I’m Five Years Ahead of My Tih-ih-ime: Graeme on 5 Futures End Books

Clearly, DC’s PR department is learning. In previous Septembers, it’s sent out each of the event month books as review copies — yes, I own and have reach each and every one of the Villain’s Month books — with only a handful of exceptions that I’ve always put down to mailing errors instead of an attempt to prevent spoilers on a specific issue from coming out (After all, I’m not sure anyone was concerned about what happened in Resurrection Man #0).

This year, though, it’s different; with ten Futures End one-shots in stores, only half were sent to me as comps, meaning that if I want to know what happens in Action Comics, Aquaman, Batwing, Swamp Thing or Phantom Stranger, I’ll have to buy them myself. As far as the others go, though…

Detective Comics: Futures End #1: I’ve been disappointed with the Francis Manapul/Brian Buccellato Detective run to date following their Flash — it’s seemed visually conservative in comparison, with writing that’s just felt very rote and filled with tropes we’ve seen before — and that sense of familiarity runs all the way through this issue. After Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s whole “Zero Year” storyline, now we get to see Batman and the Riddler again, except they’re older! And neither is anywhere near as interesting! There’s an art change midway through the issue from Scott Hepburn to Cliff Richards that hurts things, as well; both of them are fine artists, but their styles are hardly similar and the switch makes no sense narratively. All told, this one feels like it was rushed and is fairly inessential — for those still following the core Futures End series, it is on the face of it, utterly inessential, in fact. Unless you’re a Batman completist, probably safe to avoid.

Earth-2: Futures End #1: This is a really strange issue, insofar as it appears to contradict things from the main Futures End series in terms of the portrayal of Mister Terrific — not a bad thing in and of itself — and exist more to set up the Earth-2: World’s End series more than anything else. It’s also somewhat narratively unclear, throwing a lot of things at the reader that, I presume, will be explored elsewhere but feel very, very crowded and unnecessary in the space of 20 pages here. It’s frustrating, ultimately, because there’re things here that feel as if they should be followed up on, or mentioned at least, in the central Futures End series (The question of who Terry Sloan is and what he’s up to, at least, feels as if it’s a bigger deal than most of the plot lines in that book; me, I’m also super-curious about Jimmy Olsen becoming Metron from Seven Soldiers: Mister Miracle, but I suspect that’ll never be mentioned again), but never will be, because this was created after-the-fact and aside from what was invented for that series. It’s messy, it’s overly busy, but it’s not dull. File under “What is your tolerance level for inexplicable continuity porn?”

Grayson: Futures End #1: Continuing this series’ trend of being better than expected, this issue is kind of… really good…? And part of that is the fact that it’s pretty much got nothing to do with the gimmick of the month. Sure, it starts five years in the future of the current DCU, but each successive page of the story takes place earlier in the character’s timeline, so by the end of the story, we’ve gone all the way back to Dick in the circus before his parents were killed. What we’re left with instead, then, is an issue that begins with Dick’s death (spoilers!) and then proceeds to unpick the reasons for that death, drop hints about the future of the regular Grayson title and act as a one-off meditation on who Dick Grayson is. Like I said, it’s surprisingly great.

Green Arrow: Futures End #1: And here we have the one issue of the five I read that explicitly ties in to the main Futures End series — and does so in a massive way, retconning one of the plot points of that series and suggesting that the retcon is going to be revealed in a future issue. Does that make this issue a spoiler? Maybe so, maybe no, as Chris Claremont would’ve put it, but it definitely makes this issue unsatisfying in its own rights, which feels like a shame. It’s so balanced between Green Arrow continuity (As someone who doesn’t read the title, all of the discussion about the Outsiders made little sense to me and carried no weight) and Futures End continuity (Who is the new Green Arrow? What happened to Oliver Queen? Where is OMAC Island?) that I feel as if it’ll only really have any impact if you’ve been faithfully reading both titles — or, perhaps, if you’re Jeff Lemire and have been writing both.

Green Lantern: Futures End #1: And this is just… I don’t know. Actually, that’s not true; there’s a lot I like about this issue, and the way in which it acts as epilogue to both Robert Venditti’s current GL run and also Geoff Johns’, with a return for the Black Lanterns, Relic and Hal’s father, surprisingly. But, again, I’m not entirely sure if this was set-up for future stories or a strange standalone that requires readers to fill in a bunch of blanks — there’s a sense of incompleteness here, and not merely in the ending of the issue that feels far more like a cliffhanger than a conclusion. As with the Detective issue, there’s a sense that some more time and another couple of passes might have provided some more clarity of intent and storytelling, even if this issue doesn’t feel quite as unnecessary as the Batman one — just one that very much plays into its existing audience.

Based on this batch of issues, the Futures End branding on the event month feels like a mistake — only one of the issues is really connected to the series of the same name, yet I think it scares off those who might’ve been interested in the flash-forward gimmick but doesn’t follow the main series. Thematically, there’s not a lot connecting these issues to the Futures End event, either, which feels like a missed opportunity for all involved — there are larger themes of the definition of heroism, technological paranoia and global xenophobia to be played with, but for the most part, little of that makes it into the books so far. It’s not quite a missed opportunity yet, but I’m not sure how this month is going to turn out just yet.

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Oh, Mea! Oh, Culpa!

Dearest readers, I’m about to let you down. I don’t want to sugarcoat it, so I’m just putting it out there.

