Stan Lee's 89th birthday

It's another year and Marvel legend Stan Lee has just celebrated his 89th birthday, and is still working in various comics related projects.

Nashua Telegraph fawns over Grant Morrison's new book

The Nashua Telegraph has written a fawning take on overrated Grant Morrison's new personal vanity book called "Supergods":

If you’re still looking for the perfect gift for the geek in your life, here’s our third and last round of suggestions:

“Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human” by Grant Morrison (Spiegel & Grau, $28) is a book that’s as hard to categorize as its author.

Morrison has succeeded critically and financially in the comics world with his eclectic writing, which combines a healthy love for superheroes, an unbridled imagination, fierce intelligence and a comprehensive literary background.

In “Animal Man,” he wrote himself into the story and made the lead character aware that he was in a comic book.

He wrote “Doom Patrol” as a surreal, Dadaist fantasy with a transvestite street, nightmarish men made of scissors and a painting that swallowed Paris.

He put Batman through a chemical-induced mental breakdown that incorporated many of the weirdest, mostly ignored stories from the character’s 72-year history.

Gee, that's some "healthy love" for superheroes alright. Transvestism, blades like scissors, Mary Sues (the fanfiction slang for people who write themselves into their works), and possibly worst of all, Morrison's allusions to drug abuse. Some imagination, intelligence and comprehension for literature too.

Now comes the book “Supergods,” which is a sort-of history of comics, a sort-of Morrison biography and a sort-of meditation on the underlying meaning of superheroes, spirituality, magic and the human journey.

And it’s clear that this Scotsman has pondered more about American pop culture than most Americans.

But he also brings the wealth of a UK education [...]

Oh yeah, including socialism. This is the same writer who basically hijacked/exploited the Man of Steel for the cause of socialism in an interview he gave to the New Statesman where he said that Superman is a "socialist superhero", and they in turn made that the headline of their very article. He even told them that "The "soft body" superheroes of the 1960s were almost a prediction of the way LSD would affect the consciousness of a lot of young people", and I can't even begin to describe just how mind-numbingly insulting that is. If that's the kind of take he's going to espouse, then he hasn't thought more about US pop culture than anybody else.

Why, in fact, did it ever occur to the Nashua Telegraph that it's really strange how a man who's made big money in the comics business could belittle the very concepts that enabled him to make big money by supporting socialism?

Superheroes and other such comics might be able to teach us something about being human, but Morrison, with his kind of background, most certainly can't. Nor can mainstream newspapers who bias themselves in favor of overrated writers and poor ideologies.

USA Today fawns over crossovers and even Matt Fraction

USA Today has written a sugarcoated take on this soon to be past year's products, and it includes a gushy claim that Flashpoint was a great crossover:

Best event:Flashpoint. Comic-book companies have flirted with different realities, dimensions and the like, but writer Geoff Johns and artist Andy Kubert did it right, sending the Flash into a place where a war between Aquaman and Wonder Woman is razing the Earth one continent at a time, Cyborg is Superman, Superman isn't exactly super and Bruce Wayne's dad is Batman. But the truly spectacular aspect was the emotional story and its quieter moments, including one involving the Caped Crusader that'll make even the most jaded fanboy a little verklempt.

Please, spare us the sensationalism. What's so wonderful about a story whose true purpose was to erase a lot of what better writers came up with over past decades, and end sadly with Eobard Thawne causing disaster for Barry Allen? That's not exactly what I'd call a great show of emotion.

Best tweeter: Matt Fraction. A shining example from the writer's Twitter feed (@mattfraction): "dont care what her personalized license plate said im pretty sure that old lady wasnt a real druid. like a lady-druid would drive a festiva." Another: " "Pancakes and Suicide" is the name of my Crab Apple Cove-themed M*A*S*H b&b."

That awful writer is their choice for a tweeter? Oh for heaven's sake. His tweets are mere babble, though nothing compared to his awful comics writing.

