Comic Years has no issue with America transformed into "best villain"

Comic Years listed their choices for the best non-superhero comics, most of which are no better than the mainstream. First, there's this fawning take on Marvel's Star Wars adaptations, here being the spotlight on a most notable villain:

Ever since Marvel took over the Star Wars comics, they’ve been wonderful. In the past, they weren’t great. Some were brilliant, but for every good one, we had Jaba the Hutt’s Art of the Steal. The writing was messy, and the art constantly subpar, with some exceptions. When Marvel took over and provided Star Wars comics with the one thing they hadn’t had before. Money. They take the Star Wars franchise just as seriously as their own superheroes.

But this newest Darth Vader series hit us with a Sith vengeance we haven’t seen in him before. We also learn a lot more about Vader, like why he doesn’t use force lightning. We even learn why the Sith all have red lightsabers. Greg Pak’s series gives us entirely new stories but still entrenched in Star Wars mythos.

It sure is strange why we're being told this at a time when, last time I looked, the Star Wars series had pretty much all been cancelled. And if the art and scripts for Jabba the Hutt were so bad, why should we assume this is any better? Better yet, why are we expected to embrace the villains like Darth almost wholesale? And since when didn't the Star Wars franchise itself have money? That one really sent me into a confused state.

And here's 3 titles from Image, that really leaves a bad aftertaste:

In the past four years, we’ve seen many “America-gone-wrong” stories, almost all of them focused on right-wing extremists. In 2020, many of these titles were some of the best non-superhero comics in general. Undiscovered Country portrayed an America that literally cut itself off from the rest of the world and went all Mad Max inside its walls. The Scumbag showed us that the worst person on the planet is still better than any white supremacist. And The Department of Truth terrified us by suggesting ALL the conspiracy theories we’ve ever heard of were real and connected. And those are just three comics showing us the worst America has to offer in the best way possible: pages and panels.

And the propagandist who penned this showed us that harder hitting issues like Islamic jihadism and anti-white racism are not concerning at all, because such leftists are too cowardly to recognize these facts. At this point, it's enough to wonder if they also despise all the times in past Marvel books where Black and Asian villains would make appearances, including Eric Killmonger and the Mandarin. Say, would the Department of Truth also be something to tell us that 9-11 Trutherism is factual in every possible way, and that al Qaeda was working as tools for right-wingers? That sure is some way to abuse the meaning of Orwellianism.

Most saddening is how sites like these want us to just see the ugly side of America, and not its more positive sides. Worse is when they don't want to advocate for building and mending more positive elements of the USA. And just as bad is when villains are promoted as the best thing you can check out. These are some of the worst beliefs and double-standards the left can go by.

More on the disturbing politics and double-standards prevalent in WW 1984

There's still more news outlets now talking about what's made Wonder Woman 1984 into surely the most troubling movie of 2020 (and as of now, into the IMDB's lowest rated entry in their DC adaptation rankings). Forbes went into discussion of how Steve Trevor is reincarnated in takes over the body of a man (Kristoffer Polaha) who's not even named in the credits (he's only credited as "handsome man"), the ditching of morale when it comes to a scenario where a woman exploits a man for sex, and also brings up something annoying about the handling of Cheetah versus a rapist, though it also makes a very questionable statement about Batman:

There’s a second questionable scenario, also involving sexual assault, in which Diana’s friend, soon-to-be-enemy Barbara, almost gets raped while walking home through the park. Thankfully, Diana swoops in to save Barbara, knocking the attempted rapist away like a straw doll.

Later, after Barbara has developed superpowers of her own, she encounters the attempted rapist, again, and he attempts the same thing! This time, Barbara (understandably) beats the absolute snot out of him.

But Barbara’s scene isn’t presented the way Diana’s violence is - the tone is unquestionably menacing, as though Barbara’s actions are meant to be condemned by the viewer. But why? Why is the scene framed as an act of villainy?

Is wanting revenge against a man who tried to rape you (twice!) meant to be a sign of an unpleasant personality? Perhaps the difference stems from Barbara enjoying her act of violence, or at least, appearing to. If so, what does that say about a character like Batman, who would gleefully beat the brain-juice out of a teenager with a gram of weed in his pocket?

More importantly, what does this say about Diana, who doesn’t have any issue wielding her super-strength against lesser mortals? Is violence against violent men justified, or not?

According to Wonder Woman 1984, the answer is yes - but only if you’re the titular hero of the story. Because Diana’s careless acts of destruction never seem to result in civilian casualties, or even death to her enemies, seemingly because she doesn’t intend to - but really, because of sheer luck. In fact, Diana eventually drowns and electrocutes Barbara, simultaneously (but she doesn’t die, for some reason).

A question crossing my mind as I read this was: did WW see to it the rapist would be handed over to police custody in the film? If not, that furthers the alarmingly careless result of the screenplay. Serious issues are something where it isn't so simple to depict in surreal terms, and if the criminal wasn't arrested, that actually makes things worse. As does the notion Cheetah is wrong to punish a violent offender, and why must a woman who's a target or victim of sex offenders be the one to enter the role of a criminal? Doesn't that undermine the message they want to send? In fact, doesn't this plot point clash with any sense of humor the story may build on?

But undercutting the impact of this argument is when the Forbes columnist says Batman would "gleefully" smash up a teenage junkie. Excuse me? There's all sorts of writers out there who've had different takes on the character, so I have no idea where this comes from or if it's recent, assuming such a story was ever written at all, but it would hardly be in character for Bruce Wayne to assault a mere drug addict for possession of cannabis and hashish. Under the best writers who depicted Batman through a serious lens, he was far from characterized as assaulting criminals for genuine self-amusement, which would conflict with his mission to fight crime via dedication. The article also says:

The nastiest element of this story, however, is the fact that Barbara’s “sin” is wishing for a better life for herself; she’s overlooked and underappreciated, and simply wanted to soak in some of Diana’s confidence. But the story warps her character into a monster, suggesting that she just doesn't have the self-restraint to be a superhero, and that wanting to change herself was a problem. This warped sense of morality isn’t limited to Wonder Woman - it’s embedded into the very concept of superheroism.

Superheroes tend to maintain the status quo, however unjust, and villains who desire change tend to be depicted as unhinged radicals. Even if villains have a sympathetic grievance, or a strong point (Black Panther’s Killmonger, Spider-Man: Homecoming’s Vulture), they are always written to be violent, unhinged psychopaths - because they have to be.

Superheroes, however admirable their character, are rarely agents of change. They tend to be comfortable with the status quo, and look down upon characters who express unhappiness with their lot in life, especially those who dare to do something about it.

Ironically, their responsibility to save people is often depicted as some kind of burden - Diana complains bitterly about this during Wonder Woman 1984. Does she ever consider the lives of paramedics, nurses, or firefighters? At least Diana makes a decent income.

This struck me as rather confusing. Just what do they mean by "change"? Surely change for the better would be a concept lending itself well to the view of do-gooders? And does this approach they speak of actually exist in any superhero comics, or is the magazine just pulling our leg? Yet this did get me to thinking: what if the columnist is implying the villains desiring change are metaphors for right-wingers? If I can guess their thoughts correctly, I doubt they'd consider leftists' visions what the crooks in these Hollywood flicks can represent. For now, I find it offensive to imply a superhero's responsibility to save innocent lives is truly a "burden", even if there are stories where the heroes risk shunning those duties, mainly because under the best scripts, they were depicted snapping back and realizing what a mistake they'd be making otherwise. Think, for example, of the time Peter Parker almost gave up his Spider-Man costume in 1967, before realizing his error, and making an effort to get it back from J. Jonah Jameson's office so he could next go to combat the Kingpin's unleashed crime wave, at the time Wilson Fisk was introduced. Even some DC heroes occasionally had similar plotlines during the Silver Age where they pondered abandoning their role before waking up and smelling the coffee. I won't be shocked if WW84 doesn't even come close to following Stan Lee's superior blueprint, and just makes a lot of slapdash negative comments without learning lessons properly. Forbes' failure to clarify what they mean sends a hint they're not well versed in history of serial fiction.

What really makes these revelations about the film's approach to the subject matter of sexual assault galling is that it conflicts with critical statements Gadot made a few months back in an interview with Vanity Fair following a horrific gang rape that occurred in Eilat:

She talks about the need for education; she tells me about “a horrible thing that happened to a 16-year-old girl that got raped by multiple men in Israel,” in the Red Sea resort city of Eilat in August. “How come there were multiple men in the room, and no one was like, Hey guys, this is wrong, stop, somebody call the police?” she asks. “We have to role-model ourselves to our children and we have to educate them for equality. There is still a long way to go because there’s no true equality yet. If we focus our resources on this type of thing, then real change would happen.”

Maybe she should look at herself in the mirror when she talks about "equality", because she sure hasn't applied it correctly to menfolk. There are males who end up victimized by sexual assault too, and her failure to recognize or question the double-standard the sequel film goes by suggests she lacks a certain education as well. Mainly because she's most unfortunately a liberal herself who won't step out of line with what the most extreme believe.