Thanks to the holiday weekend, the workload remaining immediately after the holiday weekend and a laptop that seems to think that today’s a good day to hyperventilate and offer the spinning wheel of death for far longer than anyone would like, I’m going to be a day late with my review for this week. On the plus side, we… all got an extra long weekend…? Okay, I got nothing. But tomorrow! Just you wait, ‘Enry ‘Iggins. Just you wait.

(Seriously, though: sorry.)

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And The Parade Goes By: Jeff Watches Sin City: A Dame To Kill For

sin-city-dame-kill

On Monday, I tweeted that I wanted to go see Sin City: A Dame To Kill For, the latest film by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez.  In the interest of full disclosure, I should admit I called it “Sin City 2.”  Because it was a tweet and because I feel the joke is played out, I did not append “Noir City Boogaloo” to the end. But now I regret that, kinda.

Friends said things like “jeff no you have so much to live for” and “why do that when you can get drunk and fall down a couple flights of stairs instead?”  and Graeme himself told me not to, adding “Friends don’t let friends watch Sin City 2.”

This was all the encouragement I needed, and so, on Wednesday, I found myself in the first matinee (at 1:oo p.m., always a good sign) with five other people (ditto) to watch the follow-up to the popular 2005 film which faithfully adapted four stories from the intermittent series Mr. Miller wrote and drew through much of the ’90s.

Full disclosure time again: I almost used another old joke and wrote “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For starring Whiplash, Robin, Thanos, and Sue Storm” but I think, again, that joke is kind of played out and, again, I kind of regret not doing so.  Many of the Hollywood analysts noted that doing a sequel nine years later might not have been the best idea, financially speaking, for various reasons, but I don’t think any of them really added “you know, because we’ve seen enough of this shit.”  But I think there’s something to that: in the intervening nine years Marvel has launched every movie in its film empire, Christopher Nolan released every movie in his Batman trilogy plus Inception, and Zach Snyder released 300, Watchmen, and Man of Steel (and Sucker Punch!). It hasn’t even been all superhero stuff–we’ve seen some good comic book movies (Persepolis!, Snowpiercer!) , and a lot of bad comic book movies (here is where my The Spirit joke goes).  Whatever was original or surprising about the Sin City film has been cannily appropriated by now.  As we are all aware, there is nothing  groundbreaking or risky or subversive anymore about a comic book movie–just ask Whiplash, Robin, Thanos, and Sue Storm.

And yet, I went into Sin City: A Dame to Kill For with something like the lowered expectations nostalgia brings: while Sin City 2 being only as good as the first movie hurt it in today’s very different landscape, “only as good” would be good enough for me.  I liked the first Sin City.  I’m a sucker for seeing black and white movies on the big screen, especially if there’s some element of excitement and adventure that isn’t defined as, you know, watching Woody Allen sit at a restaurant and wave his hands about. I liked how perfect Mickey Rourke was as Marv, and how even though Clive Owen is a better actor than Bruce Willis, he couldn’t find his way into the film but Willis could. I liked how surprising some of the actors–Elijah Wood, Nick Stahl, Josh Hartnett(!?)–were.  Sometimes quite good, sometimes not, but at least…surprising.

But here’s the problem–Sin City: A Dame To Kill For isn’t as good as Sin City.  It’s not nearly as good.  More or less across the board, it is genuinely terrible.   In under two hours, Rodriller (that’s my attempt to do for “Rodriguez/Miller” what Brangelina did for Brad & Angelina) spins out four stories, two from the original comics (“Another Saturday Night” and “A Dame to Kill For”) and two Miller unfortunately wrote especially for the screen.  All are, arguably, prequels and/or sequels from the first Sin City film, focusing on Dwight, Marv, and Nartigan (that’s Brangelina-ese for Nancy/Hartigan, the heroes of “That Yellow Bastard”).  But because Powers Boothe is the villain of two of the pieces, it almost feels more like he’s the real protagonist of the film: he and Eva Green’s bare breasts are on camera at least as long as Mickey Rourke.  I kind of hope that, at least in some international backwater, the movie is playing as  Adventures of Rack and Mustache (in 3-D).

(Seriously, you see Eva Green’s boobs so much in this movie, and from every possible angle, that I think someone equipped with the DVD of this film and a 3-D printer should be able to build a perfect facsimile of her chest. Which, you know, ew.  But it is theoretically possible.)

Sadly, a lot of the movie didn’t remind me of Miller’s comic: they reminded me of Max Fischer’s plays from Rushmore, actors trapped in hilariously derivative scenes while the author/director looks on, lost in visions of his own greatness.  The sets and effects are terrible, far cheaper than they seemed in the original, and Rodriller muster up no energy for most of their interminable action scenes.  At one point, Jamie Chung (taking over from Devon Aoki as Miho) trots half-heartedly on a green-screen treadmill while chased by the animated silhouettes of thugs firing guns, all of it looking exactly like the kind of late-night commercial a cash-rich car salesman with a cocaine problem might commission from a local shoe-string production company. Throw in the terrible soundtrack, unceasingly festooned with Rodriguez’s soul-crushingly vapid guitar licks,  and you get a cinematic experience that didn’t remind me of the movie Sin City (2005) as much as the video game Max Payne (2001).  In fact, it reminded me of the video game Max Payne (2001) a lot. By the end of the movie, I even doubted Robert Rodriguez or Frank Miller had ever been inside a strip club, which is amazing because if there are two guys you know have spent a lot of time in a strip club…

And yet…I’m almost glad I went?

