The Four Color Media Monitor

Comics Alliance paid lip service to Marvel's communications manager, Arune Singh, who gives some predictable answers to the question of why they would spoil the outcome of any stories:

ComicsAlliance: In the simplest terms, why reveal major plot points through mainstream media outlets before the books hit the shelves? Why not wait until after the issue has come out?

Arune Singh: First and foremost, the goal of any mainstream media push like this is to help retailers increase sales and get new fans into their stores. The Death of Spider-Man news is news all over the world from here in the US to India to Japan -- it's a BIG story. This is news being read not only by comic fans, but lapsed fans and a lot of people who have never read comics before. If we can get people from those latter two categories into stores, we know we have a compelling story -- that's only getting bigger, by the way -- that'll keep them coming back. We've even scheduled Ultimate Comics Fallout to hit three times a month in the summer to capitalize on that excitement and give retailers an easy place to direct readers who want to see what happens after Peter dies.

There's just one little thing: what if they don't want to see what happens next? What if they don't even care? Even if this is the Ultimate line, that doesn't mean they'll be enthused about what's next in line. And Ultimate Peter's death certainly won't bring back any readers of the Ultimate line who lost interest. And whether it's been covered widely by the press, it's usually just as a followup to what the first papers who covered the story did.

CA: What are the benefits to this type of mainstream media push, and what type of response does it get from retailers? It's a tough time for monthly pamphlet sales; have you seen positive (and lasting) results from revealing major news through mainstream outlets in the past, such as the deaths of Captain America and Johnny Storm?

AS: We've seen huge results. We make sure to only attach this kind of promotion to our biggest books and those books invariably carry a much higher readership after the push than before the push. I think we can all agree the industry can use new readers and we've found these kinds of mainstream media pushes do just that, based on feedback from retailers-- most recently with Fantastic Four #587 and the subsequent FF launch. More fans check out the books, retailers sell more copies and have high orders than before this promotion. That's a winning situation for not just Marvel, but the whole industry-- anything we can do to bring in and retain readers benefits us all. Going to a mainstream outlet is what will get lapsed readers and new potential readers to check out our books-- we're going to non comic fans where they get their news to make them aware of our big stories.

We know this may spoil the experience for some of our readers but we're also trying to create greater interest and expand the comic book audience to benefit everyone. Sometimes that means hard decisions that might not appear sensible to fans but make a lot of sense from a business perspective. Retailers order heavy on these books and we have an obligation to deliver with the kind of press that drives customers -- new and old-- into stores. This is something I believe Marvel does better than anyone else.

Wow, what a laugh. I guess if we asked them about marriages, they'd say they don't do them because they can only turn out lousy, eh? Either way, they shoudn't be saying they do these things better than anyone else, because it all depends on how tasteful and moving the idea is, and how well the writer assigned does on it. The tastelessness of death aside, Singh seems to be suggesting that lower ranking books wouldn't sell huge numbers based on the same tactics, even though it wouldn't be appealing there either. It does suggest the lack of faith they have in their minor titles and characters, though.

And did they have huge sales results, really? Because if The Daily Athenaeum's article tells anything:

Despite the forefront title and the stories published by the AP, USA Today, and the New York Post, Gary Loring, of Gary's Comics and More located in Morgantown, noted that the specific issue sold less than a typical issue of "Ultimate Spider-Man."

As for reasoning, Loring cites the specific issue's packaging as an inhibitor. "Ultmate Spider-Man No. 160" came wrapped in a collectable plastic bag that inhibited customers from viewing the comic's contents.

"There were a few people who came in and were interested," Loring said. "But once they saw it was sealed and couldn't see the actual book, people passed on it."

And doesn't that contradict what they seem to think that sensationalizing death openly sells? Even if it has been widely reported, what this tells is that not many are rushing to actually buy and read it.

More from this article:

While the plastic wrapped comic inspires thoughts of "pristine" and "mint condition," terms that are believed to excite comic book readers, the technique is one with a poor history. DC Comics' "Death of Superman," another comic with a forefront title, famously made use of the plastic bag in the mid-1990s. The event, because of its gimmicky nature, made the bag aesthetic a strong, negative memory for most readers.

Loring noted that he would not remove the bag because he felt he would be tampering with the product.

Other than the bag, Loring hinted at overuse of comic book deaths to be a factor in the low interest in "Death of Spider-Man"

"Back when death in comics meant something, there was hype," Loring said.

Such hype accompanied 2007's "Captain America No. 25." At the time, Marvel Comics published its crossover event "Civil War," and as a way to unofficially cap off the important story line the patriotic hero, Captain America, was shot dead in his own book.

Due to an early leak of the comic's contents, it's connection to a preexisting plot line, and a hardcore media blitz, "Captain America No. 25" sold very well and pushed many outsiders into comic stores for the first time.

But afterwards, sales began to slip again.

Ever since, Marvel, and to a lesser extent DC Comics, has been after a follow-up performance by killing such characters as the X-Men's Nightcrawler and Johnny Storm, the Human Torch of the Fantastic Four.

I think they're missing something here: DC's done several sensationalized, tasteless stories of their own involving deaths, like Identity Crisis and Cry for Justice, which were built on similar tactics. It's hardly to a lesser extent that DC's been doing this. For all we know, DC may have been the ones to really - and I mean REALLY - floor the gas pedal on death and nihilism.

"Generally the average costumer cares about a character's death if they are already reading that character's book," Loring said. "I could see outside people coming into shops, but the advertising on these things needs to be better."

Advertising for comic books is ultimately pretty weak. Instances like "Death of Spider-Man" will pick up the mainstream press, but as for grassroots marketing from the actual publishers, the output is thin. Comics are mainly promoted within their own circles.

They only receive widespread attention when publishers play the death card.

And that's why the MSM has to shoulder some blame here too, for being otherwise only willing to cover a comics story when it's about something negative that loses interest soon after.

According to Joey Aulisio, co-host of The Chemical Box podcast, this type of spotlight on comics will only, if not already, grow old.

"I don't believe it's done much good, and I think it's only going to start seeming desperate to people outside of comics," Aulisio said.

"The message the media presents appears to be ‘Hey, look at us (comics). We're still relevant,' and I don't think they are persuading anyone" Aulisio added.

You can say that again. I am not interested in overhyped, sensationalistic "events" which are solely intended for short-term sales and not promoted based on the actual story value.

But, comics should receive the attention of mainstream media. At least, that is the opinion of WVU senior and occasional comics reader Stephen Hoops who feels comics are "a worthy form of entertainment."

The problem is, the MSM doesn't exactly share his and my vision. Otherwise, they wouldn't act as though death is literally worthy praise or even bland tolerance in every way. In fact, this is why they shouldn't rely on the mainstream, if it means print media. Rather, they should rely on the internet and advertising online in a wider range of sites. But Marvel and DC are unfortunately still stuck in a very questionable position where they think the MSM is the only source they can "trust".

And back to the Comics Alliance interview, we discover news of a certain character whose death was surely to be expected:

CA: Obviously, not all stories get revealed through the mainstream media -- for example, Bucky's death in Fear Itself. How do you decide which stories are worth pushing to a larger audience, potentially at the cost of revealing the ending to regular readers? How do you balance the importance of getting your stories in front of exponentially more people with keeping surprises under wraps?

AS: We're very mindful to push the most accessible stories to the mainstream, which isn't a criticism of the books that don't get that push, as much as it's an acceptance of the reality that some things are a bit more accessible for the mainstream. Something like Fear Itself was an easy pitch to the mainstream and it's why we've done unprecedented mainstream coverage for this event. But with the Captain America movie coming out and Steve Rogers in the costume, there could be some confusion for new readers might not understand who Bucky is, why he's in the costume, etc. The easier mainstream sell might be the new Captain America #1.

Well, I guess we should've seen that coming, but I figure they didn't promote that death because they didn't consider Bucky truly important, did they? Then why did they even bother to bring him back in the first place 5 years ago? Doesn't Bucky's death in this latest crossover - and the way they speak about it - suggest they did it in part because they don't care about the character?

CA: Some have asked why a comic like Ultimate Spider-Man would be polybagged despite such a broad reveal of the plot points in the mainstream media. Does this reflect a contrast in how you see the core audience and the broader audience of potential new readers?

AS: I think it's more a recognition of the fact that not all comic fans read these spoilers or visit Marvel.com every day. Many of them don't follow solicits religiously every month and choose instead to get the updates on their characters by simply checking out their favorite books each month. I've been at numerous comic convention panels where fans ask about X, Y and Z, only for me to respond that we announced X online a few months ago, just solicited Y and published Z the week previous. A large segment of our fan base doesn't read the Internet like you and I and aren't going to know what's going on in advance, so we want to preserve the mystery for them.

A large segment of their fan base practically lost interest and doesn't even bother visiting their site anymore. So long as they continue with these kind of stunts, fewer and fewer will care, as the Daily Athenaeum article I found can indicate.

Labels: Captain America, crossoverloading, Fantastic Four, golden calf of death, marvel comics, msm propaganda, Spider-Man

Market Watch has a press release announcing the fourth Anime Expo for 2011, hosted by the Society for Promotion of Japanese Animation, to be held in LA on July 1-4.

