Friday, May 31, 2013 

Newsarama and new Marvel contributors are calling West Coast Avengers dated

Newsarama wrote about the history of the first true spinoff of the Avengers, that being the West Coast Avengers, one of my favorite titles of its time (except for some of the John Byrne-scripted material, more on which anon). But there's a few writers listed who seem incapable of appreciating the the best parts of the series because they think it's too old fashioned:
Looking back on the West Coast Avengers title and its run from1984 to 1994, it seems somehow quaint that the Avengers would need a separate branch on the West Coast only 2790 some odd miles away from the Avengers Mansion when the team routinely – both then and now – travels to outer space, other worlds and foreign countries nonetheless.

“I love the West Coast Avengers but they're destined to be a footnote in the evolution of the Avengers,” explains Sam Humphries, writer of The Ultimates and the upcoming Avengers A.I. “When John Byrne took over the main title, he made the membership flexible to include any Avenger in the history of the team. When Brian Michael Bendis took over, he blew it wide open to include the entire Marvel Universe. Jonathan Hickman's era on the book has already been marked by even broader horizons. With a scope like that, the concept of a second, separate team four hours away by commercial airplane seems quaint, doesn't it?”

A team for a bygone age? Perhaps, says Humphries.

“West Coast Avengers filled a role back then that they couldn't fill now. The world feels smaller today than it did in 1984 – the West Coast Avengers belongs to the age of the fax and the landline, not the age of the Internet and global trade.”
What a ridiculous put-down. No matter where the Earth's Mightiest Heroes travel, it's not like it takes - or has to take - mere minutes even in a Quinjet. When they traveled to other galaxies in past stories, even that could take a long time depending on the distance. Humphries sounds incapable of using his imagination.

And he hints one of the biggest problems with Bendis' work: he stuffed in nearly every hero in the MCU regardless of whether it made sense or not, and that includes all the multiple appearances by Wolverine and Spider-Man in both mainstay series and spinoffs, which did not follow any logic, coherence, consistency or continuity. Especially silly about Humphries' view is that he's ignored the spinoffs, right down to Dark Avengers. Is it okay if Bendis oversees a spinoff of Avengers but not if Jim Shooter and company launched one back in the day?

And technology age wasn't what made West Coast Avengers click, it was the character relations and interactions that did. Hawkeye and Mockingbird's marriage, for example, plus the focus on Tigra and Wonder Man. Those were some of the best highlights. Even the focus on Hank Pym trying to redeem himself worked pretty well.

But now, here's the part where they fumble: John Byrne's run on the title, which wasn't very good:
The four-part “Vision Quest” arc showed writer/artist John Byrne at the height of his career doing the quintessential story for the Avengers power couple of Vision and Scarlet Witch as their lives are torn apart, presaging the events of Avengers: Disassembled, House Of M and one of the key pillars of Brian Michael Bendis’ run on Avengers years later.

“This was a shocking storyline the merits of which are still debated by Avengers fans of the period, but it definitely got people paying attention,” says Brevoort. “And Byrne at this point was still phenomenally popular, so there was a great draw to seeing him both write and illustrate an Avengers series.”
I'm afraid I'll have to deliver some serious dissent here. Byrne's run saw the dissolving of Wanda and Vision's marriage plus the obliteration of their children as mere magical constructs. But what really made it a futile charade was when Wanda, a girl who'd long been an established cast member, learned to be a confident woman and a brave fighter, lost her marbles over all this and soon turned crooked again. Granted, Magneto might've played a part influencing her reversion, but it still stunk. Wanda became a silly cartoon-vamp, cutting her tresses short and turning against her Avengers partners.

Adding insult to injury was the fanfictionish way the women in the story were rendered ineffective, unless, as in Wanda's case, she was using her powers to paralyze the good guys. The low point was Wanda scratching Simon down the side of his chest. That left me feeling more than a bit disgusted, and if memory serves, I wasn't the only one if the feedback they got in 1990 says anything. If you look closely at the second scan, you'll notice Wanda's clawed glove has traces of blood on it, which doesn't make much sense, because when Simon resurfaced in the late 70s, he'd become an energy-based lifeform, and while not invulnerable to injury, he couldn't actually bleed human blood. There's something wrong with a tale where Magneto's made to sound more reasonable than his daughter was. Notice how Brevoort even goes so far as to use the attention-seeking tactic at all costs to defend the tale's existence, ditto the term shocking to hint that he's fine with using blatant shock value as a selling point.

Byrne had put some questionable depictions of women into his earlier work, including the background and split personality he wrote for Aurora in Alpha Flight and the bizarre neck-hold seen at least 3 times during his Superman run, but his take on West Coast Avengers (or Avengers West Coast; they'd rearranged the title a bit in 1989) was a nadir in his career. He left the book shortly after, and the story was either left incomplete, or hastily finished up.

And yet this insulting story became a source of un-inspiration for Bendis' way overlong run on the Earth's Mightiest Heroes, a direction built entirely off of defeatism and contrived situations. Today's writers have a very alarming penchant for choosing the worst in past efforts as a wellspring.

When asked why Marvel won't try the West Coast name for a spinoff title again, Brevoort says it's because it'd only amount to nostalgia:
“At least since I started working on Avengers in 1997, that’s probably due as much to me finding the name silly as much as anything,” Brevoort admits. “Nothing wrong with the characters or the grouping, but not being a big fan of the name “West Coast Avengers.” I haven’t pursued it. So it’s all my fault. Apart from nostalgia, I don’t feel like there’s any great value to be had in resurrecting that particular title. At least so far nobody’s hit me up with a good reason to use it apart from nostalgia. I’d never say never, but at the moment there aren’t any plans to use that title in the course of the next year. We’re doing an awful lot of Avengers titles, though, so it’s not for a lack of interest in the franchise.”

Although an admittedly life-long fan of the team and title, Christos Gage agrees with Brevoort’s frank assessment. When asked if a West Coast Avengers title could work in 2013, says there many reasons why not and only one why it should.

“The thing Tom Brevoort insists on – and I think he’s right – is that there has to be a reason for them to exist beyond nostalgia and/or simply expanding the Avengers franchise, because you can’t sustain a title on that. Really, nowadays, the Avengers are heroes for the whole world…with their various means of transportation, they can be on the west coast pretty quick, so there’s no logical need for a West Coast unit. It would make more sense to have an Avengers Europe or Asia, you know? So there needs to be a reason for a West Coast Avengers team to exist, and it’s hard to come up with a good one…so far all I’ve got is “because I want them to.”
No it doesn't have to be just because anybody wants them to. It can be for the value and potential in character drama, something they once excelled in, but with the people in charge now, is just not possible. What they predictably won't admit is that any Avengers title they publish today is held hostage to the whims of the crossover-obsessed editors, effectively keeping them from finding their own direction.

And since when weren't the Avengers heroes for the whole globe? They traveled to foreign countries before in better days, even Latveria. What Gage fails to mention is that the stories the Avengers are known for today are the company-wide crossovers where they clash among themselves and other heroes, including Avengers vs. X-Men. There's no logical need for stifling crossovers that only make it impossible to run a convincing stand-alone story, and even that gets botched by today's writers, Gage included.

And as jumbled as his arguments are, Brevoort is right about one thing: though not the only one, he's also at fault, for leading to the dire situation they're in today.

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Thursday, May 30, 2013 

Matt Hawkins needs to do better research

In a minor conversation about the 7th issue of Think Tank, Top Cow's senior manager Hawkins and a reader said the following:

Some important points to make about history and facts:
As for Think Tank itself, I did some more research, and according to Fanboy Nation:
For about twenty minutes after I finish an issue of Think Tank I contemplate stocking up on canned goods, water, and emergency supplies. Matt Hawkins ensures that you will think about what’s going on in our world, even if you’d planned to be blissfully ignorant and just indulge in a comic. My main warning is that if you are a staunch Fox News Conservative, this likely is not the comic for you. If you are interested in how war, science, or a combination of the two, work, this comic is something you should continue to pick up until Hawkins and Ekedal retire.
Not if it's built on liberal anti-war/science beliefs, I'm afraid. If it's negative to conservatives, and if it resorts to trutherism, as I'd worried before, then the chances of it getting any of its subjects right is extremely minimal, if at all.

Hawkins has to choose whether he's interested in fantasy adventure like Aphrodite IX or fantasy politics like Think Tank's story. It just can't be both.

