Civil War #4: from worse to hopeless

At 2 Guys Buying Comics, we find out just how bad Civil War is still becoming (Hat tip: Bobb). The out-of-characterization continues, as does the departure from continuity. And Cable's presence here is surely as redundant as the protagonist he was during much of the 1990s.

If true Marvelites want to do themselves a favor and help save the House of Ideas from the wrath of Joe Quesada, they'll avoid paying any more money for this collosal dud, and avoid any more crossovers to follow as well. Believe me, the time has come to stand up to the overload of crossovers and other similarly bad ideas that have buried much of comicdom for many years now, and made them a most unpleasant experience.

Supervillains as drug addicts?

There were two storylines in the past year or so that struck me as rather contrived, and considering that these are rogues gallery villains I'm talking about here, that's one more reason why I don't see what it adds to them. From Spyder-25, here's a review of the Marvel Knights Spider-Man #16 (and that line has since been discontinued):

The issue picks up from last issue with the Absorbing Man (Crusher Creel) and his mysterious female partner high tailing it back to the Owl’s office after being attacked by the Punisher during his brief cameo in issue #15. The Absorbing Man must remain in his metallic form in order to survive being shot by the Punisher. Needless to say the Owl and the mystery woman are becoming increasingly annoyed with the ineffective drug addled Crusher Creel devising a rather creative way to eliminate him. Hudlin’s portrayal of Crusher Creel as a shiftless drug addict is an interesting and different take on the character. I don'’t recall if this was his status in previous appearances but it’s different. I like it.

Creel has the potential to be a major threat but his drug addiction prevents him from achieving his full potential. It’s this kind of real world spin that I believe the Marvel Knights line is supposed to convey. Rather than being a bank robbing bland villain Crusher Creel seems like someone you may have went to high school with, great potential, feel into drugs, and now he’'s looked upon as a loser.

Gee, I don't recall ever going to high school with anyone who was a junkie. If any student where I went got into that crap, the school board would expel them ASAP.

And while I never got to read the issue in question here, that won't keep me from saying what I think so far - I'm not impressed with the idea of turning costumed criminals into drug addicts, yet that's what was done even with the second Mirror Master, Evan McCulloch, in Flash #212, and the only reason I can think of there that they'd do it for was shock tactics. Did it add to the character? I don't think so, and it's one of a few things that frightened me away from the Flash at the time, as I began to realize that Geoff Johns was going downhill.

When Denny O'Neil wrote his run on Green Lantern/Green Arrow in the early 70s, what made things work so well from a reality based perspective was that he used realistic criminals without any costumes or superpowers, ditto the long famous story where Roy Harper (Speedy/Arsenal) became a junkie. But here, as in Reginald Hudlin's story, and certainly the Flash story by Johns, it doesn't seem to add up to anything, adds nothing to the villains except perhaps to make them even less appealing than they already are, and only reinforces the notion that today's supervillains must be darker than ever.

In fact, now that I think of it, costumed criminals, at least in terms of DC, seem to make up more than 80 percent of the adversaries seen in the DCU today. In the MCU, it's been almost the opposite, certainly in Spider-Man, without even being very engaging or engrossing. Not much creativity either.

Whether the villain's got a personality, considering that they're less realistic than common street crooks, and certainly less believable than the heros, that's why it comes off more contrived for a costumed crook to be snorting coke and crack. One can only wonder if the companies will find it as easy selling any toy action figures based on these supervillains if anyone knows that Crusher Creel and McCulloch have become addicts.

Another problem I see in this is something that may have affected the movies and TV as well in recent years - overfocus on the personalities of the criminals, and not enough on the heros, if at all. That's almost what Johns work on the Flash suffered from too, that it was more interested in the villains than the hero's own life and personality (the Rogue War story certainly suggested that in its first two parts), and must've thought it could get away with it by first trying to generate sympathy for the villains, then destroying it later on. (This entry on K-Squared talks about how the villains were written with childhood traumas, which I think was overdoing it too.) In fact, the biggest problem with Identity/Infinite Crisis is that they had a whole case of Stockholm Syndrome running around, and cared more for the villains than the heros.

In any case, turning supervillains into drug addicts is silly and stilted at best, and does not have wide audience appeal to it, one more reason why I think that turning Creel and McCulloch into junkies is a big botch.

Also, notice that the reviewer says, "I don'’t recall if this was his status in previous appearances"? Well I'm not familiar with every story featuring the Absorbing Man (or even his wife, Titania), but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that when he debuted in the Silver Age, he most certainly wasn't addicted to drugs back then. His profile as given on Answers.Com* says that he'd been spending time in jail for aggravated assault while working with an extortion racket when Loki, looking for a way to defeat Thor, selected him as an unwitting but still very delighted subject. And that makes more sense.

Seeing that the MK Spidey story was written by a man of the movies, Reginald Hudlin, just like Geoff Johns himself was at one point, I think this could be another case of moviemakers using their status to exploit the franchises for all they're worth, and to put in yet more of their needless personal ideas that don't fit the story in a plausible sense. And that can make yet another argument about why moviemakers do not make the best of comic book writers.

* Given how unreliable Wikipedia, from which most of it was taken, can be, because anyone, good or bad, can edit an entry, that's why I really like the Marvel Directory profile of Crusher Creel better.

Open trackbacks: Is it Just Me, Point Five.

Since when did a tank-top ever become a problem? And why is sex still worse than violence?

In the past year, I'd noticed something very odd about the reception for Supergirl in some, if not all, quarters. Some people, it seems, are actually throwing a fit about the cheerleader-like costume the post-COIE Kara Zor-El now wears in the new series she's got.

Well now, this was quite a surprise in more ways than one, and I'll certainly try to elaborate on the one that really made my jaw fall off my face in utter disbelief later on the topic, but anyway, just how is that Supergirl's costume, currently a tank-top design, suddenly became a problem, or even being "sexed up", as if she'd never been like that years ago, nor any other superheroine? Does this mean that even her miniskirt, drawn before its time by Al Plastino, was a bad thing, and that she should've worn a pair of spandex pants like Hawkgirl's instead? Or at least a pair of farming shorts like those worn by Silvana Mangano in Bitter Rice? Since when did the Maiden of Might suddenly get singled out for special treatment?

Now I decidedly won't be naming any of the sources whom I found voicing these bizarre - and downright rude - sentiments. I'll just say for now that they included a message board whose residents were most unbearably moonbatty, and about four or five bloggers. What I will say in fairness is that the message board I speak of was much worse than the bloggers, and bore unedited comments that included alarmingly vile responses like calling Supergirl a "crack whore" and other horror-movie-worthy obscenities. One blogger was even criticizing Michael Turner's artwork design for being "anorexic". Gee, what would even Julie Schwartz think if he saw this?