On the political metaphors the film contains, I also checked this review of the film on The Mary Sue, which is actually negative, but maybe not for the right reasons. What raised my eyebrows in this take on the movie was a potential allusion to anti-Israeli propaganda that may turn up in the Egyptian segments, and the reviewer certainly seems to take that route:

For some reason, they decide to have Pedro Pascal’s Max Lord go to Cairo in order to seize the oil rights from a powerful man, Emir Said Bin Abydos, whose magical wish is to regain his ancestral lands and cast out the heathens. Wait, there’s more. Diana and Steve go to stop him, but not before Lord causes a giant wall to rise through Cairo and cut off the poorest people from their water supply, sparking sectarian violence. Then, there’s a huge, drawn-out, stunningly unexciting road chase scene where Diana and Steve fight a private Egyptian security force that’s defending Lord.

This means that Diana messes up a bunch of Egyptians while vehicles marked with Arabic blaze by and/or explode. She also saves a couple of kids, speaking Arabic to them, who gaze upon her worshipfully before being returned to their mother, who is clothed head to toe in black in contrast to Diana’s skin-baring red, blue, and gold ensemble. Whatever they’re trying to say here is nothing good.

My jaw was dropped for however many head-scratching, mind-boggling minutes this mess took, and it was a lot. To have Gadot, an Israeli actress who is already subject to online trolling, debate, and scrutiny for that fact, beating up a bunch of faceless but clearly Arab men in a film that’s meant to take place two years after Israel invaded Lebanon (where Wonder Woman was banned because of Gadot’s nationality) is just astounding to me. Quite frankly, it shocked me so much that it’s going to be my major takeaway from this film.

The optics of causing an actual wall to arise through a country engaged in conflict in the Middle East, cutting off supplies, SPECIFICALLY WATER, to already disenfranchised people, and only our Israeli action star is here to save the day as a savior to the children? How could hundreds of people be involved in this filmmaking decision and still approve it?

Is this meant to call attention to Israel’s wall-building apartheid state and their cutting off of Palestinian water supplies? If not, what are they doing? If so, what does it mean to also have an Israeli star as the hero here? Is Diana meant to be symbolically healing the divide? If this was the intent, it’s done so sloppily as to be insulting. Just as I felt like I was slowly becoming unhinged watching this last night and yelling at my TV screen, I feel unhinged typing out the circumstances of the Egypt Detour here.

Gadot’s involvement and those staggering optics aside, the sequences are just completely unnecessary, the sort of stereotypical BS depictions of “Arabs” that we saw a lot of in the post-9/11 film world. Adding nothing to the plot while serving to be seriously jarring, it’s just baffling that any of this made it to the final cut. They couldn’t have shifted this to something concerning a Soviet oil baron like every other ’80s film, and avoided any kind of controversy? What was returning director Patty Jenkins, who wrote the script with Geoff Johns and Dave Callaham, possibly thinking?

Reading these disgusting paragraphs, I realized it's possible the screenwriters were concocting a far-left metaphor hostile to Israel and sympathetic to "palestinians", making use of the kind of propaganda a far-left paper like Haaretz perpetuates on their part to further their goals (the way an Arab woman is depicted wearing a niqab is annoying too, though I have no idea if the reviewer thinks the same). Predictably, the reviewer obscures terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians that forced construction of security fences and walls. That Gadot's production outfit may be willing to adapt a book that was banned from mandatory reading in Israeli schools for emphasizing propaganda that could be hurtful to the country (and even to Jewish women) proves she has no issues with what political metaphors take place in this film. Yet the reprehensible reviewer who penned the above has no thanks to Gadot, if she implies that, based on her nationality, Gadot shouldn't have been depicted going to Egypt to deal with the mess Lord makes in his role of the US bigwig who causes more trouble than worth over gasoline greed. Speaking of which, besides being an allusion to security walls and fences in Israel, the wall turning up around Egypt could also be an allusion to the border walls Trump authorized for building at the US-Mexican border, making this one of the worst metaphors for depicting American figures as warmongers. (Oh, by the way, if this is an emir of Arabic background we're talking about, does this mean the filmmakers don't believe the Coptic Egyptians are the rightful heirs to the land by the Nile river?) And how intriguing Lord's even got a "private security team" of locals working for him. Another propaganda tactic, presumably?

The reviewer's wrong about "stereotypical" depictions of Arabs (or, more specifically, Islamists) in a post-911 film world, because since that era, there's been far less coming from Hollywood, and for about a decade afterwards, there were even films and TV shows depicting Islam in a positive light, to say nothing of stories where anybody worried about terrorism is nothing more than a hysterical alarmist. A leading example I know of is an episode on the Simpsons from 2008, which took that propaganda route. And lest we forget, Johns contributed to this social justice pandering while he was writing Green Lantern, and it's unlikely the film speaks negatively of the Religion Of Peace. Not sure why these Mary Sue propagandists want to keep insisting everything's not as they want us to believe it is. But very sad it had to happen, and Hollywood went militantly PC in many ways, all in hopes it'd make the problem evaporate, which it didn't. All they did was cause more damage by refusing to confront serious issues like terrorism and other such violent ideologies. And the reviewer's ignorance makes it all the more atrocious. This review doesn't dwell on the double-standard towards men, although Pajiba, a site employing writers who'd worked for sites like Mary Sue, does tackle the issue, along with a film called Bridgerton, which seems to suffer a similar problem.

Now again on how menfolk come off in the movie, there was even this review posted on Women Write About Comics, which, left-leaning as it is, confirms the screenplay's jaw-dropping depictions of busloads of men as scumbags. But first, here's a strange perception the reviewer has of the 1st movie:

Another grievance with the first film was that it felt directed towards a white and male audience. While Wonder Woman 1984 doesn’t completely rectify that issue, there are more people of colour in the supporting cast for the scenes set in the United States. However, there is a section in Egypt that is being called out by viewers for its “tone deaf” and stereotypical portrayal of MENA culture.

This is honestly laughable, but no shock coming from somebody who obviously wrote this to perpetuate identity politics. Now, here's where, despite the above propaganda, the writer states:

I was also surprised by how many gross male characters were in this film. It’s disturbing the number of times Diana and Barbara have to avoid men hitting on them or trying to touch them without permission. There were times when these were plot-related, but not always. Yes, both the characters are incredibly attractive women, and the reactions to them serve a purpose for character development, but there was too much of it here.

Even if there's supposed character development, that doesn't mean it's carried out successfully in the finished product when it's so heavy handed. What's really disturbing is how massively unbalanced its portrayals of men could be, coming close to ranking right down there with the Captain Marvel movie in terms of male-bashing. Indeed, what are the chances this film will serve as a wakeup call to how Hollywood's gone too far in pushing this anti-male agenda that's becoming common now? With the most hilarious part being that men are usually the ones bankrolling it (Harvey Weinstein's 2002 production of Chicago looks like quite an example). But, the review has its problems, as a reader comment notes:

I’m honestly shocked that this site of all places published a review that glosses over how Diana and Steve victimized the poor schmuck whose body Steve inhabited. It’s super gross, took me out of the movie and made me feel contempt for characters who I really liked after the first movie.

Given that this is another left-wing feminist site, it's probably no surprise they'd obscure what surprisingly did turn out to be a topic of discussion in some circles.

And then, look at this, CBR weighed in, which is amazing, given what a dumpster they are today, and said at the end:

Wonder Woman has long been a feminist icon. She was created by William Moulton Marston for the sake of spreading feminist messages to young readers, and the 2017 movie was widely celebrated for being the first high-quality big-budget female superhero blockbusters. It's a shame, then, that Wonder Woman 1984 completely fails in regards to one of the basic principles of feminism: consent.

But today's "feminism", if not yesterday's, has a double-standard: women must receive all the respect, yet men get none, if at all. And their claim WW was created for spreading feminist messaging is a little exaggerated too, if we take into account how Marston told the publishers how to appeal to a male audience as well, setting a blueprint for various other heroines later, even if superhuman strength wasn't a component. It's not like WW was ever exclusively aimed at a female audience, nor were men demonized wholesale in what saw print up to the turn of the century.

As much as it decidedly deserves the drubbing it's getting from those who've noticed the film talks out of both ends of its mouth, one has to wonder if the backlash from liberal sources is based more on the star's background, and if a non-Jewish actress acquired the role, would things be different? Well that's definitely a strange reason to suddenly bring this double-standard on sexual assault into discussion, and even now that any leftists do, some try to carefully avoid acknowledging far-left feminists have a double-standard, to say nothing of anti-Israel leanings. Hardly altruistic motivations, that's for sure. So far, it does not appear the film's star and producers have answered any questions regarding the dismal portrayal of men in the movie, nor how it portrays Reagan, let alone whether there's tasteless allegories for modern politics and Israel in the script, and no telling if they ever will. But it's probably not surprising the filmmakers failed to duplicate the success of the previous film on an artistic level, when the director is quite the ideologue herself, and Hollywood must believe the best way to capitalize on prior successes is through political correctness. Look where it's getting them now.