Update: here's a review of the second part of this story, which describes the story as so:
After previously being betrayed by his lover in previous comics, Mirra, Dr. David Loren finds himself numb and disillusioned. His realization that the military will never let him go causes his language to become more blunt and his behavior to become erratic. Under design is a bio-viral weapon that released into the air as a gas will target distinct strains of DNA to kill intended targets. The formula is designed to be specific in its targets, meaning that should the military use it on a Middle Eastern target, they will be able to destroy only one genetic group of people’ even with the close genetic heritage of the Israeli and Palestinian people. The project clearly violates international laws on genocide, and the general in charge of the project is not pleased with his name being attached. The battle of what is moral and what is necessary comes into play.
Whatever Hawkins had in mind here, it sounds ludicrous and mind-numbing. And, it's politically tendentious.

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Catwoman becomes a New52 sacrifice

ComicBook.Com's revealed that Catwoman has been slain in the 4th issue of Justice League of America:
In the closing pages of Justice League Of America #4, Catwoman gets shot in the head at point-blank range. The bullet is shown leaving the gun, and blood is shown splattering out the other side of Catwoman’s head. Catwoman’s lifeless body is also shown on the ground with her lifeless eyes wide open and blood dripping from her head. As far as comic book deaths go, this is one of the most definitive ones that we’ve ever seen. Of course, there always seems to be a way in comic books to write someone back to life, but with this particular death, it’s going to be challenging at least to explain how Catwoman survives (if she does indeed survive).
It makes no difference whether she does or not. These deaths at the hands of supervillains (in this story it may be Professor Ivo) and such have become cliche long ago, no matter how reversible they are. A death that could have significance would be one from natural causes and auto accidents. That both DC and Marvel continue to focus almost entirely on publicity stunt tactics like the above is all we need to know that they uninterested in serious drama. No doubt, that was exactly why Bob Harras reversed May Parker's convincing death from natural causes barely 4 years after it took place in Spider-Man when he was EIC at Marvel.

If Catwoman isn't considered a team player, what was the whole point of putting her on a super-team to start with? All Geoff Johns, as writer of this series, has done, is prove his capability of resorting to desperate stunts for sales spike's sake.

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Wednesday, May 29, 2013 

Sarasota Herald-Tribune interviews Nick Cardy

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune interviewed veteran artist Nick Cardy, who's 93 years old now and served in the US army during WW2 before making his mark as an artist on Batman, Aquaman and especially Teen Titans, where he drew a very stunningly beautiful character design for Donna Troy.

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Joss Whedon attacks "hate radio"

The guy who made it big with the Avengers movie yesteryear is not following up well on his success. Now, a year after that time when he attacked capitalism at SDCC, he's given a speech at Wesleyan University (via Big Hollywood and Entertainment Weekly) where he attacked conservative radio with the usual demonization tactics:
And we’re not that. We’re more interesting than that. The way that we go into the world understanding is to have these contradictions in ourselves and to see them in other people and not judge them for it. To know that—in a world where debate has kind of fallen away and given away to shouting and bullying—the best thing is not just the idea of honest debate, the best thing is losing a debate. Because it means you’ve learned something and you’ve changed your position.

The only way, really, to understand your position and its worth is to understand the opposite. That doesn’t mean the crazy guy on the radio who’s spewing hate, it means the decent human truths of all the people who feel the need to listen to that guy. You are connected to those people. They’re connected to him. You can’t get away from it.
He may not have named his scapegoat directly, but I doubt he's referring to NPR, which is liberal. And even if he didn't intend it, I think he's insulting the audiences of the radio hosts he doesn't have the courage to identify. What if any of the radio hosts he's against praised his film directing? Is that how he thanks them? His tirades have the potential to alienate some moviegoers, and a real pity he's still keeping on with this unproductive path he's on.

Update: Whedon was also interviewed by the Village Voice, and told them that:
"Marvel comics are so influenced by Shakespeare,"
But what's Whedon influenced by? Nothing even remotely similar, I fear.

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Tuesday, May 28, 2013 

How is General Zod portrayed in new Superman movie?

Yahoo's movie section has a few videos of Michael Shannon's performance in the new Superman film. And wouldn't you know it, Shannon himself is describing his role in a way that's bound to bother:
"He’s not a villain any more than any other general fighting to protect his people," Shannon said, "He doesn’t like to just hurt people and steal diamonds; he’s focused on being successful at his job. I think the way Terrence Stamp approached it – and this isn’t any kind of criticism of his performance – there was something kind of detached about it. Pure hatred, rage, whatever … I think this [interpretation] is more ambiguous."
Wonderful. It sounds like the villain's role is being blurred here so you can't be sure at first read whether they had the guts to simply portray him as what he was to begin with - a warmonger who was banished to the Phantom Zone in the Silver Age stories because of the treason-ish crimes he'd committed against Krypton - or as a rebel warring against a system that's probably corrupt.
And screenwriter David S. Goyer has said "Man of Steel" will offer a more detailed look at life on Superman's home planet, saying, "We try to flesh out Krypton and its different political factions, its fauna, its science." With that, perhaps we can expect a richer perspective on why General Zod rebels against Krypton's leaders and takes on the earth, rather than just being an interstellar meanie.
What if we can't? I already found the news about how this movie uses darker palettes for its viewpoint, and the descriptions here are enough to wonder if this is going to go out of its way to depict Krypton as less an admirable society than need be. Even if it doesn't turn out that way, I find the cast and crew's pulling the audience's leg annoying, because, why should they think people wouldn't come to check out the film otherwise? Trash-talking the audience may have contributed to the decline of some moviegoing audiences in recent times, and the filmmakers should honestly reconsider the approach they're using.

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3 tweets by Mark Millar about the UKIP

On the recent success of the UK Independence Party, Mark Millar said:



Well it remains to be seen if there'll ever be a leftie answer to the Labour party, but for now, I'd say the UKIP's success can probably be attributed in part to the country's rising crisis with Islamofascism and sharia impositions. Especially after that horror last week when 2 jihadists graphically murdered a soldier right in the middle of the day. The party's opposition to EU membership is another reason for their rise.

If Millar would like for there to come a left-wing response to the Labour party, it might do some good to wish that they take up the same concerns as the right-wing has. Only that way will a true alternative be found to the faltering leftie movements already in business.

Also, while we're at it, here's something Millar said about comics creation:

I can understand that feeling. Or, if it's work done on assignment from the company, they need to find a way to ensure that the publishers will give them creator credit for the characters they come up with. Siegel and Shuster were very lucky they managed to win that battle for their credit on Superman in the mid-70s.

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Monday, May 27, 2013 

"Projection" is just not the way to go

Not too surprisingly, Busiek didn't take very kindly to my argument against panning the characters instead of how they were written to start with. I guess he hasn't yet gotten over my take on his apologia for irrational liberalism. I'm sorry to see he isn't going about this very well, and equally disappointed he and some the respondents continue to act as though Claremont, the very guy who created Gambit to begin with, is irrelevant to their misgivings about Gambit. The replies he wrote include stuff like:




Okay, some points now:
  • I never denied that something was rotten in Denmark, nor did I ever say he should "dislike" Lobdell as a person. I can understand if he and others in his profession wish to keep good relations with other fellow writers in the business, but it still doesn't mean they can't form an opinion on a particular writer's skills. Whether or not Lobdell is fine with criticism, the point is already made that under Lobdell's weak writing for X-Men, many embarrassing errors were made, and when Claremont returned and wrote X-Treme X-Men in 2001, he compounded the mistakes by turning Gambit back to into more of a thief again, suggesting he doesn't have much faith in his own creations.
  • If he or anyone else don't like Gambit as a comics character, do they also dislike him as a cartoon and computer game character? In one of the first animated series based on X-Men, Gambit became a cast member, his relative newness notwithstanding, and there were also a number of computer games made where he was prominently featured too. Given how awful his characterization has been, wouldn't his use in cartoons and video games be just as embarrassing?
  • On the subject of accents, I can most fully agree that Gambit's southern accent is a major annoyance and a low point in Claremont's use of "foreign" dialects. He may not be the only writer who's ever written characters with accents. But very few others have written theirs as heavily as Claremont's, whose accents have the weight of a Boeing 747. I own the first Marvel Masterworks archive of the X-Men's early appearances, and the Blob did not have as thick an accent when he first debuted in 1964 as he did later when Claremont and Byrne cast him in 1980's Days of Future Past. I know that some will overlook Rogue's accent because for a lady, it can be considered sexy (and in one story from William Messner-Loebs' run on the Flash, he had Wally West say something like that), but for a man like Gambit, it can be embarrassing.
  • Busiek still misses the elephant in the room: Gambit was - and probably still is - depicted as constantly dishonest with the other X-Men, yet they're depicted in turn as boomeranging back to letting him through the front door again, with no solid demands that he turn over a new leaf, reform, and help turn state evidence against both the Thieves and Assassins Guilds. I seem to recall that Gambit led both of those laughably named gangs during his first crummy ongoing solo book, yet did nothing to disband them. How is that setting a good example? And why is it wrong to change that if it's the product of bad writing efforts? 
  • There have been other cases of protagonists in comics with stereotypical depictions, including Ebony White in Will Eisner's Spirit strip and Chop-Chop from Blackhawk, whose appalling renditions were fixed later on (several years ago, Darwyn Cooke wrote a Spirit miniseries that depicted Ebony much more respectably), and Eisner also apologized for his original character design for Ebony. If it helps to repair those mistakes, why shouldn't it help to do the same with Gambit? Or is he singled out as an exception because he's white?
And the reason why I've taken up so strong a belief in criticizing the writers and not just the characters? It's because years ago, I too expressed dislike for a few characters, with the caveat being that I acted as though it always was the character's fault for their personality traits and such, and all but ignored the writers. It was after those two notorious "events", Identity Crisis and Avengers: Disassembed that I got to thinking and realized why I was making a mistake: because I realized that no matter what flaws the characters I dislike had (and yes, it included Gambit at the time), if I took out my anger on them, I'd be following the very same mentality used to attack even those who were denigrated for far less, like Hal Jordan, Elongated Man and Sue Dibny, the Atom and Jean Loring, Scarlet Witch, Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane Watson and even Spoiler.

That's why I changed my approach, and I'm glad I did. I'm not going by the juvenile mentality that believes everything will be solved by doing horrible things with various cast members of superhero universes instead of trying to find ways to repair what's considered a bad direction. Neal Adams may have once said "there are no bad characters, only bad writers." And he's right. That's exactly the position I subscribe to now. Over the past decade or so, I've witnessed some would-be readers being exceedingly negative towards specific characters on message forums, and I may even have a few back issues with lettercols featuring the same. Comics may have grown up, but what about the audience? This is exactly why comics culture has come to be seen as insular.

The idea of attacking characters who don't even exist is also known as "projection": the audience who've got a problem with Gambit may be let down by Claremont for putting the keys in the ignition, and at Lobdell and Nicieza for flooring the accelerator, yet they still focus almost exclusively on the character. Honestly, it's taking the easy way out, and lets the writers who inflicted what they consider a curse on their favorite pastimes get away with it.

In the end, I'll be fair here and say that of course Busiek doesn't have to script any character he doesn't like. But that doesn't mean he has to do it simply because he "dislikes" the characters. It's better to refrain if the editors are irreponsible and won't ensure that better characteristics remain in place.

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Sunday, May 26, 2013 

2 odd tweets by Fabian Nicieza

On comics, he recently wrote:

And then on politics, he wrote as a followup to the above:

That's kind of odd he'd say that about characters he might've worked on when he was a X-Men writer. But the Cheney line I can comprehend: Nicieza's a leftist who didn't like the vice president who was in office during 2000-2008. Sigh. Too bad. I actually thought Cheney was better than Dubya.

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Saturday, May 25, 2013 

The youngest expert on Marvel history

CNET talks about a 4-year-old girl who's already learned a lot about Marvel trivia from her parents even at a young age. Impressive.

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Friday, May 24, 2013 

Why are the parents of heroes being disrespected?

In this USA Today article about what Mark Waid's been doing now with Daredevil, they reveal a recent act done to Matt Murdock's father:
Over the course of several issues, Daredevil has been the target of sneak attacks by Klaw and Coyote, his father Battlin' Jack Murdock's remains were put in his desk, and the assassin Ikari — wearing Jack Murdock's old boxing robe — beat Daredevil to a bloody mess.
Digging up Jack Murdock's remains strikes me as poor taste from a storytelling point of view, and an unnecessary boomerang back to past elements that should have been left alone. But that's the addiction today's writers suffer from - they can't think of anything inspiring, so they desperately think up ways to bounce back on the hero's past and only succeed in disrespecting it.

Jack Murdock should have been allowed to just rest peacefully in his grave and not be disrespected any more than he was when mobsters wiped him out back in 1964.

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Thursday, May 23, 2013 

The Plain Dealer's superficial history of Captain America

The Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote about what they say is the complicated story of the 5 different Caps and Buckys who appeared over 7 decades. But they do it all in the most superficial way possible. The most galling part is the reference to The Truth: Red, White and Black miniseries:
In 2003, Marvel re-engineered the legend to say that the experiments to recreate the serum continued in 1942, using African American test subjects. Three hundred soldiers were tested, only five survived. They were sent on secret missions during World War II and only one, Isiah Bradley, survived. Bradley was captured by Germans, later rescued but then imprisoned by the American government in 1943 to keep the experiments a secret.

In 1960, Bradley was pardoned by President Eisenhower and released. Captain America learned of his existence in 2003 and went to visit him, but found that Bradley's mind and body were ravaged by the serum and Alzheimer's.

Bradley's grandson, Elijah Bradley, used an illegal Mutant Growth Hormone serum to gain superpowers and become The Patriot and join The Young Avengers.
They say this with nary a critical, objective word of any kind about how the story managed to be a few negative things at once: a]anti-American, b]anti-war, c]stereotypical in character design of blacks with juvenile artwork that only took away any seriousness the story had, and d]even offensive to victims and veterans of WW2. And as Jonah Goldberg's commentary from a few years ago makes clear, the research Marvel did about the Tuskagee experiment was not accurate.

The Plain Dealer said about the Nomad period:
Captain America learned that an evil organization was being run out of the White House. When he learned that the leader was a thinly-disguised Richard Nixon, he was so disillusioned that he abandoned his Captain America identity. He later became Nomad, the "man without a country." He eventually decided that the country needed heroes and put the mask back on.
Okay, but was the premise of Cap trading in his red, white and blues for the Nomad guise and shedding his nationality a good idea to begin with? Being let down with his country over the actions of one mere politician is silly, when there's millions of other people around the USA whom the metaphorical president seen in the story didn't speak for.

The female Bucky from the Heroes Reborn era is also referenced:
The most recent addition to the Captain America mythos is Rikki Barnes, who's literally out of this world. Rikki is the Bucky of an alternate universe who came to the regular Marvel Universe in a plot way too complicated to explain quickly.

Once here, she felt it would be more appropriate to abandon her Bucky persona and adopt Cap's old alias, Nomad. Instead of Cap's "Man without a country," her tag line is "The girl without a world."
It may be too much to explain in the space of a printed rag, but it shouldn't be too hard to tell anybody the Heroes Reborn take on Captain America was a botch job, thanks to the awful Rob Liefeld both in artwork and writing. Nobody looking for great escapism should be tricked into wasting their time on that rendition, but the paper fails to say so.

These superficial takes on history without critical opinion are precisely why the quality of writing has become so bad.

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Wednesday, May 22, 2013 

Gail Simone sugarcoats James Robinson

She tweeted a few days ago:

Once, maybe, but not today. The Cry for Justice miniseries he penned was a definite roll downhill. She then said:

I'm not sure how a guy who wrote vulgar tweets about McDonald's and Wolf Blitzer can be considered a gent. If he can't show as much etiquette on screen as in real life, then he's simply not a man of good taste. That's why I won't be missing him, and can't feel sorry I haven't gotten the chance to buy more of his Starman material from 1994-2001 when it was still in print.

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About the Dragoncon scandal and the demagogues who run it

So as I said the other week, I'm going to write my own take on the horror surrounding the Atlanta-based Dragoncon, since it's something that should trouble all sensible fans of comics and sci-fi.

To begin: until earlier this year, I knew very little about this questionable showbiz convention, and next to nothing about its founders. But, as I was shocked to discover, they have quite a sick monstrosity still leeching onto them via stockholdings who goes by the name of Edward Kramer, who could easily be described as the Michael Jackson/Roman Polanski of entertainment conventions. He had a couple of arrests going back as early as 1996 on charges of child-molestation. Yet, thanks to the money he still makes off the convention and thanks to a terrible setup in Georgia's legal system, he's been able to both avoid trial for nearly 13 years while pretending to be sick from any number of illnesses, and also to sue his co-founders to prevent them from dissolving the owning company and starting a new one without him. And even then, said co-founders clearly aren't innocent.

