The Four Color Media Monitor

Another overrated writer has been promoted to a spot he never really deserved. Here, it's Jeph Loeb, whose most recent work of the limp as a comics writer was The Ultimates and the Red Hulk storyline (I vaguely recall reading some of his work on Batman 8 years ago, the Hush storyline, which was nearly 12 issues of nothing), who's now been promoted to head a special TV development division they've formed. True, he'll probably be out of the comics scripting field now, but I sadly figure his influence will be felt on more of their projects even behind the scenes.

Labels: dreadful writers, marvel comics

The third issue of the new Flash volume is coming out, and if my estimates are correct, Digger Harkness stands to be forced into yet more dismal dreck:

...if what’s seen here can be taken at face value, I’m not sure it’s necessary. It seems like a second attempt (after Owen’s super-speed) to give a villain who throws weaponized boomerangs an extra edge. It’s an odd choice for Geoff Johns, who managed to revitalize the rest of the Rogues simply by taking them seriously.

Too seriously, I'm afraid, if his throwaway depiction of the Top in the older volume (issue #195) was any indication. In fact, I've got some scans available right here, taken from an old back issue I once had access to:

Gee, that sure was "innovative" there. Giving the Top a power that could cause Wally such a headache he threw up (one can only wonder how many other people coughed up on the dock that very day)! How childish. And why did Wally leave himself open to attack like that? Even Barry and Jay would've greeted Roscoe Dillon with a big stallion's kick before allowing him to just cause them such a gross encounter of the crude kind.

If that's Johns' idea of how to write the Rogues', he's not taking them very seriously. No, he's just desperate for ideas to draw attention. And I guess that could be what'll happen with Capt. Boomerang. One of the comments on the Flash topic even says:

the 12 who were resurrected in BN#8 have been displaying signs of their former Black Lantern abilities. Aquaman, Firestorm, Martian Manhunter, and now Captain Boomerang each have one of their BL powers. In the case of Digger here, he’s making Black energy boomerangs seemingly out of nowhere

He's also not being allowed to develop anything without being tied into what's clearly another crossover.

Let's also not forget that he's still guilty of slaying Jack Drake, father of Robin, and even devouring children in Blackest Night. It doesn't matter if he was under control of whomever the main villains were there; that was still militantly embarrassing. And as long as that's going to remain in place, George Harkness will not be able to function as a tasteful supervillain.

Labels: crossoverloading, dc comics, dreadful writers, Flash, violence

A writer on Suite 101 writes a very awkward article about superheroes who've dealt with drugs. For example, he says:

For the most part, comic book superheroes should serve as role models for children. On the subject of drugs, it is not uncommon to see a hero take the moral high ground and preach to the kids to just say no. Yet even the mighty can fall, and in their moments of weakness, these heroes have found themselves succumbing to the temptations of drug abuse.

Hourman

Golden Age DC character and longtime JSA member Hourman could perhaps be considered as the world's first drug-abusing superhero. In fact, that's practically how he got his super powers. As chemist Rex Tyler, he formulates a "miraculous vitamin" pill that he creatively names "Miraclo." Swallowing the pill, Rex discovers that his physical strength is greatly increased for a period of sixty minutes. As the aptly-named crimefighter the Hourman, he devotes one "hour of power" a day to fight evil. Or if just an hour isn't enough, he can always extend it by popping another pill. And another. And another. And so it goes.

Back when Hourman first appeared in Adventure Comics #48 (April 1940), the idea of a pill-popping superhero wasn't so controversial. Indeed, he was only one among many heroes who obtained their powers through ingesting substances (interestingly, a number of these are humorous cartoon characters such as Underdog and Roger Ramjet). But in modern times when even Mighty Mouse can be accused of cocaine use just by sniffing a flower, Rex Tyler's wonder drug would eventually be held under scrutiny.

Talk about taking this all out of context! While vitamins are technically drugs, Hourman's initial use of Miraclo was along the lines of most legal forms of vitamins, even the famous one known by the letter C. What's dismaying about this piece is how it succumbs to political correctness, just like DC did in the late 80s-early 90s when they started changing the premises because they were ridiculously embarrassed about how the heroes first began. This even extended to Jay Garrick's habit of smoking, which was downplayed, or later just dropped, and for Elongated Man, they tried to rework his use of gingold juice chemicals, all because it supposedly represented drug use!

