 comic shop retailers will be hosting parties to celebrate the comic book giant’s 70 year history from 1939 to today. These events will be offering: early on sale release of The Marvels Project #1, an all new series detailing the origins of super heroes in the Marvel Universe by the creative team behind the worldwide sensation The Death Of Captain America;

See, while they don't mention it, there's every chance that these origins could even include a forced redo of Spider-Man's. And that's one thing that, if they still intend to stick to it, makes it very difficult to look forward to their 70th year. Why, practically nothing they've done in the past several years is particularly worth celebrating. That's why what could've been a lively announcement a decade ago is hard to be excited about now.

If Marvel's current editorial staff, Quesada, Buckley, etc, are wrecking their properties artistically, then it's very difficult to celebrate this when there's a whole different story going on elsewhere than the convention centers and other locations they'll be attending.

Labels: marvel comics

A short article in the Central Chronicle about a planned exhibition in Los Angeles next October for comics published in India.

Labels: Europe and Asia, exhibitions

Comic Book Resources reports that the X-Men writing staff have cooked up their very own variation on DC's Blackest Night:

Announced at Comic-Con International in San Diego, “Necrosha” is a story that writers Craig Kyle and Chris Yost have been brewing since 2007 in the pages of “New X-Men.” The tale features the immortal psychic vampire Selene, who amasses some undead mutants for a very specific and nefarious plan. The event will crossover with the “New Mutants” and “X-Men: Legacy” titles for some corpse-tastic fun!

Just another clue to how the X-franchise is no better off today than it was over a decade ago.

Labels: crossoverloading, golden calf of death, marvel comics, X-Men

Labels: Carnival entries

The Valdosta Daily Times writes a short but sugary article about Blackest Night, and even in just a short amount, it manages to be quite stupid:

Comic books have an ongoing tradition of killing characters then bringing them back to life. Sometimes, the death and rebirth are quick.

And sometimes the deaths/resurrections are done very selectively, with some getting favoratist treatment while others are not so lucky.

The following pages remind readers just how many characters have died in the DC Universe. Aquaman’s dead. The Martian Manhunter’s dead. The Elongated Man’s dead. The Blue Beetle’s dead. And many others. By the end of this first issue, two other DC characters are apparently dead but will likely be right back.

And that justifies this continued focus DC's had on excessive violence and gore? No way.

The last part is the worst:

“Blackest Night” feels like the follow-up to the brilliant “Identity Crisis” of a few years ago. This first issue has many touchstones from that groundbreaking mini-series. If this series comes even close to “Identity Crisis,” “Blackest Night” could be an enlightening experience.

No, I think it could be quite a disgusting one, and to read this would be to get hammered over the head quite badly before finding anything worthy, if at all.

Labels: dc comics, golden calf of death, marvel comics, msm propaganda

An article in the New Jersey Warren Reporter about the Warren County Community College running a course for aspiring comics artists.

I thought that as a GI Joe fan, I could be relieved by this LA Times article (via Hot Air Headlines) that says:

Paramount Pictures gave the movie its homeland premiere at the base for Air Force One, flying out its stars Channing Tatum, Sienna Miller and Marlon Wayans for a helicopter tour, meetings with the base commander and airmen, and a red carpet replete with paparazzi and billowing American flags.

Launching the film to a military audience is just one part of a highly atypical marketing and publicity campaign for "G.I. Joe," which opens nationwide and in most foreign markets this Friday. Paramount is sidestepping the traditional Hollywood showcase and courting of the national print media in favor of taking the picture directly to America's heartland.

[...]

The subtext is none too subtle: Critics are likely to roast the film, and fanboys of the original toy line and comic book may be indifferent, but if you're a flag-waving, Nascar-loving American, it's practically your patriotic duty to see this movie.

That's the great news. But then, further down, it says:

Yet overseas, where big action films often earn 60% or more of their ticket sales, rah-rah American sentiment doesn’t play well. So those references have vanished from the advertising.

European marketing, rather, focuses on action sequences set in Paris — where the Eiffel Tower collapses — Egypt and Tokyo, and emphasizes that G.I. Joe is an international team of crack operatives and not some Yankee soldier.