There’s another reason why I liked the first Sin City movie and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For doubles down on it: you put an actor in front of a camera, and you take away their co-stars, their sets, their props, and, in this movie, any good dialogue, as well as anything that resembles reality as anyone has ever known or experienced it.  Pop quiz, hotshot:  What do you do? What. Do. You. Do?  (Protip:  Don’t quote Speed. That is as hack as “referring to movie stars by their geek movie names,” and the “_________ Boogaloo” joke.)

Like I said, Clive Owen–who I would happily spend hours arguing is, in Croupier, far more Sin City than his role–or  any other role–in Sin City–just couldn’t nail it in the first movie.  I think a lot of it, god help him, was his accent, because the one advantage the leads in Sin City films get in the face of all that deprivation is a voiceover.

But a lot of the actors in these films don’t even get that. It’s down to things like posture, voice, commitment, who they’re cast as and what they do with it.  It’s interesting, probably the closest a filmgoing adult can get to pulling the legs off of ants and burning them with magnifying glasses.  You sit there, thinking in an abstracted way: What are these things, anyway?  What do they do?

Considering Joseph Gordon Levitt as Johnny and Josh Brolin as Dwight were in two of the better quasi-noirs of the last decade–Brick and No Country for Old Men–it maybe shouldn’t be surprising they are intensely watchable, and at times even believable, in their thrice-derived roles.  But it is surprising.  A day later, part of what sticks with me is that look on Dwight’s face when Manute punches in him in the chest for the first time.  (OH YEAH I FORGOT TO MENTION IT BUT JESUS SIN CITY IS RACIST AS HELL.) Or Levitt’s voice as he explains how he’s won even as he’s lost everything.  Both of those guys say things–unbelievable, ridiculous things–and you believe them.  Not all of the time? But that is far better than what the actual score should’ve been, which is: none of the time.

Rosario Dawson as Gail is great. I vaguely remember her in the first movie, but she commands the screen here. And Christopher Meloni does amazing stuff with the role of Mort, the police detective in “A Dame To Kill For” who falls under Ava’s spell: just by the way he handles his glasses, Meloni lets us know his character is dangerously repressed and crazy as a shithouse rat.  It made me remember how much I’d hoped, reading the original series, Mort was going to end up being Dwight’s nemesis at the finale.  Rourke is disappointing as Marv, in part because his makeup here is worse, and they film it from the worst possible angle. (Also, in the same way Levitt and Brolin were in better noirs, Rourke in The Wrestler managed to out-Marv his own Marv.)  I kinda like how the guy at the bar with the crazy hair who was supposed to maybe be Wolverine in the comic looks like he’s maybe supposed to be Jim Jarmusch in the movie?  I thought that was pretty funny.

As for Sue Storm, Miller and Rodriguez do everything in their power to give Jessica Alba a meaty role (except, you know, treat her like an actual human being.  But then nobody else in the movie gets that either) and she’s okay, I guess?  You know she goes crazy because she cuts her hair like Sharon Osborne, and then her stunt double gets to roll around with a crossbow and shoot guys until Alba can finally confront Powers Boothe for causing the death of Bruce Willis.  (And then, of course, it’s really Bruce Willis–who is dead–who makes the difference.  Because although women can be tough, they still can’t be as competent as men, even dead men.)

This summer, I started to suspect movies might really be changing, things like narrative and drama and characterization being these weird evolutionary vestiges from theater and literature that might actually be cast aside. What’s going to remain is spectacle and pageantry, and what’s going to keep us in the seats watching all that spectacle, all that pageantry, will be recognizable expressions of humanity, even as those expressions grow more and more abstract:  a crying raccoon, a tired, angry ape, Mark Wahlberg’s trembling bicep. As capitalism gives us more of everything but time, we will grow ever more eager for the unique experience, that moment that shouldn’t work but does, the second of genuine triumph buried in all the endless hours of flat, bright trudgery.

But then again, I’m probably wrong.  After all, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For was a bomb everywhere but in Russia (where reality goes to die), so maybe genuine drama and narrative still has a place in the world.

Or maybe friends don’t let friends see Sin City 2.  Maybe the reason movies fail–especially bad movies–doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that.

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Oh, Superman: Graeme Meets Johns/Romita’s “Men of Tomorrow”

sm342jpg-ed5f81Reading the third issue of Geoff Johns and John Romita Jr.’s Superman, I found myself both enjoying the issue and fascinated by the ways in which Romita’s art — with the lovely Klaus Janson inks that give it a rougher, blockier edge than other inkers, and Laura Martin’s bright colors — disguise the fact that, in many ways, “The Men of Tomorrow” is both a Greatest Hits of Recent DC Superman Stories and the chance to finally move past a lot of tropes that are beginning to feel a bit tired.

By the end of #34, the third issue in the run (out tomorrow, so I’ll avoid spoilers), we’ve finally met the villain of the piece but the overall arcs of the run remain unchanged: Superman has discovered Ulysses, who is essentially an alternate version of himself but from Earth, presenting us with two very, very familiar Superman themes at this point:

• A Superman (or, in this case, Superman analogue) who might not be trustworthy, and
• A Superman who gets to go home

The former is something that DC has become increasingly fascinated with. Both Earth-2 and Injustice feature Superman-Gone-Bad as a major plot point, after all, and in the “main” DCU, Grant Morrison’s run finished with the New 52 Superman facing off against the weird genericized Superman monster from the alternate world (All-Star Superman also featured the hilariously Scottish Kryptonian heavies).