Best decision: DC's "The New 52" relaunch. With decades of muddled continuity, DC Comics had a crisis — and not one of the infinite-earths kind. Want to start reading Batman? Good luck trying to figure out where to even begin. So the company made a gutsy move and relaunched every single one of its superhero books in September, starting again with 52 No. 1s. Not all of them were gold but a good number of them were, and as a whole they built a solid foundation to foster new fanboys and fangirls in the future.

This too is simply galling, and ignores how Batman was among a couple titles that weren't actually rebooted (so good luck indeed trying to figure out where to start), and pretty quickly degenerated into still more of the violence that's become a staple of their whole approach over the past decade. And what solid foundation for new audience are they talking about? The sales figures are far from suggesting they've made any progress on that front, and the next crossovers they're coming up with won't help matters either.

Best use of bad guys:Fear Itself. Matt Fraction put mystical hammers in the hands of Attuma, Titania, Absorbing Man, Grey Gargoyle, Juggernaut and others of the Marvel Universe's heaviest hitters in his event series. Even worse for the do-gooders: A possessed Hulk and Thing joining them to pummel the world just when it needed them the most.

That only tells more about why the crossover was better avoided.

Best death:Johnny Storm. OK, so he was only actually "dead" for a matter of months and we never actually saw the body when the Human Torch sacrificed himself to keep the Negative Zone shut in Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four. He perished the way a good hero should, and — even better — returned in the landmark 600th issue of the long-running series. Flame on, indeed.

Best dead character who actually stayed dead:Gwen Stacy. College students could write treatises on the number of comic-book folks that just can't stay dearly departed — the zombies from The Walking Dead notwithstanding. A former flame of Peter Parker, Gwen has remained 6 feet under — through many Spider-Man reboots — since 1973, when she died after getting tossed off a bridge by the Green Goblin and having her neck snapped. Ouch. However, if next year's movie The Amazing Spider-Man— featuring Emma Stone as Gwen — proves ridiculously popular, maybe the thought of Gwen 2.0 won't be such a crazy possibility.

Besides fawning over yet another publicity stunt with the Human Torch, we can only wonder what they think of J. Michael Stracynski's defamatory story about Gwen in Sins Past in Spider-Man, which tragically may still be holding in their current continuity muddle. It's an utter embarrassment that for all we know, could take centuries to repair.

Matt Fraction appears to have politicized the raid on bin Laden's hideout

Matt Fraction put together a webcomic for Gentleman's Quarterly about Team 6's raid on Osama bin Laden's hideout. Unfotunately, Fraction's leftist side seems to have gotten the better of him, if the description of bin Laden as an "old man" is any suggestion, and the writing runs the gauntlet of depicting the terrorist monster as near-sympathetic. And the use of "for God and Country" at the end reeks of a leftist bias too, or an attempt to smear the right as "jingoists" and religious fanatics.

Clearly, Fraction is one leftist writer who simply does not know how to leave his political biases at the door, and recognize that the main point of the termination of bin Laden was to punish a tyrant for plotting and masterminding the murder of 3,000 people on 9-11.

Kyoto's manga museum exhibits American-drawn books

An article on Crunchyroll about an exhibition the Kyoto manga museum is holding next month for American talents in the art.

Just as we might've thought: DC is still going to swamp themselves with crossovers

Even after the relaunch of the DCU, they're still intent on flooding the market with more tiresome crossovers, which include:

The Green Lantern mini-event through the four Green Lantern family books (Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern: New Guardians, and Red Lanterns);

The two-parter in O.M.A.C. and Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E.;

The Young Justice titles cross-over involving at least Legion Lost and Teen Titans; and

The Dark cross-over between I, Vampire #6 & #7 with Justice League Dark #7 in February / March 2012.

Eventually, there's every chance that besides these, they will very soon be planning a fully universe-wide crossover too for next year, which should be avoided just as much as the current ones they've already got coming.

Marvel keeps up the confusion surrounding Cable

USA Today reports on another tie-in with the coming Avengers vs. X-Men crossover, called "X-Sanction" and it sure doesn't sound like they've cleared up any of the massive poor writing that developed around Cable over the past 2 decades. They begin by telling that:

Cable has had plenty of roles over the years in Marvel Comics: a soldier, a mercenary, a father, a straight man and a terrorist.