Novelist Nancy Collins, who wrote a few comics in the 90s and is now working as a representative for Kramer's victims, has been calling for a boycott of the convention, and some more folks who are veterans of the comics medium have backed her up as well. I fully agree with Collins that it's the best thing to do. One of the best takes from past experience that sheds more light on the troubling scene at Dragoncon came from Tony Isabella, who told what happened while he was there to promote Justice Machine for one of his publishers around the time it first began in the late 80s:
On my first day at that long-ago Dragon*Con, a young woman offered me sex if I would let her stay in my hotel room. It was the most uncomfortable elevator ride - yes, we were in an elevator and we weren’t the only passengers - of my life. I generally relate this tale in discreet terms and describe the offer far less explicitly than she did. In reality, she didn’t disguise it in the slightest. Making me more uncomfortable was her age, as in underage. Maybe 16 at best. When I declined her offer, she looked at me as if I were a freak.

One evening at the convention, looking for some of the few people I knew or a relatively quiet party, I stumbled into an honest-to-gosh slave auction. With slaves being pretty clearly offered for the sexual entertainment of their buyers. Maybe it was some sort of elaborate role-playing thing, but it creeped me out. It would not be the last thing that creeped out that weekend. I never had the slightest interest in returning.
Good grief. That's what passes for adult fare at this convention? It's definitely offensive if they cheapened the seriousness of slavemongering.

I also found a site on Live Journal where people were relating some nasty experiences they had with sexual harrassment and assault (be advised that the content is not suitable for children), and it sounds like any security staff they had there were embarrassingly incompetent and even disrespectful to the people calling them for help. If this is how the convention is being run at any location around town, then no decent person should bother to attend, even for the best of comics and movie products.

Personally, the conventions I've attended in my lifetime haven't been big ones. The comics and sci-fi conventions I've attended include the ones held every year by the Tel Aviv Cinematheque - the former in August and the latter in October - since the turn of the century, and unlike some comic-cons in the US, they're much smaller, don't require entry fee, and have little or no cosplay (5 years ago, I also once found a RPG convention being held at the ZOA House several blocks away, but have not been able to find out if they've ever had one again), though they certainly do keep good security steps in place. But after a couple years, even they began to bore me, as I found less and less of interest there, so one day out of the 4 they're usually held is enough for me. Not many people I know care to visit these conventions, and I don't think my current girlfriend would either. And maybe I just don't relate well to "convention culture" overall.

The Atlanta Magazine wrote the most detailed account of how Kramer avoided trial for so many years. One of the most disgusting things about him is that his weird grievance tactics have even included alleged adherence to Judaism, and another revelation that makes my blood boil is that:
...his criminal trial was put on hold again for several months in 2006 while he traveled to Israel for ten days in a failed effort to emigrate.
Oh my god. That piece of crap almost tried to evade justice by trying to get asylum here? How DARE he! We have enough excrement like him littering up the country already, and don't need more. Thank goodness he didn't succeed in remaining here. When he was caught by Connecticut authorities in 2011, he even tried proclaiming innocence by saying "it would be against his religion". But history is replete with so-called adherents to Judaism violating the customs and beliefs, the most recent example being a "rabbi" from the isolationist Satmar sect named Nechemya Weberman in New York, who was convicted for molesting a 12-year-old girl for 3 years. And besides, if Kramer really did believe in the religion I seriously doubt he practiced outside of custody, he'd know it also objects to disrespecting the law and the requirements of his release on bond. His violations almost from day one of his releases in 2001 and 2008 proves he wasn't adhering to it.

As for his co-founders of the convention, I'm sure not all of them are happy to have such a slimy vermin leeching onto their money, but that they came this far without ever having made a serious effort to find lawyers as good as Kramer's who could help them out makes their defenses hard to swallow, and the con's for-profit setup is another grave detractor. Pat Henry and company implied it would be hard to dissolve the company too because of brand name value. But Datsun changed its name to Nissan and never lost any buyers over it, so I think Dragoncon can take their lazy arguments and stuff them. The Atlanta Magazine says, interestingly enough:
DragonCon, however, has never released revenue figures, even under Kramer’s watch. This Labor Day weekend, attendees will pay $120 in advance for admission for all four days, or between $30 and $50 for one-day passes. By all accounts, the event has always had a small payroll, instead relying on up to 2,000 volunteers, with first-timers paying $20 a head for the privilege.
I wonder if this could tell something? Could they have committed tax evasion, or would the figures show they spent little or nothing on competent security staff, so they're afraid to let anyone know? However, I do recall Collins saying that they rely on volunteer labor, which is illegal in a for-profit business, and this article certainly does confirm that. (And the volunteers are even willing to pay to work there?!? I thought it was the other way around!)

The scariest thing about Kramer is that he built up a cult following who've been acting as apologists for him (Weberman had plenty of those too), attacking his victims and even raised money for his defense, or more precisely, preventing him from ever going to trial, and as noted by Collins, there were even death threats made against some of the plaintiffs. This is one of the most frightening things ocillating around Dragoncon, and it reflects something that should worry every sensible fan of comics and sci-fi: cult worship that transcends simple fandom into pure idolatry, sort of like what Lyndon LaRouche and Ron Paul were known for. How anyone can act as apologists for a man who commits as serious an offense as child rape just because he was instrumental in launching a big convention is stupefying to the max. His supporters aren't even interested in explaining how, if he's really innocent, that he's doing more to avoid a court session than to prove his innocence, nor why he violated even the simplest conditions for his release from detention. All they seem to care about is the convention, as though they couldn't possibly go to another one. What kind of fandom is that, where they obviously haven't learned any lessons from the sci-fi tales they read about why crime doesn't pay?

So when thinking about all this, including the most disgusting revelation that Kramer tried to take his foul-smelling lubricant to the country I live in, that's why I, too, will cast my support in favor of a boycott of Dragoncon. Thankfully, some comics writers and film/TV performers have also cancelled their appearances at the already sleaze-laden convention, including Steve Niles. The Georgia legal system is also in serious need of repair, and depending on the severity of the charges against a defendant, I believe the state authorities should oversee every medical exam an inmate takes to ensure they aren't faking anything.

Dragoncon is decidedly a stain upon conventions and fandom, and if the co-founders knew years before that Kramer was an off-the-wall whackjob, then it proves their moral compass is very weak. Hence, they don't deserve to get anybody's hard-earned money either.

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Tuesday, May 21, 2013 

Archie Comics set out to attack real-life protest

It seems that Dan Parent, the contemptible writer for Archie who's now come up with a scene where the homosexual protagonist they introduced named Kevin Keller would kiss his boyfriend did that specifically to mock One Million Moms:
It's a just quick kiss, but it's a long step forward for Archie Comics' only openly gay character Kevin Keller.

The Riverdale teen finds his life turned upside down after locking lips with his boyfriend, Devon, in Pop Tate's diner, drawing the ire of at least one disapproving Riverdale mom.

The woman "gets very offended and kind of pitches a bit of a fit," said Dan Parent, who writes and draws the issue, "Kevin Keller" No. 10 that is released Aug. 7.

For Archie Comics it's a bit of art imitating life. Parent said he wrote the story after efforts to remove a comic magazine showing Keller getting married drew at complaints. One Million Moms, a project of The American Family Association, asked Toys R Us not to display "Life With Archie" No. 16 near its checkout aisles. Toys R Us did not, and the issue went on to sell out its print run.

Parent called the new story a "playful poke" at the protest.
So insulting parents (which is his very own name) concerned about poor examples being set for their children is perfectly fine? Parent sounds like a very brainless man with no respect for parental beliefs at all. I guess he also thinks a parent is not allowed to decide what's best for his/her children either.

I notice this is the umpteenth example of a mainstream news story (AP Wire) where they don't even say how many copies it actually sold, other than to the most obsessive, quixotic collectors. Sean Howe once said it right, this would be a dumb reason to buy a comic book, because even Archie's publicity stunt won't have any significance within 15 minutes.

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Monday, May 20, 2013 

Kurt Busiek criticizes the characters rather than characterization

For a question posted on his Formspring page, asking if there was ever a character he disliked, Busiek answered:
Sure. I've written lots of characters, including every Avenger or JLAer ever (up to the point that I wrote them, at least), and I don't like all of them. Sometimes you have to write characters because the story goes that way -- it's a craft, not playtime, so you do what's needed.