Labels: conventions, manga and anime

An article in the Irish Times about women rising in comic book art talent in Ireland, which, while it doesn't have that big an industry so far, may be on its way to gaining a larger one.

Labels: Europe and Asia

Graphic Novel Reporter's published an interview with Captain America co-creator Joe Simon, still alive and going strong, and he's now publishing an autobiography, My Life in Comics.

Labels: good artists

Found on Newsarama's blog. It doesn't matter if she survives, this is just another example of DC's overboard journey into violence and abuse of both Donna and Eclipso. among countless others. And all this while, Yolanda Montez and Beth Chapel, the Infinity Inc. team members who were slain in Eclipso: The Darkness Within crossover in 1993, still remain dead and forgotten.

Labels: dc comics, golden calf of death, Justice League of America, misogyny and racism, Titans, violence, women of dc

Clifford Meth reports that artist Gene Colan, who co-created the Falcon with Stan Lee in 1969, has sadly passed away at age 84. He'll be missed.

Labels: good artists

IDW Publishing has announced they're teaming up with Charlie Foxtrot Entertainment to produce a graphic novel based on Team 6's raid on the Taliban tyrant's hideout in Pakistan:

San Diego, CA (June 23, 2011) – IDW Publishing and Charlie Foxtrot Entertainment today have the honor of announcing CODE WORD: GERONIMO, an original graphic novel illustrating the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound by SEAL Team 6 on May 1, 2011. Expertly written by Captain Dale Dye (USMC, Ret.) and Dr. Julia Dye, Ph.D., CODE WORD: GERONIMO offers the amazing, moment-by-moment inside story of the clandestine raid that rid the world of this terrorist mastermind.

“Due to entirely appropriate security concerns, there is some creative license in our script,” said Captain Dye. “But I think readers will be gratified with the detail and thrilled with our take on one of the most daring and successful commando raids in American military history.”

As a matter of fact, yes, I think readers certainly will appreciate their courage to work on a challenging story like this, just like they may appreciate the GI Joe comics already being published by the same outfit. So here's to hoping that they will produce the best and boldest portrayal possible for this project.

Update: here's an AP story about this subject.

Labels: indie publishers, islam and jihad, politics, terrorism

iFanboy reports that the graphic novel first begun as a Batman project before becoming a story of its own will be released in September, by Legendary Comics. It'll cost $29.99.

Labels: indie publishers, islam and jihad, politics, terrorism

Predictably, the MSM has covered the story of Ultimate Peter Parker's demise at the hands of Marvel's publicity stunt, all because that's apparently easier than covering a story about a marriage in comicdom. The New York Post's article says:

The webbed wonder will meet an untimely end while saving his beloved Aunt May from the villainous Green Goblin in "Ultimate Spider-Man" No. 160, which goes on sale tomorrow(Wed.)

Series writer Brian Bendis called Peter's death "truly heroic and sacrificial," and said it brings his story "full circle," since his crimefighting career was spurred by his failure to prevent his Uncle Ben's murder.

"Uncle Ben. I couldn't save him . . . no matter what I did. But I saved you. I did it," the Queens teen tells his aunt with a slight smile on his face as his body goes limp, with some of his Forest Hills neighbors recording the scene on their camera phones.

Well at least it's not as abominable as 616 Spidey's deal with Mephisto. But that still doesn't make this an extravagant occasion worth covering in the mainstream press. No way. This whole idea's been done to death, for lack of a better word.

While several of Spidey's superhero brethren like Captain America and Superman have returned from the grave, Bendis said Peter's gone for good. "This is the last hurrah. This is it," he said. "There's a real point to this and the point doesn't work if we don't stick to our guns."

Bendis, who's written Marvel's contemporary "Ultimate universe" version of Spidey since his debut almost 11 years ago, said he "was blubbering like a fool" while writing Ultimate Spidey's ultimate scene. The character was like a family member, he said, "and I murdered him!"

Oh for heaven's sake. This is no better than Bendis' other lowbrow comments to the press, like what he said about the Avengers. All he succeeds in is being just as sleazy as before.

Marvel editor-in-chief Axel Alonso said the death paves the way for a new character to claim Peter's arachnid alter-ego this fall.

"There's going to be a brand new Spider-Man" in a brand new costume, Alonso said, while refusing to reveal the identity of the new wall-crawler. He'll make his debut in "Ultimate Comics Fallout" in August before taking over "Ultimate Spider-Man" in September. "We're certain readers will fall in love with him the way they did with Peter," Alonso said.

Assuming there's still enough readers left to care. Not many are left with a positive take on Bendis, that's for sure.

Traditional Parker fans, meanwhile, can still get their fix of the original hard-luck hero in Marvel's "Amazing Spider-Man" comics, where he'll still be wielding the webs in his iconic red and blue costume.

Oh, I'm afraid not. They're still blanking out the Spider-Marriage, and the writing is still as riddled with cynicism as ever. And Alonso is just as alienating an editor as Joe Quesada was before him.

The AP Wire has some interesting notes about the history of how the Ultimate line's dealt with deaths:

The death is real and in Marvel's Ultimate Comics imprint, death is not something taken lightly. Characters in that universe are dead and gone, never to return. The roll of the deceased already includes Magneto, Wasp and Wolverine, among others.

It sounds like the Ultimate line is a pretty short-term concept, treating its cast even more disposably than the main 616 universe's own cast. Even if it's not the main line, I still can't see what the point is of killing off any cast members. Why not just drop them quietly from the story and simply not bother to use them anymore? That would make a much healthier alternative to the slaughters.

"Ten years ago, Brian Bendis and Mark Millar changed the way people saw super heroes with the birth of the Ultimate Universe. With 'Death of Spider-Man' the two have done it again, creating a story just as big, and something that would really resonate with fans," said Mark Paniccia, Marvel senior editor. "But Peter's death doesn't signal the end of their larger plan — it's the start of one of the most ambitious stories you've ever read in comics."

Yes, we've heard that line before too. Really nothing special.

And looking at the USA Today coverage, I have to wonder if Bendis wants people to think he's really a "girly-man". He says:

"Listen, I sat there typing this thing with tears in my eyes like a big baby!" Bendis says. "I went upstairs to my wife, and I go, 'I am so embarrassed. I think I've literally been crying for 45 minutes.' I've had real things happen in my life I didn't cry about, and yet I'm crying about this.

"I became very proud of it, and that's not an adjective I often put on myself."

For heaven's sake, he makes himself sound emasculated, hardly a good example for men. Do the things he didn't cry about include his desecration of the Avengers and Scarlet Witch? And how do we know he isn't proud of the hack job he pulled there 7 years ago? He certainly did sound pleased with himself in earlier interviews.

Labels: bad editors, dreadful writers, marvel comics, msm propaganda, Spider-Man

I suppose I should now have a word or two on the Green Lantern movie, which has opened to dismal reviews and just $52 million at the box office - at least $10 million less than the more successful Thor movie gained in its first week - and is bound to lose money (via IMDB). I had a sad feeling this was going to happen, and there had been some earlier speculation it would tank. A couple months ago, I'd watched a trailer clip where Ryan Reynolds, in the title role, was getting up early in the morning, either for a superhero gig or to get to work early, and told the girlfriend he was spending the night with (Carol Ferris?) that "there's water in the tap." It just fell flat, and that was my first sign something was wrong. Now, we're learning that it may really be as bad - possibly worse - than what some of the trailers suggested. And not only that, this news (also via IMDB) tells that at least 63 percent of the audience was over 25. Clearly, they failed to draw in the children.

But frankly, I've been so dispirited and lacking faith in Time Warner's ability to craft an auspicious movie that it's too hard to care what fate awaits it. If they don't respect the comic books and allowed so much abuse by Dan DiDio, how can we possibly expect them to make a respectable movie production? The Catwoman movie from 2004 was just the start of these problems.

I've looked at the plot descriptions of the screenplay, and I can make some guesses what drowned this movie's green in yellow:

• This was likely a studio influenced committee job, given that there's at least four scriptwriters, and Geoff Johns, as one of the supervising producers, could easily make a fifth, since the story draws from some of his own GL work.
• And instead of Sinestro as the archnemesis, they made Parallax the enemy. Now, maybe they didn't have to make Sinestro the main adversary in this first movie, assuming there'll ever be a sequel, but even after being turned into a separate entity from Hal Jordan, Parallax was still an embarrassing mistake that should've been left in the past, and making him possess Hector Hammond actually diminishes that mind-controlling villain to a mere tool in a different villain's scheme. Couldn't they have made Lord Malvolio the adversary or even the Weaponers of Qward?
  
• There's probably even more special effects in this film than in Tron, and making Ryan Reynolds' costume CGI-based just smothers it even more. His costume, if any, should've just been a simple cloth shirt and would've saved money on the FX if they'd thought of it. (The overall cost comes to $300 million). The result here makes it look like there's wrinkles all over his shirt and shoulders.
• Plus, there's the mistake of injecting too many villains at once, like some of the Batman movies the first time around, even though Sinestro isn't a villain per se here and we may never see a sequel to see if he will become one.