And the latter role isn't something we'd like to see a character we thought was conceived as a hero in. Big mistake.

Now he's about to become the Avengers' worst nightmare.

The futuristic warrior and member of the X-Men has come back in time yet again and is taking aim at Captain America, Iron Man, Red Hulk and the rest of Earth's mightiest heroes in Avengers: X-Sanction, a four-issue miniseries beginning today that leads directly into Marvel's big 2012 event, Avengers vs. X-Men.

Cable makes his presence known in the very first issue of the book (available in comic shops and digitally), which teams writer Jeph Loeb with artist partner Ed McGuinness. Something's going to happen to Cable's daughter, Hope Summers, and he has been tipped off that the Avengers are responsible. So he targets them one by one starting with their leader, Captain America.

It's a story about a father and what he's willing to do in order to protect his family, says Loeb, who's also Marvel's head of television. "There are lots of Easter eggs that will give you hints of this cataclysmic thing that is on the horizon. But by the same token, it is a story that is really driven by Cable and what he has learned in his journey through time."

So Hope is this muddled hero's daughter, just like Cable himself was either Jean Grey or Madelyne Pryor's son (I can't remember correctly which of those women is the actual mother, but then, his background spiraled into such confusion over the years thanks to their stable of hack writers, it probably doesn't make much difference). But while defending his family in itself is a noble motive, plotting the story as it is at the Avengers' expense is another. Thus, the premise they speak about does nothing to make the coming crossover any better.

Loeb has always viewed Cable (who first appeared in 1986's Uncanny X-Men No. 201) as the X-Men's Captain America: "He was a leader, a soldier, a man out of time, so in many ways he was not simply a guy with big guns and a lot of pouches," he says.

Unfortunately, he was a very badly written guy, and Rob Liefeld's design making him look like a giant heaving big firearms did little to improve upon the almost non-existent characterization. In the end, he was just one more hub in a whole wheel of spinoffs from X-Men meant more to make a quick buck than to tell a good story.

Loeb admittedly also holds a special place for Cable, since he was a primary character in Loeb's three years as the writer of X-Force beginning in 1995, his first foray in the mutant-laden X-verse.

He says he benefited from Cable's very vocal fan base back in the day, and Loeb wants to return Cable to the place he wants to see him as a fan of the character.

Unfortunately, not many Cable fans are left since just like for the rest of the MCU, even many X-Fans have lost interest, so Loeb, a long overrated writer by now, is likely to find very few who care to look, and with the weak reputation Loeb has earned over the years, not many are likely to trust in his ability to entertain them. Nor are they likely to be impressed by the idea of Cable fighting with the Avengers instead of alongside them.

DC cutting back on their digital offerings

In this Word Balloon podcast, DC Comics' marketing manager John Rood told them they wouldn't be doing much more digital installments of their output:

I think you’ll see us still experimenting, but I don’t think that any time soon digital first will expand greatly as a tool in our toolbox, you know? It’s something we’re experimenting with, but it’s not something that’s going to take a greater share of voice in the coming months. I don’t expect bigger ticket items, in terms of the effort to edit and create them, and then the effort to sell and pay for them, to be digital first any time soon.

Now what does that suggest? I'd say it's a strong signal not many care for their current output even in digital format. I for one would rather buy my books in printed format anyway, because it's so much easier to read while sitting on a sofa and holding it in my hands.

If it were a successful venture, Rood would surely be telling everybody that there's more to come, but clearly it hasn't been very successful at all. For which they'd be advised to look at the quality of their writing and the editorial mandates surrounding them, and see just how that's apparently turning everything into a failure for them.

Eduardo Barreto dies at 57

Another talented artist besides Joe Simon who's also passed away is Eduardo Barreto at 57 years of age, who'd worked as artist on New Teen Titans, Superman, and even comic strips like Judge Parker. Another good artist who's sadly gone.

RIP Joe Simon

Captain America's co-creator along with Jack Kirby has passed away at 98 years of age.