But if I have to pick one character, I'll pick Gambit, who I wrote in one panel of an issue of AVENGERS, I think. I plotted various X-Men into the panel but left Gambit out because I don't like him and the scene didn't specifically need him. And then George went and drew him in...
Alas, he's making the now classic mistake of deriding the characters instead of how other writers have handled them, and in Gambit's case, no, it wasn't very well. Now it's true that Gambit was surely one of the most abortive of Chris Claremont's creations, mainly because after Claremont left in 1992, the succeeding writers almost immediately turned to disastrous ideas for how to flesh him out like linking him to the Morlock massacre from 1986 (and Remy leBeau may have initially had a minor mental influence that was ignored in later iterations). If Busiek was reluctant to use the character based on the past errors made with him, that might be understandable, but he should bear in mind that the character can't be faulted for the mistakes the writers made with him, including Scott Lobdell and Fabian Nicieza.

In a followup to that query, he admitted it's possible to tell a good tale with the "Ragin' Cajun", but reiterated:
Oh, I wouldn't remotely say no one can tell a good story with Gambit. I just don't like him. That's personal taste, not a judgment on his potential use in stories.
Well gee, he could have said the same with Wolverine years ago, and there were some people who did, until John Byrne and Claremont turned that all around. And if the editors allowed, maybe Busiek could turn Gambit around too. If Mark Millar had the freedom to develop any character in Ultimate X-Men as he saw fit, he missed a big chance to do just that with the Ultimate take on Gambit that turned up in that series, all because of his puzzling misgivings.

If Busiek (or Millar) think it's Claremont's fault for Gambit's poor character development, including the disastrous relations between Remy and Rogue, what's keeping them from just saying "Claremont screwed up and it's embarrassing"? Is it really wrong for one writer to criticize another? Absolutely not. Claremont's a big boy, and I'm sure he'd be able to take any criticism leveled at him gracefully, which is a lot more than can be said for Dan Slott. There's a reason why Claremont's writing prose novels now - something I don't see Slott doing anytime soon - and Marv Wolfman's made his way into a few other mediums like book editing to boot: because they've maintained a respectable image in jobs where the bosses wisely still expect a certain level of dignity.

Sure, it can be personal taste. But Busiek is still missing a chance to lay out a meat-and-potatoes explanation for what went wrong with either Claremont, Lobdell or Nicieza's writing, and say what he thinks is the best way to fix the character of Remy leBeau. I've thought about some of the mistakes made at the time, like the connection to Mr. Sinister and the Morlock massacre. I can understand why anybody might find that appalling, and if it's still in continuity, then you know what? I think it should be expunged. Just like plenty of other fiascos that came down on Marvel since the turn of the century. Until now, Marvel's never rebooted their universe, and I'm not saying they have to, but there is still quite a lot of embarrassments that befell it in the 1990s, even before Joe Quesada took over. And those particular cases are just what the Marvel universe doesn't need. The worst storylines are just what need to go, like the Clone Saga, the Teen Tony storyline from Iron Man and even the Age of Apocalypse could be written out. There's nothing hard about that at all.

In the end, too bad that Busiek has made himself the latest comics writer who won't offer more than a superficial put-down of the characters while missing the chance to say what he thinks is wrong with a past writer's take on them.

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Saturday, May 18, 2013 

James Robinson is leaving the Earth 2 title

And he says so himself on his Twitter page:


And he's even leaving DC behind, I see. At this point, I'm quite fine with that. After he went miles out of his way to shove "diversity" down everyone's throats by turning Alan Scott gay and wiping out plenty of better history of the Justice Society, I'm not sorry to see him go. In the end, he only turned out to be one of many modern writers who didn't have much affection for the heroes and supporting casts they were assigned to write, and didn't have much faith in their own writing to start with. In that case, they shouldn't have even bothered to take the assignments if they're not dedicated to entertaining anybody.

So, Robinson won't be missed, and I won't be surprised if the Earth 2 series is destined to lose more readers and sales than it already has.

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Friday, May 17, 2013 

Yahoo's movie section latest to fawn over Grant Morrison

Yahoo's movie section has become the latest mainstream news outlet to sugarcoat Grant Morrison. They begin by saying:
For an honorary knight who has his own convention, Grant Morrison remains relatively unknown -- unless of course you're a comic books fan.
Anybody who doesn't know who or what Grant Morrison's writing is like - including his wretched metaphors for drugs, alienating violence and even left-wing politics - is better off not knowing who he is and is guaranteed to feel all the better for it by avoiding his output.
Pretty much everyone in the comics community knows that Morrison has written some seminal runs in both the DC Comics and Marvel universes, including game-changing retellings of both Superman and Batman.
And they also know that those New52 retcons are better left unread, because ultimately, they're pointless. Besides, he didn't retell Batman, since that was all but left unchanged (unless you count the forced retcon to Tim Drake as Robin). But he did retcon Superman, right down to phasing out Clark Kent's pairing with Lois Lane.
While hearing Morrison talk about his new projects was certainly fascinating, we were also interested in Morrison's unique perspective on why superhero movie fans are missing out if they're not reading comics. "They're missing the full spectrum of these character's emotional lives," said Morrison. "The most important thing is the long involved soap operas. It's a type of narrative that you don't get anywhere else except on very long running soap operas, where characters can go into depth. 20 pages every month going into these characters lives over decades give you a lot more insight and a lot more involvement than say a two hour movie, even with Robert Downey Jr."

Morrison is known as someone who can breathe new life into a series, even if that means rewriting a character's past. [...]
Correction: he's known as someone who can all but boost sales because of the built in fanbase he's got, consisting of people who'll read his work no matter the quality, and can leave the series along with him. It's a problem that's not limited to him alone: even J. Michael Stracynski and Geoff Johns have followers like that, who'll only give them chances that other writers don't get, even if they're more sincere.

And his word on emotional lives is ambiguous - you can't tell whether he's referring to old or new storytelling, and if it's newer, then he's obscuring how far both DC and Marvel have gone to abandon character drama. Come to think of it, even "emotional" can have a downside: what if it ends up becoming too much? Or, what if it ends up becoming contrived?

He also reveals that David Goyer may have drawn from his work for the new Man of Steel movie:
...we also wanted to get Morrison's take on the upcoming Superman movie "Man of Steel. "I've spoken to [screenwriter] David Goyer, not about the 'Man of Steel,' but I know he's used a couple of my lines from some of my Superman stuff in it. And that's the only involvement I've had. But that's good enough for me," said Morrison. "I'm really looking forward to it. There's a very good chance this is going to be the Superman movie that changes the movie perception of Superman."
Man, I sure hope Goyer didn't use too much influence from Morrison, because if he did, it's bound to be a dreadful affair mighty fast.

But the thought of this new movie changing the view to a much darker one to suit modern political correctness still gives reason to be very wary of what the resulting quality will be like, and for all we know, this could be an embarrassment thanks to the producers' belief that overbearing darkness is the only way to go, and the whole absurd notion that modern audiences will not give optimism a chance.

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Thursday, May 16, 2013 

Mark Waid swipes at John Boehner for wrong reasons

He wrote the following about John Boehner:

Another tweeter said that Waid's interpretation says more about him than it does about Boehner. Not that I think much about Boehner myself, but if Waid's attacking him for the wrong reasons, that's just sad. Waid's concerns should really be the Obama administration's resistance to cooperating with the investigative panel in Congress on the Benghazi issue, but unless I'm mistaken, that's not what he thinks is a problem, alas.

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Wednesday, May 15, 2013 

Huffpost writer won't admit superhero comics are still in ruin

A writer for the Huffington Post says:
If you've ever thought about getting into comic books, then I can tell you: as both a huge fan and as a retailer, now is the time to start reading. In response to heavy success at the box office, comics publishers are doing everything they can to get neophytes interested in their periodicals and graphic novels. As a result, the climate of what is normally a dense continuity that most new readers would find difficult to jump into is currently pretty friendly to people that might want to dip their toes into the adventures of your favorite superheroes. [...]