When it comes to selling “G.I. Joe” outside the U.S., the message is “this is not a George Bush movie — it’s an Obama world,” director Stephen Sommers said. “Right from the writing stage we said to ourselves, this can’t be about beefy guys on steroids who all met each other in the Vietnam War, but an elite organization that’s made up of the best of the best from around the world.”

And then I realized that they may be talking out of both sides of their mouths! Biggest problem here is - what have all these real life presidents got to do with this anyway? Why must any marketing have to involve them? And does this suggest that liberal nonsense has found its way into the screenplay in more ways than one?

The part about guys who met each other during the war in 'Nam is also unnecessary - if we look at this in the comic book context as per the famous comics from 1982-1994, the Joes team could've met each other at any time, and in a fictionalized war too. Why make it sound like Duke, Scarlet, Snake Eyes, Lady Jaye, etc, are real people?

Way to go there, Mr. Sommers, souring everyone's milk with needless politics. Now, I'm not sure if this will be a great movie.

Update: Big Hollywood makes a brief comment on this, and John Nolte talks about the phony claim that Americanism doesn't sell overseas.

Update 2: Paramount continues to raise eyebrows with the news that they won't be screening the movie for critics. Despite whatever defenses they may be coming up with, their refusal to screen it for the press does signal that all may not be well.

Here's some more from Ben Shapiro, and a video of an MSNBC interview with John J. Miller.

Update 3: one more item from NewsReal Blog.

Update 4: well, it's now past August 7, and from some of the reviews I've read from sources close to the right, it sure doesn't look like this movie is worth it, and here's one review for starters that tells something about this movie that should earn it a whole shower of rotten tomatoes and cabbages. The Pit base is located in Egypt?!? Wow, what a great place to set the Joes' HQ, in this day and age, a country that's steeped in Islamofascism! Not much more really needs to be said here. I guess I'll just add a few more reviews of this, including this one from John Nolte at Big Hollywood, and also Film Junk, Joe Lima, Chris Yogerst.

Labels: politics

Wow, I didn't think it could get any sillier than this. At the SDCCI's DCU panel (via Titans Tower Monitor), Geoff Johns told what happens next in the Titans's artistic collapse:

-- "When a fan asked for Johns to come back onto "Teen Titans" and work to "fix" the franchise, the writer said that Superboy, Kid Flash, Tim Drake and Wonder Girl will all appear in the first arc of "Adventure Comics" and that he had spoken with the new writers taking over both that series and "Titans" saying, "They're going to be really, really good books." Deathstroke will become the leader of the Titans team when Wallace writes "Titans" later this year."

I know that Deathstroke may have led the Titans about a decade ago, but if he's still got the blood of Bludhaven's citizens on his hands from the time of Infinite Crisis, that, to say nothing of his actions years before with Terra in the Judas Contract, disqualify him from leadership. I guess they must be following in the footsteps of Marvel with Norman Osborn.

And there's no chance the Titans will be really, really good books under DiDio's editing.

Labels: dc comics, Titans

According to ICV2 (via Anime News Network):

Graphic novel sales dipped in both bookstores and comic stores in the first half of 2009, according to an article in the new ICv2 Insider’s Guide #67. Nielsen BookScan numbers show an 8% decline in piece sales in bookstores in the Adult Fiction/Graphic Novels category in the first 25 weeks of 2009, according to the article. The Bookscan figures do not include graphic novels racked in Kids and YA departments in bookstores, which probably means that the decline is less than 8% over-all.

Graphic novel sales were up in comic stores in Q1, but dropped in Q2.

As I've guessed before, the graphic novels they allude to could be DC and Marvel's time-wasting crossovers and publicity stunts. That's why, now that I think of it, I wish they'd give some clearer insight as to just what graphic novels aren't doing well. It could help to understand what might be going wrong with GN sales.

