DiDio's vapid statements about the multiverse

A writer working at a blog called Io9 spoke to Dan DiDio about the multiverse being brought back, but what's being missed here is that there really isn't much interesting being done about it. One of the reasons why, though, is probably because, when you have many of the Golden and Silver Age heroes, among other people, living in the same world and maintaining relations and interactions with one another, it moots the multiverse. And now, from the looks of things, it wouldn't surprise me if the multiverse now being presented won't last much longer.

Winick never took part in the 1988 Jason Todd poll

Judd Winick is an overrated writer whose dialect in interviews may be even more alienating than his own scriptwriting in comics. Now, Comics Should Be Good revealed just a few weeks ago that the whole claim made on Newsarama 3 years ago that he'd voted in favor of not killing off Jason Todd in 1989 (apparently his idea of how to justify his wishes for bringing back Jason later) was all just a lot of hot air intended for publicity stunts. As he told Denny O'Neil in this recent Wizard interview:

WINICK: I was giving an interview about bringing Jason Todd back [and] the reporter had said, “Last question, Judd. Back then, for ‘A Death in the Family,’ did you vote?” So, Denny, actually, I hadn’t. I just thought it’d make a better ending for the story. I mean that I lied. I said, “Oh, yes, I did.” How did you vote?” “I voted for him to live.” Because I knew it would make a good button for the interview…and it did. It got reported that “Winick finally gets his wish in the end here!” And the folks on the Internet, of course, took and ran with that, that I am purely doing revisionist history, that I am reliving my adolescence and taking back how the readers wronged me. But I didn’t get a chance to vote. But had I been given the opportunity I think I absolutely would have voted for him to die.

One of the most grating things about Winick is that if he's trying to be funny, he fails quite tragically, in almost the same way that Wizard fails to be an objective news source. And any writer who's going to be that dishonest with the audience and then think he's going to help matters by only admitting things a few years later should be avoided strenuously.

What does Winick think he's trying to achieve by saying and doing all this? Beats me. Any writer that absurd does not deserve to be working in the career he is now.

Could it be? The Dibnys are back?

This blogger, who deals mostly with Jonah Hex related stuff, guesses that the couple shown in this Batman and the Outsiders page could be Ralph and Sue Dibny returned, but in different forms.

As someone who feels that a wrong should be righted, I will be very happy if they do come back, and they definitely should, but it should be the way they were - he as the guy with reddish-brown hair who climbed the ladder from blue-collar existence to fame and fortune, she as the dark-haired book writer who looks good with both long and short 'dos.

Just like how all damage done to Ray Palmer and Jean Loring should be fixed, so too should all damage done to the Dibnys be fixed. If Chuck Dixon, as the writer now of Batman and the Outsiders, can and will do this at his end, that'll be something to credit him for.

Comics for teaching about robotics

Here's an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer about a local university professor using Comic Book Creator software to teach about robotics theories.

The poisonous politics of Black Summer

After finding this sugary left-leaning review of Warren Ellis' Black Summer and a few other politicized books on Comicon, I think I may have to be careful about assuming that they're better than Newsarama. For as this ludicrous review of Ellis' latest anti-war dreck tells us, the Pulse's politics are way too liberal. The commentator begins by saying:

These last seven years certainly qualify as interesting, to say the least. We’ve had the 9/11 attacks and their ensuing chaos, Hurricane Katrina, the Afghanistan War, and the interminable Iraq War II. Blood continues to flow. Not since the 60s, when mobs of Americans were protesting the Vietnam War, has the United States been so divided internally. President George W. Bush will definitely be leaving a legacy…but probably not the one he expects to leave. I’ve heard people saying “Worst president ever,” and I’ve had students as young as 13 telling me how “dumb” the president is. It’s truly a blessing to live in a country where we have the right to express our opinions about Those In Charge and the mistakes they make.

So he's a teacher, is he? And he even lets partisan politics take place in his classroom? Personally, I think that's a bad idea, though not nearly as bad as the reviewer is being with his own anti-war bias.

Of course there are things worth disagreeing with the current administration about. But it shouldn't be for the wrong reasons. Are we supposed to allow the al Qaeda and other terrorist scum to roam free in Iraq? Exactly what isn't being addressed here.

Black Summer began with an issue #0 that was one of the most shocking single issues published in years. In this essential preview to the 7-issue series, superhero John Horus storms the White House and executes the President. Minutes later, Horus goes live on national television to explain why he has done this: Because the Commander-in-Chief had committed severe criminal actions including election fraud and starting an unnecessary, illegal war for the benefit of his oil conglomerate cronies. Superheroes enforce the law, Horus reasons, so he had to do this. How could any self-respecting hero stand aside and let his entire country be run by criminals?

While it makes a certain sense in a psychotic way, it’s also a justification for cold-blooded murder. Horus could probably have removed and incarcerated the Prez and his confederates, but instead he went for blood…and he got it…he’s covered in it as he addresses the stunned nation.