The results are hard to argue. Many new fans are turning up, and feel like they can jump into both universes at once with little worry for dense, prohibitive continuity getting in the way. If you've ever been interested in the ongoing adventures of Batman or Iron Man, of the Avengers or the Justice League, then as a geek and a comic book peddler I can tell you: now is the time. The companies are trying to appeal to the uninitiated in a way not seen since at least the 1980s...
If only, but that's not so. Despite the rebooting of DC continuity, for example, the climate remains solidly insular and stuck on some of the cheapest ideas like pairing up Superman and Wonder Woman, while eschewing Clark Kent's romance with Lois Lane for much the same reasons that Marvel got rid of Spider-Man's marraige to Mary Jane Watson. If the guy's a retailer, he noticeably didn't provide any statistics to back up his argument. The ICV2 charts show that a large majority of series from both companies sell below 100,000 each. If new readers were really flocking in en masse, I'm sure the numbers would be a lot higher. But they're not, and he doesn't seem very enthusiastic about giving us the exact figures.

Interestingly enough, Age of Ultron has fallen below 100,000 units sold, which will hopefully signal that readers are beginning to tire of company wide crossovers like those and recognize that they're a waste of financial resources. But something also has to be done to persuade addicts who buy these stories no matter what that they won't have the monetary value they're hoping for and that above all, they're not and no longer are good storytelling.

And the Huffpo contributor isn't doing a favor for the medium by sugarcoating it.

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Tuesday, May 14, 2013 

Fort Wayne's Appleseed convention

Here's an article in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette of Indiana about this year's Appleseed comics convention.

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Monday, May 13, 2013 

Indiana Gazette tears down on the Mandarin for the sake of political correctness


The Indiana Gazette wrote a ludicrous column in which they attack Iron Man's archnemesis, supposedly concerned about his being a stereotype of Asians, but I suspect it's really because they don't like how he was originally meant to reflect communist mindsets and Cold War adversaries:
“Iron Man 3” brings us The Mandarin, once the Armored Avenger’s greatest foe in the comics. But the Mandarin onscreen is considerably different than his comic-book counterpart — and that’s a good thing.
Oh I don't think so. Not if they're going to reduce him to a mere stage actor, which makes him less of a formidable foe for Shellhead. Interestingly, they don't even describe any of the changes made to the character.
The Mandarin first appeared in 1964, a mysterious figure in the mountains of China who was feared even by the Chinese government. Iron Man was dispatched by the U.S. military to gather information on this threat; in those days, anti-communism was a major part of the strip, and Iron Man was very much a Cold Warrior. The Mandarin implausibly could shatter steel — and occasionally Iron Man’s armor — with karate chops. He also had 10 rings, each with a different super power, which seemed to change with plot necessities. Later, it was explained that the rings came from a crashed alien spaceship.
Do they have a problem with surrealism? I guess they do. On the one hand, they miss the likelihood that the ten rings could give Mandarin the power to bust armor. On the other, they forget that awesome feats like those can be seen any time in any number of manga tales from the far east, so I don't see why it's such a big deal when American writers want to try that. They also don't seem particularly interested in congratulating Stan Lee and company for having the guts to confront communism at the time.

Now, here's where the article really starts to turn nasty:
A charitable reading of this character is that co-creators Stan Lee and Don Heck were going for a contrast with Tony Stark, Iron Man’s alias. You know, East vs. West, Asian martial arts vs. American technology, Stark’s thin David Niven mustache vs. the Mandarin’s long Charlie Chan-style face fuzz.

Less charitably, the Mandarin’s roots are planted deep in ugly American bigotry, nativism and xenophobia. He was, in 1964, simply the latest iteration of a phenomenon known as The Yellow Peril, a Western hysteria with a long pop-culture history snaking back through comics and pulp fiction to novels and stories of the 19th century.
Excuse me? This whole tear-down of how Mandarin was supposedly created is disgusting, and they seem to forget what they just said earlier, that even the Chinese government was scared of this commie-style conqueror in their midst. I don't buy their claim so easily, since it sounds more like an attempt to obscure how he was an allusion to the commies rising up in Asia at the time, even if he wasn't part of the Chinese government proper. I also find the declaration "American bigotry" offensive, since it reeks of a subtle blanket smear against Americans, which does not make sense given that America fought against Japan just as much because of their attack on defenseless Chinese in 1937 as for their attack on Pearl Harbor (and didn't Europeans also have their problems with stereotyping? Why does only America matter here?). By the post-WW2 era, the US showbiz medium largely cut out the negative sentiment towards Chinese (though admittedly the stereotypical imagery of Chop-Chop in Blackhawk still appeared at the time), and they even admit that with the following, yet at the same time keep putting down the Mandarin as stereotypical:
Speaking of Marvel, that publisher introduced the Yellow Claw in the 1950s, but also — perhaps indicating changing times — heroic Asian-American FBI agent Jimmy Woo. And Marvel gave us the Mandarin. A Chinese mastermind with long fingernails and longer mustache, he was just another Fu Manchu clone for years. Marvel has tried updating him now and again to excise the racism element (and make him more relevant), but because that’s the character’s core, it never really works.

But the makers of “Iron Man 3” came up with a unique solution to this dilemma. Will it work? I don’t know. For my money, the Mandarin should be retired.
It wasn't unique at all, even if the movie did make money, and I disagree that the Mandarin should be "retired". Nor do I agree that racism is his "core", because that's just propaganda for the sake of making it sound as though it's wrong to depict any race other than whites as crooks (and he doesn't have long fingernails or even slanted eyes on the coverscan I uploaded). The main problem here is that they completely ignore that not only whites can have totalitarian mindsets. Racism as we know it comes in many forms, and is not limited to just whites. So too does anti-Americanism, which is still prevalent in Chinese society long after Zedong Mao's regime and I was devastated to find out Jackie Chan's the latest example of an ignoramus who thinks America is corrupt but not so much his own country. Yet despite his disdain for even America's positive values, he had no problem taking their money.

And weren't Europeans just as capable of the stereotyping the Gazette spoke of? Tintin in Congo was a notorious example for its time, with black African engineers depicted as incompetent and the eponymous hero berating them for being sloppy (bewilderingly enough, while Herge apologized for that years later, he also apologized for criticizing the Soviets!). Mexico is not innocent either, with Memin Pinguin still a notorious example that could be worse than some of Europe's stereotyping. Why does only American stereotyping count?

Even Japanese manga has had its cases of anti-Americanism, and Osamu Tezuka was unfortunately guilty of this with Astro Boy. In the late 1960s, the original depiction of the black protagonist Pyunma in Cyborg 009 was stereotypical in design. By the early 70s, with criticism of these kind of depictions coming up overseas, they started abandoning this approach and going for more respectable drawings. Nevertheless, even European and Asian countries had their share of stereotypical renditions of minorities, so referring to the Mandarin as a product of "American" bigotry is making it sound as though only the US was ever a problem while ignoring even wider ones.

Those MSM leftists conducting these arguments may not realize it, but they're taking a considerable risk of damning decent folk as prejudiced fools, acting as though they didn't even learn lessons. And another big problem is that the whole argument the Gazette is conducting against the Mandarin stinks of a PC notion that it's wrong in every way to depict any race other than whites as baddies. By that logic, it was wrong to depict Moses Magnum as a terrorist, Tombstone as a mob enforcer and Black Manta as a mercenary too. All the leftist MSM are trying to do is dampen the impact of the Cold War stories by implying that they were solely built on racial stereotypes while dismissing the anti-communist themes as outdated or even completely wrong. And it only shows how they're trying to obscure the best critiques of communism from the 60s for the sake of their modern embrace of one of the worst ideologies next to fascism.

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Sunday, May 12, 2013 

Dan Slott keeps up his lethargic defenses for bad storytelling and defamation of Peter Parker

Newsarama interviewed Dan Slott about his repellant story in Superior Inferior Spider-Man. Some of the snoozers he offers up include:
Now let's see what kind of Spider-Man Doc Ock is going to be without Peter Parker on his shoulder as a Jiminy Cricket. This is still a Doc Ock Spider-Man that has experienced, because of the sacrifice Peter Parker made in #700, all the things that gave Peter the lessons of Great Power and Great Responsibility. And especially after his hero turn in issue #8, he realizes he wasted his previous life on villainy, and there are deeper rewards to being a hero. He does want to give this a shot. But now he's going to do it his way. And it's going to get crazy. Everything you've experienced up till now in Superior Spider-Man has been with the parking brake on — and now the parking brake gets ripped out of the car, and the foot is just about to slam down on the accelerator. People are going to be like, "What the hell? What's going on?" It's going to get very cool very fast.
Yup, so "cool" it's going to be too chilly to stay in the lake the Volkswagen he's trying to sell crashed into, lest we get pneumonia. Doc Ock hasn't realized anything if he doesn't recognize the wrong in becoming a body-snatcher and deceiving everybody else in Peter's life about it. Slott even jokes about the following:
Nrama: What it also seems to do is remove the perceived predictable ending that many fans might have assumed would happen — Peter is going to eventually get control of his body back — and, as a result, the future seems more wide open at this point then it might have felt before.