I suppose if there's anything good that could come out of this, it's that it could serve as a well-deserved punishment for Geoff Johns. I found a post about Flashpoint #1 revealing he's exploited it for yet more unpleasant violence, with women (the Amazons) as the culprits. If that's how he's going to treat the source material of the DCU - and he did turn the Flash into a nasty travesty years ago - then if this movie's impending failure embarrasses his reputation, it'll be richly deserved. The scriptwriters certainly shouldn't have based their story on his writings. In fact, any unsuspecting sensible moviegoer who takes a closer look at some of the more gruesome work Johns's done as a comics writer - and even some of the cover drawings DC's commissioned - might be inclined to never bother again. And the saddest part is that Time Warner clearly couldn't care less. Which is why this film would just have to be seen as a suitable punishment for them too.

Green Lantern does have potential to make a good movie. Now, with developing disaster, that potential could be buried in the Qward dimension forever. And whether the comic-to-movie biz does well for Marvel, DC may have already hit a dead end: with NBC's rejection of the attempted Wonder Woman TV show and the fiasco of Jonah Hex, their own efforts to adapt more of their books may never get off the ground, thanks to how badly they've mishandled their own properties. If they ever do make a Flash movie, I will most definitely not be seeing it if it's even remotely written like a draft that was proposed earlier. Darkness that bad does not a good movie make.

Without a soul, there's no success.

Update: it dropped at least %70 in its second week. Now, the Hollywood Reporter tells that chances of a sequel are becoming very dim, and its overall budget could be as much as $400 million, making it very hard to regain the losses it's already facing.

Labels: dc comics, Green Lantern

They haven't improved since the days of Liefeld at all. USA Today writes about a comic by Rick Veitch and Thomas Yeates called "The Big Lie" which looks more like an attack on the laws that can help combat terrorism, and the time travel element sounds inappropriate too:

In The Big Lie, the heroine is a woman named Sandra, who lost her husband, Carl, during the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. A particle physicist working at the Large Hadron Collider, she figures out a practical way to travel back in time, so she ventures from present day to Manhattan an hour before the first plane hits the towers on Sept. 11, 2001.

She rushes to his office at a risk-management consulting agency, but since she has aged 10 years, Carl can't quite accept that it's her. And even though she brings evidence on her iPad, neither her spouse nor his co-workers believe her warnings.

"The meat of the story is her trying to convince these 'experts' that the terrorist attack is about to happen," Veitch says. "So it's essentially a taut emotional drama with the facts and questions surrounding 9/11 sewed into it."

Are those quotation marks supposed to be some kind of an insult or something?!? But here's where they really let it slip what this is meant to be:

Editor and cover artist Thomas Yeates came up with the idea of creating a comic about 9/11, and he and Image Comics publisher Eric Stephenson asked Veitch and Erskine to come on board after being fans of their Vertigo Comics series Army@Love, which was part military satire, part critique on love in wartime.

It wasn't until they picked a narrator for The Big Lie— Uncle Sam himself — that everything fell into place, says Yeates, who depicts the American icon on the cover of issue 1 standing alongside the smoking Twin Towers.

"For me, what's great about the U.S. is our freedom," Yeates says. "The 9/11 attacks were used to pass the Patriot Act, which took away some of our most important freedoms. So Uncle Sam here, while bloodied, is still trying to fight to get those freedoms back."

Another example of a story that considers the Patriot Act the problem, not the terrorists themselves. What is wrong with this man? And Veitch, as the leading writer, is just is dreadful:

...this isn't the first time Veitch has used 9/11 as a theme. In his Vertigo Comics graphic novel Can't Get No, he used one man's lost week before, during and after the attacks as a view of it from the microcosm, but with The Big Lie, Veitch says, "we're trying to present the whole macroscopic landscape of politics, finance and military."

Going into this project, he didn't consider himself a "Truther," yet living during the eras of the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, Iran/Contra and the invasion of Iraq, Veitch admits that he's skeptical about any "official" story provided by the government.

"Reading the 9/11 Commission Report, it's pretty clear that a lot of important evidence about the lead-up to the attacks and the collapse of the towers was ignored or glossed over," he explains. "And I'm pretty angry about the aftermath: how Iraq was invaded based on false intelligence and the occupation mismanaged resulting in over 100,000 civilian deaths."

Oh my god. This is simply terrible. And if this is what DC's Vertigo line amounts to, maybe it would be better off discontinued.

While similar time-travel stories are nothing new in pop culture, not many have tackled 9/11 yet. It's still pretty recent, for sure, but "the modern entertainment industry tends to focus on empty calories," Veitch says. "And there's been a sort of cultural amnesia in the general public concerning 9/11. I think it was so traumatic that most folks want to forget it and get on with their lives.

I think there's a good reason why 9-11 shouldn't be tackled in sci-fi: it's not going to change history and reality in real life. It practically borderlines on offensive. And if there's any amnesia, it's coming from people like Veitch, who seems to forget it was Osama bin Laden's tyrannical clan that masterminded the attacks; exactly what Veitch is trivializing here.

On the site of 9-11 Blogger, one of the people involved with the project, whose screen name is "Nor Cal Truth" said in the comments:

So, I own Truth Be Told. I set up the site. I pay the artists. I write the contracts. (The absolute last thing I thought I would be doing if you asked me 5 months ago, really.)

Apparently, the nut who wrote that was the one bankrolling the project.

Once Image was notorious for building their output on the works of disasters like Rob Liefeld. Now, they're going to be notorious for leftist propaganda. Some "improvement" they've made all these years. Especially if they won't publish any indie books by conservative authors.

Labels: indie publishers, msm propaganda, politics

As expected, the cancellation of Uncanny X-Men was just in order to replace it with not one, but two new series. And from the sounds of things, there's going to be 2 different groups at odds with each other:

In what the publisher is calling "X-Men Regenesis," two separate teams calling themselves the X-Men will take root this fall with the respective series - "Wolverine & The X-Men" due in October and "Uncanny X-Men" starting in November. They will feature a divided roster of former friends and colleagues under decidedly different leadership and boasting competing goals.

Nick Lowe, who has edited the current series and Marvel's X-Men related titles, said the logic of dividing the teams will become readily apparent as the divide between longtime leader Cyclops, aka Scott Summers, and his comrade but less than friend, Wolverine, aka Logan, see what's left of their tenuous partnership shatter in the upcoming mini-series "X-Men: Schism." It is being written by Jason Aaron.

"The best thing about this split is that the two books hit two very different chords. One is hardcore super hero action and the other is something else entirely that I can't go too deep into without spoiling 'Schism,'" Lowe said. "The best way I can describe it is a return to a structure that made the X-Men what it was."

Why do I get the sad feeling it'll be more like pointless pacifism, which wasn't what the X-Men was built on when it first began in 1963?

Though details of the story have been kept under wraps, Marvel has made no secret of the impact it will have on the X-Men and their friends.

"The events in 'Schism' will cause a huge rift in the X-Men, the ripple effects of which will be felt in Marvel Universe," Marvel editor-in-chief Axel Alonso said. "In the course of this story, Cyclops and Logan will realize that there is no way for them to continue on the course they've been going - or, indeed, to even co-exist."

Gillen said that "there's no hope for a united team as long as they hold the beliefs they do. There's also the chance the schism will make the individuals involved (never) look each other in the eye again."

What's the use of this new pseudo-direction they're taking if the X-Men are going to be more at war with themselves than real supervillains and other criminals? Division does not help one bit when there's more important problems out there like the real supervillains and other crooks to deal with. And it won't do any good for Marvel to say that Spider-Man and the Avengers can handle it, because even the X-Men have a duty to protect the innocent public's safety, whether they're accepted by the wider public or not.

Labels: marvel comics, msm propaganda, X-Men

There's a new indie comic book coming out - a horror thriller, apparently - called "Graveyard of Empires" and it sounds like morally equivalent idiocy set in Afghanistan:

On sale now from Image Comics is Graveyard of Empires #1, the 32-page first chapter of a new limited series set against the war in Afghanistan. Created by Mark Sable (Unthinkable) and Paul Azaceta (Amazing Spider-Man, B.P.R.D.: 1946), the story is a prodigiously researched and unflinchingly violent depiction of what life is really like for American troops in this 10th year of war in Afghanistan, but with one critical difference: zombies, an undead threat that forces the Marines and the Taliban to work together to stop a common enemy.

What?!? I'm sorry, but I think there's a fine line to be drawn in the sand, and I wouldn't be surprised if the US army in real life would frown upon this premise. Especially the Navy Seals who conducted the successful raid on Osama bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan. Why, even the timing isn't good, coming several weeks after the Taliban tyrant was finished off and sent to hell.

The writer, Sable, said that:

Part of the reason Paul and I awe so passionate about this comic is that there is a real dearth of war comics, particularly those covering modern conflicts. That's surprising for a number reasons. One, comics has an amazing tradition of dealing with war, from Captain America to Blazing Combat and beyond. Because of how quickly and cheaply comics are produced, they can deal with war in real time, and bring an immediacy that no other fictional medium can.