Update: and in case I forgot, it looks like, in a noticeable case of rewarding failure, the studio's greenlighted a third installment for WW movies. Assuming they want to avoid causing unnecessary controversies next time, they'll have to work very hard to prove they want to make an artistically better film. But I get the feeling that still won't be the case, nor will they approve of a film where WW combats metaphors for Islamic terrorism, let alone a story built on sci-fi metaphors for the same. Hollywood's been going down the drain these days, and the whole notion you could count on them to tackle challenging issues has long evaporated.

Remembering Stan Lee on what would've been his 98th year

The Indian Express tells of special celebrations held this week for Marvel's late, legendary writer/editor/publisher Stan Lee, for what would've been his 98th birthday if he were still alive:

Stan Lee, the iconic creator of Marvel comics, passed away at the age of 95 in 2018. This loss left an unfillable void, and on his birth anniversary (December 28) readers came together to remember the literary giant on his birth anniversary. His official Twitter handle started a thread yesterday entreating readers to share their favourite memories with Lee, and the result is heartwarming. [...]

In an interview with the Associated Press in 2006, he had said, “I think everybody loves things that are bigger than life. … I think of them as fairy tales for grown-ups. We all grew up with giants and ogres and witches. Well, you get a little bit older and you’re too old to read fairy tales. But I don’t think you ever outgrow your love for those kind of things, things that are bigger than life and magical and very imaginative.”

Adventure and escapism can continue to be worthy avenues for everybody long after they've aged beyond childhood, and they don't even have to be clogged with mature themes like jarring violence and gore in order to entertain. Something the people now in charge of Marvel clearly don't comprehend. That's why their brand new stories, in sharp contrast to Lee's of yesteryear, aren't aging well.

Here's also Movieweb's notes on this day of rememberence for Lee, which notes there was a planned screenplay about him:

Lee's life and career were previously covered in the 2010 documentary With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story, and he could next have his story explored in an upcoming biopic. It was recently revealed that a script about Lee and Marvel collaborator Jack Kirby, dubbed Excelsior!, made it to the 2020 Black List. Written by Alex Convery, the story follows the "meteoric rise (and subsequent fall) of Marvel Comics and the star-crossed creators behind the panel." As an unproduced script, there's no guarantee at this time that the movie will be made.

It sounds more like another documentary in planning, but unless it's honest and its producers willing to ask objective queries, what will be the point? If we don't get a clear picture why they've collapsed (overly violent tales, loss of continuity and consistency, too many crossovers, lack of respect for Lee's creations like Mary Jane Watson, to name but some examples), we'll never know how to fix it. If it's a serious biopic, chances are higher it'll be sanitized through political correctness, and that won't be helpful either. People have to know who the culprits were in Marvel's downfall (Joe Quesada, Bill Jemas, Tom Brevoort, Axel Alonso, Dan Buckley, for instance), and if a planned movie's scriptwriters won't acknowledge it, then nobody will be able to form an opinion. So maybe it's better if there won't be a major movie based on Lee's life.

It's great to celebrate Lee's history at a time when he would've been nearly a century old, if still living. But if the universe he helped cultivate and craft is important, that's why people have a right to know how it all got brought down via PC thinking, and heavy-handed politics. That's the sad part in all this.

Valdosta Daily Times sugarcoats some of the writings of Brad Meltzer, even while admitting his Justice League run was dreadful

Here's another sloppy article on the Valdosta Daily Times, which otherwise fawns over novelist Meltzer's comics writings. What it does do right is state that his Justice League work is disappointing. What it does wrong, however, is laud his Identity Crisis miniseries, and the first line about the JLA story conflicts with what's told later:

There's nothing wrong with "Justice League of America: The Lightning Saga."

The story arc partners the JLA with the Justice Society of America. It even pulls in some members of the future Legion of Super-Heroes.

But given the excellence of writer Brad Meltzer's previous "JLA" storylines: "Identity Crisis," "The Tornado's Path," as well as his bestselling novels, such as "The President's Shadow," and history books – "The First Conspiracy" and "The Lincoln Conspiracy," "The Lightning Saga" is a bit disappointing.

Perhaps, it's because of the aforementioned guest stars.

There are just too many of them.

I'd almost consider this alleged putdown worth congratulating, if it weren't for the sugarcoating of Identity Crisis (and as noted, to say there's "nothing" wrong with the Lightning Saga dampens the impact anyway). Something tells me that, in a post-Harvey Weinstein era, the columnist doesn't have what it takes to tell about the anal sexual assault(!) that occurs in the 2004 miniseries' 2nd issue, told from an entirely masculine viewpoint, which makes his stealth promotion tactic here only more offensive.

Add them to the already full JLA roster then it becomes a rushed smorgasbord of superheroes – a bland, uncleansed palate taste of everything followed by the dissatisfaction of being miserably full.

The strength of Meltzer's earlier JLA works is the study of complexities – with the personalities of characters as well as their relationships with one another.

That's missing in "The Lightning Saga."

Every time the story leans toward character development, a dive into the interpersonal workings of a relationship – like lightning, it's gone.

Honestly, doesn't this describe Meltzer's earlier mini just as well? Aside from how out-of-character the cast acts in Identity Crisis (Wally West more concerned about the magic "lobotomy" of Dr. Light, as it was described at the time, than about the villain's rape of Sue Dibny, for example), if there was supposedly "character development" in the story, it was pretty much thrown away by the time it concluded, mainly because the "culprit" was made out to be an ordinary co-star, Jean Loring, and not a real villain, superpowered or otherwise.

And there are so many characters, some readers may finish this story arc uncertain why the heroes teamed up and what they are fighting for. Essentially, Legion members start showing up in their past which is our present, the JLA and the JSA, a super team from the past, must hunt the Legionnaires down.

Or something like that.

This is similar to a problem I've noticed in Geoff Johns' writing (who receives credit on the paperback too): too many nostalgia elements, even if that's the least of what's ghastly about his work. In the past, most writers with a more competent approach would just focus on about a dozen superheroes in a team at most, even as others could enter the spotlight later on, and some already there could bow out for a time to make room for the other cast members. But in this overrated tale from the late 2000s, Meltzer just stuffs in all the characters he can, regardless of whether it hurts the story and takes away impact. Mainly because who in the establishment press at the time was actually going to criticize him to the fullest? He's an establishment personality, and the press will act as his apologist if they want to.

And again, the newspaper columnist sabotages whatever impact his take on this trash could have by claiming Identity Crisis was great, when it was nothing but sick, and Rags Morales' artwork only made it worse. In hindsight, it's embarrassing that the late artist Michael Turner would've ever agreed to draw cover illustrations for Meltzer's work, including the Lightning Saga, IIRC, while Alex Ross, by sharp contrast, wisely refused the offer.

Cybertrolls who were not fans of Lara Croft try to attack Adam Hughes' old Christmas drawing

Artist Adam Hughes, who's worked mostly as a cover artist for many years, presented the following picture of Tomb Raider's starlet kissing Santa Claus from a late 90s advertisement (during which time he'd contributed artwork to Top Cow's adaptations):

pic.twitter.com/IoAOFRrRlw

— Adam Hughes (@AH_AdamHughes) December 26, 2020

I think it's a charming and amusing illustration. Unfortunately, several false "fans" of Lara butted in to ruin everybody's pleasure by attacking it, and demanding it be removed:

Wow, a bunch of TOMB RAIDER fans do NOT like that Lara kissing Santa drawing. Woof. One just asked me to delete it (although they said ‘please’). Am I missing something offensive?

— Adam Hughes (@AH_AdamHughes) December 27, 2020

Of course not. He just met the latest bunch of perpetually offended by anything they can contrive, including the anti-religious activists and such, who wouldn't even give a clear explanation what's wrong with Lara making love to Santa. Though one person had a good guess:

AH. I did not know that. Thank you! https://t.co/Aa90keEaW6

— Adam Hughes (@AH_AdamHughes) December 27, 2020

Given that Lara's spent time with men before in past iterations (with the possible exception of the previous 3 games that wound up sputtering in the end), that hints this was little more than a pathetic hijack attempt as well. Thankfully, Hughes is an artist who understands why it'd be a terrible mistake to succumb to cancel culture:

I mean, I’m not going to delete Lara kidding Santa. It’s just odd that there are 7 or 8 people suddenly reacting poorly to it, and it’s been around for 25 years. None of them are saying WHY they are horrified by it. I’m just like ‘WTF?’ Bemusedly.

— Adam Hughes (@AH_AdamHughes) December 27, 2020

Thanks for the support about the MINOR Lara Kissing Santa kerfuffle. It's no big deal to me (tonight my Debit Card was identity thefted, THAT was a big deal) I was just baffled as to what these 9 kids found offensive. Your guesses are all appreciated. Let's move on.