The latter, meanwhile, may be a lesser Superman trope but one that Geoff Johns set in motion at the very end of his Action Comics run some years back, when he brought back the Kryptonians from the shrunken Kandor and set the “New Krypton” storyline in motion (A storyline that, while it does fall apart at the end, is as close to 52 as DC has managed since that series ended, I maintain).

With “The Man of Tomorrow,” Johns definitely isn’t breaking new ground in terms of plot, but there’s something to be said about the execution. By bringing in Ulysses — and also with the introduction of the villain in #34, who has a certain level of deja vu to those readers who remember Infinite Crisis’ “Sacrifice” storyline — Johns gets to have his cake and eat it too, creating a way in which to explore those themes without actually altering the classic Superman status quo in any way. In fact, as the scene in the Daily Planet in the first issue showed, he’s seeming reconstructing that status quo, which has fallen into disrepair in the New 52.

Superman+#32+Wrap+Around+CoverBecause of this — and, in many ways, because of the way in which Superman is essentially a passive observer for much of these three issues to date — Johns’ Superman is the most Silver Age he’s written so far, and the most traditional version of the character seen since Morrison jumped ship (As I said in the podcast, the Calvin Ellis Superman in Morrison’s The Multiversity is very Silver Age, too, in many ways). He’s not the Silver Age Superman — I suspect that Johns is too enamored with the melodramatic character dynamic and angst of the 1980s to deliver the hyper-competent, paternal Superman of the ‘50s and ‘60s — but he is kinder, calmer and quieter than might have been expected from Johns’ previous outings with the character.

That kind of hero may not necessarily square with Romita Jr.’s artwork, at least in theory — Romita Jr. is an extremely dynamic, overblown artist in the best possible way; his characters overact, and feel constrained and uneasy when not in motion. And yet, there’s enough action in the stories to show off those chops (even if it’s not necessarily the action you’d expect — Superman running through a room changing his costume, say, or flashbacks to Ulysses being sent from Earth), and somehow the tension Romita brings to the quieter scenes adds something to the experience, rather than contradicting it.

That tension also, as I said above, disguises Johns’ story in some way. You expect something to happen at any moment, but the dramatic moment in the scene is Superman being told that he’s welcome in someone’s home, or something equally… small. What should feel like a disconnect in tone between the story and art instead works to the overall comic’s benefit; there’s a sense of uncertainty and surprise in what is, in many ways, an extremely conservative, traditional comic. Johns is putting the toys back where they “belong,” and yet the whole thing reads fresher and more exciting than that exercise should be to jaded eyes. I know where he’s going, ultimately, but I can’t quite tell how he’ll get there.

Whether or not this balancing act will be able to be sustained long term isn’t clear — we have no idea how long either Johns or Romita Jr. are staying on the title for, or whether the bloom will fall off their rose sooner rather than later — but for now, Superman is one of DC’s most curious books, even though it’s not necessarily doing anything new, per se. Whatever happened to the man of tomorrow, indeed.

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Wait, What? Ep. (15)7: Poptimists!

Here Comes The Fear Again.

Here Comes The Fear Again.

 

00:00-10:01: Greetings! It’s a very subdued greeting this time around—probably because Jeff tried to outsource all of the introduction work to Graeme. It’s been a tough couple of weeks, and we find ourselves clinging to the potential optimism of current pop nerd releases. Also mentioned for its timeliness: Genius by Marc Bernardin and Adam Freeman, currently being released weekly from Top Cow.

Wow, he beat up both Ant-Man *and* Yellowjacket!

Wow, he beat up both Ant-Man *and* Yellowjacket!