I don't know, but until then, let's get a few things straight here about where I stand, or would stand, on the whole issue. First, if it's anything to do with the story, if it's not exciting enough, or funny enough, or it's insufficient in character personality and development, if the latter citation is really, truly important, then I can understand that. But when it comes to the costume, in and of itself, that's where I'm decidedly in a state of bewilderment. Because, aside from the fact that the Maiden of Might was one of the first characters to change her costume design (eg-from a blue shirt to a white shirt, but with the Super-symbol always there), haven't a whole bunch of other superheroines, teen or adult, also worn a costume like that? And with the possible exception of Ms. Marvel, whom a lot of women may have liked as a working woman's figure, leading to Marvel's changing the 70s design to a one-piece, I can't say that any of the others ever drew even a whisper of complaint. For example...

When Aquagirl's tank-top costume was intro'd in the Silver Age...
Nobody complained.

When Kendra Saunders wore one, right during her debut in JSA...
I never heard a single complaint there either, and she wasn't even 20 years old when she first entered the spotlight.

Even when Linda Danvers started wearing a tank-top towards the end of her run...
There was nary a complaint that I can think of, and I certainly don't know of any. And if she wore one, then I think it's only fair if Kara Zor-El does too. It's definitely not new, that's for sure.

Storm also wore a tank top in the past decade...
And noone complained about that either.

The same goes for...
Cassie Sandsmark.

Perhaps more noteworthy a teen, however, is...
Courney Whitmore, aka Star-Spangled Girl and Stargirl! She's worn that cute little tank-top of hers ever since she first debuted in 1998, and I haven't seen anyone complain about that.

And on another important note...
I might also add that Kara Zor-El began wearing more cleavage on her costume during the Bronze Age, at a time when the artists were beginning to draw her hotter and hotter than before. (This pic comes from the Krypton Chronicles 3-part mini written by E. Nelson Bridwell in 1981.) And who complained? Noone that I know of, that's for sure!

Next up, who in the right frame of mind can forget...
George Perez's stunning design for the Scarlet Witch in 1998? Hubba hubba, HOT HOT HOT!!!

We could also include, for good measure...
Tigra's fur bikini design, which was also very cool.

And to the blogger who called Michael Turner's artwork for Supergirl "anorexic": if that's what you think, well then...
What would you call this?

As for Ms. Marvel/Carol Danvers, while I didn't include her here (yet), I think I know why they simplified her costume to just a one-piece: it was said that there were some female readers during the late 70s who asked Marvel to rework her costume, and maybe some did, but I think it more likely that Chris Claremont, who took over writing from Gerry Conway, who may have begun the series first, and the editors, thought to do it themselves, because given that she was the kind of character who occupied a more reality based setting, they felt that a tank-top didn't convey her seriously enough as the working-woman type of girl she is. Which is possible. She's also one of the few female protagonists I know of where her personality and careers are what shaped her character, something that almost none of the other women I've mentioned here were ever characterized by. That doesn't mean a tank-top couldn't have worked for Carol, but either way, while her own series was only 3 years, they did manage something all the same. But whether a one or a two-piece costume, nobody had a problem with her being sexy, that's for sure.

So it strikes me as very, VERY odd that all of a sudden, people are starting to make a fuss over Kara's new costume out of nowhere, when here there have been quite a few heroines who've worn outfits like those before, and nobody kvetched about them one bit. Mainly because, wasn't this supposed to be just escapist fare?

(In sharp contrast, almost none of the bloggers who were against IC seemed to have anything against the tank-top itself, most likely because no, it's not something of serious importance when compared to the problems with gratuitous violence. And I think you can very well say that, if there's anyone who may not have any gripes about it, it's the women who wear them in real life!)

My initial guess was that this could have something to do with the bizarre old-fashioned stance that sex is infinitely worse than violence. But then, as I discovered, it was worse than I thought - it WAS some kind of a sex-is-worse-than-violence position, and not a very good one IMO: the people at the message board and five of the bloggers I saw who were costume-bashing also had a favorable opinion on Identity Crisis! Great guardians galore!

And that's how they pushed the button that turned me away from giving any credence to their arguments. My jaw just crashed to floor in disbelief. What, exactly, are these people thinking? Well, that's why I've written up the following guesses, theories and other musings below.

I think one or two bloggers were railing against the Kandor arc for being too "racy". Now I'm aware of what scene they speak of, BUT: in sharp contrast to the vile molestation scene in IC, which bore no female viewpoint to back it up (and didn't have a female lead either), the Kandor scene left no impact on me the way that the rape of Sue Dibny in IC did, if at all. Put another way, it did not offend me, not just simply because it wasn't a rape scene, but because it did not bear the vile tone and contempt that IC did. Maybe it's just got what to do with the fact that I'm familiar with the hilarious love scene between Sydney Savage and Johnny Barracuda in Danger Girl, but there you have it, I don't know what they're talking about as far as the "love scene" in the Kandor adventure goes!

Okay, this brings me to where I'm in horror at the message boarders and the bloggers: how is that they can see a de-facto love scene involving a teenaged girl and a [evil] Super-clone as smutty, but cannot see the same when a grownup woman is violated, as Sue Dibny was, in IC? Oh, I get it! Because Sue's an adult, and when its grownups who're violated, that alone makes it okay, is that it? Classic, classic.

This of course, is completely ignoring the questions of if it's done in poor taste or not. I even once wondered to myself, what if Sue Dibny were a member of a minority group, say, a Latina just like Kendra Saunders' mother, or even a teenager herself - would they have been so quick to praise the whole cesspool then? What if Tula, the Silver Age Aquagirl, were the rape victim? What then?

I realize that I cannot judge said message boarders and bloggers outright. But assuming that they would go the polar opposite route in a case like what I described above, that would only show why they took the side of IC to begin with - because, simply put, "stereotypes are easy." In other words, if you're white, you make easy fodder for discrimination. Or, put another way, what we have is a case of anti-white discrimination. Isn't that just glorious?

I said I cannot judge, not prematurely anyway. But even so, when I think on all this based on what I've theorized now, I come away feeling more than a bit disgusted. Where's anyone's responsibility these days? It makes no difference what the color of your skin is, how old you are, or what your character status is within a fictional universe, that does not make it illegal for any specific character to wear a tank-top, or to have a hot artwork design. And maybe this is just me, but what right do these message boarders and bloggers have to be arguing against the tank-top if they're going to legitimize a bottom of the barrel book like Identity Crisis? Not in my book, that's for sure.