— Adam Hughes (@AH_AdamHughes) December 27, 2020

It was practically a non-issue, concocted by the same cybertrolls on Twitter who doubtless went after fellow artist J. Scott Campbell in past years. With that told, it's a terrible shame the producers of the video game series itself succumbed to political correctness and destroyed the popularity of what was once considered a marvelous franchise, all for the sake of social justice pandering, and most irritating is how the same designers who toned down sexuality thought sexual violence itself was allowed, even if only implied. Which doesn't seem to concern the cybertrolls who insulted Hughes/Campbell one bit. All they dislike is the positives, not the negatives, of sexuality and heterosexuality as we know it, and they're not Lara Croft fans at all. Just a whole lot of troublemakers.

Valdosta Daily Times fluff-coats Dan Slott's run on Fantastic Four, and Empyre

I see the Valdosta Daily Times has been making an effort to pretend Dan Slott's writing is actually worth something, whether on Fantastic Four, or the Empyre crossover, or both:

Most of the time, I avoid the comic book crossover events into the regular titles. For example, it's usually fun to read the main maxi-series/miniseries title but it's less fun when it ventures into the regular monthly comics.

Given how a lot of modern crossovers are meant to affect regular titles in some way or other, I don't see the point of reading the main miniseries either. In any event, one can only wonder what the columnist thinks of the horrible Secret Empire crossover? With stories like that, in such poor taste, written at Steve Rogers' expense, crossovers were made much more embarrassing, and anybody who sugarcoats its nasty, deliberate insults to fans with exclamations like "hail Hydra" should be ashamed of themselves. And if the writer really finds it problematic when the crossovers affect the ongoing monthlies, why doesn't he argue in favor of putting an end to crossovers as they're practiced today? Here's why he likes Empyre:

For example, again, Marvel's "Empyre," the maxi-series involving the latest take on the Skrull-Kree War, looks interesting on its own. But normally, I might steer clear of its connection in the "X-Men," or 'The Avengers," or "Fantastic Four" titles.

OK, I read the FF "Empyre" collection without having read the "Empyre" limited series.

Writer Dan Slott makes it fun anyway. Of course, he's also one of the primary writers for "Empyre," as well as the current regular writer for the "Fantastic Four." These crossovers are always better if the writer is fully invested in the limited series rather than having it intrude upon his creative realm.

And this is just fluff-coating crossovers in general, as much as the terrible writer himself. The same writer who turned out a decade of horrible Spider-Man stories where anybody foolish enough to buy out of habit would find Mary Jane Watson not only sidelined, but also disparaged, for the sake of political correctness. And all that time, most "feminists" were silent about the marginalization of an iconic lady, even as we're lectured to that women like to read these sci-fi adventures as much as men do. Slott was also the same writer who turned out the irritating Dr. Octopus in Peter Parker's body saga. And now we're being told Slott makes this stuff a fun read? Don't be deceived. It's almost hilarious the columnist may not have read the "wheel hub" of the crossover, yet did read one of the spokes in the wheel.

All this may sound confusing but as long as a reader has some basic FF knowledge and even a working understanding of the Skrulls and the Kree in the Marvel Universe, the Fantastic Four arc stands on its own.

Even if we do have basic knowledge of the Kree and Skrulls, the wise reader still expects the story to be entertaining on merit, yet no sign this columnist actually cares, and Slott's never offered any for years now.

The FF encounter a Kree and a Skrull locked in reenacting the greatest conflicts of their respective space races. The traditional FF saves the combative pair then the traditional FF disappear from the pages of their own book because they are off doing battle in the limited "Empyre" series.

It sounds more like a repeat of past storylines, because they can't think of anything else to write up but Kree and Skrulls. And what happens in the regular FF book while this is going on?

So, Slott presents a tremendously fun replacement team of the FF: Reed and Sue Richards' teenage son and daughter matched with Wolverine and Spider-Man decked out in specially fitted FF uniforms.

Slott's run on the FF has a been a pleasure. And anyone who can make crossover issues a success – especially without the traditional main characters for a few months – deserves plenty of accolades as well as a look at his work on the limited "Empyre" series.

Oh no you don't. When writers as cynical and obnoxious as Slott are at the helm, it's not a pleasure at all. It's just a case of nepotism at this point, and it's been noted before that Slott's run hasn't sold well at store level, if at all. So I think this news columnist would do well to look for some independent comics instead, written by authors with far better manners and reputations than Slott has, and let the world know of something out there not getting enough attention that could make for a far more convincing review than this crossover is getting.

What the politics in WW 1984 are like

I took a look at some reviews of Wonder Woman 1984. Mind you, not many liberal leaning critics are even willing to come close to addressing what political elements occur in it, but they're there, and from the look of things, even if the negative metaphors for Donald Trump aren't the most heavy handed, Ronald Reagan still ends up victimized here, maybe even more, in a latter day example of liberal Hollywood not willing to forgive a right-leaning POTUS of his time for daring to oppose their far-left beliefs. But amazingly enough, if you want an example of a critic at a potentially left-leaning paper willing to tell what's wrong here, it's at the San Francisco Chronicle:

One of the mild sources of fun in “Wonder Woman 1984” is the way it evokes the styles of the period. There’s a visit to a shopping mall, where there’s a B. Dalton bookstore. The long-lost Steve comes back from the great beyond and is outfitted in a Members Only jacket. The movie is true to the ’80s, but then blows it entirely, when Lord insinuates himself into the White House and takes a meeting with the president of the United States.

If it’s 1984, the president is Ronald Reagan. But it’s not Reagan. It’s some guy played by Stuart Milligan. He has the Reagan hair, but he’s shorter and looks nothing like him, and when Lord asks him what he wishes for, the president says he wishes for many more nuclear weapons, so as to intimidate the Soviets. That’s nonsense. The real Reagan would have wished for the elimination of all nuclear weapons — that’s what he campaigned on, and what he proposed to Mikhail Gorbachev. The movie tries to split the difference, by making the president sort of Reagan and sort of not. But no president of the United States — at least no 20th century president — could ever have been that stupid.

It doesn't even sound like the Reagan stand-in was mind-controlled, which would make this one of the most extreme jabs at Reagan in the history of fiction employing real life figures in-story. It's honestly amazement when a left-leaning paper's even willing to pan the film for its poor crafting. On the right-leaning end of the spectrum, Christian Toto also noted this:

“Wonder Woman 1984” even sneaks in a slight against a President Ronald Reagan stand in. The year is, you guessed it, 1984, and the on-screen president is trying to put out the fires set by Maxwell’s wish brigade.

Yet when Maxwell grants the Reagan stand-in his own wish, he asks for MORE nuclear weapons to outgun “Russia” (didn’t we call it the Soviet Union at the time?)

Three-plus decades later, Hollywood is still slamming Reagan as a war monger.

And to think they'd choose a cheap plot device like a magic gemstone as the basis for this whole tale. Even a critic writing for the Times of Israel was disappointed, and what he says about where the film goes, in location as much as politics, is also eyebrow raising:

Lord decides that an avenue to riches is through petroleum, so he uses his new evil wish-manipulation powers to grab some oil fields. He doesn’t go to Texas or Edmonton, Canada, but, instead, to Egypt.

Here he meets “The King of Crude,” Emir Said Bin Abydos (Amr Waked), whose dream is to rid his ancestral area of heathens. When Lord grants his wish (in exchange for oil) a giant wall appears, causing mayhem in the region. There follows a big action scene, and Diana, in full Wonder Woman garb, must do battle against him and his goons, some of which are Arab heavies.

But as the military jeeps go racing down the dusty highway — oh, no! — two young Egyptian children are playing soccer in the road. Wonder Woman is able to swoop down and save them, just in the nick of time, cooing to them in Arabic as she holds them in a tender embrace.

It’s certainly a nice moment to see Gadot, who is regularly pummeled online with anti-Zionist sentiments, basking in the glow of peace and harmony with Israel’s neighbors. Keep in mind that 2017’s “Wonder Woman” was banned in Lebanon because of the lead actress’s nationality. (If you were wondering, these scenes were actually shot in Spain.)

No doubt, some effort was made - and taken too far - in trying to please literally everyone. But, it's quite likely the script whitewashes Islam despite what's told, and depending how you view this scene with Arabic dialect, one can just as easily wonder why they didn't put in a scene where WW could save some Israeli women and kids in danger from jihadists, or why the filmmakers didn't think a direct nod to Gadot's homeland would make a good moment. I've noticed many missed opportunities over the years for Hollywood to prove they're not opposed to favorable views of Israel in settings, which seems to have been the case since the mid-70s, and this could just as easily be one of them. And of course, does this excuse any anti-Trump metaphors? The simple answer is "no". (By the way, when they speak of WW in full garb, do they mean Gadot dressed modestly for the scene? If that's the case, I find that pathetic pandering to "cultural sensitivity" mindsets, here being the notion not to offend Islamists. I wonder if that's why she has armor in this movie?)