And what's this about Mighty Mouse being a crack user by sniffing flowers? That's really exaggerating there and insulting famous cartoon creations for no good reason. By that logic, I guess boyfriends can't give their girlfriends a bunch of roses and tulips, and nobody can smell them either, because that's drug use too, huh? Wow. Some way to demonize even the most harmless of things, all for the sake of political correctness, and moonbat nonsense to boot.

Later stories would emphasize the adverse effects of the Miraclo pills. Addicted to both the drug and to the superhero lifestyle, Tyler would continue on as Hourman, even after the pills prove to be detrimental to his health. His son Rick would eventually take up both the Hourman mantle and the Miraclo addiction that comes with it, which leads him to contract leukaemia. Rex would then come up with alternative ways to activate his latent powers, from a "black light beam" to a form of hypnotic suggestion. The elder Tyler is currently retired from costumed crime-fighting, but not before developing a non-addicitve Miraclo formula presently used by his son (who had since recovered from both his leukaemia and his addiction).

And it wasn't the wisest of story turns either, but I guess that doesn't matter to the writer of this junk. It's a shame how some of the simplest forms of science fiction and fantasy were ruined by the alleged similarities they share with real life problems. Even Captain America has been a victim of this kind of PC-garbage in the past decade.

They even superficially talks about Roy Harper's addiction and how he boomeranged back:

Rather than having the superhero encounter the drug problem through others, as stories of this type usually do, Snowbirds... has much more weight in having the hero himself experience it firsthand (a feat that would later be matched by the Iron Man alcoholism storyline). And while it may seem that Speedy had overcome his addiction at the arc's end, his struggle is far from over. In the recent Justice League mini-series Cry for Justice (September 2009-April 2010), Harper (in his current Red Arrow identity) has suffered the trauma of losing his left arm and the grief of his daughter's murder. Pushed to the brink of despair, he has taken up his drug habit once more.

But no criticism of how a decent story of a guy who lost his head and learned some important lessons, and tried to use his experience to teach others why not to make the same errors, was recently ruined by the sleaze peddlers currently running the asylum at DC?

And they even talk about how Batman first had a brush with drugs:

As hard as it may be to believe, no less a hero than the Dark Knight himself had been a drug user at one point in his career. This is a man who had trained all his life conditioning his body to achieve the pinnacle of human perfection. The ultimate health-nut, if you will. It would seem inconceivable for such an outstanding physical specimen to be hooked on drugs, let alone to one that is connected to one of his deadliest foes.

It was actually Batman's desire to become physically stronger that drove him to put his health and sanity at risk in Legends of the Dark Knight #16-20 (March-July 1991). After failing to save a young girl's life, the Caped Crusader becomes obssessed with increasing his own strength. This leads him to take "Venom," a performance-enhancing designer drug that puts steroids to shame. As a result, he starts to depend more on brute force rather than his usually sharp mind. His personality becomes more aggressive than usual, at the expense of his morals. And he becomes so addicted that he is reduced to a common junkie under the thrall of his supplier.

But you can't keep the Dark Knight down for long, and the Batman ultimately triumphs over his weakness, flushing the Venom out of his system before it could completely destroy his life. But it would not be his last brush with the drug. It would menace him again in the form of Bane, the Venom-pumped powerhouse who breaks his back in the 1993-94 Knightfall storyline. It was later revealed in JSA Classified #17 (November 2006) that Venom was actually a derivative of Hourman's Miraclo; and the history of super-drug abuse in the DC Universe comes full circle.

It also becomes very insulting. I won't be the least bit surprised if that 2006 JSA story really turns Hourman's history into a mockery in retrospect. While this article does tell where the idea for making Batman into a control freak may have come from, it still doesn't really tell anything beyond that, like whether these storylines were good or bad in long term, and is otherwise a letdown.

Maybe the biggest problem is how it doesn't make any distinction between good or bad drugs, chemicals, or even medicines.

Labels: dc comics, politics

Here's an article from LA Downtown News about the soon to open Anime Expo in Los Angeles, which'll take place during July 1-4.

Labels: conventions, manga and anime

The title for one of the newest Supergirl stories that takes place in issue #53 is "Who is Supergirl?"

That kind of title was probably used the earliest with Donna Troy, but today's writers are making it into a cliche. And since Linda Danvers is unlikely to turn up again for a long time as Supergirl, I think it should be pretty clear that the question they're posing is moot.