I can understand if anyone would want there to be some focus on Kara's personality, as some did, but in all due fairness, I'm going to have to note that that's but a problem I've been finding with a lot of today's comics - they've been concerning themselves far more with "personalities" that they end up ruining whatever enjoyment the books could have besides that, and most of these character developments turn out to be so phony that they fail even there. That's why I don't see it as a priority these days, because if personality is all I'm going to be concerned about, and not even care about what joys there could be in the action/adventure theme, then all I'll end up doing is ruining my chance to enjoy even that much. I'm not the overly demanding sort myself, and that way, I'm able to enjoy a book based on the adventure theme alone.

So as long as the adventure theme works well, I don't go too far in my demands of a writer or a publisher. Escapism is what Marvel and DC alike are mainly about, and if I'm going to worry my head off about "reality" then all I've done is ruin what entertainment value there is.

Another thing I noticed about these message boarders - especially them - and the bloggers, was that they seem to be of the camp that wants more "realism" in comics, including rape(!). But if rape is something that happens in the real world, then so is wearing a tank-top. I've seen plenty of girls here too who wear tank-tops, and are also pretty slim too (I was also in Eilat this past week. Plenty of hotties there, local and foreign). I even once sat next to a chick on the bus with an outfit almost like that who read the bible!

If anyone's going to say that they're okay with rape in comics as a product of reality, but are hostile to having tank-tops there as well, that'd be a selective choice of reality, and by doing that, all they're doing is making themselves look ridiculous.

Such sentiments, I suspect, also stem from desensitisation to violence, in which case a male and even a female are quite okay with violence but hostile to sex. In fact, Peter Sanderson, a former comics editor himself, recently said when reviewing the third X-movie:

In the film Scott encounters Jean alive at Alkali Lake, the site of her seeming demise in the previous movie, X2. The filmmakers have Jean remove Scott’s protective glasses, holding back the optic beams, as Claremont and Byrne did in the mesa scene in the comics. Scott and Jean kiss. In the novel Claremont presents this as a love scene, a “perfect moment” albeit with an undercurrent of danger. In the movie the sequence seems ominous rather than ecstatic.

Then, in the movie, something happens to Scott offscreen. Wolverine later finds Scott’s glasses at Alkali Lake, but Scott is nowhere to be seen. When Jean thinks back to what happened, she is deeply disturbed, but the flashes of memory that we are shown still do not reveal Scott’s fate. But Claremont’s narrator explicitly states in the novel that Scott is dead.

The implication in the movie, made somewhat clearer in the book, is that Jean/Phoenix’s sexual passion for Scott literally consumed him. Consider how the filmmakers have transformed Claremont and Byrne’s mesa scene. In the comics, it was a touching love scene; in the comics it becomes a scene from a horror film. How many horror films have there been in which the young lovers get killed as soon as they have sex, as if they were being punished? In the comics version, sex is good; in the movie version, sex is bad.

Sadly, even comics suffer from the kind of problems the highlighted text above points to for many years, just like movies. It's been a common problem far too long that people are concerned much more about sex in entertainment, yet blandly tolerant of violence. And the current situation oscillating around Supergirl and IC, I'm afraid, is no different.

One more reason why I don't see the subjects of my critique here as being worthy of arguing about whether or not Kara should wear a tank-top.

And why do I get the feeling that, were Courtney Whitmore to get another solo series just like Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E, that they'd have nothing whatsoever to say? Which would beg the question - why does Courtney get a free pass but Kara does not? Where's the logic in that?

Which brings me to the saddest theory I've feared - that post-Crisis Kara Zor-El's critics are also her real life enemies - they're ungrateful that DC ever brought back the original Maiden of Might, presumably because they liked Linda Danvers more, and she's been tossed out of the spotlight. Well gee whiz, taking out their anger on poor little Kara is not the way to go, and it's a shame that they're throwing away a big chance to appreciate the return of a much beloved superheroine from the Silver Age, whom I thought a lot of people wanted to come back. But worse is if they don't have courage to admit it and are looking for all-too easy excuses on which to attack the character!

If the anti-Kara lambasters don't appreciate Kara's return, I guess I can't argue with that. But to do it while legitimizing distasteful violence at the same time in a rock-bottom miniseries that took almost all the buzz that Kara should've had in 2004, that's just lame. Likewise, if they're going to pretend that Courtney Whitmore's own costume never existed, to say nothing of discriminating against Kara as if she's not allowed the same privleges as Courtney and others who also wear a tank-top, then I'd say, without apology, that something very insulting is going on here.

It practically begs the question: what do comic book readers want?

Back from my vacation

Well, I just got back from the vacation I took in Eilat. Had quite a good time there, tripping up and down the shorewalk, girl watching, pool swimming and even some TV viewing. And the food I ate there was swell!

I'll be getting back to more blogging soon, but first, I gotta put all the old clothes in the laundry, and get some dinner. It's been a big day.

The internet as a starting ground for comics

Well, looks like I've found a public net stand after all from where I currently reside, so for now, I'll just post a link to the following article from the International Herald Tribune, which talks about how the current owners of DrunkDuck are trying to come up with a way for people to produce digital comic books online.

I certainly do hope it proves advantageous in getting a new generation to join in.

Going on a vacation this week

I'm going to Eilat this week, something I do almost every autumn. So there may not be any updates until Thursday, unless I can find a public internet spot to use. (I once did find one, but only time will tell if I can find computer access there now.) So here I go soon to enjoy the beach in Eilat, some of the pizza resturants they've got there as well, and to see what other tourist attractions they've got there this time.

I wish a good week to everyone, and happy comics reading.

NY Jewish Museum's presents Masters of American comics

The Jewish Museum of New York City has a new exhibition of comic book art from masters like Jack Kirby and so on, so large in fact that the other halves are going to be exhibited in states like New Jersey and California.

THE Jewish Museum's new show of comic book art is only half an exhibition - the other half being at the Newark Museum (in New Jersey) - and, even including the Newark half, it amounts to a truncated version of a much bigger show that began in Los Angeles. And yet it is eminently worth viewing for the light it sheds on the most American of art forms.

Best of all, it gives us the chance to see the often unvarnished sketches for works that were destined to be reproduced in the millions, only to end their lives as insulation, refuse and fish wrappers. Finally to see their hand-drawn originals, with all those wobbly lines and preliminary pencil markings, is by itself worth the price of admission.

Some of the artists included in the Jewish Museum's exhibition, devoted to comics from 1950 to the present, are Jack Kirby, creator of Captain America and the Fantastic Four; R. Crumb, virtually the inventor of underground comics, and Chris Ware, one generation younger, who has largely inherited his countercultural crown.

This exhibition traces the development of the art form from the un-ironic, postwar muscularity and all-American heroism from men like Will Eisner and Harvey Kurtzman, through the sly subversions of Crumb, to the post-modern coolness of the most recent generation.