Slott: I love the fact that we bring the gold Octobot back on frame. "Oh, look, there's the back-up Peter Parker personality. Let's delete that, too." You know the thing you thought was a lifeboat? We burn it! [Laughs.] Mind wiped out, back-up wiped out, gone, done, boom. Now let's move forward. New age. New Spider-Man.
His thinking the mindwipe is entertaining is equally disgusting. As is his attempt to justify how he's erased the "backup" of Peter's mindset, which involves the endangering of a girl Doc Ock was operating on:
Nrama: Wanted to ask about one scene in particular in issue #9…

Slott: Here it comes. I know the scene you're going to talk about. It's the one that Tom Brevoort said, after he read it, "This is my favorite part." And it's mine, too.

Nrama: … where it's revealed that Peter Parker's defeat is effectively secured by the revelation that he wanted to prevent Doc Ock from performing surgery on the girl in #8, because he feared it would lead to him being discovered.

Slott: Yep. It's that one moment where he goes, "I knew the minute you did that, you'd get that helmet, and I'd be on your radar, and I'd be in trouble. And for a moment, I hesitated." In the end, he doesn't. But he has that moment. Maybe it was for a nanosecond. Maybe it was for a billionth of a nanosecond. But it was there.

There's a legion of fans that have grown up with Peter — especially the last 20 years — where they look at Peter Parker as a paragon of humanity. As a saint, who would never make the wrong choice. Would never do anything less than true heroism. Who would never have a dark thought or impulse — even for a billionth of a nanosecond. Somewhere down the line, people starting thinking of Pete as Steve Rogers with spider-powers.

Sorry, that's not Peter Parker. Peter Parker is that guy in Amazing Fantasy #15 who has all the powers of Spider-Man, and is going to selfishly use them for him and his family, and to hell with the rest of the world. He goes right into showbiz, and that burglar runs right past him, and he could have stopped him a million ways, and he couldn't be bothered. And then that guy goes on to kill Uncle Ben, and that's when it resonates. That's when he learns that with Great Power Must Come Great Responsibility. If that burglar had shot someone else's uncle, Peter would just be going along jim-dandy, two shows a night, matinees off on weekends.

But he did learn that lesson, and from that moment on, it does not mean he's perfect. It doesn't mean he's suddenly baptized, and born again as a saint. What it means is, over the years, when he has those moments — when he has that moment of human imperfection that all Marvel characters have — even for a billionth of a nanosecond — the guilt slams down. But he still has that moment.
In the '60s, you get these moments where boy, does he want to punch Flash Thompson. And he's fantasizing about it, and he's ready to do it. And there's that time where Flash dresses up as Spider-Man, and Doctor Doom kidnaps him. And Peter Parker is walking down the street, whistling about it. "This is great! Flash got kidnapped by Doctor Doom! That'll show him! Hahaha!" And then the guilt slams down. "Aw crap, I gotta go save him." But for one moment, he's a horrible human being. This is Doctor Doom we're talking about! He could atomize Flash Thompson in that moment! A moment where Peter gave into that thing that we'd all love to give into, for a moment.

And it keeps happening. This isn't some adolescent flaw. This is his nature. People can talk about "growing up" and "maturing" — but if that were the case, every old person in the world would be a paragon of humanity. There are some truths to us that go all the way to our cores.
Since when did anyone ever think of Peter characterized as a saint, or even expect him to be? Of course he made mistakes even long after the debut and motivational setup. But if there's any mistake he certainly knew better than to make, thanks to better writers, it was endangering innocent people's lives deliberately, especially children, and even his secret ID isn't worth that kind of risk.

Slott's description of how Peter thought of Flash is also a distortion, since, in the story in issue 5 of ASM where Doom kidnaps Flash under the assumption that was the real Spidey, Peter didn't even know he'd been snatched until Liz Allen called him up. And while he wasn't very fond of Flash, he realized immediately that letting Flash rot as Doom's hostage would be wrong. And, he was at home when he learned all this. He didn't even whistle, nor did he actively engage in imperiling defenseless lives, more on which below. Slott doesn't have his facts well sorted out at all.

And the idea that Peter would risk a youngster's life all for the sake of preventing his discovery is ludicrous in the extreme. This was after all the same guy who, after capturing the same burglar who'd murdered his uncle Ben a second time in 1980 and the creep asked why Ben was so important to him, yanked off his mask to let the crook know who he was. If the crook hadn't perished from a heart attack, he could've blown the whistle on Pete, who surely realized the risk and sacrifice in that. It didn't happen, but it could have. Why then should Peter have any problem with his secret being discovered (or even Doc Ock figuring out there was still a shred of memory left inside his brain) when an innocent's life is more important than that?
Everyone always focuses on the panel before, where he's admitting to his sin, and everyone skips over the panel after, where he goes, 'It was only a moment." And it was. Because we're allowed to be horrible monsters in that one moment. We're allowed to consider the worst of us, and be the worst of us. As long as we don't act on it; as long as we fix it immediately. I think Superior Spider-Man, on the level of heroism, would be a much better hero with Peter Parker on his shoulder. As far as heroes go. But let's see how effective he's going to be without Peter there. Do you want a hero who's more heroic, or a hero who gets more heroic things done? Would you rather have the man or the results?
What I won't have is this kind of trash littering up my bookshelf. In the past, Peter may have foolishly entertained the idea of letting certain things happen, but instantly realized why it would be bad. And when he did make mistakes, it didn't involve deliberately endangering innocent lives for personal gain. The worst part is that this was done in order to justify obliterating Peter's backup altogether, which just goes to show how forced and contrived this whole direction is.
Someone on my feed asked a very sincere question: "How could Peter Parker be guilted into believing something that Doc Ock argued?" Then I went: Stop right there. If you're asking, "How could Peter Parker be guilted," you don't have to compete the sentence. Peter Parker can be guilted by a strong breeze. That's who he is. Doc's got a list of sins infinitely larger than Peter Parker. He's the guy that tried to burn the world. But that's not the way Peter's thinking. Peter's so self-absorbed, and so in his own head — in this case, literally — that he looks at that one mistake he made, for one tiny moment, and he damns himself, because that's who Peter Parker is. Peter Parker is the man who would damn himself. Doc Ock would never do that, in a million years. His ego wouldn't allow it. But Peter Parker, king of guilt? Yeah. That's who Pete is.
And that's where Slott's defense falls apart. The only reason why Pete would be a guilt-tripper is because Slott wants him to be. If he really loved Spidey, he wouldn't want him to be that far into guilt-city. During the 80s, the writers and editors in charge moved past a lot of that, and any massive guilt trips he could take by that time were kept to a minimum. Slott's awful steps remind me of the Clone Saga when Peter savagely beat Ben Reilly and unintentionally injured Mary Jane (why was she endangering herself and the scientist they were with cowering on the sidelines? Oh, because contrived mandates dictate that), only here it's even more ludicrous.
Nrama: Wanted to touch on the job Ryan Stegman did in issue #9 — couldn't be easy for either of you to construct an issue that basically takes place in the characters' heads.

Slott: Ryan killed on that issue. He was, and always is, fantastic! My favorite panel that Ryan has drawn to date is the anguished Peter Parker looking up when he can't remember Uncle Ben's name. That's a gut punch, and it's all from the acting. It's all out of Ryan's pen. It's beautiful. What a tortured Peter Parker.
Another reason to question Slott's fandom. If he's gleeful about the above, I doubt he was ever a real fan to begin with. Newsarama restored reader comments via Facebook, and one person says:
I'm sorry but I have to say that your story, Dan Slott, is absolutely insulting to any and all Spider-man fans especially the fans of Peter Parker/Spider-man. After reading this interview it is apparent that you have no idea who Peter Parker is if you think a character who has grown over the last 50 years would knowingly sacrifice a child to prevent Doc Ock from finding him out. The whole idea of Peter Parker is that yes at one time he used his powers for selfish reasons and he lost his Uncle because of that choice and from that moment forward vowed never to put his needs before the needs of others. If it came down to it Peter would lay his life down for that child, hell he would even say "Hey Doc I'm here let me help you and we'll settle our thing later." I can't wait till you have no control over the story anymore so I can finally enjoy reading my favorite character again.
To which Slott pathetically replied:
I think where we differ here is the difference between "knowingly sacrifice a child" to "contemplate a terrible thing for a moment." Peter WANTS to take the lesson he learned of Great Power & Great Responsibility and put others needs before his own-- Yes-- Absolutely-- that is Peter's desire & goal.