If it really is a justification for cold-blooded murder, then plot for Black Summer sounds truly disgusting and offensive.

Worst: if this is an allegory to the Iraq war, they fail to ask any serious questions about what Saddam had done in the years before being overthrown, and why the US president's actions are worse than what the dictator of the country had done before the war?

To make matters still worse, the reviewer signals his own leftist leanings when he says that:

Hardcore Republican readers probably dropped this comic into the nearest trash can…while those who have long been angered, frustrated, and ashamed of the way things have gone in this country were probably cheering on this fictional avenger. Especially when they consider how much blood has been shed on both sides by the ongoing conflict in Iraq…the phrase “blood for blood” comes to mind, and this seems to be the philosophy that drives John Horus to murder.

I'm confused. Aren't the actions of the enemy country's army what should be angering the book's villain, John Horus? The reviewer is actually insulting even his own side by suggesting that the liberals are so frustrated, they'll be literally willing to condone what this Ellis-created monster has done. Just how does he know that they really want that to happen? Or, is he doing the right thing to make it sound as though he doesn't care if they take the risk of condoning violence against American politicians?

Warren Ellis had been going through a low-key period for several years before this comic was published…shying away from all things superhero-related. But with Black Summer and Marvel’s Thunderbolts, he came back with a big, bloody bang. This was the Ellis who gathered thousands of hardcore fans with his late-90s and early 00’s comics. His work has fangs again…he’s not pulling any punches. He’s turning superhero conventions on their head, or throwing them out the door completely. And John Horus executing the President was only the beginning of the dark, gory action-fest that is Black Summer.

Wow, just what the world needs: gore galore, without any positive purpose or meaning. And that tells me that Thunderbolts is probably even worse off now than when Kurt Busiek and Fabian Niecieza were writing it. Better stay away.

Beginning in issue #1, Ellis reveals the backstory for Horus and his world. We meet The Seven Guns, a group of superheroes created by extreme body modification experiments. Each of these heroes is basically a cyborg with built-in killing technology of frightening power. Describing themselves as an “extralegal civil defense team,” the Guns served the public for years, fighting corruption and other modern evils. One of them, Tom Blacksmith, eventually defected to work for the CIA, faking his own death. The group’s founder, Tom Noir, lost his leg in an explosion and retired, which effectively disbanded the group. Tom wallows in a haze of alcohol and self-pity, and it takes the homicidal actions of John Horus (and an attempt on his own life) to stir him from his self-induced retirement.

On orders from the CIA, Blacksmith sets out to murder the Seven Guns, his former companions. When he fails to murder Tom Noir, the rest of the Guns begin to reunite, and now they’ve all been targeted by the U.S. government—even though none of them had anything to do with John Horus’ act of political murder. All it takes is one super-powered crazy to convince the government that the Seven Guns must die. You can hardly blame them, all things considered. Especially in these days of “The War on Terror,” where the most common response to threats is violence.

Do I sense that the reviewer is saying that even a pre-emptive strike against terrorists is wrong? The reviewer puts war on terrorism in quotation marks. If he wants to criticize Bush, he should acknowledge that Bush is zigzagging, whereas in some places he's fighting terrorism and in others he's helping it, such as helping the "palestinian authority" and Fatah. It seems that the reviewer and many of the left are confused about what's really going on. And Ellis also seems to have a simplistic understanding of what's going on.

All of the Guns activate their enhancements by using keywords…a clever nod back to Shazam and Miracle Man…but all their powers are theoretically possible thanks to Ellis’ spot-on scientific research and clever extrapolation. Ellis, like Grant Morrison, likes to look at the real possibilities of superhuman enhancement and theorize exactly how someone could become empowered. The result is hero characters who are closer to hard-science creations than your typical superheroes. It’s all far closer to reality than Batman or Spider-Man could ever be.

Is it realistic when you ignore whatever evil the dictator of the Iraq-like country was committing, perhaps even going so far as to act like he doesn't even exist? Sorry, but, I don't think that's very close to reality at all.

There may be some people who say comics should avoid political issues and anything that has to do with the “real world.” Well, for those people there are plenty of comics published every month that will satisfy their desires. They should definitely not read Black Summer. However, those who want bold, thought-provoking comics that ask hard questions and make you think about tough issues—all while delivering kick-ass pulp excitement—owe it to themselves to seek out this book.

To some people the idea of a political comic book is laughable and absurd. But this is the 21st Century, brothers and sisters. Everything is political…

Comics never sold better than they did during World War II, when Captain America was punching out Hitler and kicking the asses of the Nazis every month. Frank Miller’s Elektra Assassin offered some biting Reagan-era satire in the late 80s. Alan Moore has never shied away from political statements in his work. Morrison’s The Invisibles definitely crossed some political ground, albeit with a psychedelic-surreal twist. Marvel’s recent Civil War spotlighted some very real issues in American politics, as filtered through the fictional conflict of Captain America vs. Iron Man—a battle of ideologies that turned deadly.