But as fine as some of these works are - especially those of Crumb and Ware - no artist of the last half century has surpassed, and few have ever equaled, the sheer brilliance and the mercurial wit of the very earliest practitioners of the art.

True, Crumb is a first-rate draftsman, and Ware has an incomparable sense of placement upon the page. But even they cannot hold a candle to the turn-of-the-century works of Winsor McCay (on display at Newark), creator of Little Nemo and Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend. Through his endless inventiveness and transcendant color sense, we seem to sail into a parallel universe whose enchanting loveliness, for all its delicacy, is indestructible.

Here's the New Jersey Jewish News' own article on the exhibition in NJ, which'll be held at the Newark Museum.

Gerry Conway resurfaces

Plenty of people familiar with the Bronze Age will no doubt remember who Conway was back then - he was one of a couple of writers who began their career when just in their teens - there were plenty of teenagers who went to work at a young age around that time - and made a name for himself with many notable characters and series before moving on to television producing in the mid-90s. Now, he's been interviewed on Newsarama, and reading the close, I really wish he would come back to comics, if he's still got something decent to offer!

NRAMA: If you could return to comics, would you?

GC: That’s something I’m asked in almost every interview, and I always say, Oh, I don’t know…it’d have to be the right project, and the right company, and it’d have to be something I was enthusiastic about. I don’t know if I could, to be honest. The kind of comics that are done these days, I don’t know if they’re the kind of thing that my writing would be compatible with.

Conway, if you can, please, do come back, and if there's any screwups you did when you were still in comics, rest assured that all is forgiven. The marvelous Tombstone arc he wrote in Spectacular Spider-Man in 1988 was probably what led in part to his being a producer/script editor on TV, because he certainly did have a talent for suspense and courtroom drama. And it's something that could lend itself well to comics today, if the editors will allow him.

Which brings me to a good point about comics today: in this age of ultra-commercialized marketing, that's one of the things that's been keeping out a lot of the "human interest" stories that worked so well during the late 60s-early 70s and the 80s as a whole. Even the whole licensing spread's to blame for that too, as I've realized. Ditto when the publishers let their political viewpoints leak over into what they're publishing uncontrollably.

That's something that's got to be overcome for comics to work out well again, as they hopefully will someday. Ditto if writers with the talents that Gerry Conway's had in his time are allowed to write something really worthwhile.

Why a writer on the inside shouldn't be a "critic"

A few years ago, Geoff Johns did something that insiders really shouldn't be doing, because it only makes them look like defensive spokespersons: he "reviewed" the second issue of Marvel's Truth miniseries for the Fourth Rail website. It's enough to make me pull my hair out in despair, especially when he says, in parenthesis, no less:

'(Say what you will about this being created by the "Marvel Hype Machine" -- the simple fact is, the topic does deserve "hype." I've heard people say this isn't as big or important as Origin. In my eyes, it's damn more important that Wolverine's origin.)'

My, he sure made a real effort to cover his tracks. But all he did was to ruin a lot of his credibility in my eyes. What did he really expect to accomplish from this?

Writers, whether popular or not, shouldn't be doing things like this, because it's fairly apparent that they're acting as company spokespersons, even if it isn't their very own work that they're reviewing. But that's what Johns did a few years ago, and IMO, it only puts a stain on his resume, and makes him look blind to the real intentions behind this abominable book.

And I'm not impressed with the promo he did for Brad Meltzer's story on Green Arrow either.

How Nightwing escaped death

I'm really surprised here. Newsarama (via Titans Tower Monitor) has an article up about how the very same writers who wouldn't come to the defense of Sue Dibny, Jean Loring, and perhaps most importantly of all, Stephanie Brown, actually stood up for Dick Grayson:

Q: Why didn’t you kill Nightwing in Infinite Crisis?

Waid: Because Geoff Johns and I took turns holding a big club over Dan once we learned he wanted too.

Perez: And speaking for guys who actually earn residuals off of Nightwing, we like him too.

Q: Why was it even considered?

Waid: Yeah Dan, why?

Wayne: And don’t say again, “Because Bob said it would sell.”

Busiek: Have you ever drunk a lot of Scotch? Dan has.

Waid: Yeah, what has he ever done to you?

Didio: We were looking for the big death in Infinite Crisis – the big moment. We were looking for something that would have equal import and merit and weight in this story. One of the things I’ve been proven wrong about is that I had felt that Dick Grayson was a redundant character – Tim Drake had filled his role as Robin, he would never be Batman, so where could he go?

My big fear was that Nightwing would get older than Batman. The thought was that if we removed Dick form the equation that would allow Bruce Wayne to stand alone as Batman, and to firmly establish Tim Drake as Robin. So now – Marv is showing us why we like him, his place in the DC Universe, and more importantly, his potential in the DC Universe.

Other questions that could be asked include, "what have Sue, Jean and Steph ever done to you either?" And DiDio's "fear" that Nightwing would get older than Batman is laughable, and misleading as usual - comic book characters generally aren't meant to age more than need be! Man, does that man really need help.

Of course, he fails to offer any explanation why people might like Sue, Jean and Steph as well, one more reason why he only makes me yawn at his words.

More importantly though, I'm really sad to see that the reason why George and Marv, among others, would oppose Nightwing's death is because they earn residual off of his marketing. However, that could also explain why DC may have been killing off some of the characters Chuck Dixon established when he wrote Nightwing's book: because they didn't want to pay him any residuals off of them. Possible? Maybe.

Open trackbacks: Blue Star Chronicles, bRight & Early, Diane's Stuff, Leaning Straight Up, Mark My Words, Point Five.

Opened a blog carnival edition

I looked at the website of Blog Carnival, where there's plenty of carnivals of all sorts for many different subject being hosted, and seeing that there didn't seem to be any for comics, I thought of opening one up specially for comics, which can be partied whenever possible.

(It reminds me that it's also possible for me, with these options, to submit some of my own writings to various other blog carnivals as well, besides occasionally submitting to trackback parties, to help inform the public as best as possible about what goes on in the world of comics, and so, I'll be trying with some of the other ones too whenever I can.)

So, we'll see how well this goes. With any luck, it'll be great. I installed the link to the carnival I opened on the top of my side menu as well.

Bob LeRose, 1921-2006

Bob LeRose, one of DC Comics' notable color editing experts, passed away at age 85. He was a colorist for DC for at least two decades.

Are comics really back with a bang?

This article from the Boston Herald would certainly like us to think that.