I think what I appreciated most about Simon besides creating one of the most famous superheroes for Marvel was that he understood the menaces we're still facing long after 9-11 back in 2001 (I think he supported the war in Iraq) and, as he told in this interview written just 2 months ago:

SIMON: Stan Lee, bless him, was right in that we’d all like to be that hero, punching out Adolf Hitler or Osama bin Laden. I did an updated version of the famous comic book cover, this time featuring bin Laden, and one day we may make it public.

I do hope we can get to see that newer drawing someday, but what if the lefties now holding Marvel hostage try to prevent that? It remains to be seen if Simon's drawing of Cap punching bin Laden will ever see the light of day.

For now, it's sad to see another legend gone. We owe Simon a lot of thanks for the good he brought in his time.

Manga on Japanese plane flights

An article on Jaunted about how Japan Airlines is going to offer manga for reading on electronic screens on their flights, possibly the first time the idea's been thought of.

Marvel is dredging up the Phoenix for the umpteenth time

As part of their next overbearing "event", Avengers vs. X-Men, which predictably is an excuse for yet more quarrels between teams:

Avengers vs. X-Men is Marvel's major event series next year, running 12 biweekly issues and featuring five of the industry's most influential writers: Brian Michael Bendis, Jason Aaron, Ed Brubaker, Jonathan Hickman and Matt Fraction.

"It's one of those legendary ideas: What if the Avengers fought the X-Men? It doesn't get much easier to describe than that," Brubaker says.

Kicking off in a special "zero issue" prologue in March written by Bendis and Aaron, Avengers vs. X-Men begins the next month with an extinction-level event barreling its way toward Earth, namely the cosmic entity of death and rebirth known as the Phoenix Force. It's looking for a new host who will possess all of its power, which may or may not be the mutant teenager Hope Summers.

Cyclops, Wolverine, Magneto and the other X-Men want to protect her and prepare her if she's to be the new Phoenix. Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man and their fellow Avengers want her handed over to them so they can figure out what to do with her and keep the world safe from a potentially fiery fate.

Suffice it to say, tensions — and fisticuffs — arise.

Big mistake: instead of teaming up to prevent disaster, they fight? And why should the teen in question have to be in possession of this entity and power to begin with if it's so monumentally dangerous?

The Phoenix story was famous in its time back in the late 1970s, but since then, the whole idea has been run into the ground as countless writers and editors kept recycling and over-referencing it, just like Hank Pym's assault on Janet VanDyne from 1981. A whole crossover where the heroes clash about how to deal with the chance that another cast member will become host to this entity/power is not improving on the cliche one bit. No matter how good the Phoenix story was in its time, it was one story that should've been left alone and not been as exploited as it's been these past 3 decades.

Captain Cold's powers are pointlessly internalized

In this CBR interview with Francis Manapul and Brian Buchalleto, they tell that Leonard Snart, alias Capt. Cold, is getting built-in powers:

"A lot of it was very logical stuff. It was trying to stay true to the original," Manapul said of the rogue's revamp. "With him having internal powers, it actually made the most sense for him not to even have a coat or a hood. We really struggled with that for a while, especially since that's such an integral part to the iconic look that he has. This was a good compromise. A lot of the design of it was very practical. The reason that he's sleeveless is that we took the idea of ice in his veins literally. We're going to see the physical manifestation of powers going through his arms, almost similar to the light glow you see cut into the Flash's costume, but with this one, it's obviously a colder [effect.] With regard to the hood, it was just something we couldn't lose, you know? It's such an iconic part of his outfit and I think -- do you ever see kids, they wear hoodies when it's warm out? The way I thought about it and the way we presented it is that the reason he's wearing [those clothes] is that he's just a normal guy with a cold gun."

If memory serves, DC tried something like this a couple years ago with the Weather Wizard, with no lasting impact. I don't forsee this having much either. And here I thought they'd said they were going to introduce some new villains, which would at least have given them an excuse to feature a new one with internalized ice powers. Or, they could have cast the son of the Golden Age Icicle as the adversary in whatever they're planning. But again, all they can think to do is mess around with the established villains more and more.