The lack of modern war comics even more disturbing because we're in two (or more) wars right now. I suppose that reflects a broader cultural problem - so few are asked to sacrifice that moat of us don't feel the pain that war brings.

What's been nice about the reaction to the book so far is that there does seem to be a hunger for this type of book. Even the criticism so far has been from those who were expecting a straight war comic, rather than a military/horror conflict. Out of 32 pages in the first issue, only a couple deal with zombies.

His statement obscures a more challenging question - whether critics were turned off by the notion that the US military and the Taliban would work together against even a science-fiction enemy.

The following paragraph says:

The zombie element of Graveyard of Empires sneaks up on the reader in a startling fashion not unlike the way vampires suddenly appear in the middle of the film From Dusk 'Till Dawn. Prior to their arrival, Sable and Azaceta spend a great deal of time developing the grim setting and violent characters that populate both sides of the war. Among them, a new commanding officer whose hopes of endearing himself to his entrenched troops are slim-to-none; an opium-abusing Explosive Ordinance Disposal specialist, driven to drugs by the stress of dismantling bombs; a treacherous Afghan cop; a mutinous American sniper; a Female Engagement Officer whose job is to work with the grotesquely oppressed women of Afghanistan; and an Afghan surgeon forced by the Taliban to implant bombs inside of people. It's after we get these people that Sable lowers the zombie boom on them.

So let's see if I have this right: they acknowledge/allude to Afghanistan's Islamic shariah oppression of women (or do they?), but damage all that with ridiculous ideas like a drug-addicted bomb-disarmer, and a US sniper who's mutinous, which could mean he's willing to desert. And then Sable's own press comment continues with:

While there will be more horror in the next few issues, we don't plan on losing sight of the very real people on both sides of the conflict. As a plot device, zombies serve to do something that would otherwise be inconceivable - force US Marines and Taliban to cooperate against a common threat. Metaphorically, the zombies represent a force not unlike the Taliban. A foe with inscrutable motives that doesn't seem to need to eat or sleep, and no matter how many you kill...they just keep coming.

We hope the horror aspect will tempt readers who might not otherwise try a war book, while fans of military fiction will finally find the comic they've been waiting for.

Whether fans of horror thrillers would try a war book, I don't think fans of army fiction are going to appreciate the idea of the US army and the Taliban working together, no matter how bad those zombies are in comparison with the Taliban. Mainly because, as seen in that panel on the side, the zombie there appears to be spawned out of a dead US soldier. And even if there's some zombies turning up spawned from the stiffs of Taliban terrorists, it doesn't counteract the bad taste left by the idea of the good guys teaming up with the terrorists. Certainly not after the amazing victory achieved in the past month.

Labels: indie publishers, islam and jihad, politics, terrorism

I found an article in the Cleveland Plain-Dealer from the beginning of the year bearing a negative take on resurrections, even though the writer has a negative stand on Blackest Night too. For example:

This was the year that the DC dead walked the Earth, perhaps the ultimate example of the annoying tendency of comics characters to not stay dead.

The main writer for DC's "Blackest Night" yearlong story line was Geoff Johns, a stellar scribe who pulled off the tale of an evil force reanimating the corpses of hundreds of long-dead superheroes and villains, and their friends and families.

The story was so big, encompassing almost every DC title for most of the year, that it was crushed by its own weight. After the first 50 attacks on a hero by a deceased friend or lover, the fights became formulaic, then redundant.

Unfortunately, while Blackest Night certainly was very bad, the writer still undermines his argument by acting as though resurrections are completely bad. And besides, he's not completely right about the following:

Superheroes were dying by the dozen, only to return as zombies and eventually be restored to normal.

Wrong. Elongated Man, Sue Dibny and Jean Loring didn't. Nor did Katma Tui, Adam Grant, Lian Harper, Sarah Gordon, Yolanda Montez and Beth Chapel, the latter 2 who were former Infinity Inc. alumni whose own deaths were for shock value only during Eclipso: The Darkness Within back in 1993. Nor in fact did any of the old Justice Society members like Al Pratt and Charles McNider who were pointlessly slaughtered during Zero Hour. It wasn't about righting all wrongs, it was only about resurrecting selectively, without even doing much to provide those they did resurrect with really respectable writing afterwards (Jason Todd's resurrection was certainly weak in this regard). In that case, how do they expect anyone to really appreciate the resurrections they have done?

Also, as far as I know, Marvel hasn't brought back the Wasp, Jean Grey, or even exonerated Scarlet Witch either.

There's an unsaid rule in comics: If one character dies, it could be real. But if five or more die, then it's a plot device, and all will be restored.

And what is that supposed to mean? That all who fall should remain in the grave? I must say, that's pretty pretentious alright.

So, when a "real" death occurred -- the former Aqualad was killed -- it had no impact. The character's death was minimized by the circumstances surrounding it. The only reason we know he's not coming back is because he already has been replaced with a new Aqualad. Plus, no one even seems to remember the original Aqualad, later known as Tempest.

Recalling that the replacement for Garth may be of black descent, that's the problem with this particular replacement: it was only done as a politically correct plot device to replace a white protagonist with one of a different race, which is getting ridiculous already, since it's either not done on tasteful terms, or it's just plot device with no substance, or both.

But if Garth really is being forgotten, as is Lilith Clay, that certainly is galling.

The "deaths" and return to life of Batman and Captain America last year were handled better than usual, though many readers, myself included, are still a little fuzzy on the details.

Oh no they weren't. Those too were more than a bit much, done for publicity's sake, and they didn't seem to make as big a deal of their return as they did their "demise". I guess that's why fuzzy does sum it all up well enough, because that's all it was, not to mention blurry.

At Marvel, everyone on Earth is dead, and deceased members of the Avengers are trying to save the day. Marvel may get the Monty Python "I'm Not Dead Yet" award for its handling of Bullseye in "Daredevil" during the way-too-long and way-too-predictable "Underworld" story line. In the space of a few months, Daredevil kills Bullseye, resurrects him then kills him again.

Well they've got that right: it's idiotic that Hornhead should even resurrect Bullseye at all, if Bullseye is a scummy assassin who deserves to face God's Law. More importantly though, the story in Underworld only takes away all the impact of Daredevil and many other series and characters if they're going to enmesh him in a plot as outrageous as that.

I know I've groused about this before, but comics companies are not living up to their end of the contract. Readers trade their sense of disbelief (and logic) for wonder. We'll grant writers license to mess around with reality, but we want them to follow the rules.

When death becomes a mere inconvenience, there is nothing to fear. It's no longer a big deal for people to risk their lives for justice if there is no real consequence.[...]

Word is that DC already has decided that dead is dead, now that the whole "Blackest Night" saga is in the rearview mirror. This is a smart move, and one I hope Marvel seriously considers.

Or not. Marvel just announced that the alternate version of Spider-Man in the Ultimate universe is being killed. Again.

While this is so, it's also just as bad when characters are killed for nothing more than publicity stunts, the main problem with crossovers of the past decade, and indeed, nearly all of what they did these past years was for stunt's sake. And when they just kill for stunts, especially so many within a short amount of time, it becomes offensive and has zero impact for that particular reason. Because nobody asked for them to kill off characters every which way but loose.

We want them to follow rules? Maybe, but that doesn't mean we're literally asking for any characters to be wiped out in the first place when there could be storytelling potential for them. And even if there isn't, that's still no excuse for killing them off. There could be a writer with ideas of what to do, and if they have something, they should be given the chance. This is what the article obscures, as the writer seems more concerned with death at all costs instead of whether the stories were well written to begin with, or whether any death is a cheap path to take.

If this is the direction the MSM is promoting, that's very bad, and they don't realize that's just what leads to bad storytelling. And if DC is sticking with the dead-is-dead position, that's bad too.

There are some deaths that were done well enough, but those were mainly in stand-alone stories. Why don't we think instead about reversing the deaths that were done in extremely poor taste and stop worrying about death having no impact when there wasn't any impact to begin with? Not only that, if there really must be deaths, couldn't there be some that are by natural causes or even an auto accident, instead of deaths via murder and other violence? That's something many mainstream comics noticably don't seem to try, and when they do, as in the case of Aunt May Parker, they really ruined everything with the silly retcon of her own death in 1998.

And, let's also consider that there are other forms of fiction where characters do return from the dead, like in movies and television, and even in manga. Stargate, which became easily the most successful sci-fi franchise on TV after Star Trek, featured revival of James Spader's character in the movie itself, and while I haven't seen every episode of the series and its spinoffs, what if it turns out that there too, there's devices to reanimate the dead? Those who think it's a crime to write fiction about resurrections in general should consider those examples.

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

ICV2 and Diamond report that sales for periodicals went down another 11 percent this past month, in the second really bad month for sales this year. What that suggests is that the crossovers and publicity stunts are losing effect. We certainly must hope so. Besides the demand that the big two's publishers and editors, to say nothing of their official ownership, be replaced, it'd be doing a lot of good if the crossovers were to finally cease.