10:01-1:04:21: Should we talk about Avengers #175-200, first? Yes! Are they some of the dullest comic books we’ve ever read? YES. Join Graeme and Jeff as they wonder how 25 issues with art by John Byrne and George Perez, writing by Steven Grant, Mark Guenwald, Roger Stern and especially David Michelinie, the debut of Taskmaster, an “epic” restructuring of the origin of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, giant robots, and the Absorbing Man can be so distressingly dull. PLUS, the jaw-dropping Avengers #200, an issue involving time-displaced rapey incest and not just some of the worst treatment of a superhero ever. Although we start talking about it earlier, Graeme tries to recount the plot around 37:27, which is followed up with Jeff’s dramatic reading of a truly terrifying infodump. Ever-timely Jeff brings up Luke & Laura from General Hospital, and much-more-timely Graeme mentions the 17th episode of Rachel & Miles X-Plain The X-Men wherein Rachel and Miles discuss Avengers Annual #10 and how it very specifically addresses this story. (Although we didn’t re-read AA #10 for this podcast, we also discuss it but, really, who cares about us.) If you’re interested, here’s a link to the fandom article about Avengers #200 that first addressed a lot of this issue’s problems.
1:04:21-1:30:14: As for comics from this century: The Multiversity #1 by Grant Morrison, Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, and Nei Ruffino. We are indebted to the annotations of the first issue by David Uzumeri, and a stellar post by Cheryl Lynn over at Digital Femme. But don’t worry, we also have our own thoughts about the book. (Boy, do we.) Discussed: Cartoon physics, the forces of pessimism, Bryan Hitch, All-Star Superman, JLA One Million, and the need for fluidity, possibility and the possibility of ideas.
1:30:14-1:36:23: The same week Jeff picked up The Multiversity #1, he also picked up a book from a few weeks earlier with a story that takes many of the same ideas and proceeds down a different path with them: “Grandeur and Monstrosity,” by Alan Moore and Facundo Percio (colors by Hernan Cabrera) in Avatar’s God is Dead Books of Acts Alpha.
1:36:23-1:49:01: Another interesting comparison/contrast to The Multiversity, courtesy of : The Fade-Out #1 by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.  Is it the ultimate Brubaker/Phillips book in the same way The Multiversity feels like the ultimate Morrison book? Also mentioned: Abhay’s follow-up discussion over at the SavCrit of the conclusion of Fatale; female agency in Fatale and in Velvet; the conclusion to the first arc of Catwoman as recounted by Darwyn Cooke (and as recounted by Jeff) ; and more.
1:49:01-1:53:23: Little Nemo: Return to Slumberland #1, by Eric Shanower and Gabriel Rodriguez, with colors by Nelson Daniel. A gorgeous book, but how does it read? Is it worth the dosh? Does Nemo end up all a-tumbled out of bed with one leg higher than his head?
1:53:23-2:10:13: Infinity Man and the Forever People #3 by Dan Didio and Keith Giffen, Jim Starlin, Rob Hunter, and colors by Hi-Fi. Jeff appreciated the Starlinisms; Graeme pretty much hated the Starlinisms but what did Graeme really like? Teen Titans #2 by Will Pfeifer, Kenneth Rocafort, and Brown. Ladytron, Manchester Black, and Josiah Power?! Those are some crazy characters to be popping up in a book, dontcha think? And Jeff has some mixed feelings about Batman and Robin #34 and how it leads in to the Five Years Into The Future/Future’s End event. And because of Graeme’s review of Grayson #1 and #2, Jeff picked up those issues and really liked them.
2:10:03-end: Closing comments! Places to look for us at—did you know we’re on Stitcher now? Is that a thing you use? If so, follow and review us there! And, of course, we encourage you to check us out on Twitter (), Tumblr, and, of course, on Patreon where, as of this count, 73 patrons make this whole thing possible.

You should be able to play this episode above, below, on iTunes, on Stitcher,  and RSS:

Wait, What? Ep. 157: Poptimists!

As always, thank you for listening, and we hope you enjoy!

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It’s About Time: Jeff on Mighty Avengers #1-6

Get ready

Get ready.

I’m gearing up to talk to Graeme in just a few hours for Wait, What?, Ep. 157.  For me, there’s a certain amount of forethought leading up to an episode–although I’m sure it doesn’t sound like it–even if that forethought doesn’t end up being much more than “hmm, what the hell do I have to say about comics this week?”  On a good week, it’s really easy:  there’s the first issue of Multiversity and a Little Nemo comic and a comic book creator sending dick pics around, although it helps if I feel like I have something to say that maybe hasn’t been said already (which may make talking about Multiversity kinda difficult).

On a bad week, nothing really stellar comes over the beam on Wednesday and the comics industry holds its torpid little secrets and everything that goes through my head just seems nasty and spiteful and, worse, old.  I don’t know how many of you also grew up with a parent that drank too much and shared confidences better shared with non-offspring, but the only thing worse than the complaint you really shouldn’t be hearing is having to hear it for the fifth or sixth time.  There are times where I worry about bitching about my dysfunctional marriage to comics because if you’re reading this, you also have a relationship with comics: maybe it’s a marriage, or it’s just a relatively new fling, or it feels like something you don’t need to put a ring on because you know you’re in it for the long haul.  There are times when I curse the words in my mouth for being both bitter and stale.

Fortunately, this week I (re-)read Mighty Avengers on the Marvel Unlimited app,  written by Al Ewing, and illustrated by Greg Land for the first five issues, with Valerio Schitti popping up for the sixth. Previously, thanks to the generosity of Whatnauts, I had made my way to issue #4 of Mighty Avengers and I remember thinking at the time the issues were good, not great.  They somehow seemed both too big and too small, simultaneously:  in particular, the first storyline, which ties into Marvel’s Infinity event, brings the team together and has them fight both Proxima Midnight and the return of Shuma-Gorath.  When first reading it, the small misfires kept tripping me up:  I couldn’t fully tell when Ewing was being deliberately or accidentally obfuscatory about his superheroes and their powers, and by the end the team is formed, and yet it doesn’t get much more proactive than that.  As frequently happens with big event crossovers, the items on the to-do list are checked off and then put aside, since someone else is going to be picking up the next page of the story.