The biggest problem of course, is that this is almost fully guaranteed to be a humorless depiction of Captain Cold, no thanks to Geoff Johns, who ruined Leonard Snart this way a decade ago.

Jerry Robinson dies at 89

Jerry Robinson, the Golden Age artist who co-created the Joker as well as a few other characters for Batman, is now dead at 89 years old. There's another famous figure who's sadly gone.

Tom DeFalco won't admit doing a bad job on the FF in the 90s

USA Today wrote about the Fantastic Four's history, and Tom DeFalco, as one of the interviewees for the article, said something really bothersome:

Tom DeFalco jumped from Thor to take over writing chores for Fantastic Four in 1991, when he was also Marvel's editor in chief. Calling it "the greatest roller coaster in comics," DeFalco says he brought a sense of "crazy melodrama" to the series to jump-start lagging sales.

During his run, Alicia Masters, the blind wife of Johnny Storm and onetime love of the Thing, was revealed to be a shape-shifting alien Skrull, and Reed Richards appeared to be killed by his also-dying arch-enemy, Doctor Doom. (Both turned out to be very much alive.)

"We used to get this horrible hate mail," DeFalco says. "People would say, 'I hate this book! You don't understand the characters! They shouldn't be upset all the time!' And every month, sales rose."

First of all, yes, there have been cases of readers who kept reading these series despite the bad storytelling, which was ill-advised, since it only encouraged the writers to keep on with bad moves, and the editors to keep employing them on the assignment.

But did sales really rise during DeFalco's time as writer? As he indirectly admits, his run on the series at the time was not well regarded (I certainly didn't think the way he ejected Sharon Ventura from the recurring cast was called for), and while it's too long ago to locate clear charts, I wouldn't be surprised if long term, they didn't. It's practically what led to further problems when at least 4 of the series were cancelled for the sake of Heroes Reborn, which, with terrible artists like Liefeld in charge of 2, were just as poorly regarded.

In any case, if the readers were let down, they should have refrained from buying the FF and other series that were being ruined by Marvel at the time (and sadly, there were quite a few that were). Ultimately, some did, and that's why the 4 Marvel series saw some improvement when Heroes Return came about. But it was not to last, as we've come to see this past decade.

I think it's a shame if DeFalco won't clearly admit his work on Fantastic Four at the time was a disappointment, even if was nowhere near as bad as some of the really awful maneuvers Joe Quesada and Bill Jemas later made with much of Marvel's output.

Bendis finally leaving Avengers, though not soon enough

In this CBR article, it's revealed towards the end that next year will be Brian Bendis' last for misusing the Earth's Mightiest Heroes:

And not only will 2012 will be a particularly big year for Marvel's top-billed super team, it will also mark Bendis' last year working on the Avengers titles. The writer began crafting the adventures of Earth's Mightiest Heroes in 2004, and after eight years, he's finally ready to bring his run to an end.

"I'm going to wrap up 'Avengers' and 'New Avengers.' At the same time the first storyline of 'Avengers Assemble' will be done," Bendis told CBR. "It's a good time to move on to other things. Before I go, though, I'm ending things big. I'm in countdown mode. You know when you're watching a show like 'Breaking Bad,' and every episode feels like the second to last episode? That's where I'm at. I've been on the Avengers longer than anybody in the history of the book. When you take everything into account, I've written over 200 issues. I'm very, very proud of that, and what we have coming up this summer gives me the opportunity to go out on a high note. I know enough about showbiz to know that's a great time to go."

Boy, does he like to gloat and boast. The only reason why he's been on the Avengers as long as he has is because Joe Quesada approved of his unworthy approach to the fullest. First, he turned Scarlet Witch into a wacko, then, he took the series and slapped it together with parts that belonged in other books like Defenders and Heroes for Hire, and, most noticeably, he resorted to some very obvious casting like Spider-Man and Wolverine, which just shows how little faith he truly had in the official cast of the book to sell and stand on their own. And lest we forget how Bendis, the very writer who once said he detested letting Hank Pym back into the Avengers because of the embarrassing story where he was depicted smacking down Janet VanDyne in the early 80s, later went and technically slew the Wasp towards the end of Secret Invasion. With that kind of a track record, it's no wonder the book was otherwise rendered unreadable.