As the film was being released, suddenly, Gadot for one, clearly aware of the criticism that came about over the political metaphors, insisted it's not an anti-Trump movie during an interview with Variety (via Newsmax):

Is it a political movie?

No, I don’t think it’s a political movie. I think there’s some political elements just because it’s the nature of the world and we’re dealing with some subjects that can easily be connected to politics. But the movie is not about politics. The movie is about something that is much more simple. It’s about truth and the power of truth and hope.

What’s your reaction when hear people say that Maxwell Lord is Donald Trump? Even one of his lines is “I’m not a con man. I’m a television personality and a businessman.” How could we not think it’s Trump?

It’s interesting because when we shot it, we didn’t really think about it until we got to the White House. And then we’re like, “Hmm.” Maxwell Lord has so many different versions in the comic books. And I think that Patty and Dave [Callaham] and Geoff [Johns] — the writers — really took Gordon Gekko’s personality. The thing about Maxwell Lord in our movie, unlike the comics, is that he’s more complex because he’s not just an evil villain. He is a regular person who wants to be all these things that you would see on TV. I know from Pedro while we were shooting the movie, that at a certain point, he just focused on the page and what was there. And along with Patty, they just created this character. But we never tried to mimic anybody else. We never tried to mimic Trump or anything.

Unfortunately, that just doesn't suffice. They say he's given a seemingly sympathetic moment, but that still doesn't explain why he has to be stereotyped as a US businessman greedy for fuel resources. And lest we forget, the above doesn't explain why Reagan has to be made out to look awful.

Also note the strong hint she's not familiar with the Justice League material from the late 80s-early 90s, where Lord was far from characterized as a criminal in any capacity. I find that hugely disappointing, as it makes Gadot another Hollywooder who's not really versed in the comics' exact history, and co-writer Johns - the same one who co-wrote the Countdown tale where Lord was turned forcibly evil - clearly didn't keep her up to date on the real history.

And, it's crucial to note that a far-left writer at NBC pointed out:

The egotistical, oleaginous and ostentatiously blond-haired Max Lord is an obvious stand-in for Donald Trump. (Director Jenkins says Trump was "one" inspiration for the character.) Like Trump, Max presents himself as a successful businessman, but he is basically a con artist, with a flair for self-promotion and ingratiating falsehoods. As befits a parody of a reality TV star, the film climaxes with Lord broadcasting to everyone on Earth, bellowing "Why not more?!" like a combination self-help guru and supervillain. Diana, dressed in golden armor and wielding her lasso of truth, pierces this veil of bloviation. The message is clear: If you toss aside truth, you toss aside your soul.

Even the Wash. Post, in all their blatant leftism, reminded everyone of this. Obviously, the criticism against the screenplay's characterizations was such that the filmmakers had to do damage control. But it's too late. They could've minimized the damage long before by not basing it on Lord's modern retcon, nor on Trump himself, metaphorically or otherwise. Instead, they came off looking like they don't have the courage to apologize.

If there's something good Gadot did do of recent, she defended her casting as Cleopatra in an upcoming project, following obnoxious SJW/cancel culture reactions primarily from Arabic anti-semites, this despite the ancient Egyptian monarch being of Macedonian descent. It remains to be seen if this'll have a positive effect going forward, recalling Scarlett Johansson, also mentioned in the above link, just plain dropped a role for playing a male transvestite when hit with similar backlash. If Gadot can stand firm on her choice of role, then anybody like Johansson must too. But it still doesn't excuse whenever they reach for extreme politics when it'd be better to avoid it, and come to think of it, when Gadot and Jenkins wrote up the screenplay for the WW sequel, they threw away a chance, much like many other left-wing filmmakers today, to craft a metaphor for combatting Islamic jihadism wherever it dwells. Something tells me they wouldn't even be willing to tell the recent history-making occasion of Israel and the UAE signing accords. Hollywood, and also the comics industry proper, have been throwing away chances to confront challenging issues out of pure cowardice and political correctness, and WW 1984 is pretty much one of those results. Just a few days ago, Jenkins stated she's uncertain she'll be trying to make a 3rd WW movie. It's probably just as well. When you have a case where art is held hostage to PC, it's hardly worth it to spend as much as $200 million to make a sequel where you can't make use of topics that can make people think for the right reasons.

Update: if there was any comics writer telling what he thought whom I could find, it was Jim Zub. And what he says here about Chris Pine's take on Steve Trevor returning via possession of another man's body may be worth some pondering:

****WW84 Spoilers****

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I'm surprised more people aren't talking about the casual sex using someone else's body thing.

I feel like the outrage if the situation was reversed (woman's body inhabited and used that way) would be justifiably off the charts.

— Jim Zub (@JimZub) December 26, 2020

He's disapppointed with the story, and it seems he spotted a double-standard in how some can be "taken advantage" of with the opposite sex. If a woman had returned from the afterlife in another woman's body, and any kind of sexual relation were conducted with a male lead, then in the eyes of the PC/SJW crowd, that would've been inappropriate. But if it's something involving a man and a female lead, it's okay in all instances? Well, I guess that's leftist Hollywood for you. Certainly, there's what to think about here regarding the whole matter, but what can one expect when you have these kind of leftists running the store, making men look almost inherently dreadful apart from Steve himself? Based on the politics of those involved, it should be no surprise when the feminist ideology they employ ends up making an embarrassment of the whole sci-fi plot.

Update 2: John Nolte at Breitbart's also noticed and written about the disturbing double-standard the WW movie sequel's got on sexual assault.

Bob Budiansky's Sleepwalker creation becomes subject of a short fan film

The Tampa Bay Times interviewed a comics fan who made a short film based on Sleepwalker, a creation of former Marvel writer/editor Bob Budiansky in the early 90s, whose history is also told in this item:

Josh Noftz grew up reading mainstream comic books like Spider-Man.

But he was most intrigued by Marvel Comics’ fringe Sleepwalker about a green alien trapped inside a human’s mind. When the human sleeps, the Sleepwalker can escape into the real world to fight crime.

Noftz hoped to see a live-action Sleepwalker movie as Marvel Studios expanded its comic books into a cinematic universe over the past dozen years.

“I finally realized that was probably not going to happen,” the 37-year-old Land O’ Lakes filmmaker said. “So, I decided to do a live-action Sleepwalker myself.”

From a present perspective, he should consider it lucky if there won't be a major Sleepwalker movie. If Marvel's film division is going the SJW route, much like the comics themselves did even before Axel Alonso became EIC, then goodness knows what kind of mess a Sleepwalker motion picture would turn out to be, risking the end to any sequels. For now, here's how the guy got advice from Budiansky, communicating for starters on Twitter, along with securing production assistance from some buddies:

The other was Bob Budiansky, the former Marvel Comics writer and editor whose comic creations include Sleepwalker. Budiansky provided creative advice and has a cameo in the 28-minute movie that explores the character’s origin story.

A tweet from the filmmakers to Budiansky got things started.

“He actually replied,” Noftz said. A friendship was born. Creative advice was shared.

Good for them. And now for a little history insight:

Budiansky rejects the “legend” identity, but comic fans refer to him as one.

Among the 66-year-old New Jersey resident’s writing credits are The Avengers and Ghost Rider, but he is best known as the creative mind behind The Transformers.

In the 1980s, he was editor and then writer of The Transformers’ first Marvel Comics series, conceived the names of most of the original characters, and penned the biographies on the initial toy packages.

Interestingly enough, the late Dennis O'Neil also had some creative input for the Transformers, though the only robot he really got credit for was Optimus Prime. Budiansky did a pretty good job with what he was tasked with for 4-5 years, before Simon Furman took over for the remainder of the 1st volume. Now about Sleepwalker, here's how the idea was conceived:

The first Sleepwalker comic was released in 1991 but Budiansky said the story was birthed a few years earlier when Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter wondered if someone with Superman’s powers would be accepted or feared in the real world.

“Superman was created to look like the all-American stereotypical hero,” Budiansky said. “So, naturally, in the comic books, we accept him as a good guy. We trust him.”

Budiansky was intrigued by the question of how the world would react to a monstrous-looking hero with superpowers. Would they assume he was evil? Or would his heroics win them over?

“A couple of years later, I took a class in dream analysis,” Budiansky said. “I merged the two ideas and came up with this.”

Sleepwalker exists in a dimension from where he protects humans from evildoers trying to invade dreams. He then gets stuck inside the mind of college student Rick Sheridan. The world initially thinks the creature is a bad guy and Sheridan feels so guilty for unleashing him as he sleeps that he always tries to stay awake.

“Superman is too perfect,” Noftz said. “Sleepwalker stood out as this flawed character.”