What was great about re-reading it this week was how little of that actually mattered–and, in fact, Ewing does indeed have Monica Rambeau say, “Once we’ve taken a moment to catch our breath, we’ll need to help with this Thanos invasion that’s–” right before Luke Cage breaks out a nice “we are all Avengers. You are Avengers” speech.  And since the chances of Graeme and I talking about Multiversity #1 in the upcoming podcast is really close to 100%, it was nice to see Ewing’s speech working on the same thematic wavelength as that book’s.  In addressing the reader, Cage is telling them exactly what we want to hear from big comic book companies more often:  people of color, whether readers or heroes, are Avengers.  There’s not even the privileged speak of allowance, it’s not a “can be Avengers” situation, it just is.  After watching America act like a racist werewolf for the last week–seemingly fine by day, a police state by night–it’s a message I’m really glad is out there, even if it’s in a book that (as of issue #6) was selling half of the regular Avengers title, and (as of 7 hours ago) was still being complained about by racist knuckleheads. While I guess maybe it could be argued that Marvel could’ve done more to promote the book, but I appreciate they put Greg Land on it so that it looks like a book that matters to Marvel.  Like Mike Deodato, Land’s people can seem plastic, unreal, but I feel that, like Deodato, Land is working harder at pushing for more dynamism in his page layouts. And Schitti’s work is similar but in many ways the opposite: people’s faces are more expressive and nuanced, but while the panel-to-panel flow is professional, there’s not much in the storytelling to make you sit up.

The Stuff I Love: Characterization, Life Being Lived

The Stuff I Love: Characterization, Life Being Lived.

I know I’m always a super-huge booster for whatever digital service I happen to be using at the time (Comixology, 2000 A.D.’s app in the iPad’s newsstand, and now Marvel Unlimited) but I do wonder if Marvel Unlimited’s all-you-can eat model helps trick me into being just a comic book reader, not a reader/guy who has to watch his budget/guy who should have a good take for a podcast or a weekly post. When the only investment is time (although let’s not get into the whole “time as the ultimate commodity” thing that more than ever is powering American late-stage capitalism), maybe my internal watchdogs relax more, and I worry less about how small issues #4 through #6 can feel.  As many good jokes as there are packed into issues #4 and #5 (that riff on the Avengers film’s “We have a Hulk” speech was really god-damned clever), a struggle for who’s leading the team feels like too small, too insular a story for what is technically the book’s second story, and issue #6 is an issue super-enjoyably packed with characterization but mighty skimpy on incident.  At another time, I’d be more inclined to cluck my tongue and talk about how team books now that don’t spend their first year trying to grab your attention with epic sweep are going to end up cancelled in the first year.

And maybe I’d be right to make those arguments…or maybe that’s exactly the sort of unnecessary Monday-morning quarterbacking that makes professionals tear their hair? No matter what the state of the industry’s scalp, that is what’s going on in my head, and there are times when I’m just as happy as they are when it finally shuts up.  And yet, for better or worse, that’s the state of nearly all entertainment industries now: there was more drama about the projected opening of Guardian of the Galaxy than there was in the movie itself.  The hustle for a consumer’s attention span is constant and exhausting but seemingly essential:  there’s always a younger, more nubile art form outside the window.

But while re-reading Mighty Avengers #1-6, I did find myself wishing for more time to re-read comics, wondering if some titles didn’t grow better with a re-read, with the patience to forgive the irritating and embrace the admirable.  Certainly, I found that to be the case with Mighty Avengers #1-6.  I hope that even if the title can’t hold on in a vexingly tough marketplace, these issues will continue to be discovered (and re-discovered) by readers.  They deserve it.

One Terrific Moment of Many Terrific Moments.

One Terrific Moment of Many Terrific Moments.

 

 

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Tales of New Nu Earth: Graeme Digs Into Jaegir

I admit, I wonder if Jaegir will be as meaningful to readers who didn’t grow up reading Rogue Trooper, either in 2000AD proper or the Quality reprints (and, if ever there was a comic book company named poorly, it was Quality). It’s not that anything in the one-shot that collects the first run of the recent 2000AD strip actually relies upon anything from that original strip in any way — on reading it in 2000AD, I somehow managed to miss that it was technically a Rogue Trooper spin-off until re-reading it a couple of episodes in — but there’s something that the extra context really brings to the strip.

Part of it is in the fact that it’s a series set “behind enemy lines” for old-school Rogue fans. Atalie Jaegir is part of the state police for Nordland, the villains of the original mythology — for all of that strip’s clear debt to the American Civil War (“Norts” and “Southers” really didn’t leave much to the imagination, let’s be honest), the Norts were always clearly based on the Nazis of old British war comics, and one of the genuine joys of Jaegir is seeing writer Gordon Rennie fill in a lot of absent mythology and history for a culture that had basically existed to declare “AIEEE! IT’S THE ROGUE G.I.! KILL HIM!!!” for decades. (That he does it while respecting the broad strokes that already were there is even better; there’s no real retconning going on here.)

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And Jaegir is a series haunted by what happened in Rogue Trooper, indirectly. It’s not that any of these characters had directly fought (or even met) Rogue, but there’s a feeling of the war as depicted in that series having led to this deep sense of loss and regret that runs through this series; Jaegir is a deeply wounded character, and her work (especially in this first series) brings her directly into contact with the mistakes made as a result of the desire to win the war.

The art, here, helps a lot — Simon Coleby’s work, and Len O’Grady’s colors, are dark and muted, convincingly selling the idea of decay both moral and physical; when you see soldiers wearing the chemsuits of the original Rogue, there’s a subconscious reminder that, oh yeah, these are not good guys. Coleby’s an artist whose work feels at home both in 2000AD and also more mainstream American comics; as he gets older, it trends towards simplicity of line and complexity of construction — he favors particular “camera angles” in this collection that influence the way you read the book (You’re never on the same level as the characters, to put it simply, and more often than not, you’re looking down on them — it keeps everything at a remove), and it’s something that’s very, very subtle but completely effective.

jaegir2With the history I bring to Jaegir as a Rogue Trooper fan, there’s an added complexity and, almost, complicity, in finding sympathy with and for those who had formerly been the faceless villains of the piece. I can’t divorce myself from that reading, but there’s a level of quality and coherence to Jaegir that I suspect that, even for those coming fresh to the book when it’s released next week and seeing it simply as a dystopian science fiction story, it’ll read as something special, understated, difficult in the best ways and brave, in many ways, as well.