They haven't published an official chart for sales results yet, but when they do, I won't be surprised if the numbers are abysmally stagnant.

Update: now, they have published the chart, and just as I figured, nothing to crow over. If anything, sales were less than 97,000 copies, telling that crossovers are getting that weak.

Labels: sales

I'm sure they'll have either a different series or a renumbering to replace it soon, but for now, Marvel is canceling one of the few series that, until now, they'd amazingly resisted the temptation to renumber, Uncanny X-Men, with the 544th issue, at the end of their latest time-wasting crossover, Schism. Predictably, it'll be in one of the most common ways they see appropriate these days, with the X-ers all torn up and divided:

"Everyone has basically gone along with Cyclops, no matter what reservations they had," he added, but now, those reservations are reaching the breaking point, which is the focus of "Schism" and sounding the death knell of the Uncanny X-Men.

Marvel has likened the fracture, and its fallout, as world-changing as its Civil War, a 2006-2007 crossover that divided Marvel heroes in ways still being felt.

"The X-Men are getting torn apart from within. The events of Schism do more damage to the X-Men than any villain has ever done," said Nick Lowe, who has been editing X-Men books for Marvel for six years and Uncanny X-Men since 2006.

And that's the problem - too often now, they're being torn up for the sake of it than just needing some rest and practice to face their next supercrook opponent. Too often, they're depicted more at odds with each other instead of the actual villains. There's nothing inspiring about that.

That they're canceling the series just now does tell that Marvel clearly isn't trying to cash in on the latest movie based on the series, and maybe that they're willing to abandon their comics publishing business in the near future too. They really do care very little about the original material.

Labels: crossoverloading, marvel comics, msm propaganda, X-Men

Finally, I'm getting around to addressing one of the most divisive steps DC is taking with the ridiculous reboot: turning Oracle back into Batgirl, after all the amazingly good effort that was made over the years to develop Barbara Gordon into another role that wasn't superheroics per se, but rather, a behind the scenes expert in computers who provides info to crimefighters like Black Canary for combatting more earthbound cases. I sometimes thought of her as making a perfect variation on Ironside, Raymond Burr's second most famous TV role after Perry Mason.

Now, 2 decades are going down the drain because of TPTB's obsession with reverting practically everything back to the Silver Age, but without any real brightness or optimism if we remember what Geoff Johns sunk into. This isn't going without opposition, thankfully: a special blog was launched (also via Newsarama) where people submitted drawings of Babs Gordon in solidarity with the Oracle characterization. But with people as awful as DiDio still pulling the puppet strings, there's no telling if this reversion will ever be reversed and Babs brought back to her depiction from the past 2 decades.

Labels: dc comics, women of dc

Newsarama's presented a javascript slidepage with 7 reasons why Superman will again be single. 3 of them really gall me. First:

Publishing is a business, and this fact is behind everything DC does. And it's all about selling comics. So one of the most obvious reasons to make a big change to Superman's marital status is to not only give the character a clean slate for new readers "outside" the normal comic reading audience, but also attract the attention of the "mainstream" media, to help reach those potential readers.

Giving Superman an effective 'divorce' accomplishes both with one stone.

"If we can convince the people here we're doing something brand-new and fresh, we have a good chance to really get the people outside on board," DC co-publisher DiDio said. [...]

The attention the end of the marriage would likely receive + new, curious readers learning about it on the same device they can download the story = a combination DC might not be able to resist.

Oh, so when there's a marriage, it's no big deal, but when there's a divorce or a complete erasure, that's something to crow about? This seems to be quite the mentality that's been pushed for years now, that marriage = bad omen. This could even explain why there was never an on-panel marriage for Jesse Quick and Hourman in Justice Society; it wouldn't have suited their politically correct idea of what makes a good "story".

Now, here's the second bothersome bit:

In 2008, Marvel rocked the comic book-reading audience by magically eliminating the marriage between Peter Parker and his wife, Mary Jane. Through a story originally written by J. Michael Straczynski (the writer behind Babylon 5 and the story of the Thor film) in "Amazing Spider-Man" -- then famously rewritten by Marvel executives -- a magic character made it so that Spidey's marriage never existed.

Yet Straczynski isn't a big fan of eliminating a character's marriage, despite being involved in the Spider-Man revamp. "This is an argument we had over and over at Marvel about Spider-Man, and there really isn't a good answer to it," he said. "You can tell good stories with them married, and good stories with them single. It's really a function of what the company wants to do with them, and the image they want to present.

"I enjoy writing strong relationships, and I liked writing both of those relationships [with Spider-Man and Superman] as marriages," he said. "I was happy leaving the Parkers married, and in terms of Clark and Lois, again it can play fine either way.

"Really, the only difference between the two is that if they're single, they can fool around with other folks," he said. "But if it's a monogamous relationship, and they're never going to date others, then there's really not a compelling argument not to have them married."

That's what's important to them? Oh for heaven's sake. How many babes and hunks can one think of before even those start to bear little difference from one another? Besides, if they really must have characters dating different folks, there's always Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark, Dick Grayson and even Carol Danvers who can fill those parts. What makes it so important that Superman be like them? He hardly even dated many other women besides Lois Lane and Lana Lang years ago.

And JMS has already given me enough reason to doubt he really cares about Peter and Mary Jane as a married couple, or even cares about the whole Spidey concept at all, any more than a big paycheck. Plus, they seem to be confusing One More Day with Sins Past, which for all we know was rewritten by Marvel's top brass, yet still doesn't convince me he ever cared if he was going to even remotely tamper with Gwen Stacy's history in the first place.

Yet the fact that Marvel did put an end to Peter Parker's marriage, and has maintained the character's single status since, points toward a precedence that may interest DC.

DC has come in second to Marvel every year since 2002 in market share, according to Diamond Comics Distributors, which maintains sales numbers for the comic book industry. With its September revamp, DC is hoping to close that gap.

Well I'm sorry to say, but even with digital downloads of this, I think the whole "novelty" has worn off since Marvel did that awful stunt, and if DC does this just because Marvel did it - which resulted in Spidey sales tanking to mediocre numbers soon after, then I don't think they're going to regain their trust. There are those who like Clark and Lois as a married couple, and this is certainly not going to win them over. Certainly not if Superman undergoes more trendy PC changes during the reboot.

Then, here's the third part, where we hear from someone who opposed the marriage, just like he apparently opposed the Spider-Marriage:

Writer Kurt Busiek, who guided the character during recent runs on "Justice League," "Superman" and "Action Comics," as well as 2004's "Superman: Secret Identity", an out-of-continuity story in which Clark Kent is a normal man who lives in a world where Superman is just a superhero in a comic book, said the basic concept of the character is damaged with the marriage in place.

"[The marriage] made for a very nice story, but it eliminated an important part of the Superman mythos: the struggle between the two halves of Superman -- his publicly known face, admired by millions, and his human side, meek and emotionally vulnerable," Busiek said.

"There's some value to be had in exploring their married life, but I'm not sure that's something that couldn't be gotten from exploring some other hero's married life, and I don't think it outweighs the value of that great dichotomy that was always at the heart of Superman, the idea of Superman as the symbol of adulthood and power, and Clark as the inner, less-respected adolescent self-image. That made Superman appeal to younger readers for decades, and made a very strong character engine.

"Writing them as a married couple is fun, because I like that romantic, supportive banter," Busiek added, "but it does soften the concept."

What? It doesn't strenghten the concept, or even provide potential to depict the heroes with their personas and morale boosted through married life? It's a shame he sees little value in even the Man of Steel and Lois Lane's own marriage. But he's not the only one:

Other writers have asked for the marriage to end, including the well-known proposal called "Superman 2000," which was pitched to DC by top comics writers Grant Morrison, Mark Waid, Mark Millar and Tom Peyer.

In that proposal, the marriage was eliminated magically, and the four writers were completely supportive of the change.

"Everyone's in agreement that the marriage and the emphasis on soap opera no longer seems to be working as well in the current market as it once did," the proposal stated.

One of the same writers who had no problem tying the knot between the Flash and Linda Park did have one with Superman, allegedly because his ID was more a secret? Sorry, I don't buy, and certainly not when these very same writers go right along with all the worst ideas to come out of DiDio's pandora's box. But it does suggest that, the more prominent the hero, the more vulnerable they are to political correctness. They also must have a low opinion of the Fantastic Four, where Reed Richards and Sue Storm have been married for almost 50 years now.

And speaking of the Flash, it's pretty apparent by now that DC wants us all to forget about Wally West, seeing how they almost completely dropped him from sight for 2 years now, and not even a real story in a different series or title. If that's the way they're going to operate, then there's little reason to buy into their reboot of the Flash either.

And just because Marvel does something doesn't mean DC should follow suit or vice versa. What it does tell is their executives must not have a high opinion on the Spider-Marriage either.