Comic books may be a small business, but they pack a powerful punch. With superpowered licensing revenues and a crack team of loyal fans, the comic book is a fantastic format for entrepreneurs these days.
On the eve of tomorrow’s boffo comic book convention at Boston’s Radisson Hotel, vendors and collectors say they’re seeing a rebirth of interest - and spending - among older fans of the jolting genre.
“It’s a fun business selling stuff you enjoy to customers who are knowledgeable of the product,” said Matt Lehman, owner of the Kenmore Square comic store Comicopia, which just had its best summer for sales in the store’s 15-year history. “But I don’t want to paint the picture that there’s a fortune to be made. I’m certainly not going to take a week off on my yacht.”
Still, comics and comic book characters are big money. Marvel Comics, which publishes comic book legends the Hulk and Spider-Man, has reported net sales of $174,421,000 in the first half of 2006. Marvel’s publishing sales are up from $43,282,000 during the first half of 2005 to $48,945,000 in the same period this year.

I've seen some articles, and discussions, like this one plenty of times before, that say that comics are making a comeback, certainly in financial terms. But I always find myself in the position of questioning if they make much sense, partly because they don't give much insight into comics from a critical perspective. As a result, there's no telling if they're for real or not. And when the article here doesn't even mention DC Comics, one can only wonder if it was meant to serve as a promo for Marvel all along.

In fact, as the following paragraph suggests:

Licensing sales make up the larger portion of Marvel’s revenues. Those sales fell a bit this year because fewer Marvel characters hit the big screen than a year ago. Marvel expects a bump in 2007, with three movies based on its heroes slated for release.

So there you have it, a clue that sales aren't quite what one might expect.

JMS is off of FF, though Thor is now wishing he had an acronym

For fans of the Fantastic Four like myself (and also Bobb, whom I thank for the update), the first comic I read in my childhood, this is good news. As reported on the Newsarama Blog and Millarworld, J. Michael Straczynski is leaving the FF, albeit in order to write the Mighty Thor's adventures (thanks to Bobb for the update):

On the comics front, incidentally...it was just announced by Marvel that I’m going to be taking over and re-launching the Thor monthly title. Because this is a big mythological show, it’s very much in my wheelhouse, as it were, and it’s really important to make this work. So I’m giving some thought to pulling back on some of the other comics work, notably FF, to make room to give this my full attention.

Like I said, this is good news for the FF. Marvel's fantastic first family deserve a much better writer than one as hacky as JMS has turned out to be almost ever since he first began working at Marvel at the turn of the century.

In fact, that's exactly why another issue could be brought up here - JMS continued role in being the writer of The Amazing Spider-Man, and why JMS needs to be taken off of that series too.

Ever since he got his foot in the door and landed the job in writing the book, most likely by ways of a favoratist editorial board, it's fallen into a quagmire of mediocrity and hasn't recovered. With the exception of when Peter David wrote several issues of ASM as part of the House of M crossover, JMS has otherwise been the only writer on ASM for at least five years now, and it's really appalling by now. When he first began, the writing ranged from mediocre to flat as a pancake, and, while it may be true that the editors were responsible for keeping Mary Jane Watson from reuniting with Peter Parker until a year afterwards, Straczynski still made it a very contrived, interminable journey. So, even after Mary Jane was back, I still got really bored, and dropped it in despair. Turns out from some of the opinions and synopses I read, certainly that of the "Sins Past" storyline, that my jumping ship from ASM wasn't for nothing. The more that Straczynski continued writing, the more contrived, frustrating and insulting it's gotten since then. From what I remember, he didn't use the supporting cast much, if at all, nor the villains or Spidey's own rogues gallery, and if what JMS was trying to do with Spidey was to "get inside his head" as he stated at times, he sure managed to do anything but that. Which could explain why, when he took up writing the FF from Mark Waid, the buzz for the title pretty much died down.

Spidey fans who recognize the dishonesty and disrespect in JMS's work on ASM for the hero and his world should try and step up any campaigns they could put together to get him off the title and shown the door at Marvel. I decidedly won't be reading JMS's upcoming work on Thor, as I don't expect much from it any more than I do from ASM under JMS's pen. (It's possible that Thor could end up talking far more than combatting the villains, and even if ones like Carl "Crusher" Creel, the Absorbing Man, turn up, I have a hunch that it could end up being laced in some way or other with Straczynski's personal biases. And who knows if Dr. Jane Foster will fare any better than Mary Jane in ASM?) It could very well be that Thor under Straczynski will end up being launched with very little buzz, except for the most devoted of the fanbase JMS does still have.

Update: the main site of Newsarama spoke to JMS as well:

Straczynski reports his final issue of FF “should be #541, or thereabouts”, and since we were on the topic of his workload in light of the new Thor series, we also asked if Amazing Spider-Man would be affected or if he planned to remain on that title indefinitely..?

“I wouldn't say indefinitely only because nothing lasts forever,” he responded. “I've been on the book now for six years, and that's already a long run. Where the future goes, who knows. But that's been the case since the day I first took on the book. So my only response is that I'm enjoying it for as long as Marvel wants me to do it.”

Does this mean that Marvel's been favoratist to him all these years? It would certainly sound that way. But what's really depressing here is that what JMS is really saying is that it's as long as the company approves, not the audience, he'll be remaining on Amazing Spider-Man.

Prince Namor goes to Hollywood

The director of the third Terminator movie is adapting Sub-Mariner to the silver screen:

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - "Terminator 3" director Jonathan Mostow will write and direct "Sub-Mariner," an adaptation of one of Marvel Comics' oldest superheroes.

In the comic, the Sub-Mariner's real name is Prince Namor, a half-man/half-amphibian from the underwater kingdom of Atlantis. An anti-hero, he frequently finds himself helping the human race as much as he fights it when humans pollute the waters.

The Sub-Mariner first appeared in "Marvel Comics" #1 in 1939, when Marvel Comics was known as Timely Comics. He made his first modern appearance in the pages of "Fantastic Four" in the early 1960s.

Universal Pictures' take will see a young man discovering he actually is a prince from Atlantis, with him turning out to be the key man in a brewing war between the underwater world and the modern surface world. Chris Columbus was on board to direct and produce the film in 2004.

Marvel Studios and producer Kevin Misher had long been interested in Mostow, but he was never available. When Mostow's schedule opened up, he called to check whether the character was up for grabs. When he was, Mostow developed a take that found the core of the character, something that had eluded the producers.

"We want to show our first hero, and still most unique hero, in a world that the audience has never seen before," said Kevin Feige, who will oversee the project for Marvel. "But that spectacle will be tempered with character. Our hero is caught between two worlds. That is the heart of the story, and it is that dichotomy that makes him so interesting."

"Sub-Mariner" will mark Mostow's first film since 2003's "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines." His credits include "U-571" and "Breakdown," both of which were for Universal.

Hmm. I wonder what adversaries he'll have? And what kind of special effects will accompany the prince of Atlantis in his sojourn to the big screen? And, since this is royalty we're talking here, will there be any soap-operatics here as well? It all remains to be seen, and it's to be hoped that the adaptation will be auspicuous.