I just hope the experimental filmmaker doesn't think Superman's "perfectness" prevents the stories from being entertaining wholesale, and hope he's aware that magical energies were as much a weakness for the Man of Steel in the yesteryear as Kryptonite was. If you think hard enough, you should be able to work out stories where, if anything, Superman can find magic and technological energy employed by villains just as formidable as the green radioactive crystal from his late homeworld. By the way, from what I know of Sleepwalker, the titular hero persuaded Sheridan he was innocent, and they worked out how to co-habitate as 2-in-1 and fight crime together. One of the much later creations to come out of Marvel, shortly after Tom deFalco launched Darkhawk as a series in 1991, you could argue Sleepwalker was one of the last of the concepts that fared better than what came down the road post-2000.

Budiansky said he tries to be fan-friendly. “I will reply to those with a reasonable request — reasonable is the operative word. If someone sends me a picture and asks for an opinion, that is an easy response. It turned out the guys are special.”

The filmmakers first met Budiansky in 2015 at a Baltimore comic convention where he was a featured guest. Budiansky later invited them to Orlando when he took his daughter to Disney World and agreed to read their script.

“The one comment I had was to make (the character) Rick more likable,” Budiansky said, “Initially, he came across a little bit arrogant and snarling.”

For that, I applaud Budiansky. Applying an overly irritating personality to the character risks turning off the audience, and that was the mistake made with Jason Todd from Batman and Danny Chase from the New Teen Titans in the 80s, yet quite a few screwballs, lest we forget, decided to blame the fictional characters instead of demanding improvements from the writers, making the above twosome from DC into early victims of cancel culture, especially Danny, whom I don't think has been seen since he was sent to the great reward in 1991.

The filmmakers hope Marvel eventually produces a Sleepwalker movie.

Again, with the way their film department's going now, I'd honestly prefer they don't. Because chances are the finished product would end up becoming a conduit for far-left politics, and turn off more people than it would impress. Anyway, I hope Budiansky and company had fun with their little fan-film, and there was plenty of stuff he oversaw decades ago at Marvel which I do appreciate.

Richard Meyer drops his lawsuit against Mark Waid

Graphic novelist Meyer issued a joint statement posted on CBR with Waid that the lawsuit is being cancelled:

Richard Meyer, writer of the comic book Jawbreakers and Humanoids publisher, Mark Waid, jointly announced that Meyer has voluntarily dropped his lawsuit against Waid in which Meyer had alleged that Waid tortuously interfered in a contract between Meyer and Antarctic Press to release Meyer's Jawbreakers (with artists Jon Malin and Brett Smith).

The statement reads like this:

“On September 19, 2018, plaintiff Richard Meyer filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas against defendant Mark Waid that asserted claims of tortious interference with contract and defamation arising out of the intended publication of a comic book by Antarctic Press entitled ‘Jawbreakers.’ Following jurisdictional discovery and motions practice, a First Amended Complaint was filed on July 24, 2019."

The statement continued, "Since the filing of the lawsuit, ‘Jawbreakers’ has been successfully published and COVID-19 has significantly impacted the world around us. Upon consideration of all the circumstances, the parties have jointly decided that it is in the best interests of all concerned, and the comic book community at large, for this litigation to end and Mr. Meyer has decided to voluntarily dismiss the lawsuit. Neither party has admitted any liability or responsibility, can claim to have achieved any victory and both have agreed to assume their own fees and costs.

With the dismissal of the lawsuit, the parties have executed a confidential agreement and have no interest in continuing this dispute in the public arena or anywhere else.”

If this was jointly issued, it seems to indicate the suit was settled out of court. But, I'm sure some of Meyer's backers are going to be disappointed he didn't keep up his end of the suit, even though it could deter other troublemakers from pulling the stunt Waid did in the near future. And some of the people who were backing Waid did eventually distance themselves from him, as it turned out he's been regrettably out of his mind in the past.

The trouble Waid caused most certainly did not have to be, and he trashed a chance to minimize the damage by going out of his way to cause trouble over a typical video filmer who's far from the only one of his sort making critical commentaries on tape about what's wrong with the industry today. One who, I'll have to note, is sending a conflicting message by acting as apologist for Rob Liefeld's past artwork, which makes it difficult to credit Meyer's argument on the dire state of illustrations today in mainstream. See, this is what I find problematic about Meyer's approach, yet it won't change what any screwball in showbiz must think of him. Defending a poor artist kept afloat by nepotism and an Emperor's New Clothes mentality does nothing to improve hiring choices in comicdom, for example, or ensure merit-based employment will be considered seriously. I don't feel great pointing this out, but if there's any mistake I believe Meyer made, that's certainly one.

For now, I hope all publishers who'd been through this are going to learn a vital lesson - whether or not they signed contracts with specific graphic novelists, they cannot allow outsiders to dictate their business practices because so-and-so doesn't like their belief system and arguments about how the industry is faring, and if the next Waid shows up and starts making potentially defamatory statements about somebody they detest, they cannot just reject their projects in order to retain favor with the "establishment". They also have to let the possible victim of discrimination know what went on behind their backs, and if the publishers were subpoenaed to testify in court, they'd do well to be honest about it. "Cancel culture" is a serious problem for longer than we know, and it can lead to ruining businesses sooner or later if they allow it to prevail.

Update: since I'd mentioned Liefeld, I just discovered this X-Men Legends #4 coverscan, drawn by Liefeld, that has to be taken into consideration in view of how awful his artwork's been before:

So, if I'm correct, this pertains to the series Chris Claremont will be contributing to, and the way Liefeld draws Wolverine for this is...mighty awkward in terms of how the upper left arm connects to the lower end, which looks kinda small. In fact, when I first saw this, I was confused as to whether that was Logan's right arm, or Deadpool's. And while big muscles are fine on men, the way Liefeld draws those is awfully puffy looking, I must say. Including how he makes the upper right leg look like a big salami filling. So of course, I'm wondering what the point is of defending an artist who, even if his art doesn't look as ghastly as some of the more recent artists DC/Marvel have been employing is, still has a very sloppy, derivative and downright mediocre style. I just don't see the point. Liefeld really does remain as slapdash today as he was before.

A comic set in Sacramento uses current events as a backdrop, but what and how?

KCRA-3 reported on an artist writing a comic about a superpowered martial artist called Impound, set in Sacramento, California:

A born-and-raised Sacramentan is taking his love and knowledge of the city to the realm of superheroes with a comic series highlighting what makes the area unique.

Brent Trayce Sands, creator of Impound Comics, believes Sacramento — particularly its MMA scene — isn't getting the attention it deserves. In comes superhero Impound, a single father and struggling MMA fighter who one day gains superpowers, which the character sees as his big break.

Outside of mixed martial arts, the comic book series will also draw from some of Sacramento's actual history. Sands said there will be landmarks, businesses and actual events that people local to the area would recognize instantly.

Unfortunately, it looks like there's some bad news around the corner here:

So far, two books have been released: "The Origin of Impound #1" and "Seraph #1." While the first book focused heavily on introduction, Sands said the second one, which he recently announced was released, begins around the time of the police custody death of George Floyd.

"At some point, there's gonna be rioting," Sands said. "You'll see Kicx Unlimited or something like that being looted ... I'm trying to make the world more realistic that way — make it with current events."

I checked on his site, and spotted an illustration of a Black Lives Matter protest, suggesting that, if the writer's politics are what I think they could be, this is going to be hugely disappointing news, to learn that an ideologue is producing yet another item that could lionize an offensive, embarrassing movement that's caused nothing but trouble, and the alleged victims of racial issues BLM used as representatives of their "cause" have all turned out to be involved in criminal activity in some way or other. If the Impound comic going forward won't address any of this, it'll be a telling example of an indie comic published for whitewashing and promoting leftist causes. We really don't need the medium being used as a tool for such leftist propaganda.

More news on Lashawn Colvin and the independent industry

WBHM radio spoke with Lashawn Colvin, the first Black woman to open a comics store in Alabama, and what they note here sounds more informative than what you might see some other news outlets telling:

Bookstores are feeling the impact of the pandemic, but they’re faring much better than their niche counterparts: comic book stores. Still, Marvel and DC superhero fans are keeping the industry alive, as are indie comic lovers. One of those people is Lashawn Colvin. She recently opened her very own comic book store in Montgomery, becoming the first known Black woman in the South to do so.

Soon, it's bound to be pretty much indie comics the industry will be all about. Unless, of course, the Big Two could be sold off to a business with a far better approach to writing, art and marketing. Lest we forget, Marvel/DC are on their last legs these days, so you can't say their fans are keeping them above water if sales don't reflect that.

Aside from running her business, Colvin has been editing comics since 2016 for Short Fuse Media Group, a comic book publishing company. And she’s created a lot of meaningful relationships in the indie comics world. She has an entire wall at her shop dedicated to independent authors she’s worked with over the years.

“I was flooded with so many gifts from independent comic book creators and it was so beautiful because they were so supportive,” she said.