Labels: dc comics, Flash, marvel comics, Spider-Man, Superman

It's a shame the woman writer once known for forming the WiR site and phrasing is going out of her way to act as apologist for DC's rebooting on Comics Alliance, saying, for example:

Let me point out why I'm excited about this movement at DC. I also need to say that I am not an apologist, nor is DC even aware I am writing this. These are just my thoughts as both a writer for the company and as someone who dearly loves the DC Universe above all things including dogs and self-respect. You may completely disagree, but I think this is going to be one of the most exciting times in history to be reading comics. Yes, really.

Oh please. They'll know she's written for that site, even if owner AOL isn't part of the Time Warner network any longer. Especially if she did say something negative about them, then they'd really come to attention over what she says. The late Dwayne McDuffie just uttered one simple line a few years ago that he wasn't happy with the editorial fiat they imposed on him when he wrote the Justice League, and found himself out of a job pretty quickly.

Besides, if the same people in charge the past decade are still manipulating things now, then how can anyone trust this to be an exciting time in history? Sorry, but she is an apologist.

First... I don't believe it's a good thing when the readers know everything about a character. That is asking the writer to play poker with all his cards showing and his pants unzipped. You might win the game, but what FUN is it (except the zipper part)? Fiction is about surprise...it's about twists and turns and sudden reveals. And yes, you can still have those things in a great comic in current continuity. But how much more fun is it to be an explorer?

So it wasn't a good thing when E. Nelson Bridwell was a walking Superman encyclopedia in his time? I'm sorry, I don't buy what she's selling here. Besides, what if any character personality changes they impose on their stable happen to be so perfectly awful, we can't get into them?

[...]this is just the first salvo and I am looking at a big stack of books I have to have already. Mr. Terrific getting his own book? Geoff and Jim on Justice League?

The morning when it was announced, Firestorm, the book I am doing with Ethan Van Sciver and Yildiray Cinar, was actually a worldwide trending topic on Twitter. Firestorm. Who could have predicted that six months ago?

Mr. Terrific will be getting more than just his own book; he'll be getting tattoos and maybe even a tasteless womanizing persona. As for Johns, I've already sworn off of his work that becomes ever more devoid of flavor. And as for Firestorm, to my knowledge, they're going with the Jason Rusch character, and even the Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle, in another ridiculous bit of pandering to PC diversity. I'm not impressed. Nor am I impressed with her lip service to Brian Bendis:

I was at a writing seminar as a guest recently, up at the wonderful Stumptown convention in Portland, to hear Brian Michael Bendis give a speech on comics. He said something that I found a real key to his success...that when something went wrong or contrary to his wishes, instead of falling to pieces, he saw that as an opportunity. It's not specifically DC that I'm so behind on with this plan, it's big ideas, giving creators room to try new, wide-open concepts. That excites me.

Ugh. She bolsters the terrible man who helped destroy the Avengers and Scarlet Witch? Okay, I've read enough. Mainly because not much went contrary to his wishes under Quesada, and even now, that's not exactly happening. He was a favored contributor, with a POV they considered suited to their own, and let him turn it inside out, into a concept that belonged either in the Heroes for Hire or the Defenders, with Spider-Man and Wolverine brought in only for the name value. Anyone who buys into Bendis' limp approach isn't making much of a case.

Labels: Avengers, dc comics, dreadful writers, Justice League of America, marvel comics

Looking at this Titans Tower Monitor post featuring news on some of the reboot plans for the Titans, who's in charge of writing on the Teen Titans relaunch? Scott Lobdell, the writer for X-Men at Marvel in the 1990s who had very little to recommend when he co-wrote the main 2 series along with Fabian Niecieza at the time.

And, for a new take on Hawk & Dove, who is the artist? Rob Liefeld, who's long descended into notoriety for his increasingly horrid artwork. It's funny to note that one of his first jobs for a major company actually was on a Hawk & Dove miniseries back in 1988, when he hadn't yet achieved the infamy he did several years later at Image. But now, after he's earned such a bad rep in the biz, it's clear DC doesn't care much about Hank Hall and Dawn Granger, and clearly considers them expendable. The same surely goes for the Titans, suggesting they don't consider the Titans series very important anymore, and Lobdell isn't exactly considered an important scribe any more than Liefeld is.

And that's all we need to know that this reboot isn't the big, serious occasion they want us to think it is.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful artists, dreadful writers, Titans

And our nightmare. Mainly because of how he's still lurking in the background (and if Bob Harras was hired as EIC, he's strangely all but incognito). According to the info gathered on this page at Comics Beat, JMS said, for example:

When Dan DiDio comes out to the West Coast, we tend to get a bite for dinner to discuss projects, ideas, books and just hang. Dan is a great guy and an energetic speaker, chockful of ideas and aspirations for DC. As part of that, he shared repeatedly on and off for really more than a year his dream of rebooting the DCU and starting over.

Now it's clear: DiDio wanted all these years to write the DCU into a corner in order to justify more stunts sans direction. Identity Crisis was just part of that dismal plan, and come to think of it, so was Geoff Johns.

So I felt confident that it was coming soon (which is one reason why I felt there wouldn’t be a problem in the long run leaving the monthly books, since most of the things done in Superman and Wonder Woman would be erased by the reboot anyway, so ultimately it didn’t matter whether I stayed or left). I just couldn’t say anything at the time because I wanted to respect Dan’s privacy and his desire to do what he thought was right when he thought it was right to do it.

So that's why he cooked up those incredibly dumb stories in both books. It only makes me more skeptical of his defense that he didn't approve of Joe Quesada's mutating Spider-Man's Sins Past into something more diabolical.

To a degree, I think the success of Superman: Earth One was very helpful in showing that you could reboot a major character in a very personal sort of book and have it become a real hit (27 straight weeks and counting on the New York Times Bestseller List for graphic novels).

That's a definite shame if his rendition of Superman's found any success, if his lefty visions overrun it. Though I suspect his mindless fans may have driven some of the sales.

That said: end to end, top to bottom, front to back, this is Dan’s dream, and he’s fought long and hard to make this happen. I think it’s absolutely the right move at the right moment in history. If you think about how well the Flash, Green Lantern and Atom were rebooted during the Silver Age, those books made the characters more contemporary, personal and relevant to the 70s. Imagine how much poorer the comics world would be without those reboots, if there had never been a Hal Jordan, or a Barry Allen.

And just look at how much poorer the comics world is now, thanks to how they repeatedly do these concepts to death with PC tactics like "diversity" and even overly leftist politics, to say nothing of overwrought nostalgia and abuse of characters, despite what he claims.

Taking that approach to rebooting the majority of the DC line is a gutsy move on an unparalleled scale, and I think Dan deserves a massive round of applause for making it. The business part of the comics business has been languishing for the last several years, with decreasing sales and media attention. Something this big, this brave, is exactly the shot in the arm it needed. There’s a saying in some of the British special forces: “Who dares, wins.” I think this was and will be seen in future as a winning move.

And I think in the future, this will be seen as quite a short-term strategy that'll spell the end of DC as we know it. And DiDio doesn't deserve any applause. Not if he and his yes-men staff were going to indulge in drowning the DCU in darkness, which is very likely to continue even after a reboot.

JMS also doesn't seem to realize that there actually has been plenty of attention - even if only selectively - lavished upon the comics biz for a decade now, yet none of it has managed to salvage the industry. How can it, when the publishers keep taking steps that harm it? Even the company-wide crossovers are likely to continue, and I don't think they ever said they'll quit.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful writers, politics, Superman, violence

The Cleveland Plain-Dealer's written about DC's reboot plans, and pretty fawningly at that, saying the following:

The biggest news about the relaunch is that the long-suffering "Justice League of America" title will be written by possibly the world's greatest writer and artist team: Geoff Johns and Jim Lee. And this will be a Justice League with its mainstay members: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Aquaman -- not B-listers.

There are 3 things that can be said in response to this:

• Geoff Johns is most definitely NOT the world's greatest writer. Not if he's going to gush overboard with jarring violence and exaggerated nostalgia references that don't make a good substitute for real storytelling.
• Jim Lee may be a good artist, but as he became more of a knee-jerk executive, he undermined what appreciation could be had for him pretty badly.
• As for having a Justice League with major players, that's fine, but it doesn't mean "B-listers" can't make for worthy recruits simultaneously. Besides, that wasn't the real problem last year - it was how it all grew artificially out of an unendurable miniseries, Cry for Justice, that broke up the main team in favor of the substitutes.

They also ask:

Will the September reboot reset the clock so that Superman, Batman and the rest are starting over now, in 2011? If so, will all the stories from the past seven decades be declared irrelevant? Will Superman and Lois still be married, or will the marriage "never have happened" as in the case of Spider-Man and Mary Jane? Brrrrrr.

Are the changes in Superman's origins, look and costume designed to strengthen Time/Warner/DC's case in the decades-old legal battle with the heirs of creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster by making the original character's origin and look a moot point?

Lots of questions, no answers. Guess we'll all find out together.