In fact, I submit to you, Noble Readers, that comics have a duty to confront political issues, as well as other important aspects of the society that spawned them. Any art form that refuses to acknowledge the reality of human experience is doomed. Good art should shake you up, and make you think.

Comics can be a mirror for what’s going on in the hearts and minds of the public, a platform every bit as powerful as film, or prose novels. Artists have a responsibility to challenge prevailing thought and inspire creative debate in those who read their works.

I'm so sorry, but this is really dishonest and too removed from the bigger picture of what things are like behind the scenes in most comic book publishers.

1]I don't think comics should avoid political issues. However, I would be much more welcome to the idea if conservatism were allowed its fair share of the spotlight. And that's something that's either been marginalized, or totally suppressed.

2]When Capt. America first premiered, nobody was denying the the nazis were evil, and that they were causing mass murder and destruction. When Manuel Noriega was the dictator of Panama, nobody denied that he had caused misery for the people under his suppression. Unlike Black Summer, where, under the perfect disguise of moral equivalence, they seem to be acting as though it's only America's fault, and that the president only lied as a cover for greed. A question could be asked as to why the US and the rest of the western world overlooked Saddam Hussein's crimes for so many years.

3]Comics may have a duty to confront political issues, but they also have a duty to be honest, and IMO, the industry also have a duty to respect the rights of conservatives who want to have their fair share of the spotlight. I don't see it happening here.

4]Black Summer isn't exactly acknowledging reality of human experience, and it's only being a mirror of what the left thinks.

5]"Artists"? What about the writers?

Kyoto's manga museum

An article from the Japan Times about Kyoto's museum dedicated to the history of manga that opened up just two years ago.

So JMS is no longer exclusive at Marvel...

J. Michael Straczynski announced that he'll no longer be working on an exclusive contract at Marvel, not unlike how Greg Rucka told that he'll no longer be exclusive at DC (via The Beat). Though it doesn't mean he's out the door entirely at Marvel, it does seem to indicate that any work he does for them will be considerably less.

While it has been quite a while that JMS was working for them, I suppose it's fair to assume that the reaction to One More Day may have embarrassed him, as he realizes that not everyone will accept his defenses. After all, he could've opted not to write the foot-dragging failure, but he went along with it anyway, just like 3-4 other storylines he's said he had disagreements with Joe Quesada about in the past couple years. He's practically a joke now.

I just hope DC doesn't decide to hire him. The DCU is suffering enough damage already, and doesn't need him adding any more to it.

At the same time, these exclusive contracts, quite honestly, were pointless to begin with, and certainly didn't do much to heal the still ailing condition so many mainstream comics are having problems with.

US Army produces special comics for Iraq war

Wired's blog reports about the US Army's latest interesting steps in psychological warfare, which is to produce special comic books as part of a strategic communications program. The comic being put out is a special 12-part miniseries called the 6th Brigade Comic Book series.

ASM is starting to go down in sales

Although this news brief on ICV2 is a wee bit sugarcoated at first glance, when you look at the specific sales results of this title as a weekly...yes, the sales have taken a drop over the past few weeks, with issue #548 going down to 105,000 copies. Proving for now that yes, the backlash against the destruction of the marriage has taken effect. It may take time, but with a little more effort, I think Spider-Fans can have an impact.

Full sales results over here.

ISEB interviews Larry Hama

The ISEB website interviews Larry Hama on video. He was the guiding hand behind a lot of the GI Joe comics back in the 80s, and as discovered here, he was hired as a creative consultant for the movie being planned now.

Infinity Inc. may be one of the biggest victims in DCU

Several years ago in JSA, Hawkman, recently returned from limbo, noted how guys like him and Ted Grant, Jay Garrick and Alan Scott have outlived their namesakes, at least until Hal Jordan came back.

Well, it's not just say, Barry Allen, whom they've outlived. More precisely, these veterans have, for now anyway, outlived their Infinity Inc. counterparts, who were intended by Roy Thomas to be the younger generation that was more directly connected to the Justice Society in contemporary times. Now that I think of it, almost all the Infinitors have been largely wiped out. Last time I looked, barely three were left: Rick Tyler, new Hourman, Todd Rice (Obsidian), and possibly Al Rothstein, but that's less certain, since he seems to be in limbo or MIA for the past two years.

Hector and Lyta Hall: sent into death limbo in the Dreaming, just shortly after Lyta came out of her coma. Jade: killed in the Rann/Thanagar War. Even earlier, Beth Chapel and Yolanda Montez, who'd become new Dr. Mid-Nite and Wildcat, respectively, were slain at the hands of the male Eclipso. This is what's become of the real Infinity Inc. over the years - they were thrown away by editorial instead of making something worthwhile of them. Some respect for what Roy Thomas went to such pains to introduce in the first place.