Labels: sales

No sooner does a paper like the LeHigh Valley Express-Times do it, the Cleveland Plain Dealer makes sure to pay its own lip service to Geoff Johns's latest monstrosity. Starting with the following foolishness, they say:

If you have been reading comics for a long time - I'm talking decades - today's stories can't get any better.

No, they can't. They can only get worse with people like Johns at the helm.

Writers are crafting stories that pick up trailing pieces of plots left hanging back when John Kennedy was president. They are woven carefully into current story lines so new readers, unaware of their existence, don't blink an eye. But old readers let out a little smile of satisfaction.

Not this one. This reader can only let out a very big frown, especially at the blatant sugarcoating job they're doing here. Nor are they carefully woven, no matter how much time they supposedly took to plan. Curiously enough, they may have admitted how tripe like Blackest Night are not new-reader friendly, one of the biggest problems with today's mainstream output.

One of the best at doing this is writer Geoff Johns. I've praised Johns so often I feel like a stalker, but the guy is that good.

The first issue of his long-awaited series "Blackest Night," which is rejuvenating the "Green Lantern" franchise, was released last week.

Not only is it good, it's even better than expected.

Please, spare us the suffocating fluff. Not only is it insulting to the intellect, it's also hurting the GL franchise just as much.

Johns resurrected a grade-C villain called the Black Hand and gave him a weapon of ultimate power - the black lantern ring. The ring allows him to summon dead heroes and villains of the DC universe and give them power rings of their own - then set them against the living.

That includes deceased heroes like the Martian Manhunter; Aquaman; Firestorm; Elongated Man and his wife, Sue; and the original Superman, among others.

Interesting how the writer calls Black Hand a C-grader, which IMO is only putting down better writing of yore, and referring to him as though he were literally obscure.

I suspect when the story line plays out months from now, it will give DC the option to keep many of the "dead" characters alive. While I'm sure the Martian Manhunter and Aquaman are on that list, I hope DC does not go crazy and bring back everybody. For stories to matter, death must have meaning.

But what about the bloody killings in the current monstrosity that is Blackest Night? Does that have meaning? I am quite tired of these mainstream would-be comic fans arguing over how this or that character must remain dead regardless of whether it was done in good or bad taste, and there's no garuntee that Aquaman and J'onn J'onzz will return in good health.

The look on Flash's face when GL uses his ring to show him all the heroes that died in the intervening years is memorable.

Oh, I'll bet. More likely that it's tiresome.

My favorite scenes are those between Hawkman and Hawkgirl, as she explains why they can never be lovers as they had been in thousands of past lives.

Johns shows his understanding of Hawkman's complex personality through his treatment of his best friend, the Atom.

Hawkman refuses to accompany Atom to visit the grave of Jean Loring, the Atom's ex-wife, who killed a mutual friend in a twisted plot to get the Atom to fall in love with her again. Hawkman will not forgive her for the murder and for what she did to his best friend: "She made the Atom feel small."

That line would almost be a joke if it came from anyone else. But Hawkman means it.

Ahem. That line is sick and offensive, and does no more than to perpetuate considerable damage. But the newspaper, in all their pretentiousness, won't admit it.

They then go on to fawn briefly about Dark Reign:

Speaking of death and dying, the Punisher's facing the long, dark walk again in "Punisher" No. 8 as part of the story line "Dark Reign: The List."

Don't worry too much about the Punisher; he's been dead before and it didn't last.

Marvel's "Dark Reign" is proving to be a lengthy and fascinating look at what happens when the bad guys win. It's a story line running through all the Marvel comics, with serious implications for everyone.

Yes, and that includes the audience! If it runs through all series they're publishing, it only grinds plausible storytelling to a screeching halt, and the emphasis on the villains winning has gone much too far already. And I think Frank Castle becoming a ghost again is just a retread of the territory he traversed in 1996, which went nowhere, just like this latest balderdash. "Lengthy" is certainly right, it's going much too long.

Labels: crossoverloading, dc comics, golden calf of death, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, msm propaganda, violence

IOL Technology has an interview with Stan Lee where they talk more about the Time Jumper cartoon project he's working on, as well as his history in comics writing/publishing.

Labels: good writers