Frank Miller comes in praise of patriotism

Frank Miller does more to make everybody happy, with a very impressive podcast on NPR. Here's the transcript:

Morning Edition, September 11, 2006. I was just a boy in the 1960s. My adolescence wasn't infused with the civil rights struggle or the sexual revolution or the Vietnam War, but with their aftermath. My high school teachers were ex-hippies and Vietnam vets. People who protested the war and people who served as soldiers. I was taught more about John Lennon than I was about Thomas Jefferson. Both of my parents were World War II veterans. FDR-era patriots. And I was exactly the age to rebel against them. It all fit together rather neatly. I could never stomach the flower-child twaddle of the '60s crowd and I was ready to believe that our flag was just an old piece of cloth and that patriotism was just some quaint relic, best left behind us. It was all about the ideas. I schooled myself in the writings of Madison and Franklin and Adams and Jefferson. I came to love those noble, indestructible ideas. They were ideas, to my young mind, of rebellion and independence, not of idolatry. But not that piece of old cloth. To me, that stood for unthinking patriotism. It meant about as much to me as that insipid peace sign that was everywhere I looked: just another symbol of a generation's sentimentality, of its narcissistic worship of its own past glories. Then came that sunny September morning when airplanes crashed into towers a very few miles from my home and thousands of my neighbors were ruthlessly incinerated -- reduced to ash. Now, I draw and write comic books. One thing my job involves is making up bad guys. Imagining human villainy in all its forms. Now the real thing had shown up. The real thing murdered my neighbors. In my city. In my country. Breathing in that awful, chalky crap that filled up the lungs of every New Yorker, then coughing it right out, not knowing what I was coughing up. For the first time in my life, I know how it feels to face an existential menace. They want us to die. All of a sudden I realize what my parents were talking about all those years. Patriotism, I now believe, isn't some sentimental, old conceit. It's self-preservation. I believe patriotism is central to a nation's survival. Ben Franklin said it: If we don't all hang together, we all hang separately. Just like you have to fight to protect your friends and family, and you count on them to watch your own back. So you've got to do what you can to help your country survive. That's if you think your country is worth a damn. Warts and all. So I've gotten rather fond of that old piece of cloth. Now, when I look at it, I see something precious. I see something perishable.

With this, I'm looking forward to his Batman graphic novel even more, in which the Masked Manhunter takes on the al Qaeda. And, the next time I'm at my local comics stores, I'm going to be looking for his Marvel Visionaries compilations with Daredevil. Miller is the kind of guy we need more of in comic books. Because, as he shows here, he understands what patriotism is, and that it's what even superheros are. Here's more from Comic Book Resources, Ace of Spades, Ms Underestimated, CHUD, Reverse-Vampyr, The World According to Carl, Featherston Blog, Scenes from a Hat, Conservative Blog Therapy, BelchSpeak, My Own Thoughts, Cuanas.

9-11, five years later

It's now the fifth year since September 11, 2001, when the al Qaeda murdered almost 3000 people in the World Trade Center. This is my entry for the memorial service.
Thanks to MightyCrusaders.Net for the tribute banner.

Ben Grimm - defeatist and deserter?

At the Baltimore Comicon's Marvel panel, Tom Brevoort provides more dismaying news about Civil War's 4th issue, about the status of Ben Grimm, the ever lovin' blue-eyed Thing, that only makes me feel despair (thanks to Bobb for the update):

[Interviewers:] And Ben Grimm?

Brevoort: He’s in Civil War #4 as well, but has decided to leave the US, which will take place in the next issue of Fantastic Four.

It seems as though Ben, who, when he first appeared, was a WW2 hero and a very proud American, who worked his way to success as a college football quarterback and a test pilot for the USAF, is now also being dragged into the dimension of out-of-character depictions, and made out to look like a defeatist who's lost faith in his country, and is fleeing to Europe where he'll presumably side with any corrupt government possible to find there.

It makes no difference how this'll end, it's just plain depressing to see some of the best patriots of comics being reduced to caricatures and shadows of themselves, all for the sake of political biases by TPTB at Marvel, which could now be described as the House of Biased Platforms.

Sigh.

Stan Lee meets his own creations

As told in this press release:

Stan Lee commemorates his 65th year at Marvel with a series of one-shots uniting him with his greatest characters! The first of these, Stan Lee Meets Spider-Man, features an encounter between Stan and everybody’s favorite wall-crawler, penned by "The Man" himself.

Plus, Joss Whedon and Michael Gaydos produce a second tale in tribute to Stan involving an interdimensional cross-time comic book convention. What better way to honor the man responsible for much of Marvel’s success than with an all-new story by the writer of Astonishing X-Men and the artist behind Alias and The Pulse.

And if that wasn’t enough, Stan Lee Meets Spider-Man also contains a classic Stan Lee-scripted story from Amazing Spider-Man #87, in which Spider-Man reveals his identity to his closest friends. Plus, Fred Hembeck joins in the festivities, rallying some of Stan's least-beloved creations to join the party! It’s four stories in one legendary book as Stan Lee celebrates 65 of working at the House of Ideas.

Hopefully, it'll be a lot better than the quagmire Spidey's own ongoing titles have sunk into these past six years or so. I wish Stan good luck on this.

Aggravating

CNN is the latest news source to fawn over Brad Meltzer as the writer of the new Justice League volume. It doesn't get much more irritating than this:

With more than 6 million copies of his novels in print, Meltzer puts his new "The Book of Fate" (Warner Books) onto store shelves this week. And the readers of DC Comics' "Justice League of America" are way ahead of you -- they've read the first chapter of "The Book of Fate" in the first issue of the new Justice League series. ...

The connection? None. Except Meltzer himself, this natty, mild-mannered man of steely eyes, who can spot a sales angle in a crossword puzzle clue. (Read how Meltzer markets himself)

In fact, extrapolating from such clues to "beat the news" is such a hot-selling specialty of Meltzer's work that government security agencies have contacted him, asking him to think outside the box in terms of what terrorists might concoct.

I feel like shouting out to them to just. shut. up! What do we need to hear about his presumably being invited by the feds to offer them some ideas? Tom Clancy would make a much better choice. This news reeks of little more than sensationalizing and exaggerations.

That said, it doesn't surprise me that DC was able to get the kind of publicity they're getting here from CNN, since it's coming from a company that's owned by the same source than owns DC - Time Warner. But it does show just how low the press can stoop to looking for the latest media sensations, and that's sad.