Not all of us. With such shameless writers and editors holding these heroes in their grasp, I'd rather not. What I can say is that even if they don't do away with Clark and Lois' marriage, I don't expect them to write it convincingly or appealingly either. And it's unlikely the changes they've made to Superman's costume will help them through the legal battle either. It certainly won't help them regain their lost audience.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful writers, Justice League of America, msm propaganda

And on his Formspring account, in response to the following reader comment:

DC Comics just made it 100% certain I'll never pick up another book anytime soon. I hope I never have to see such a desperate move from Marvel. Rebooting/Revamping the DC line since the first crisis has only led to terrible things. Make mine Marvel!

Brevoort said:

I'm happy you feel that way, but I don't really agree. At this point, doing something massive like this is the smartest thing that DC can do in order to try to capture a large audience and get them to check out their books.

I think that's pretty much all we need to know that Marvel wouldn't rule out trying to pull a stunt like this. It's only a matter of time then till we know just how ready and willing they are to do what some people didn't think they'd be ready to do: reboot the Marvel universe, even if the fans disagreed.

Labels: bad editors, dc comics, marvel comics

Variety is talking about how the Siegel/Shuster estates won back some of the rights to the Man of Steel, but if it's only parts of the lore, as explained here, it's not clear if it would even be workable:

Warner Bros. is hoping that Zack Snyder can do for "Superman" what Christopher Nolan did for "Batman." But the studio's real-life tangle over the rights to the Man of Steel risks resembling another Nolan narrative: "Inception."
The way things are going, less than a year after Snyder's "Man of Steel" is released in 2012 the rights to a significant part of the early Superman lore will revert back to the heirs of creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

The Siegel and Shuster estates could wind up owning some parts of the Superman story while DC Comics owns others. The estates could get Superman's blue leotard, red cape and boots, plus an ability to leap tall buildings while DC retains villains like Lex Luthor plus Superman's ability to fly.

The question is: Could each party proceed with a subsequent project without the other's involvement?

In theory, come 2013 auds could see two parallel versions of the Man of Steel ramp up. In practice, that looks pretty unworkable.

Setting this potential scenario in motion were a series of rulings in 2008 and 2009 by U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson, who ruled that Siegel's heirs had successfully reclaimed their share of the copyright to Action Comics No. 1, which marked Superman's 1938 debut; Action Comics No. 4; and other early depictions of the character and storyline. (Shuster's heirs are on a separate timeline that begins in 2013). Larson was acting on a provision of the 1976 Copyright Act that allows authors to regain the copyrights to their creations after a certain period of time, subject to a series of intricate conditions.

Among those conditions is that the works can't have been made "for hire," since those are exempt from such "rights termination," and it's a reason underlying Larson's ruling that the Siegel heirs don't own the Man of Steel outright; he found that Siegel's work as an employee of DC from 1938-43, as the character's mythology was still being established, remained under the ownership of the publisher.

While the "Superman" creators' heirs stand to hold important rights to the character, they don't have the trademarks, which would pose a significant limitation on marketing and merchandising. And their reclamation of the copyright applies only to the U.S., so international rights would remain in the hands of DC.

For its part, come 2013, DC could still exploit the Superman projects it's already made, but under the Copyright Act, the company could not create new "derivative" works based on Action Comics No. 1 and other properties held by the heirs. Presumably, more sequels would mean more legal land mines.

A Superman without the ability to fly would not have much impact. The result of this legal wrangling could be the inability to produce any real Superman stories at all, unless some kind of legal arrangement between sides could be worked out.

I guess that's the sad reality behind this whole affair when you look at how parts of the Superman lore have been basically split up: neither side could produce a coherent concept, and there's no telling if they'd even continue trying. The Man of Steel could be relegated to a dusty shelf for years, unless DC's publishing arm and the rights to publishing comics went to another, better source, which could encourage the Siegel/Shuster estates to remerge their rights to Superman back into the rest of the company.

Labels: dc comics, Superman

The New York Times followed up on DC Comics' plans for rebooting their universe, but though they do cover some of the storytelling history, they seem more interested in focusing on the renumbering. First, there is one error they may have made here:

...the post-Crisis alterations to some of the characters were substantial: Superman, who at that point had been published for 47 years and had encountered enough Kryptonians to fill a couple of stadiums, became the sole survivor of the doomed planet. His career as Superboy was also erased. Wonder Woman received a new series (and a new No. 1) that presented her as freshly arrived to the world and having never been a founding member of the Justice League. The murderer of Bruce Wayne’s parents, the traumatic event at the core of Batman, was never found.

I think that actually happened during Zero Hour, that Batman's history was changed so that Joe Chill was never revealed as the murderer of his parents, and the culprit never found. At least 8 years after Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Any eventual return to the status quo is a double-edged sword: both a frustration point and consolation for long time readers. A basic tenet of comic books had been established: If you do not like a change to a favorite character, or his or her “death,” wait a year, 10 or two decades and it will be like it was before. So many events, seemingly pivotal, in the DC universe have been undone or evolved: the death of Green Arrow, the death of Green Lantern, the death of the silver age Flash.

What if Identity Crisis and Cry for Justice aren't actually undone, or the victims of those ghastly stunts erased altogether as though they never existed? That won't exactly be fixing anything, and even with this latest stunt, it doesn't look like DC has any intention of apologizing for their grave errors of the past several years. Especially not if they keep on with the same staff, the main reason this isn't likely to pass muster.

While some readers have applauded the return of these Silver Age heroes, who were born in the 1960s, fans of their replacements — Connor Hawke, the son of Green Arrow; Kyle Rayner, who inherited Hal Jordan’s power ring, and Kid Flash, who graduated into the role of his mentor — have been saddened at their heroes’ being pushed out of the spotlight.

I don't know about Connor Hawke but Kyle Rayner certainly didn't inherit his role plausibly, and was the product of an alarming editorial mandate for many years, one that even cost his first girlfriend her life and trashed a considerable amount of the GL lore, like the many different GL Corps members, all so he could be the only GL in the universe (Alan Scott had to be renamed Sentinel because of this too).

Wally West is the character whom readers are certainly sad to see tossed out, and one of the reasons why sales have ultimately lost out for the Flash. Why not many seem to point out the differences between Wally and Kyle is bewildering.

Now, here's where they go into an uninformative take on the renumbering nonsense:

DC and Marvel have both renumbered series in the past to indicate a new direction for a super-hero title. In some cases – after clamoring from fans, a marketing ploy or editorial whim, they have also returned to the historical numbering. Perhaps most famously, Marvel restarted the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, Captain America and Iron Man in 1996. The experiment – fresh takes on their long running characters known as “Heroes Reborn” – was eventually undone. The series were restarted, again, with new No. 1 issues. Some of those series, like The Avengers, eventually returned to their historical numbering, at least until another shake-up resulted in the title coming to an end and the New Avengers were formed, along with a new series and a new first issue. In January this year, when the Human Torch, a member of the Fantastic Four, died in issue No. 587, that paved the way for a new series, FF, with Spider-Man as a new teammate.

The original series ended with No. 588, but some Marvel fans thought that if the new title got a tepid reception, it would return to its historic numbering within a year, in time to get to issue No. 600 of the Fantastic Four.

With the way they're going now, the new volume might never return to its original numbering. That aside, what they don't tell is that Heroes Reborn was a disaster, certainly the 2 of 4 titles Rob Liefeld was writing (Capt. America and Avengers). If the writing didn't sink it, his horrific artwork did. And on top of all that, the idea of separating the FF and Avengers from the main MCU just wasn't popular, so they reversed it.

As for numbering, compared to bad storytelling and disrespect for characters and continuity, that's the least of the problems, though it certainly is silly they should be doing it to begin with. At least they do hint that the renumberings are ploys, and just one of many stunts for the sake of short-term sales. It's been done so often now, it's gradually made people tired of buying number ones because ultimately, they're meaningless and not only unlikely to be written well, they're also unlikely to have monetary value in the future.

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

The Complex.Com website interviewed Axel Alonso about digital business, diversity and movies, and predictably, he can't write his way out of a wet paper bag. The interview begins by saying:

When Axel Alonso joined Marvel Comics as a senior editor in September 2000, the company was on the brink of bankruptcy and in danger of folding. Along with then editor-in-chief Joe Quesada, he led a revival, creating the mature Marvel MAX line, attracting talented indie creators like Matt Fraction, and overseeing the ultra-important Amazing Spider-Man and X-Men series. The turnaround led to Walt Disney’s 2009 acquisition of Marvel Entertainment for $4.24 billion.

I'm confused. If they'd really rediscovered success, surely they wouldn't have to be bought out by Disney? It doesn't make sense.

You’ve openly admitted that you don’t have encyclopedic knowledge of comics. What is your response to people who don’t like your promotion?
The definition of a dumb editor-in-chief is someone who goes into a room thinking that they’re the smartest about everything. This is a collaborative thing. You’ve got some incredibly capable people at Marvel, who all specialize in things. There’s nobody more qualified in orchestrating an event than Tom Brevoort. No one. Knowing that and allowing him to flourish where he needs to flourish, and allowing younger editors who are finding their own voices to flourish, that’s my challenge.