Labels: dc comics, women of dc

The LeHigh Valley Express-Times writes about the new Avengers volume's debut, and actually notices it's got a forced structure:

Nearly everyone on the New Avengers is already a member of a different team or in the case of Wolverine, on multiple teams.

Luke Cage, the team's leader, is also in charge of the Thunderbolts. You would think Cage would have his hands full running a group of super villains, but I guess not.

Spider-Man has a bunch of his own books and is a member of the primary Avengers, so he has plenty of time to team up with the New Avengers and save the world.

The Thing from the Fantastic Four joined the team because traveling through time and parallel dimensions while battling Doctor Doom wasn't challenging enough.

Wolverine is on every team Marvel has: X-Men, X-Force, Astonishing X-Men, The Avengers and two or three of his own books. So what's one more team to an already over-extended character.

Hawkeye and Mockingbird just got their own book.

The only characters who don't have their own book are Ms. Marvel and Iron Fist.

With nearly every hero in two or three or more comics, the book should really be titled "The Part-Time Avengers."

Wow, they noticed! What took them so long? All these past 6 years, the Earth's Mightiest Heroes became little more than a playground for Brian Bendis, who, instead of maintaining a cast that could stand out on its own with members like Wasp, Ant-Man, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, made it into just another team-up title for already obvious choices like Spider-Man, Wolverine, and at least a few other heroes who work better in street-and-earth based settings, rather than the more sci-fi oriented worlds the Avengers usually work best in.

But here's the part that really annoys me, and makes this article weak:

Because of this, there is no real threat or danger to anyone.

The team is just too safe. Nothing can ever really happen to anyone.

Everyone knows that Marvel's not going to kill Spider-Man, Wolverine or The Thing.

And just what does that mean? That the Wasp's death almost 2 years ago was okay, and perfectly acceptable? Or that Scarlet Witch's villification was fine too? I think that's really low there, to suggest Marvel and Bendis kill off anyone, or even turn them into villains. We've had too much of that from DC already, and even at Marvel, it's getting out of hand.

The best comics from Marvel have been the ones where writers have taken risks and given readers new takes on characters that haven't been in the spotlight for a while.

And what risks and takes would those be, exactly? Like Spider-Man making a deal with Mephisto? Or the Marvel heroes fighting over the Superhero Registration Act in Civil War? Or Norman Osborn becoming a major politician? The Wasp dying? Iron Man being made into a form of baddie? Many mutants losing their powers during House of M? I'm sorry, but those were just pathetic.

Using only Marvel's top characters limits the risks and danger.

Yeah, right, just like it "limited" the risks and dangers to Star Trek's crew on the Enterprise, the Mission: Impossible team, Mannix, Hawaii 5-0, Magnum PI, the Equalizer, Simon & Simon, and other adventure and suspense TV series. What made them exciting in their time was how the heroes would escape the danger little the worse for wear, not whether they'd end up dead. I don't think the mainstream press covering comics have any idea what risks and danger are, or if that's what the audience even wants. Me, I want entertainment and escapism. I certainly am not asking for the kind of shock tactics and publicity stunts that have plagued mainstream comics for a decade now.

I know Marvel wants to make sure that their most- popular heroes are at the forefront of the Avenger teams, but they have plenty of great characters with untapped potential.

They're not even tapping the potential of the most popular heroes, who are only in the Avengers for name and image value, little else. If they wanted to, they could've done it long ago, even introduced new supporting casts with plausibility, but no, they are simply not interested in creativity anymore.

Labels: Avengers, dreadful writers, golden calf of death, marvel comics, msm propaganda

It was probably expected, but in the sales charts for May, Brightest Bloody Day took a steep drop by its second issue, suggesting that readers have become disenchanted with Geoff Johns' repeated resorting to overbearing mayhem. The Avengers relaunch took the top spot, but it may not last for long either.

All in all, comics sales are still pretty stagnant, for some good reasons.

Labels: dc comics, marvel comics, sales, violence

While we're on the subject of movies, I looked at the news about the movie adaptation of Jonah Hex, and if the reviews tell anything, it looks like it's become a disaster (I was going to say it looks to be financial dud to boot, but Deadline Hollywood has already confirmed this). This review on Rogers Media gives a clue to what went wrong:

[Quentin] Turnbull also horribly scars Jonah's face with a branding iron. The whole experience somehow leaves Jonah able to bring the dead back to life momentarily with a touch, so he can interrogate them (this arbitrary superpower comes with its own phoney rules that include the dead's ability to see the comings and goings of anyone they knew. Handy trick for a bounty hunter looking for info).