Sure, there are still some youngsters around to represent the Justice Society. Nevertheless, there is something ludicrous, say, about Alan Scott outliving his green-skinned daughter, or even Ted Grant outliving the plausibly introduced protege who was far from being a product of political correctness at the time. And the death of Beth Chapel and Yolanda Montez back in the mid 90s was definitely tasteless.

During Zero Hour, the older Justice Society vets were big victims of a tasteless storyline, but then so too were their younger peers at the time. And that doesn't seem to have changed much.

As someone who feels that a wrong should be righted, I think it's about time to start reversing their deaths and to start showing that they can allow the younger Society members to be their own characters again like they were in the 80s. This is, quite simply, one of the ways in which DC has missed the boat on a lot of potential, and the time has come to fix it already.

BND is still the same old

The preview news for Amazing Spider-Man #552 is really nothing I haven't heard of before:

Spider-Man’s been put through the ringer by Menace, named public enemy #1 by the DB, but now it’s time for another new villain to stick it to ol’ webhead—his name is Freak! Amazing Spider-Man #552, from Oscar-nominated writer Bob Gale (Back To The Future) and superstar artist Phil Jimenez (New X-Men), kicks off a brand new arc of the thrice monthly Spider-Man series that has everyone’s Spider Senses tingling! A petty theft from at a local soup kitchen quickly turns into something deadlier than Spidey could ever imagine—and he’s about to face the results! Meanwhile, the DB’s new Editor-In-Chief launches an all-out smear campaign against the Wall-Crawler—and it may just work! Plus, the mayoral race heats up and Harry’s caught up in it!

"Menace" is really just another Hobgoblin, and the whole idea of framing Spidey for murder sounds familiar too. And even the story of how the new EIC for the Bugle launches a smear campaign against Spidey fails to excite me.

As for Bob Gale, I can't say I've cared much for him in the past decade or so. I've practically forgotten about him over time, and don't even know now what else he wrote besides Back to the Future? But the main problem, of course, is the destruction of the Spider-Marriage. So it doesn't make much difference who's writing, since until repairs are done, I'm not coming to see this.

But if there's really some deadly business going on in the plot, then so much for a retailer's claim that Spidey was family-friendly again. So far, all signs are that Spidey is anything but that.

Mark Millar boasts again

The British website The List runs a short profile of the overrated Mark Millar, and predictably, they sugarcoat and sensationalize his career at Marvel in the past couple years:

Millar himself was ‘poached by the Americans’ to co-write Swamp Thing with Grant Morrison at DC. However it was with The Authority (a subversive take on the Justice League of America) that he first realised his potential. ‘To me March 2000 with The Authority was the first page of my career.’ It’s also where he perfected his take on ‘widescreen comics’, vast action set pieces grounded with a dark intelligence and pitch black humour. It was a move to Marvel launching Ultimate X-Men, followed by The Ultimates, that saw his career go stratospheric. ‘I just instantly felt at home at Marvel, particularly with the two guys that run the place, Joe Quesada and Bill Jemas. They said: “The company is just coming out of bankruptcy; we’ll maybe get another 18 months so let’s just do something nuts.” So they took somebody like me, who was an incredible risk, and put me on their most valuable franchise. It could have gone absolutely belly-up but it was a big hit.’

It was a massive hit that, alongside Brian Michael Bendis’ Ultimate Spider-Man, helped save Marvel from the brink of destruction. Then there was the gigantic Civil War, a crossover that effected the entire Marvel universe. ‘It was actually the most difficult assignment I’ve ever had. It’s the bestselling comic of the last 15 years, yet when I see it sitting on my shelf I actually feel a bit sick. I just think of how much time it took up and how much re-writing I had to do just to co-ordinate everything with the other writers.’

The Newsarama blog asked in response to this:

Is Millar and Steve McNiven’s Civil War “the bestselling comic of the last 15 years”?

Theoretically, maybe, but I think the best answer to this is "no". How much did it sell? Around 200,000 copies, but that's far from what sales were like up until the early 1990s, when some comics could sell almost a million, and since then, they sell barely 200,000, which is a far cry from what sales were like years ago. In fact, as of now, they may be selling even less than 150,000.

And I think Millar is boasting just a little too much, because since then, Ultimate X-Men isn't selling like it used to, and they forgot to mention that Millar just might've subtracted from his credibility after he wrote the Marvel miniseries called "Trouble", which tanked both critically and in sales. What made that happen was that apparently, it was meant to be a take on the elder Parkers from Spider-Man in their younger years and how they met their future wives. It even featured Mary Jane Watson's famous opening line from 1966 ("face it tiger, you just hit the jackpot!") as a deliberate swipe at Spider-Fans, and when the word got out, reaction was swift - it got shunned.

They really shouldn't gloss over that.