Interestingly, the U.S.-format Jaegir one-shot is released just shortly after the fourth and final Rogue Trooper: Tales of Nu Earth collection, which features stories I’ve never read by Rennie, Coleby and other creators; reading Jaegir makes me want to get the digital edition — and see if any of this series was set up there. Who knows, maybe there’s important context that I don’t get, either.

Anyway: For people who listen to us talk about 2000AD on the podcast, but have never tried it and never been tempted to pick up a Judge Dredd comic — Jaegir is out on the 27th. You should try it, and tell me what you think.

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Sketchbook: Dr. Strange

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Oh, I’m sorry…have I just BLOWN YOUR MIND?

Sometimes you just have to talk about Dr. Strange, am I right?  Anyway, he’s been on my brain a lot the last couple of days for an unlikely reason and here are some of the following thoughts.

"Men call him Dr. Strange! (Because he's a doctor and his last name is Strange.)

“Men call him Dr. Strange! (Because he’s a doctor and his last name is Strange.)

He’s really a Doctor, and his name is actually Strange

Dr. Occult, Dr. Fate, Dr. Spektor, Dr. Thirteen.  The comic book world did not suffer from a deficit on mystical adventurers with an odd name and a doctorate.  But from what I can tell, those guys are Ph.D. types. I know this is rube-like thinking on my part, but sometimes a Doctor of Medicine just seems innately cooler than a Doctor of Philosophy.  Who’s going to help me figure out if this rash is rubella?  Not Doctors Occult, Fate, Spektor, or Thirteen!  (I don’t even think Dr. Fate has a degree, does he?)

This is probably just old guy dotage stuff, but I really appreciate that there were three appearances of Dr. Strange before we find out his origin, and his origin is…that he was a doctor and his name is Strange?  It’s just hard for other superheroes at the time to equal that.  “Who is this mysterious Bat Mann? Oh wait…hold on…apparently ‘Bat’ is short for Barclay? And he’s apparently a distant cousin to German novelist Thomas Mann? Fascinating.”

Anyway, speaking of origins…

He has one of the all-time great origin stories

Yeah, I’m a big fan for the Rotter Redeems Himself origin story.  Spidey has some great bits (the whole “why should I bother?” moment, of course) and I’m very, very fond of Iron Man’s origin (although the “rotter” angle is mostly one of my own devising in that case, as Stan Lee/Larry Lieber/Don Heck/Artie Simek think Stark is a totally awesome dude brought low by tragic circumstance–I’m the guy who thinks the story of a weapon inventor nearly killed by an IED and whose life is saved by an Asian physicist is all about how much the American Military Industrial Complex depends on the terrific distance between the weapons it purveys and its own front door and jesus this parenthetical is long).

But Dr. Strange’s origin is the best: an arrogant surgeon who refused to help anyone unless they could afford it, he destroys his hands and his career in a car accident. Refusing to work as anyone’s assistant, Strange slips down the ladder and becomes a derelict, a drifter, and on skid row hears about the healing powers of the Ancient One.DSOrigin2

Now, just as with Iron Man, over time, there are all kinds of weird Jeff-centric twists I’ve put on things that aren’t in fact there–for example, for a long time, I misremembered the story as Strange having killed his own family in the accident.  But what got me recently when rereading this page and a half sequence is that it allows for a ton of interpretative room.  Having seen two separate attempts to reboot the Strange origin–Brian Bendis’ Ultimate Dr. Strange, who is actually Dr. Strange, Jr., assuming the mantle of his disappeared father (gah) and J. Michael Straczynski’s limited series Strange, co-written by Samm Barnes, which “updated” the origin in a way that stank of adapted screenplay treatment–I find it amazing that creators didn’t just add stuff in to flesh out the sparse-but-speedy-origin from Ditko and Lee.

Instead, they went with their own takes on it, both of which did that terrible “Chosen One” thing people are always quick to jam into magic stories.  “No, no,” everyone always concludes, “why make manual dexterity a prerequisite to casting spells in a series where the big action scenes center around hand gestures?  Why have a surgeon whose hands aren’t trustworthy enough to work on someone’s brain be more than enough to excel at such mystic arts?  Let’s just have him be the son of a great magician, struggling to accept his destiny.  Is it lunch yet?”

Wino Defenders. Should be a thing.

Wino Defenders. Should be a thing.

(Also, I’d love to do a Secret Origin of the Defenders story, where Strange and Namor first met on skid row, and the real reason why these two keep answering each other’s calls for help, despite never fully liking each other, is each of them could tell the rest of the superheroes truly embarrassing stories about their days as winos, far from their current haughty station.  The Wino Defenders. I submit to you this should be a thing.)