But he IS human and that same 50 year history shows MANY times where he does have a moment where he does contemplate putting HIS needs first. That's called "being human." Does he act on them? No. And did he act on it here? No. (And, if you go back and read the interview, I gave examples from practically every decade of Spider-Man's history to illustrate that point.)

You're getting caught up in trying to make Peter Parker some kind of saint. And he isn't. He's a guy from Queens trying to do his best. He's flawed. He's imperfect. That's what Spider-Man is all about. Peter Parker is NOT Superman or Captain America.
Again, nobody expected him to be perfect, but nobody thought after many years of plausible character development he would risk a youngster's life either, and Slott's not being very honest about it. The whole premise is sickening, and he doesn't seem to care. The guy Slott replied to then said:
You're right he's not Captain America. He's the only guy in the Marvel Universe that Captain America looks up to. And I read the current issue and Peter was actively trying to prevent Ock from getting the helmet and admits to the fact in the recent issue saying that he had to try and stop ock because if he didn't ock who find him out. I think you just have a serious problem with the idea of Peter Parker and you feel the need to take him down a few pegs for whatever reason. I thought your early stuff on the run was actually pretty good, but I'm sorry I think this stuff is absolute trash. The Peter Parker who made the armor suit and said no one dies would never let a child die. I really don't understand what the point of this storyline is other than to drag Spidey's name through the mud, so i will no longer read the dribble you call writing and wait until you are off the book entirely or go back to writing good comics again which ever comes first.
I don't think Slott ever wrote very well to begin with, and at this point, he's well beyond salvaging his reputation. I have a hard time envisioning him going on to write creator-owned books, because why would anyone with common sense want to read any of his dreck?

And only if and when Marvel's publishing arm is under the ownership of different folks with more respect for the casts and potential (obviously not Disney, considering their track record so far), will it be possible to expect good writing again.

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Saturday, May 11, 2013 

Geoff Johns sounds like J. Michael Stracynski

Johns recently spoke with the LA Weekly about his work, sugarcoating everything along with the paper as usual. For example, he said about Green Lantern:
The premise of the "emotional spectrum" is simple, as Johns explains it. You have Green Lanterns. They're identified by a color and are the embodiment of "power and courage." So, why not have other Lanterns who were also identified by colors and emotions? John gives a brief breakdown. There are the Red Lanterns, "people and beings who lost somebody, who were driven by revenge." There are Blue Lanterns. They are motivated by "faith and hope" and live by the motto "All could be well."

"It wasn't the colors that made them different," says Johns, "but the emotions that they were driven by."
Nope. It was the colors, which were little more than a meaningless attempt by Johns to turn the whole series into a rainbow spectacle that wasn't very character-driven, so much as it was a form of self-referential nostalgia without being very inventive. The nadir was the red lanterns with their belching, something absent from the interview.
"I like world building," Johns says. Particularly, he likes taking characters who may have fallen by the wayside in the DC Universe and injecting new life into them. He's done that with characters like Hawkman, Shazam, Booster Gold and Aquaman.

"There's a reason the character connected with an audience before," Johns says. "I like trying to find out what was that then and what's the version of that today. If the character resonated with people before, that means that they can do it again."
He also likes taking worlds apart - shades of Grant Morrison - and putting them back together as he sees fit. What they don't mention here is that after he leaves some of the books he was helming, they went downhill and lost more audience than they had to begin with. Teen Titans was a telling example. Bad enough when it began, and worse when Sean McKeever took over and launched an assault on the new variants on Wendy and Marv from the Superfriends cartoon. It made no difference if Wendy survived, since she still ended up parapelegic, and that too hit a dead end. Even Hawkman lost direction mighty fast in the years after Johns left, and when Rob Liefeld took over the title, you know something's gone wrong.

This is also where Johns comes off sounding reminiscent of J. Michael Stracynski when he was writing Spider-Man. JMS said at the time he wanted to "get inside Peter's head" and find out what makes him Spidey, but in the end, all he did was exploit ASM as a tedious platform for his political bent. Johns' problem was ostensibly setting up potential for character drama, but abandoning it very quickly, or as in the case of Hal Jordan, making it so preposterous (Hal is so bitter over the death of his father he refuses to enjoy the best parts of his life) that in the end, it's got no real impact.
He continues, "The best characters are relatable. They don't have to be relatable in a literal sense where they have a problem with a job. The things that they experience and the things that they go up against have to reflect upon us emotionally. It doesn't have to be timely. It's nice when it's timely, but it has to be emotional."
And if only it worked with him at the helm, but no. And what does he mean by "best"? Any character can be "best" so long as the writer does a good job, which he didn't when he injected his repellant visuals into the script. Funny how writers like him bring up subjects like these, yet it doesn't reflect very well in their finished story drafts. His take on Wonder Woman is particularly weak, as seen in JLA, where he reduced her to Superman's new girlfriend, rather than her own protagonist.

Another thing Johns shares in common with JMS is that he's got a built-in audience that follows him on a title, and can abandon it after he leaves, which is hardly an accomplishment.

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Friday, May 10, 2013 

Dan Adkins, RIP

The artist J. David Spurlock says he'd discovered that Dan Adkins, who drew some Doctor Strange stories in the Silver Age and T.H.U.N.D.E.R Agents, died last week at age 76.

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Thursday, May 09, 2013 

How the "Movement" depicts police

Here's a fluff-coated review of Gail Simone's The Movement on CBR that even tries to justify  how it's built by comparing it to Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns:
The issue is built around three main sequences: The first has a pair of corrupt patrolmen accosting a pair of teenagers, before being chased off by a Movement group; the second (previewed online) involves another troubled super-powered youth and a well-meaning clergyman; the resulting standoff leads into the third, as the main cast shows up to resolve the situation. The issue ends with a speech reminiscent of Batman’s “none of you are safe” soliloquy from “Batman: Year One,” and a coda showing the range of the Movement’s influence.

In fact, the opening sequence reminded me immediately of Frank Miller’s hypothesis (and here I am paraphrasing) that Batman works best when society’s institutions have broken down. Miller’s original Dark Knight miniseries made corrupt cops a staple of the Bat-mythology, but Miller emphasized further that superheroes were “outlaws” practically by definition. While The Movement doesn’t mythologize or otherwise elevate its superhumans like Miller did, these first few pages still tread some very familiar ground. One cop even hints at raping a 16-year-old, echoing the threat that got the Amethyst relaunch in trouble.
Whatever anyone may think of Miller's 1986 miniseries, the whole attempt to compare this story with that older one falls flat. If the Movement is an allegory for the Occupy bunch and whitewashes them, that's exactly the problem with this book. And the way the cops are depicted here sounds pretty degrading to boot.

Curiously enough, while the reviewer is tilted in the book and writer's favor, he is willing to say that:
The question is, how long does The Movement have? As I mentioned in Monday’s “Cheat Sheet,” it comes with a decent set of expectations. Simone has a dedicated fanbase, but she and Williams are pretty much introducing a new cast with no immediate connection to the rest of the superhero line. A setup which recalls the “Occupy” protests might also turn off conservative readers (although I wonder how many conservative fans Simone has). The Movement has been marketed on the strengths of its creators and its subject matter, not its “importance” to the New-52; and if it does poorly, it could discourage DC from taking similar chances.
Let's hope it does. What makes this book worthless is if it whitewashes the Occupy movement, and as of today, I'm far from being a fan of Simone's if this is the kind of mishmash she's going to come up with.

And what's so "decent" about a book where cops are depicted so crudely?

On a semi-related note, the new Sword and Sorcery series, where the remake of Amethyst took place, was recently cancelled. The main problem with the attempted rape there is that the whole subject was dropped so quickly, they just plain trivialized the issue. No wonder it took a nosedive.

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About me

  • I'm Avi Green
  • From Jerusalem, Israel
  • I was born in Pennsylvania in 1974, and moved to Israel in 1983. I also enjoyed reading a lot of comics when I was young, the first being Fantastic Four. I maintain a strong belief in the public's right to knowledge and accuracy in facts. I like to think of myself as a conservative-style version of Clark Kent. I don't expect to be perfect at the job, but I do my best.
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