Slate presents the whole 9-11 Commission Report: A Graphic Adaptation online

I discovered that Slate's presenting The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation online, and decided to take a look at the finished product, as can everyone else, and be the judge. It's a presentation that's at least 106 pages long, and may still be updated with more pages even as I write this. It's a lot of material, which is why I may have to add more thoughts even after what I end up posting for starters (update: now it's got several more pages added, bringing it up to 132-133 pages in total. That's certainly a lot).

Now from what I can tell, the finished book, if this is it, is surprisingly better than some initial reports made it out to be. However, that's not saying that all is satisfying with it. So, I'll see if I can offer a rundown of the good and the bad.

The good:
On page four, they give us an illustrated mug shot of all the 19 suspects who committed the sadistic crime in 2001. And, they also call the thugs "Arab nationals" on page five. (On page eight, there's an interesting part where the traffic controller is said to have found the message "unintelligible...he did not hear the words 'we have some planes.'" From my memory though, it was said that one of the hijackers was recorded telling the passengers on one of the flights "be sitting". He did not have good English.)

Page 14: we get to see the passengers of Flight 93 fighting back against the hijackers.

Page 20: we get a rundown of what happened over a time period.

Page 37: we're told about how one of bin Laden and the al Qaeda's first American-based operations was the al Khifa, opened in the 1980s, and which had its largest HQ in the Farouq mosque in Brooklyn, NY.

On page 38, they discuss the al Qaeda's attacks in Kenya, Nairobi, and Dar el Salaam during 1998. I'd first heard about it when I was at a hotel at the time, and it was very shocking.

Page 58: they give a good description of how the terrorists took steps to try and avoid drawing attention to themselves, by going shaven, avoiding mosques, etc.

The bad:
On page nine, I find the following part very fishy:

"At 8:46, Flight II crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City...killing everyone aboard and an unknown number of people in the Trade Center"

Uh...what? Close to 3,000 people were murdered in the attack, and they're saying they don't know? I don't approve of how they put that.

On page ten: here is something I find questionable at best, and in poor taste at worst: sound effect words (the explosion is accompanied by the word "WHOOOM!"). Also, I notice that they repeat the part as written on the previous page when they say:

Minutes later at 9:03, United Airlines 175 struck the south tower...killing everyone aboard and an unknown number of people in the tower.

Again: close to 3,000 people died in the attack, and they're saying they don't know how many?

On page 13, we again get the questionable use of sound effect words when, in depicting Flight 77's crash into the Pentagon, the artists use the word "BLAAM!" And, on page 16, we get it yet again when the towers are shown to crumble and break: "R-RRUMBLE..."

Page 26: it would seem as though the writers couldn't keep themselves from turning to a little Bush-bashing:

Karl Rove: "A twin-engine airplane has crashed into the World Trade Center, Mr. President."

President Bush: "Oh no! Must've been pilot error."

Let's see, they're implying that Bush actually said that when informed of the bad news? Whatever way you look upon it, that's really in poor taste, and if there's no record of Bush actually guessing aloud what the cause of the crash was, then I can't see why they'd write him saying that.

A page that's both good and bad together is page 30: on the one hand, it does offer some good insight into what kind of a monster bin Laden is. However, at the same time, I find the description of bin Laden as a "Saudi exile" questionable, and all too reminicient of when the AP Wire ran a photo caption of bin Laden back in January describing him as a "Saudi dissident". Ahem. As far as I know, while he may not live in the House of Saud now, they're not exactly hostile to him by any stretch, and there's every chance that they too have funded his terrorist activities, even indirectly. It's almost like the writers are sending two messages simultaneously.

There's also the problem of that, while Richard Clarke, who's first mentioned on page 44, is cited as the politician who was assigned to developing the US counterterrorism research division, Bill Clinton's role here seems strangely downplayed.

Which brings me to point out something very troubling here. If my estimates so far are correct, it would seem as though the writers are trying to avoid putting any blame upon former president Clinton, or at least trying to keep the readers in the dark about any role he might've had in dealing with counterterrorism efforts. Earlier, on page 40, they talk about how FBI director Louis Freeh tried unsuccessfully to establish a national security program and make it a top priority. But it does not mention whether or not Bill Clinton had anything to do with the failure to put one together. It's only by page 44 that they actually give him some mention, yet so fleetingly, it has little to no impact.

And it's on page 47 where...uh oh. They give a most misleading statement that terrorism was "moving high up among Clinton's concerns." Hate to say, but, that's pretty far from the truth. For example, as Front Page Magazine wrote last year, Louis Freeh wrote a book about his years as the director of the FBI, and, as told in the following:

Perhaps the most spectacular revelations in Freeh’s book involves Bill Clinton’s supplication before the Saudi government in the wake of the Khobar Towers bombing, which killed 19 Americans. Beyond failing to confront the Saudis—Clinton asked only that the FBI be granted access to bombing suspects—Freeh contends that the Clinton administration balked at acknowledging the Iranian role in the bombing. Not until the Bush administration entered office was Iran’s tie to that act of terrorism exposed, according to Freeh.

Podesta strenuously denies the allegation. “The Clinton administration,” he writes, “publicly and unequivocally placed blame on senior Iranian officials. Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder made this point at a press conference on Oct. 4, 1999.” Not quite. What Holder actually said on that date[viii] was: "The U.S. investigation of the attack at Khobar is on-going. We are investigating information concerning the involvement of Saudi nationals, Iranian government officials and others. And we have not reached a conclusion regarding whether the attack was directed by the government of Iran." That’s hardly the public and unequivocal placement of blame Podesta would have readers believe.

...Freeh, ... is just one of many former Clinton-era officials who has confirmed that the administration had no serious policy for confronting terrorism and terror-sponsoring regimes. No less an insider than Clinton’s former pollster, Dick Morris, has said that Clinton’s National Security Advisor “seemed to work overtime at opposing tough measures against terror”[ix].

Not surprisingly, the Clinton years saw not only the training of terrorists like Mohammed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Abdulaziz al-Omari, and more than a dozen other Islamic who extremists entered their flight schools or crept into the country, awaiting the signal to strike, but also successful attacks, like the bombing of the USS Cole. Those were also the years when the firewall erected by Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick prevented the sharing of intelligence between foreign and domestic counterterrorism agencies.[x] The preponderance of evidence suggests that the Islamic terrorism that would murder thousands on American soil within months of Clinton’s departure was simply not on the radar screen for the administration.

Well now, that certainly proves, if anything, that contrary to what Jacobson and Colon's graphic adaptation implies, that the Clinton administration was far from showing genuine concern in the rising threat of terrorism. There's more on this, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

And with that, I'll say that I'm getting really worried about the data provided in the 9/11 Comission Report: A Graphic Adaptation, that it could inaccurate and/or misleading, more so than I first thought. I wish I could say that appreciate it more than I do, but when I see that they're whitewashing Clinton, who was very negligent on dealing with terrorism, if at all, and slipping in a potential attack or two against Dubya for reasons that don't make sense, I have to frown.