You know, if they're going to turn this into a supernatural affair, they're only signaling they're desperate. This might make the same mistakes as at least 2 other movies: The Wild, Wild West (and Robert Conrad even accepted a Golden Rasberry award to show his disdain for how the classic TV series he starred in was messed up), and even the more recent Spirit movie, which turned Dennis Colt into a living-dead protagonist.

Nice going there, DC and WB. Now a great western comic's been ruined, turned into a modern day equivalent of Heaven's Gate. And it only suggests they have no idea how to handle their properties at all.

Labels: dc comics

Comics Nexus has another article I can agree with for plenty of reasons, on why Geoff Johns is bad for the DCU, though there's a few things that fall short of the mark too:

Sadly, I think for the first time in my decades of collecting DC Comics, I’m beginning to get disillusioned with how things are being run. And I’m pretty sure it’s all Geoff Johns fault.

But let's be clear: it's not just Johns' fault. It's Dan DiDio's too, and there are several other writers, including Adam Beechen, who are at fault too. Even James Robinson has added himself to the list.

The following falls short:

Geoff Johns is one of the few hands guiding the DCU the past few years and in all fairness he’s been doing a pretty solid job of it. He started by bringing The Flash back to prominence. Then he went on to make the Justice Society not only viable but a darn near vital property in the DCU. Then he lofted Green Lantern and Teen Titans into the sales stratosphere. He even tried to get people interested in Hawkman and Superman. The guy knows how to create buzz and get his books attention.

Does he? I wouldn't go that far, and his work on the Flash stinks, particularly his second story there a decade ago, Blood Will Run. Ugh!

The following is a bit better though:

But lately he’s been busy retelling origins and retconning characters that it’s clear he’s working on a “master plan” of sorts. With his various “Secret Origin” stories and with The Flash Rebirth, Geoff Johns is packaging the mythos of these various heroes in nice easy to swallow capsules.

Not so easy to swallow, I'm afraid. And what master plan does he have other than the next crossover?

It turns out that under Johns:

Hector Hammond also happens to be a rejected suitor of Carol Ferris (sound familiar?)

Yes, and very, very tired.

Now it’s my understanding that when John Byrne was writing the much maligned Spider-Man: Chapter One, he tried to link events together because he felt it was absurd to have massive amounts of radioactive material floating around NYC. And in that regard I can completely understand the simplifying of origin stories.

But when Geoff Johns does it, it feels like he’s packaging the story so it’s easily translated to another medium. In a comic book, when you’re retelling an origin, you aren’t really pressed for space. In a comic book there’s no reason for all of these characters in Green Lantern to have their origins tied together. But if you were working on a feature film and you want to establish characters for sequels, well then you’d certainly want to tie as many origins in to the origin of the main character. This also makes sense if you’re working on a possible cartoon.

There was a point when I was a huge fan of Geoff Johns. But now his motives are suspect. I don’t believe he’s writing from his heart or for the fans. To me it feels like he’s writing for Hollywood and instead of them adapting comics, the comics are changing for them.

That just about sums it up. A note on Byrne's Spider-Man: Chapter One: though he wasn't trying to rework everything for the sake of movies, his job there was still pretty dreadful, taking decently written premises and making them into something far too problematic. I guess Johns has gotten to the point where he too is repeating a very sloppy mistake, all likely for the sake of the movie biz.

And the worst part is that it suggests editorial mandates could actually end up influencing any movies they make out of their comics stable, and undermine the scriptwriting badly. The same may soon be happening for Marvel, now that Quesada's been appointed to the same title as Johns has.

Johns must be stopped, and Quesada too.

Labels: bad editors, dc comics, dreadful writers, violence

Springwise has a short entry about how in France and Belgium, where bande dessinée are more mainstream than US comics, a company called Sandawe has launched the idea of buying shares of stock and judging popularity for getting some fledgling writers published.

Labels: Europe and Asia

Newsarama interviewed Brian Bendis about his relaunching of the Ultimate line, and he continues his sleazy act:

Nrama: Yeah, I'm not sure what to make of Ben being a purple guy now, but let's save that for later because we'll get to Ultimate Enemy in a minute. So what I'm hearing is, with Ultimatum, you guys all worked in conjunction with Jeph Loeb on who was going to die, who was going to live, and it was all a big set up with what you were going to do with the Ultimate books?