I wouldn't say he's dumb, but I will say he's pretty disrespectful of their former fans if he's going to keep Spider-Man the way it is with no marriage, an implausible resurrection of Harry Osborn, and weak writing to boot. And unfortunately, even Brevoort's been acting like a know-it-all for years now. And all the capable people they once had are long gone.

How do you balance back-stories and keeping characters fresh?
You have to boil down these characters to their immutable truths and figure out what their essential stories are, and then be willing to have people yell at you when you do something new and it contradicts that one obscure story from their past.

But they've long abandoned trying to keep them fresh and maintaining the backstories well. Otherwise, they wouldn't have allowed J. Michael Stracynski to make a mess out of Spider-Man. Plus, I think what he means by obscure stories are the real backstories. Obviously, in the minds of people like him, we're not supposed to care if they're sullied.

Single comics can cost cash-strapped readers as much as $3.99 nowadays. How do you address this?
I think the thing to stress is that the people who are writing and drawing and coloring your comics are, in most occasions, the crème de la crème. These people are not underpaid for what they do. You get what you pay for at the end of the day. What people resent is when they spend $3.99 or $2.99 on a comic book they don’t think was worth the money. Obviously there are limitations to what we can do on the print end, there’s printing costs and all these other things. The wild west of new media is that at some point soon I hope we’re able to find a way to distribute these comics at an affordable price point, possibly with added-value material, that can make the download of a comic book a very attractive option and a very affordable option for the reader.

Sorry, but we haven't gotten what we'll no longer pay for by the end of the day or night for at least a decade now. The writers they'll hire have either been hacks, or they've been the editors' deliberate favorites like Brian Bendis, who writes exactly what they believe is appropriate. The price is the result of years of fans exiting the customer line due to bad storytelling and they've had to raise it to cut their losses, even though it only helps precipitate the readership decline.

What are some interests that inform you as an EIC?
I’m a hip-hop head. It’s all I listen to. I grew up on R&B. The way I kept from getting my ass kicked in school was being good at basketball. Then I went to see a band called Black Flag and discovered punk rock. I didn’t grow a Mohawk, but the attitude was something I got into. It gave me a sense of cynicism. I didn’t enjoy Rambo, I didn’t like Chuck Norris, I didn’t like Journey until I was 40. I think that attitude has carried into my comics, whether it’s in Truth, the black Captain America book, or Rawhide Kid, the gay cowboy, or X-Force: The Hostile Takeover.

This isn't clear, but I wonder if he's saying he developed such a cynical attitude, he used it to take out his anger on Captain America, Rawhide Kid, and even X-Men, by supporting the embarrassingly bad steps they took with those books and characters? I wouldn't be surprised if that's the answer.

Why do you think the comic industry has been so slow to reflect the diversity of its readers?
We’re very mindful of this, and I think we’ve made incredible inroads with it. One thing that people don’t know is how well-represented Hispanics and blacks are, at least in the artistic ranks. There are so many incredible Hispanic artists in this industry right now, from Humberto Ramos to Paco Medina. Joe Quesada’s Cuban, I’m half-Mexican, and it goes without saying that we’re interested in having voices represented from across the spectrum. We certainly have more female writers than we’ve had in the past, but the key thing is these people need to emerge. We need to believe in them, and we need to be able to sell them. I finally got my Mexican superheroes, the luchador-inspired Zapata Brothers (right), a few years ago, and that felt good. But it has to come organically. It’s not something you can force.

Oh please. They've been reflecting the diversity of readers and the wider public for years now; it's no longer an issue. They've even had some Latino characters featured in their comics too, like Firebird/Bonita Juarez.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure they have more female writers today than before: once they had writers and editors like Ann Nocenti and Louise Simonson, but today, save for writers like Marjorie Liu and Kathryn Immonen, there still very few women working at Marvel, and those who do are likely to be working under grave editorial mandates.

Alonso's reply also tells something very notable about what jobs minorities are getting, and it may not be writing, only artwork. George Perez is probably the most notable contributor of a Latino background who did work as a writer in comics when he scripted Wonder Woman from 1987-92. But other than that, there do not seem to be many people of a black or Latino background who've actually gotten the chance to write. Come to think of it, not many Europeans save for those from the UK have gotten that chance either. Hardly what one could call progress.

And if they're going to destroy continuity and drown their books in only so much poor storytelling, then nothing's really organic. Contrary to what Alonso's telling, it is forced.

You have a reputation for being great managing writers and artists. What is the key to that?
The most important thing is that you have each other’s trust, that you [as a creator] understand when I’m coming back to you with notes, I’m doing it because I’m aiming the same direction as you, to make this thing the best it can be. I like to go into it as egoless as possible—best idea wins. The best relationships I have are people that trust that type of feedback and trust me that I’ll back down when I realize that I’m wrong. If I can’t take a bullet for you, maybe I shouldn’t work with you.

What great reputation are they talking about? They've harmed Spider-Man, Captain America and the Avengers, and then they have the gall to claim there's a positive reputation out there? And Alonso has the gall to go along with that. The only good relations he has are with people who realize they can take advantage of him like Stracynski and Bendis, since they know he couldn't care less what bad moves they make with their universe.

Are there creators for whom you think you’re a bad editorial fit?
There are creators in this industry who I have enormous respect for who I don’t think I have any business editing. I don’t think I have anything to bring to them. And quite frankly, I may not have the right type of references, literary, pop culture-wise, to be able to really give them the type of feedback that they need on their work. I think it’s important to realize what your weaknesses are as well as your strengths.

And that's clarifying the earlier observation that he wouldn't get in Bendis' and Strancynski's way at all. On the other hand, if Chuck Dixon, for example, were still welcome to work for them, they'd likely make it impossible to have an impact.

You’ve brought a lot of indie creators like Matt Fraction and crime writers like Duane Swierczynski to the big leagues at Marvel. What are your concerns when you do that?
The main thing I can say is, you don’t want to give them a poisoned chalice. I really believe what you wanna do with a writer—with an artist as well—is take into account their body of work and what type of genre they’re most comfortable with and play to their strengths, not their weaknesses. You don’t wanna just give them the first job that comes across your desk, you don’t wanna solve your problem of the day with them. Chris Hastings, who writes The Adventures of Doctor McNinja...call me crazy, but his first job ain’t gonna be PunisherMAX, you follow me? Deadpool, yes. PunisherMAX, no.

The only kind of work Fraction is comfortable with is something with political undertones, like Fear Itself contains. Stracynski and Mark Millar certainly were too when the latter did Civil War. Or, contrary to what Alonso claims, he's playing to Fraction's weaknesses, mainly because neither Fraction, Bendis or Stracynski have any real strengths.

Universe-wide event stories like Civil War and Fear Itself (right) tackled zeitgeist issues like the sacrifice of civil liberties and fear mongering. Are there any other societal issues you want to address?
We’re aware of things like the recent spate of teen suicides. And there have been a number of stories pitched to comment on it. We haven’t published most of the stories because we didn’t think that they were appropriate; they didn’t handle the subject matter in a manner that we thought was the Marvel statement, and that will be coming. But again, being topical for the sake of being topical, that’s bullshit. Be topical because you have something to say, or—even better—because you feel that you may have something new to say. Again, the solution to a problem like [teen suicide] can’t be found in a superhero beating up a bully. The message is something fundamentally different than that.

They don't think problems with teen suicides - something Japan has a disturbing number of - and drug abuse are worth publishing, but political biases are? I'm not impressed, and under people like him, I doubt they'd even be able to tackle suicide and drugs convincingly. More likely they'd just try to blame conservatives for all the bad things that happen in the world.

The last part of the interview is about their snuffing out Johnny Storm, and says:

The death of Johnny Storm/Human Torch (right) was very successful. What is Marvel’s policy of death in comics and what do you do to ensure they're organic and not mere publicity stunts?
Our fans are smart enough to know this character is going to come back, the question is of when. They’re trained to know that this door can open and close. What people are buying into is the moment, the drama and the theater, the feelings it inspires in them. If that Fantastic Four issue had come out and that moment had read false, people would have killed the story, we would have heard nothing but hatred. People were primed not to like it, but I think that the authenticity of that moment, and the beat that the creator hit in that story, how they made the reader feel, was the important thing. Will Johnny Storm be back? Probably, at some point. Who knows when. Then again, maybe not. Maybe the Fantastic Four proves to be more popular without him for a while. Maybe he comes back, maybe another one comes back—that’s the beauty of comics. In that sense, there’s no such thing as a policy. It's more that we’re gonna roll the dice and see how people respond. But really, the bottom line is that no one here ever anticipated the way that was gonna go. Killing Johnny Storm? I mean, come on. We thought maybe ten thousand more copies if we were lucky. That took everyone by surprise, and I think that’s a testament to how well the creators, the writers, and artists pulled off that moment. I was moved by it. I thought that they staged it beautifully, it resonated.

Again, they claim success without even looking at how low the numbers really were, and don't even ask why Johnny had to die at all, nor what makes this any better than a character driven story with Johnny Storm alive. And does anyone care a few months afterwards? Since they've canceled the earlier volume of the FF, clearly, not many do.

Labels: bad editors, crossoverloading, golden calf of death, marvel comics, politics