Predictably, The List fails to discuss the political overtones of Civil War, and how Millar may have found Quesada and Jemas good company because they doubtlessly represented his political viewpoints, some of which were the basis of Civil War too. And he says that he feels sick these days seeing it on the shelf? What about the fanbase? To think of what awful things the miniseries led to as of now, that is what's sickening.

We show Sammenhold today with free speech

Two years ago, the cartoon riots over the Mohammed cartoons published in Denmark took place. Michelle Malkin brings up the subject this week again, rightly stressing that this is something to show solidarity (or, as in Danish, sammenhold) with for the sake of free speech. And, since this is something comic strip/cartoon related, that's why this makes a perfect subject to give mention to here as well as reprint some of the cartoons.

And I guess I'm going to take this time to point out how I'm not sure if much of the comics and cartoonists society ever showed enough solidarity with the Danish cartoonists in this case. As an example, I'm going to point to the veteran Tom Spurgeon of The Comics Reporter, whose own commentary on the subject wasn't very clear. In the entry he wrote two years ago that I linked to, while he does discuss the violence and other abominable actions the Islamofascists worldwide committed in the wake of the publications, he says very confusingly:

7. I appreciate the notion of re-running the original cartoons as a sign of journalistic solidarity, but reprinting the cartoons for the sake of reprinting the cartoons means repeating the stunt, with all of its attendant rhetorical sloppiness.

Reading this, my head is really in a tizzy, because I can't figure out what he means, or what point he's trying to make! An important point to make for starters is just what is the Religion of Peace like? The problem is that Spurgeon was discussing this without a proper knowledge of the history of Islam. I would personally suggest that he read Robert Spencer's book, The Truth About Muhammed. And is this something that people with common sense should have to stand for? That's the really big picture people like Spurgeon, I feel, are missing. And is he saying that they should have just put away the cartoons, apologized to the warmongers, and never done anything about it again? If that's what he's saying, it's a bit rich coming from someone who uploaded some of the cartoons to his own site as well.

I think the point he misses is that, when the cartoons were reprinted by whichever newspapers were brave to do so, it was in order to offer the public their own chance to decide if this is something really worth making a fuss over. And the public does have a right to judge for themselves. Most importantly though, is if anyone should have to sympathise with those who would resort to violence in the name of their religion.

Spurgeon may not have learned much within the 2 years he wrote the above, unfortunately, if what he said in this recent item on his site is any indication:

While I'm sympathetic to the notion that this is an offensive image, I think any journalistic entity is completely justified in running such a thing if by doing so they better inform their readers.

Now granted, he does acknowledge here that informing the readership is important, but I still think that he's bending over backwards a bit by saying the images are offensive, though let me note that Muhammed's past actions in history, including this one, most definitely were.

While we're on the subject, I'm also bugged by a letter sent to him by a would-be retailer 2 years ago too, where the writer says:

What continually strikes me about this situation is that the world owes a tremendous debt to the Islamic world because of their contributions to the sciences, particularly mathematics and medicine. And in less than a century, the convergence of political and religous totalitarianism in the region has almost completely suppresed the once vigorous intellectualism of the culture. (Not that that excuses the West for baiting those forces.)

Wow, talk about someone who really believes what the MSM would want him to. Because Robert Spencer doesn't really agree with him on that. Nor in fact does Dan Collins at Protein Wisdom. Are we going to be hearing next that Muslims were responsible for the invention of Manga? Oh yeah, that'll be the day. And what intellectualism was there, really? Just what intelligence is there in such a Quranic verse as the following:

Sura 8:12- “I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off.”

Simply put, what we had there was a typically uninformed buffoon who even runs the risk of pointing the finger of blame upon the West, and only the West. If he were smart, he'd do well to take a closer look at some of the info I provided above, as well this item, and this one.

I think it's a shame when even people who're specialists in comics and cartoons fail to look at the details surrounding serious issues like this properly, and thus fail to uphold important free speech issues as well, which doesn't help the comic book medium any more than the newspaper medium. And Spurgeon certainly isn't helping by taking such an ambiguous position as he still seems to be. Many newspapers from the Islamic world have been publishing disgusting anti-Semitic cartoons, and even anti-Christian cartoons that no one says anything about, and he's worried about offending the Islamist scum whose whole idea of how to protest is to make threats of violence? I'd suggest he look for and check out journalist Aryeh Stav's book, Peace - An Arabian Caricature: A Study in Anti-Semitic Image, to see what's really offensive.

I think that the Danish cartoons subject would be perfect human interest story wellspring for a ton of comic book stories, even allegorical, that could address free speech issues and whether violent reactions are justified. You could have a story in Superman where the Daily Planet deals with these issues, or even one in Spider-Man where Robbie Robertson finds himself at odds with J. Jonah Jameson in publishing about important subjects like these in the Daily Bugle. Trouble is that, with the way comics have been so drastically dumbed down in the past decade, there's no telling if the current industry would let it happen, or if they'll even survive long enough for it to happen.