To be sure, far more so than what you'd find in the mainstream, where the higher echelons can take advantage of you in ways far worse than executives in previous decades.

I wish Colvin well with her growing career in indies, and her upcoming Beautiful Soldiers, which looks far more promising than the catastrophic mess the mainstream's become. Independents are clearly the way going forward at this point.

Forbes interviews comics podcaster Method Man

Forbes ran an interview with Cliff Smith, a rapper, producer and actor working with the Wu-Tang Clan band, who's also a podcaster who's dealt with comics under the nickname Method Man. Some of his replies to queries included:

Wow! Do you remember what your first comic book was?

MM: It was a Green Lantern comic book I got in Penn Station with my dad. I picked it up because I loved the colors and it caught my eye. I flipped through the pages and I couldn’t even tell you what it was about but that's my intro. Green Lantern has one of the best costumes in the game, sorry Marvel.

Assuming he's talking about Hal Jordan, he deserves some credit for lauding the costume originally drawn up by Gil Kane. He definitely does far better than Geoffrey Thorne, what with his reprehensible approach to the creation.

Did you think about the value of your comics? Were you a price guy kid?

MM: Yes, I was a price guide guy and an avid Wizard collector. I would say my most valuable book right now is my first appearance of Wolverine from an issue of Incredible Hulk. That was when comic books were at such a height that a lot of people who weren’t avid collectors thought there was money to be made with these books so they started buying up all the number one issues. The gatekeepers of comicdom decided to give fans multiple number one covers, and that devalued everything. I didn't buy the books thinking of the value of them, because the true value in the comic books are the stories they tell.

It reminds me of how people are buying up these Playstation 5’s and selling them for double and triple the price. It should be illegal, but everybody gotta get that money. I ain’t hatin, I just want them to leave one for little Johnny, the six-year-old boy who didn’t get what he wanted for Christmas.

He earns credit for pointing out what went wrong with collecting, and why story should be the important part, not the monetary value. And he's right that people who buy Playstation consoles just so they can sell them at higher prices is reprehensible too. Though why anybody should want to buy a machine from Sony, which has recently made a troubling shift towards censorship, is anyone's guess. But up next, here's something that isn't quite so:

Getting back to the books, I love how the past writers laid the path for current writers to be as free as they are now with their character development because they’ve influenced a lot of people.

MM: Honestly, the thing that stood out to me the most doing the Marvel method conversations, was the fact that the majority of the celebrities I spoke to have a moral code that they got from the books and they don’t even realize it.

On this, how do both interviewer and interviewee feel now that morale's been thrown to the winds in modern times, by hack writers who don't give a damn what older or newer audiences think? Look at the irrational conduct of all the Slotts, McKones, Simones, Busieks, Marzs, and Russells out there on social media. Even if their online attitudes aren't reflected in the books they've written, their antagonistic behavior to fans online is still in stark contrast to what Method Man may experience in the Hollywood district he's part of.

As for laying out paths for current writers to find creative freedom in mainstream, I'm afraid that's not very true. It's only a select bunch who get that privilege, like the above bunch, along with ideologues like Jason Aaron. Even if people like him know better than to channel their ideologies into disparaging attitudes online, it's still no excuse for the political propaganda he put into his Thor stories.

I know you love Wolverine, Do you have a top-five of X-Men characters?

MM: I do, but they’ve changed so much because there are so many of them. I'm reading the Jonathan Hickman X-Men right now, and I hate to speak bad about somebody whose writing I enjoy, but sometimes it takes him a while to get to the good parts. Right now my favorite characters are Apocalypse, Kid Omega, Krakoa, and Emma Frost because I got to throw the women up in there, and Storm.

I get the feeling he's strained to admit what he really thinks, that Hickman must be slow. Couple that with the pretensions found, like retconning Moira MacTaggart into a mutant, and you have to wonder why so many are tilting towards PC, when Hickman's X-Men stories could be some of the most overrated tripe since the turn of the century.

You told Inverse that you’ve always been a Marvel fan because you thought their stories were more grounded than DC Comics.

MM: Sometimes it's hard to grasp the DC stories because I feel like they're not coming from a real place sometimes, but with Marvel superheroes, it was just something about the majority of them being from New York. As a kid, I thought I might look up and see the Avengers or the Baxter Building from Fantastic Four

Reading this, I'm decidedly let down he's telling Forbes' writer something he'd surely want to hear. This is exactly what harmed the DCU in the long run, as specific people tried, for better or worse, to make the DCU a "real place", and despite this, the very complainers never actually bought their products. By Smith's logic, it wouldn't be a big deal that Black Panther hails from a fictional country like Wakanda, and the fictional country of Madripoor that's appeared in books like Wolverine's solo isn't something to be impressed with either. Come to think of it, if that's what he thinks, then the Negative Zone doesn't make for a fun adventure either. If you're going to make such a fuss over whether a character has a personality, or set in a real life location, then you're obscuring the merit of the adventure in store. And the following is fishy too:

Switching over to Power Book II: Ghost, your character seems really intense like the Kingpin from Spiderman, and as I said at the beginning, I need to know what his origin story is

MM: I think if Davis did have an origin story, it would probably start with him being an apprentice to maybe a Johnnie Cochran type character and he learned a moral code from him. He was probably similar, and I hate to use this reference, but to a Fred Trump type guy whose whole objective is to win at all costs. People want a happy ending and to do that you’ve gotta win, and when the main character wins, that’s a great story.

The guy he cites is the late father of Donald Trump, who worked as a real estate developer. If this is meant to be an indirect swipe at a POTUS who worked hard to improve the economic situation in the USA, I'm not impressed, nor amused, if he's basing a crook on a conservative figure so blatantly. That only takes away more impact from this whole article.

You cosplayed as Bishop this year and I was wondering what draws you to him other than wanting to see strong black characters?

MM: He’s a very powerful character, he refocuses his energy through his guns so if you punch him he could concentrate that into energy and hit you with the shit, that’s just dope because a gun superpower is the ultimate.

There are a limited number of relevant black Marvel characters in the Marvel Universe, like Luke Cage and Black Panther, shout out to Chadwick Boseman, and I think they should create more diverse characters and I would love to play one of them.

Here, he's talking sense. In contrast to Marvel's modern overlords, who went out of their way to twist so many established creations inside out when Axel Alonso was EIC, and it only led to plummeting sales, as the phantom audience they thought was there never bought their offerings.

Interestingly, Bishop was written as coming from Aboriginal Australian descent, but according to history research, many Aborigines have ancestry from Africa as much as Eurasia, so it's not inaccurate at all to indicate Bishop's of Black descent.

That said, it's regrettable we have here somebody who, while he has some perceptive views to offer, is still dampening the impact with a political allusion, and comes close to perpetuating propaganda about lack of realism, a position that's just as harmful to a lot of fantasy settings in ordinary books without pictures. I really wish these people would cut it out, and start arguing in defense of why fantasy settings can have a lot of advantages entertainment-wise, and why it's unhealthy to worry too much about lack of character personality, or whether the story is dark enough, because all that does in the long run is lead to a lot of disasters as many scribes pave the road to hell with good intentions, and ruin everything.

Zenescope's making a move in the right direction

I found some interesting news from the past 2 months that still bears consideration. Zenescope, the Pennsylvania-based company with titles whose leading stars are sexpots drawing from fairy tales, is going to be making a move towards formats more in trade style. In this First Comics News announcement from October:

Zenescope Entertainment, the company behind independent hit comics such as Grimm Fairy Tales, Van Helsing, Robyn Hood and Grimm Tales of Terror is changing their publishing program beginning January 2021. Zenescope will turn its focus toward publishing monthly, quarterly and annual stand-alone stories within its large shared universe. These newly formatted books will be unnumbered and “oversized” issues containing anywhere from 32 to 72 pages of content.

All of the company’s “Grimm Universe” titles will be published under a new format, with the exception of Zenescope’s flagship series, Grimm Fairy Tales, which will remain a monthly numbered title through at least issue 50.

“We will continue to publish a limited number of mini-series each year, but those will be stories that fall outside of our shared universe.” said Zenescope’s President Joe Brusha “There’s been a major shift in the way all entertainment is being consumed. People want access to a full story all at once rather than having to wait five or six months to complete an arc. Most of our books will fill that need. We also feel it’s important to publish books that new readers can jump into at any point without worrying too much about past storylines. We’re designing our Grimm Universe books to be new reader-friendly while also appeasing the longtime fans who’ve been following our characters for years.”

This is also brought up by ICV2 in November:

The company behind published comics Grimm Fairy Tales, Van Helsing, Robyn Hood, and Grimm Tales of Terror is steering away from the traditional series run model of publishing comics, and towards putting out monthly, quarterly and annual stand-alone stories. The newly formatted books will be unnumbered and oversized issues, and are aimed at serving customers who want the whole story arc in a single comic. [...]