Bendis: Yes. But you know, that's always a weird conversation too, "who will live and who will die." There were a couple who died that I'm personally bummed out about because I personally liked them. Daredevil is one. But at the same time, I got to write a great send-off for the character. So you have to give a little, take a little. You can't just do, "Let's kill everyone we don't like." It doesn't have any kind of gravitas to it.

The best thing about Ultimatum, to me, was I got to do the most bullshitty writing moment I've ever gotten to do. When I was writing it, I was laughing, because I knew there was a tidal wave coming. So I could write these, like, I got to have Aunt May get arrested. Aunt May gets put in a box, and the cops are working her over, then... tidal wave!

In any other place, if you wrote a story where your character was going through this traumatic thing and you just all of the sudden dropped a tidal wave on her, that would have been the worst writing in the history of the world. But it's not my tidal wave, so I get away with it.

But he can't get away with the very sleazy tone he puts on in this interview. And to think we wondered why much of the wider public doesn't take comic books seriously. This even suggests that the relaunched Ultimate line will be less appealing than when it first began in late 1999. At least they do remind that Jeph Loeb is otherwise a terrible, weak writer, and the Ultimate line was where he really went off the rails.

And Ben Grimm is colored purple now? Yuck.

Labels: dreadful writers, golden calf of death, marvel comics, violence

Here's an article in the Los Angeles Times about Takehiko Inoue, a manga artist who leading inspiration for his works was basketball.

Labels: manga and anime

DC Comics is introducing a protagonist who'll become the new Aqualad instead of Tempest, and as was the case with Blue Beetle, Firestorm, the Atom and the Question, they're still replacing older heroes with minority members following tasteless exits for their predecessors (Garth was last seen in Blackest Night, and did not fare well at all), which makes the baton-passing invalid. And are there that many people even asking for a new Aqualad for the sake of "diversity"?

That's probably not as bad though as the new story for Siren they have in store:

In the coming weeks in BRIGHTEST DAY, you’ll meet a new alien killer who will become J’onn J’onzz’s greatest enemy, a world where Hawkman and Hawkgirl will discover a great secret about their past, the mysterious and deadly Siren...

Oh, I'm sure Geoff Johns and company have done quite a job on the Siren, first seen in The Titans #5, that won't be worth seeing. And the new nemesis for Martian Manhunter we already know about, and it isn't worth the paper it's printed on either. Nor do I expect his current plans for the Hawks to be any good.

Labels: dc comics, Titans, violence

Over at the AV Club (via Comics Should Be Good), one contributor tells what he doesn't like about several overrated writers, with Mark Millar the biggest of the problem:

Since I’ve become so famous on The A.V. Club for hating Mark Millar that people assume bad reviews of his work are written by me even when they aren’t, I might as well address the thing he does that drives me so crazy. There isn’t really a name for it, but he’s at the forefront of a wave of writers who create witless, arbitrarily violent, “cinematic” action comics that cater to the lowest common denominator of readers and aim for no greater response than “Awesome!” Comics already have a (largely justified) reputation as cretinous fodder for arrested adolescents, but writers like Millar, Geoff Johns, Jeph Loeb, and Garth Ennis do the medium no further favors by continually writing brain-dead, utterly thoughtless stories whose only value is shock value, and whose only standard is the double standard. Their crimes are nearly innumerable: They’re badly written (the dialogue of any given character could easily be assigned to another with no loss of tone), they’re badly edited (what’s canon in one book is ignored in another), they’re lazily imagined (almost all of them use the incredibly uncreative trope of having the characters resemble real-life celebrities), they’re incoherent (they’re “realistic” when that means extreme gore, but unrealistic when that means plots that make sense or consistent characterization), they’re sexist (Ennis actually gets away with calling the only major female character in The Boys “The Female”), and they substitute cheap shocks (in the form of mutilations, rapes, and murders, especially of beloved characters) for thoughtful stories. I’ve got nothing against the darkening of comics, but these books are literally amoral—that is, they have neither a traditional moral stance, as in the great books of the past, or a philosophical inquiry of same, as in the best works of Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Grant Morrison. They’re just insipid, empty brutality and bombast.