Now, let us take the time to point to others who're courageously covering the subject of the Danish Muhammed cartoons this week, which include: Fullosseous Flap, Black Shards, Right Voices, Neocon News, Residual Forces, The Jawa Report, Andrew Bostom, Urban Grounds, Snapped Shot, Pirates' Cove, Wake Up America, Bookworm Room, The World According to Carl, Macsmind, Outside the Beltway, American Pundit, The Hot Joints, BitsBlog, Yankeemom, In Jennifer's Head, Solomonia, Maggie's Farm, Texas Hold 'em Blogger, Slapstick Politics.

All these fine folk and many more deserve many kudos for their show of Sammenhold. We must not be intimidated by those who would resort to violence as of "protesting".

Steve Gerber, 1947-2008

A day late, but yes, I too learned that Steve Gerber passed away. It's sad that another notable comics veteran has been lost.

Jean Loring's wish to be a mother

It's wonderful that I was able to buy Crisis on Multiple Earths: The Team-Ups, both 2 volumes published so far, because that too has what to learn from past history. And from The Atom #29, February/March 1967, written by Gardner Fox and drawn by Gil Kane and Sid Greene, there's a thing or two worth noting here. The story is bookended by a part telling about how Jean Loring is asked by a widowed soap opera actress to defend her rights to her child, since her in-laws are trying unfairly to take custody for themselves. This she does, and while it's only a minor part of the book (the majority is about the Atoms of Earth 1 and 2 squaring off against the Thinker), it does tell quite a bit about what Jean wished for. On page 3, she tells Ray Palmer while at an exhibition for bookstands:

"A baby belongs to its mother, Ray! I've just got to make sure Cheryl Drake keeps Ronny!"

Quite right. A mother is the primary guardian of her child.

And, on the last page, 23, after she's succeeded in handling the case in court, she tells Ray:

"When we are married and I should decide to keep up my law practice, I'll need a governess to care for our babies! In pleading for Cheryl Drake -- I was actually pleading for myself!"

To which Ray happily replies:

"And who could resist such an appeal?"

Answer: Dan DiDio. It's clear he doesn't have much respect for a woman's wish to be a mother, if, as editor in chief, he was going to go that far in seeing to it that she'd be depicted out-of-character. The same argument applies to how he treated Sue Dibny, said to be pregnant at the time of her death. A woman who does such a kindness and service for another one by helping her to maintain custody of her child, and who wishes to become a parent herself, is not someone who would stoop to cruelty and murder.

From what material I've read from the Silver Age so far, I can see almost nothing if at all to suggest that Jean was ever the irritating, nagging, domineering stereotype DC's current editorial seems to want people to think. Let's also not forget that after she'd divorced Ray in the mid-80s, she didn't want or care for his scientific machinery gear either, as noted in my post on the Sword of the Atom TPB.

Once again, that's why I'm calling on DC to right a wrong, and urge others to follow my example.

And a big thank you to Gardner Fox, Gil Kane, Sid Greene and also Julius Schwartz for addressing the subject so well years before. I don't think the subject of parenthood was addressed so often at the time, but they did it very well.

Another game-based setback for Marvel?

It looks like Marvel, in terms of their deals to develop computer games, is having more fallouts. TGdaily reports that one of the software developers they'd had a deal with cancelled development of an online multiplayer game:

Redmond (WA) - Cryptic Studios has shut the lid on production for a massively multiplayer online game that would have pit Marvel comic characters together in a big melee.

Funny thing about this is that they already were involved in a big melee, that being Civil War! And the biggest problem with that, of course, was that it turned the superheroes against each other out of politicized motivations by the editors. If the planned online game was similar in any way, I think that's why I might be discouraged from playing it, even if it doesn't force in any political bias and allegories, because Civil War takes almost all the fun out of it by now.

And if Marvel is going to destroy their heroes, especially Spider-Man and Mary Jane's marriage, I guess that's why maybe they're asking for this setback in game-related developments. Some people might not want to buy the game anyway if it helps Joe Quesada, which is possible.

Manga's colossal influence in Japan

An article from the San Diego Union Tribune about the huge influence manga/anime has over in Japan. It's everywhere there.

The Brand New Disgust continues in issue 549

In this thread on CBR, the topic starter tells the following about Amazing Spider-Man #549:

Well, I just finished reading this book and I'm not happy. Not happy at all.

Quesada continues to spit on the face of all of us. First, he made Peter kiss some random girl and now he teases us making Spider-man ask Jackpot if she's MJ!!! That's right, Spider-man just went and ask her if she's MJ!!! And Spidey spent all the issue without webs because he don't have the money to buy the stuff he uses to make webs!!! This is so ridiculous!!!

You know, the more I think about what's been done so far, the more it occurs to me that there's at least one thing in every issue published so far that's editorially mandated, and intended to insult the fans. Just a short while ago, I guessed, and wouldn't be surprised, if Mr. Negative turned out to be a jab at people who disagree with what they're doing!