This, IMO, is the way to please both old and new customers, and a step in the right direction every publisher should take. Not to mention the need to abandon company wide crossovers as the Big Two are mainly guilty of, and sooner or later, they're bound to go under due to how meaningless they've become. The days of the monthly pamphlet are over, and so too is the monthly anthology. Graphic novel format should be the successor. And it looks like Zenescope is going at least halfway there. Which is the right thing to do, as there are advantages for comicdom going forward.

What Polygon considers best of the year

Leftist Polygon's laid out their "choices" for the best of 2020, and, as expected, it's all fluff-coated crumminess on their part. Curiously enough, at the beginning, they state:

On the surface, comics faced no more hurdles in 2020 than any other retail offering. As isolated people around the world turned to familiar sources of entertainment, distraction, and solace, comics were there for them, from nonfiction graphic novels to the latest dimension hopping adventures of eternally entangled superhero continuity.

If they feel that way, how come they've never clearly complained, or urged a boycott of DC/Marvel until somebody with a tasteful reputation is hired to clean things up into a more comprehensive horizon again? All those gushing commentaries they publish clash with the idea they think it dismaying.

Even as COVID-19 safety measures began to set new boundaries on everyday life, the American comics industry seemed handily poised to keep making comics. The life of a freelance comics creator is already pretty, shall we say, “socially distanced.” Graphic novels flew off of shelves at an accelerated rate, just like their drab counterparts, regular old books, as independent retailers rushed to pivot their businesses in the face of shutdowns, and retail conglomerates reaped huge rewards.

I find it most interesting they're bringing this up, seeing as news sites like these aren't especially opposed to the idea of conglomerates, so long as the top brass are leftists who'll work as gatekeepers, and ensure their ideology reigns supreme. This year, much like a few previous, saw closures of far more specialty stores than before, and Marvel/DC both have to shoulder some blame for foisting only so many politically motivated products on the shelves. Come to think of it, some retail managers may have to shoulder blame too, for relying so heavily on the Big Two's output when there could be a lot more independent comics out there, no matter their politics, that could've taken up space on the shelves. Maybe more importantly though, is the mistake of relying so heavily on monthly pamphlets instead of majority paperbacks/hardcovers. I've made the point before, and future retailers will have to consider.

But then, existential upheaval — the sole distributor of monthly comics issues shut down “until further notice” for nearly three months. Books were canceled, pencils set down, DC Comics broke the Diamond monopoly, and publishers of monthly comics are still digging out of the backlog. But just because fewer comics came out this year, doesn’t mean they weren’t as good.

The reason why DC's venture is otherwise a failure is because of the artistic and political disaster they've become - no good writing and artwork means no good sales to reap financial rewards from. Shifting to employment of different distributors is fine in itself; certainly if you can afford it. But refusing to improve their artistic quality renders the move meaningless. Yet Polygon won't acknowledge that, because ideology eclipses all. On that note, among the picks of the year, for example, there's Batman Universe, written by Brian Bendis, who else:

Frank Miller (Batman: Year One, The Dark Knight Returns) has called Batman the most resilient character in popular culture. No other archetype of our modern consciousness, according to Miller, has the flexibility to star equally well in a comedy, a noir mystery, a dadaist sci-fi romp, a Western, a fable for children, a gritty action blockbuster, or any other combination of scenario and tone you can dream up.

Brian Michael Bendis has dropped a paraphrase of this quote in many an interview about Batman Universe, and I can forgive the repetition only because that quote is simply what the book is about, deep down in its paper bones. It is perhaps the best pure distillation of all facets of Batman into a single story since Batman: The Animated Series.

The book begins with Batman recovering a stolen Faberge egg from the Riddler and ends in a reality warping confrontation with Vandal Savage, a caveman who touched a space rock that made him immortal. But none of that really matters. What Batman Universe is actually about is watching the DC Universe’s most competent but strangely dressed straight man ping pong through its weirdest and most beautiful corners.

No matter how much a Bat-fan I am, it's idiotic to imply only the Masked Manhunter could possibly take up all these roles, when, using a little imagination and creativity, Nightwing could also be, and I'm sure Len Wein's creation of Christopher Chance, an agent specializing in disguises could be put in the same. Why, so could Superman But what really raises the eyebrows is the citation of comedy: It's not like, since the Bronze Age, there hasn't been a sense of humor in Batman stories, but the lurch to such seriousness today under emphasis of darkness has made it harder to find what to laugh at. That aside, Bendis is not one qualified to paraphrase, after all the harm he's been doing to both Marvel and DC. But it's no shock at all Polygon's writers would rank him so high among their preferences for writers. That's practically why they're so forgiving, and it has little to do with what the book's supposedly about. Another example of their favoratism is this comic called Magic Fish:

The Magic Fish is a poignant book about a 13-year-old, first-generation Vietnamese-American who uses fairy tales and other storybooks to communicate with his parents when the language barrier becomes too much. But Tiến is terrified to come out to his parents (he isn’t even sure how to explain being gay in their language) and turns to the power of fairy tales to help. Nguyen’s stunning art style and understated color choices just highlight the bittersweet beauty within this coming-of-age story.

This type of topic is only soooo big among the left today, and such a big deal, far more so than maybe a story involving heterosexual romances between young teens. And then, another choice of theirs that raised my eyebrows was Matt Fraction's modern solo book starring Jimmy Olson:

The best comics in 2020 made history relatable, transformed great works of art, displayed everyday life with heartbreaking or hilarious honesty, and brought superheroes to new frontiers in science fiction on a monthly schedule. Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen didn’t do any of those things.

[...] There are references to great moments in comics history, and also My Brother, My Brother, and Me. There’s a scene where Jimmy takes off his wetsuit to reveal a white tux underneath it, and then several pages later takes off the tux to reveal another wetsuit. The very first pages introduce a recurring role for the Red Lantern Dex-Star, which is to say, a perfectly healthy house cat that is constantly vomiting an impossible amount of blood.

[...] Eventually the whole thing winds up being vital to Superman canon, and also a commentary on the downsides of ad-driven journalism. It’s just about the best executed 12 issues of absurd joy you’ll find in one place.

Wow, if they could make use of something so gross as vomiting blood, I can only wonder what more unpleasant surprises are in store within the pages of this insult to the intellect. Don't be fooled by this approach to alleged comedy. By the way, when they speak of ad-driven, is that an attack on capitalism? One more example cited here is Jonathan Hickman moving the X-Men to an island:

In 2019, Marvel comics reinvented a decades-old, world-renowned superhero team. House of X/Powers of X becomes the only thing anybody in comics wanted to talk about every week for 12 weeks by baking modern science fiction concepts into a pulp tradition with the finesse of Paul Hollywood.

Usually, when an event of that magnitude ends, you want the creators of that series to keep doing it in exactly the way they did it the first time. But that’s not what happened with X-Men, both Marvel’s flagship mutant title and X-architect Jonathan Hickman’s first followup series to the event House of X/Powers of X.

X-Men is essentially a science fiction anthology. Big Two American comics are not without the odd anthology series here and there — the format is more thoroughly owned by manga publishers — but never in the book that is simply the name of the character or team.

The X-Men themselves are nearly tangential to Hickman’s exploration of the weird corners of science fiction, until they’re not. A true successor to HoX/PoX in content rather than form, X-Men is a garden for Hickman to plant seeds, debuting hooks for other writers to pick up on and feeding concepts to readers that blossom into events like X of Swords, building a trellis for the rest of the X-Men line to grow on.

Even at its worst, the book is interesting and entertaining, and at its best it is transcendent, containing some of the most memorable moments in modern X-Men history, produced with skill and style by his artist collaborators. Over the past year, many people have asked me which of the nearly one dozen post-Hox/Pox X-Men titles are the ones they should read. My answer is often different, tailored for their personal affections and reading predilections. But I’ve told all of them to read X-Men.

Seeing what they think of a book about homosexuality like Magic Fish, it's a sure bet the aforementioned memorable moments include Kitty Pryde's transformation to lesbian. And, you can be sure, they have no issues with Moira MacTaggart's transformation into a mutant, in an example of retconning a "civilian" character and removing what made her special for the franchise. It's one thing if a veteran character gains science-fantasy powers later in a later story, but it should still be consistent, because again, if you retcon them in such a contrived manner, it waters them down. And when the speak of anybody in comicdom wanting to talk about this stuff, chances are higher it's the PC establishment that did. I'd also think that, if the main X-Men series were an anthology, it'd risk defeating the whole purpose of team and related solo books alike, which is to focus on interactions between team members, with individual affairs occuring on the side. Yet, if there's nearly a dozen or more X-books in Marvel's output now, doesn't that compound the view that there's far too many overall? Just like the Batman franchise has quite a few related books coming out soon, not the least being the Joker's and Harley Quinn's, in another example of too much villainy. While Superman has barely half as many related books now.

Again, Polygon's proven what a laugh riot they are in terms of nominations for the year, to say nothing of their failure to offer more than some rather obvious choices that could be based on ideologies, political correctness and even cheapness.