The point about the action scenes being too "cinematic" is an interesting one. In past years, these "hot" writers must've attempted to duplicate the movies so much, the action scenes may not be comic book caliber anymore. And that's another reason why, in contrast to many fight scenes in comics of the yesteryear, today's are pretty flavorless and uninspired.

And there's little substance to the stories these overrated writers turn out other than the shock tactics. Any points they're trying to make about anything else are either very weak, get botched, or just lie there flat on the floor, lifeless.

Labels: bad editors, dreadful writers, misogyny and racism, violence

Big Hollywood has an entry where the writer talks about how superheroes reflect their times. Unfortunately, it's a pretty superficial piece, and despite what's claimed, superheroes and the stories they star in, more specifically, stopped reflecting reality long ago (are they seriously combatting modern-day terrorism? Not really, and human relations have also become scarce), but it does have a little something about Batman and the Joker worth considering:

How often has Batman allowed the Joker to live and murder again and again over the years? His body count may be in the millions by now.

Wouldn’t it make more sense for the Black Knight to just terminate Joker once and for all with extreme prejudice?

Well, that's a good question. If you look at what the Batbooks were like by the 1990s, when the Joker murdered Jim Gordon's second wife Sarah towards the end of No Man's Land, or afterwards, and all Gordon could do was shoot the Clown Prince of Crime in the leg because Batman pressured him to refrain from executing the monster, which would've been justified, you have to wonder if DC has gone beyond the pale and believability with how this is being handled. In fairness, they have downplayed the Joker's appearances in the past decade. Unfortunately, as mentioned before, that's as far as they've gotten, resorting instead to making other supervillains carry out the deadly work (and let's not forget how they characterized Dr. Light).

If DC really wanted to prove they're trying to move away from too much bloodshed and other acts of the vile, they wouldn't have promoted Geoff Johns to their top writer/editor, nor would they continue to keep Dan DiDio on their staff. But that's today's DC, a joke if there ever was one.

Labels: Batman, dc comics, marvel comics, politics, violence

Here's an article in New Zealand's Scoop about some special comics called Medikidz, developed as a kids guide for health issues.

Labels: Europe and Asia

Comics-Comics Mag has a short entry with a few panels from a special reprint of the current Jonah Hex's first issue, where the artwork was done almost entirely in photo-referencing, or photo-realism, so much it's hard to believe they even call this a comic book anymore. I know where some of this problem may have originated though: with an "artist" by the name of Greg Horn, who'd done work for Marvel like this that was more photo-realist than it was really artwork. How do they expect anyone to buy that these are comic books if they're going to stray so far from authentic cartooning?

Labels: dc comics, dreadful artists

Screen Rant has some info and at least 2 pictures of what the Captain American costume will look like for the movie adaptation.

Labels: Captain America, marvel comics

KC Carlson, who was once an editor for DC Comics, provides a good description of what they've become at Westfield Comics:

What, No DC Recommendations? Nope. I’m giving DC a big time-out this month for bad behavior – the publication of Justice League: Cry For Justice, Justice League: The Rise of Arsenal (especially #3), and Titans: Villains for Hire Special. These are three prime examples of the new DC, where death, maiming, children in peril (and ultimately murdered), queasy sexual undertones, sadistic torture, heroes who cold-bloodedly kill, on-screen use of hard drugs, and the general increase of torture-porn elements in its mainstream superhero titles (none of which have any kind of mature reader warnings) has caused this reviewer to stop pre-recommending DC Universe product before I see what it actually is. (That is, I no longer believe what is being fed to us in the DC solicitations.) The general darkness and hopelessness of most of the ongoing DC Universe books, including publishing a series of relentlessly grim comics under the banner of “Brightest Day” (ever hear of Truth in Advertising laws?) has now made me leery of the entire line. As a former DC editor, I am very familiar with the need for conflict to tell powerful and effective stories. However, this current trend of shock storytelling has finally crossed a line. It’s astounding to me that a company with DC’s rich history has now resorted to publishing the comic book equivalent of snuff films to regain lost market share and internet buzz.

Enough. DC – go stand in the corner until you’ve thought about what you’ve done.