And it won't surprise me if Jackpot does turn out to be MJ. Quesada, as the one behind all this, is just too predictable.

One of the respondents sums this up correctly:

Man, stop buying it. If everyone who is mad stops buying they will change...if everyone keeps buying and complaining they will continue to do whatever they want.

Amen. Do as the guy says. Stop wasting your money.

Update: well, it's just as I feared. According to this blogger, Spidey physically slugs Jackpot after mistaking her for being a goon of a gangster. And why won't I feel surprised if that turns out be written deliberately? Meaning, not because it makes any sense but because the editors/writers dictated it.

Update 2: say, isn't that Mark Guggenheim who wrote this issue? The same Guggenheim who killed off Bart Allen because wasn't popular in the role of his adult peer, Wally West, as the Flash? One more reason then why one need not bother about his work.

Seventeenth Comic Book Carnival

Welcome to the February 7, 2008 edition of the comic book carnival. Here's the latest entries for this month, and let's see what we have in store.

Matt OConnor presents 2008 Preview part 1 - The films that will no doubt rock posted at Cult Movie News.

Michael@TSM presents Travel Writing Contest! Win $150 Cash Prize | Traveling Stories Magazine posted at Traveling Stories Magazine.

Fyre presents Blogs on Fyre!: Comic Report: The Avengers: Kree-Skrull War posted at Blogs on Fyre!.

QJ presents Walter Simonson plays 20 questions with fans on WoW comic book - World of Warcraft News - QJ.NET posted at World of Warcraft.

Hero Goggles presents No More Days posted at Hero Goggles - All things comics and maybe a little more!.

wilson ng presents its NGenius 16 - Red Herring Seminar posted at Reflections of a BizDrivenLife, saying, "A business comic strip that details the politics of the office and a comic look at employer/employee/customer relationships."

Alan Smithee presents "...the subject matter..." posted at Enlightened Words, saying, "Diamond Comics -- the world's largest comic book distributor -- refuses to carry a kid's Christian comic book in comic shops due to the "subject matter.""

Hube presents Comicbook Quirk of the Week posted at The Colossus of Rhodey.

Hube presents Still yet another Comicbook Quirk posted at The Colossus of Rhodey.

Hube presents Comicbook Quirk of the Week posted at The Colossus of Rhodey.

Hube presents Comicbook Quirk of the Week posted at The Colossus of Rhodey.

chaplainandrews presents Holy Bar-Codes Batman! posted at Comic Book Day, saying, "I was inspired, yesterday to consider the object on the front of every current comic book I know of right now–the bar-codes."

Rob Moshe presents Live Your Best Life By Serving Others. posted at Rob Schaumer, saying, "This is not necessarily a fitting post for your carnival. Once the project starts, each day I will recognize a fellow blogger that "Helped"

Jim Squires presents Sunday Funnies: Justice with a Vengence posted at bits bytes pixels & sprites.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
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Not sure if a memorial is what to ask for

On Girl-Wonder's League of Substitute Superheroes blog, they talk about Spoiler getting a memorial in the Batcave, though it's really only a dream sequence of Batman's. But they're happy.

But here's the problem: asking for a memorial could actually be a signal that we're ready to accept Stephanie is dead. And I think that's a grave mistake.

I realize what led to this - that after 2004, DC editorial practically blotted out any mention of Spoiler, if at all. But I think that sends the wrong message. I think a better request is that they restore Stephanie's life. Otherwise, how will errors as repugnant as War Games and War Crimes were ever be fixed?

Barbargsa: Philippine's anti-terror comic book

Here's an interesting article from the National Defense magazine about a comic book now produced in the Philippines called Barbargsa: Blood of the Honorable, featuring a hero who practices Kuntao, a local form of martial arts, does battle against the terrorists operating in the Sulu islands district, and also does what he can to protect the innocent victims.

Good that I didn't read DC's WW3

This miniseries from at least a year ago just came out in trade paperback. I'm not sure if it was ever that big to begin with, however, and if Isis and Osiris, wife and son of Black Adam in that story, were killed for the sake of getting the onetime adversary of Captain Marvel to go on a rampage, then if it didn't make much buzz, I'd say that's fortunate. Death of comic characters is really not something to make a big deal out of.

Isis, who first appeared in the older Capt. Marvel material during the Bronze Age, deserved much better than to make a return just for being killed off shortly afterwards.

Then, here's the DC sales analysis...

Now, here's The Beat blog's analysis of DC sales for the past month. As I thought, with Justice League falling below 100,000 copies, they now don't have anything left above that.

Among the decliners, Batman seems to be failing due to the crossover of Ra's al Ghul's resurrection (as if he would remain dead for long). They say:

This isn’t good. With the “Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul” crossover out of the way, Batman promptly continues its free-fall - it’s lost another good 2,000 units compared to issue #669. Something’s going wrong here.