The New York Sun's got a commentary on this, a positive one at that, and I notice that they say:

In Washington, Dick Cheney, watching events unfold on television, has a similar cast of mind. "How the hell could a plane — " says his bubble, before breaking into a second, "Oh, no! A second one!"

The portrayal of Mr. Cheney is interesting because, on grounds of objectivity, the authors were for once deliberately inaccurate. On the Web site of the book's publisher, Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Ernie Colon said: "[Cheney] has a mouth formation that looks like a sneer, so I drew him that way. But after I drew him I thought it might look like a political statement and we wanted to stay away from that, so I withdrew that and put in something which looked a little more neutral."

Well now, that's interesting. But it doesn't explain some of the biases that still exist in the book, or at least what I may percieve as such.

Everyone reading here can review the whole complilation that's Slate's got (so far), and judge for themselves to see just how good or bad the book is.

Open trackback parties: Is it Just Me, The Mudville Gazette, Point Five.

Process continues

In the fifteenth week issue of 52, we find out that another protagonist from the Giffen/DeMatties run on the Justice League, Booster Gold, has been sacrificed at the alter of PC sickness. The blogmaster of Major Spoilers asks the following question at the end?

"Why the hell is DC killing off Justice League members from the Giffen/DeMatties era?"

Answer: it has what to do with their descent into joylessness, and carefully masked political propaganda, which could make it even worse in some ways than what Marvel's doing. (This is exactly why I don't understand why the favorable review for this issue? Surely it's doing exactly what DC wants?) The Giffen/DeMatties era was one with a lot of enjoyment in it, so, DC's current overlords, which is just so obsessed with their biases, decided it simply won't do, and one of the reasons why they put together that awful, editorially mandated "special" called Countdown to Infinite Crisis.

Oh, and did I mention the political biases that find their way into 52 too? Well, in the case of Booster Gold, it appears that his having knowledge of the future, as noted in this summary of week 7, is meant to be, upon closer thought, an analogy to the moonbat accusation being leveled against president Dubya that he knew that there was going to be an attack against America. (For a sample of what this was like, here's a page from the Media Research Center.) But whether or not it's a political analogy, the sad thing is how Booster, a pretty good character when he first appeared, is being killed off out of political correctness and on the assumption that nobody will care, even if he can come back. On which: surely they cannot think of some way of making a real use out of Booster as a lead in a story instead of slaying him? If they wanted to, they could do it, instead, they go the easy route. They do something even worse with Ralph Dibny by depicting him as on a road of brokenheartedness. I don't know where the whole story with Ralph is going, but on the whole, it does not interest me.

And using already established characters to convey a political bias instead of creating new ones is really stupid.

Blogcritics.Org: Civil War's jumped the shark

On Blogcritics.Org, we find another opinion on how Marvel's gone too far, or sunk too low:

This entire storyline is obviously a reaction to what is currently going on in the United States with the war on terror. Comments from Marvel editors and writers before the story began was that it would be an even-handed portrayal of both sides of the issue. However, the story has been replete with phrases like "unregistered combatants", comparisons of the registration act to slavery, and portrayals of (so far) everyone in government who is behind this act having some dark agenda.

In particular, this month's issue of Cable & Deadpool (one of the monthly titles crossing over into the storyline) really pushed me over the edge. In an exchange between superhero Cable and the President of the United States, Cable (who is fom the future) says that the consequences of the Registration Act will be that years down the line the U.S. will turn into a totalitarian state and that there will be a world-wide civil war.

The President's response? "Well, you're talking about something that is fifty years away. Those aren't votes that we have to worry about this November."

So much for any even minor semblance of a "balanced" story. That comment was ludicrous and disgusting and in my opinion is the "jumping the shark" moment in this saga.

So far, no one on the pro-registration side been portrayed in a positive way that actually carries some weight. Tony Stark/Iron Man has been reduced to parroting "It's the law. It's the law." and Reed Richards (of the Fantastic Four) has come across as an ivory tower, clueless-in-regard-to-the-real-world, yutz. That's basically it and it's beyond weak.

Also, in this arc, pretty much the only people who have ethics and morals are:

A. On the anti-registration side.
B. Superheroes.

Apparently EVERYONE involved in the government is evil, with no concern for public well-being and only politics to motivate them in passing this act.

Like the author of this, I too wouldn't be surprised if it'll turn out to be a big mess, no matter how it all ends. Even back in the Silver/Bronze Age, it's not like every government official, wall-to-wall, was a one-dimensional crook, as CW depicts them as.

With that, let me just comment on a comment left on the page:

"You make it sound as if Marvel is totally against anti-government. This is nothing new, the entertainment industry (comics, movies, TV, and what have you) has always been taking pot shots at political figures and their related institutions for years.

But in Marvel's defense it has also used the federal government support and sponsor various superhero teams in its works of fiction. This has been true in several series over the 30 years, but most recently in X-Factor Investigations, Captain America and updated version of the Avengers known as The Ultimates.

And its nothing new either to think that Marvel has not gone on to attack the government before. Why do you think the X-Men are constantly at odds with the federal authorities over past 4 decades? You can't simply ignore 40 years of history!"

Oh wow, just because they did it before makes the approach they're taking now fully justified, regardless of how bad it all is? And aside from the fact that the writer of that must've gotten confused, inserting the word "against" unnecissarily into his comment, might I point out that the X-Men did have their government allies, most notably Nick Fury, leading director of S.H.I.E.L.D, and WW2 hero who led the Howling Commandos? But in any case, when conspiracy thrillers were being written years ago, it's not like the writers would make one-sided accusations against the government while excusing all the Commies and fascists who were menacing the free world. These government conspiracy stories were usually just certain groups operating from within, who were trying to come up with their own ways of bringing about world domination, and did not try to attack the presidential/governmental incumbents in real life, literally or overtly. Back then, most writers knew why it's good not to let your personal standings get in the way of enjoyment for everyone. Otherwise, how would even that whole conspiracy story Peter David wrote in The Incredible Hulk back in 1988 have worked?

Simply put, what makes CW different from a lot of these conspiracy stories of yore is that it's militantly forced, and sacrifices a lot of what makes the comic books work for the sake of a limp quarrel between the heroes, one that's not even the cause of some space demons, like it was for the Justice League/Society and the Legion of Super-Heros in JLofA 1977, but rather, imposed upon the heros by the editors lording over them because they're so consumed by their own dislike of a government whose policies they don't agree with that they go so far as to take out their anger upon the very franchises at their disposal as a way of lashing out at the politicians who've ruffled their feathers by forcing upon them politically charged dialect and analogies that even Justice League of America didn't have to contend with back in the late 1970s.

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