The saddest part is that even after he leaves, there's little chance any of the terrible steps he took will be reversed. What is likely to happen is that another hack writer whom Axel Alonso favors will be brought in to continue making a mess out of a once famous team title, and unless Marvel is taken over by owners and publishers who actually care, the damage will never be repaired.

Alan Moore stumbles and turns against Frank Miller

Well, it looks like even Alan Moore, whom I'd thought to be one of the more reasonable of leftist writers from the UK until now, has stumbled. In this interview with Honest Publishing, he attacks Frank Miller's work - which he himself once wrote at least one forward for in Dark Knight Returns - and whitewashes the Occupy movement, which has been attacking the very concept that helped even Moore make big money, and attacks Miller for condemning them:

“[The Occupy movement] is a completely justified howl of moral outrage and it seems to be handled in a very intelligent, non-violent way, which is probably another reason why Frank Miller would be less than pleased with it. I’m sure if it had been a bunch of young, sociopathic vigilantes with Batman make-up on their faces, he’d be more in favour of it.”

Oh please. First, the stockbrokers on Wall Street - not to mention the businesses who sustained financial damage from how the Occupiers scared other people away - did not steal anyone's money, they earned it by working for it. Second, what's this about OWS being non-violent? What about the Portland branch's vandalism of 2 police cars, and the LA branch's destroying food vending equipment, for example? What about, more disturbingly, the cases of rape that the movement wouldn't call the police about, and even an assault of an elderly lady? What about the protestors who terrified young schoolchildren? Even drug use took place at the encampments. That's what Moore is calling intelligent?

And what would Moore say if a comics store anywhere in the country also took financial damage or got vandalized by the Occupy protestors and had to lay off staff? Why, did it ever occur to him that even comic book store owners are capitalists, the very thing OWS has been attacking?

To make matters more galling, Moore and David Lloyd are teaming with a company publishing Occupy comics. And here I thought Moore wanted out of comics. Now for this, he's willing to go back in? Sad.

I might've thought once that Moore was one of the few people of his standing in the UK who had the decency to refrain from getting involved in stuff like this. Clearly, I was mistaken.

Update: on Big Hollywood, when people were discussing this in the comments, someone brought up Moore's "Lost Girls" and how peculiar it is of Moore to be accusing Miller of "unreconstructed misogyny" when he himself could just as easily be accused of the same with that disturbing graphic novel he wrote some time ago. Agreed, it certainly is ridiculous of Moore to be mouthing off even like that given his own record with Lost Girls.

Al Jaffee's world

CNN has a whole article about the life of MAD magazine's Al Jaffee, one of the few contributors to the famous parody 'zine who's still around today.

North Carolina's Aniwave convention

A short article on NBC's WECT6-TV site about the Aniwave manga and anime convention they hold in Wilmington, North Carolina.

With an unappealing title like that, no wonder this Supergirl TPB was cancelled

Comic List tells of at least 2 planned trades that were canned by DC:

DC Comics has cancelled orders for the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS CHRONICLES VOL. 1 TP (OCT110242). This title will not be resolicited.

DC Comics has cancelled orders for SUPERGIRL: GOOD LOOKING CORPSE TP (SEP110193). This title will not be resolicited.

I don't know about the former, but with a title like what the latter's got, I highly doubt that would sell, even if it weren't such a victim of editorial mandates.

Newsarama says that these are the latest of several other cancellations, including last volumes for JSA and R.E.B.E.L.S. Apparently, they must realize that some of their recent output was so bad, it's not even worth publishing in trades, and maybe that'll be what happens to some of their DCnU stories too.

Scientific manga

An article on MSNBC about manga books dedicated to teaching science and other forms of education, some of which are now being translated into English.