And don't forget to wear the pointy duncecap while you're there. Here's a page on Kotaku with 2 scans from BD #2 that show the alien disguised as a rock group mother murdering the father with an electric knife, and then beating the children to death. Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi, among others, have a LOT of answering and explaining to do, and I'm still waiting for that debate on television between DC and their detractors. For now, it's clear they'll do everything they can to avoid taking responsibility and owing up to their grevious errors and misuse of the legendary properties they've been allowed to get a hold of.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful writers, Titans, violence

What a farce this. In what must be an attempt to mimic DC's promotion of Geoff Johns, Joe Quesada has been promoted to "chief creative officer" for Marvel. The press release says:

In this new role, Mr. Quesada will work alongside Alan Fine, Executive Vice President, Office of the President and Chairman of Marvel Studios’ Creative Committee, to ensure that all portrayals of Marvel’s characters and storytelling remain true to the essence of Marvel’s rich history. Additionally, Mr. Quesada will provide creative oversight of all areas of Marvel’s business including theatrical, television, publishing, animation and games, while also actively participating in all story and script development for Marvel’s films and animation. Prior to this promotion, Mr. Quesada held the role of Chief Creative Officer & Editor-In-Chief, Marvel Animation & Publishing and oversaw the creative aspects of Marvel Comics and Marvel Animation.

And it goes on to say:

Mr. Quesada will also continue to serve as Editor-In-Chief, Marvel Publishing, where over the past decade he has helped usher in bold new imprints such as Marvel Knights, the Ultimate Universe and Marvel MAX.

So what's new here, really? Nothing, and it only looks to become more farcical as this goes along. And he was already a CCO, so this sounds rather moot. The man has already proven himself over the decade as unreliable with their continuity and characterization, so I wouldn't trust him to remain true to Marvel's great history, which he himself should be remembered for one say as the one who destroyed it with his editorial mandates and poor ideas of how superheroes and their casts should be portrayed.

Maybe this suggests that - we can only hope and pray - he's halfway on his way out the EIC's door. But even then, he'll still most likely be a disaster.

Labels: bad editors, marvel comics

I found the following article from IO9 on Big Hollywood's list of external recommendations at their homepage top, where the author seems to think that for the reboot of the Spider-Man movie franchise should be black or Latino. In other words, race is being made an issue here. And I thought it was absurd enough when DC was forcibly trying this. Why all of a sudden are some people going out of their way to suggest that classic superheroes, major and minor, have their race changed, even in movies?

A decade ago, Kurt Busiek and George Perez wrote a storyline in The Avengers where a shady cult called the Triune Understanding was pressuring the Earth's Mightiest Heroes to include minorities on their team based more on skin color than on talent (eventually, it was agreed that Triathlon would be their representative). One of the last really good runs on the Avengers, and it made a pretty good point about how it's ridiculous to make such an issue of race. The writer of the IO9 article might want to take a good look at that story before arguing that the race of the guy under the mask should be changed.

In any case, the writer loses me when he brings up The Truth: Red, White and Black:

I remember the hue and cry that was raised when the rumor floated that Will Smith was offered the role of Captain America, despite the fact that the very military drug experiments that turned Steve Rogers into a superman would've most definitely been tested on black WWII soldiers first (as Kyle Baker so expertly theorized in Truth: Red, White and Black)

Oops, I'm afraid he's stumbled big time there, by citing a ghastly miniseries with alarmingly stereotypical artwork of its black protagonists by Baker that didn't have any concrete proof the US army actually exploited blacks within the framework of WW2 for chemical experiments. You'd think the horrid artwork alone ought to tell him the whole miniseries was worthless, but alas, he apparently cannot see that.

Sometimes it's just not a good idea to make race an issue, as the IO9 article suggests.

Labels: Avengers, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, politics, Spider-Man

This news at Bleeding Cool, which tells that Swamp Thing and a few other characters may be returning to the mainline DCU, strongly suggests something I predicted might happen sooner or later: that the Vertigo line might be slowly phased out. On the one hand, it's true that Swamp Thing and a couple of other protagonists first began their existence as part of the DCU, so for them to return to it wouldn't be that surprising. On the other hand, it suggests the Vertigo line's not doing what it used to for them, making its publication near obsolete, so they must've decided to move some of the current cast back to the DCU.

Not that it's really good news though: with the way things are going now, chances are they won't handle any adult material well at all within the mainline books for these cast members who until now were in Vertigo. (In fact, just 5 years ago, one more attempt was made at writing a series for Swamp Thing, and it was the least successful to date. There's little reason to assume they'll do any better if they try it again.)

Labels: dc comics