Of course, and it's the crossover. Though it may have resulted in a little more for Robin, it was still uncalled for, and if it's far from selling as much as past crossovers did, that's understandable, as people come to realize that these x-overs really aren't getting anywhere for them money-wise.

They may say later on that Nightwing and Robin profit tremendously from the crossover, but seeing how they sell barely 50,000, I wouldn't consider it anything to crow over.

The Infinity Inc. series that doesn't even have a connection to the original has also been selling abysmally:

These are just horrible numbers. Plainly, I’m surprised they even bothered to assign a new regular penciler to the book starting in April. Expect the emergency brake to be pulled any second now.

Meaning, in other words, cancel it and put it out of its misery.

Let's see what we have here now in Marvel sales...

The Beat blog published their sales analyses for Marvel again, and while Amazing Spider-Man #545 may have sold 124,000 copies, the writer admits that it's far from being a big sales boost:

Obviously, 125K is a very good number by the standards of most titles. But after all the hype, and given the nature of the event, can you really judge this book by normal standards? Surely Marvel were expecting something really big. In reality, issue #545 sells in the same range as the CIVIL WAR tie-in issues from late 2006, and it’s noticeably down on the first-month sales of issue #539, the first part of “Back in Black.” Relative to what Marvel could legitimately have hoped for, I would consider the sales a little underwhelming.

Where do we go from here? There are basically two possibilities. One is that the readers accept “Brand New Day” on its own terms, enjoy the stories, are attracted by the big name artists, and make the thrice-monthly AMAZING a success, despite their disdain for OMD. The other possibility is that the anti-reboot hostility infects the audience’s attitude to BMD, and readers reject this Spider-Man as a continuation of the character they’ve been reading. After all, this was where the Clone Saga ran into trouble.

Well let's hope that the latter response is where we arrive regarding this debacle. The best way to describe Brand New Day, whatever the quality of the writing, is that it serves up "fun" in a dishonest way, and not how the pro-marriage fans wanted it.

Also, the newest volume of New Warriors isn't doing very well:

Another title with serious problems. The last five issues have seen an average drop of 8%, with the most recent issues being above that average. Once again, this simply isn’t sustainable beyond the very short term. If NEW WARRIORS carries on losing sales at 8% per issue, it’ll drop below 20K within six months.

I can guess why it's been dropping: they may have tossed out Firestar and Justice, among other members who were unjustly villified in the wake of Civil War. Why then should anyone have to support this book? Let it drop even faster then.

Too many X-books, again

Reading this sugary Scripps-Howard article, it's apparent that there simply are too many X-Men titles. Which has been a problem for years now, and hasn't changed much. The writer says:

If you read comics, you know how this works: One big event always leads to another (in this case, a story called "X-Men: Divided We Stand," beginning in February).

And that's exactly the problem. Now, we once again have a story where the X-Men are disbanded as a team by Cyclops (while Jean Grey apparently is still in death limbo). And this is supposed to once more spread out across as many as a dozen books. The article even quotes Mark Guggenheim saying:

"They don't have the mansion. They don't have the support system. They are not being coddled. ... They know there are no more mutants, no more new mutants. This is the final group of X-Men that will ever be assembled. It's young kids being placed in incredibly difficult, trying, challenging situations and having no 'out' other their own abilities ... and their own courage and fortitude."

Sure it'll be the final group ever assembled. As long as it makes money, selling to the very same people, as has been the case for years now, they'll keep on writing spinoff series, such as the Young X-Men, the latest of the spinoffs they've been doing.

On Uncanny X-Men, they say:

Although there's no X-Men team anymore, this book will follow the adventures of Cyclops, the telepath Emma Frost, Wolverine, Colossus and Nightcrawler. But they're not a team. Got it? Not a team. They just, um, hang around together and have adventures. But they're not a team! Marvel says so.

I fail to see the point here. It sounds more like one of the attempts Marvel made in past years to downplay superheroes being supeheroes, and write stories that supposedly "get inside the heads" of the characters to know what makes them tick. But failed nevertheless.

And no matter what they say, it's apparent that they're still milking the X-Franchise for all its worth, including Cable, who now get a series anew:

-- "Cable & Deadpool": Canceled. Because the baby (see above) wound up in the hands of the time-traveling Nathan Summers, he will flee with it through time and space, pursued by the murderous turncoat Bishop, in the new, ongoing "Cable" (debuting in March).

Ugh. I don't think I want to see Bishop depicted as a killer going after the infant of Messiah CompleX. And since this is likely to be just a pointless excercise in time travel, that's why I'll skip it. Notice also the strategy they have of cancelling one title only to replace with another.

There are plenty of characters worth supporting in the X-World, but the way the franchise is so bloated with ongoing series is not the way to do it. I think miniseries would be a better idea, but not to Marvel's editors, apparently.