In those eight pages, Strange goes from bastard to penitent, from the guy who’s been the unknowable master of the mystic arts for the past three stories to being an all-too-human fuck-up. Of all the Marvel movies, a Dr. Strange origin story seems the most like a slam-dunk. Thrown in mystical effects and vertiginous Ditkoesque mystic landscapes on a big screen in 3-D?  I don’t know how he’d fit into the current Marvel movie slate, mind you, as each piece is only there if it can help contribute to the next piece.  But just on its own? As a movie?  Yeah, that origin has everything.  In eight pages!

 He has one of the all-time great coded origin stories

Why was Stephen Strange in the car accident that ruined his hands?  Why does he end up on skid row?  Without a single drink in sight, Dr. Strange’s origin nevertheless seems steeped in booze to me.  Long before Iron Man did the whole Demon In The Bottle storyline, here’s an origin that’s basically “arrogant prick hits bottom, then has to learn humility in rehab,” except “rehab” means “a mystical sanctuary high in the hills of Tibet.”

Like I said, my imagination retroactively added in a wife and child killed in the accident, something that really sends Strange off on a self-destructive tear down the Boulevard of Broken Dreams.  But they’re not in the story.  Dr. Strange, like Marvel’s other famous possessor of a doctorate degree, Victor Von Doom, is apparently so devastated by the loss of his own perfection he ends up chasing mystical powers in the Far East. Unlike Doom, Strange finds redemption, and moves into Greenwich Village.

Greenwich Village is, of course, another one of those great coded bits.  I’m almost certain its use is meant to tie Strange to the Beatnik movement (which is why I kinda adored Moore’s creation of Johnny Beyond, Dr. Strange’s analog, as a Beat Mystic in 1963, though Moore is probably laughing up both sleeves, since Johnny Beyond is clearly a John Constantine analog as well), but Greenwich Village was shorthand for gay, even back then (and still has the largest gay and lesbian population in all of the neighborhoods in New York).

Maybe it’s just a sign of how times have changed, but I’m far more comfortable with Dr. Strange having a live-in Asian male lover than I am with the whole manservant angle.  And I think that also makes sense of the coded alcoholic narrative that’s in there, the reason why Stephen Strange is such a closed-off shit before his accident: I imagine him as being somebody who came from a very wealthy old money family, one that he’s worked very hard to please (I don’t know if we’ve ever seen Strange’s parents–if so, they are, in that way, the ultimate absent parents), and that family is is perfectly okay with him being a greedy turd, but not at all okay with any narrative other than “gets married, has kids.” Like one of those boot-black Ditko footpaths veering into oblivion, Strange went in an unexpected direction, ended up in an unexpected place.

Neilalien Has Already Thought Much More About Dr. Strange Than I Ever Will

Truth.  Check out just this timeline of Doc’s life he put together, annotated.  I doubt my take would fry his burger, though.  For one thing, he’s aware of all those very hetero romances Doc has had over the years.  Like a talented lawyer or judge, Neilalien knows precedent and uses that plus dollops of logic and reason to interpret what should and should not be considered in any new case (or story).  He’s also perfectly capable of switching things around and arguing as a devil’s advocate.  And his name is a palindrome.

So… I’m in love with Neilalien is what I’m saying. I love you, Neilalien.

Dr. Strange is…Kinda Dull?

Well, let’s be honest here. Dr. Strange was beloved in the ’60s and ’70s.  Part of this was because he was created by Steve Ditko at arguably the height of his design powers (still never gonna top Spider-Man, but I’m not sure anyone is ever going to top Spider-Man, design-wise), and part of this is because of stupid hippies and their god-damn drugs.  The predilection for mysticism bubbling in the cauldron of Beat culture boiled up–and cascaded over–an entire ecstatic generation unable to hold their smoke.  I Chings were tossed! Cards were read! People asked one another their sign and they were not kidding.  Shrooms were chewed and doobs were smoked and pills were popped, and crabs and the clap and genital warts were passed back and forth like so much Monopoly money.  Comic books were read and taken seriously!  Arguably, too seriously.  (Wasn’t it a Dr. Strange comic that somebody handed  Art Spiegelman as an example of comics being literature? Which made him roll his eyes so hard he saw Maus?)

What a perfect storm to lift aloft Dr. Strange, Sorcerer Supreme, Master of All Dimensions!

And yet, Doc suffers from a plethora of problems.  As someone who defends our dimension, he’s more reactive than proactive.  (To be fair, this is a problem with most superheroes–it’s the villains who usually drive the narrative bus–but the superheroes make up for their reactive nature with a lot more punching. A LOT more punching.)  And if you don’t take the time to craft a cohesive magical system, you get a whole lot of “God From The Machine” solutions. The drama can slip.

Also, that origin I love so much?  It kinda wraps everything up too neatly in a bow.  Unsurprisingly for a guy who’d go on to later create heroes almost psychotically shorn of doubt, Ditko creates Dr. Strange who, by the end of his fourth story, is a man healed from all previous trauma.

Ditko, like Kirby, is able to hide this dramatic lack by continually upping the visual drama and the scale of the threats being faced. There’s a great Dr. Strange story where Baron Mordo locks Doc’s astral form out of his body, and the two proceed to chase each other across the world, their astral bodies sliding like albino eels across every continent, plunging through seemingly every wall and cornice ever built.  Ditko made that chase so private and yet so all-encompassing all at once.  And yet, apart from the “oh no, Doc maybe might die unless he can return to his body in the next five seconds!” hook, there’s not really especially personal at stake, is there?

To be honest, when Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko are in their prime, you don’t really need there to be much at stake personally, just like you don’t need it in Jackie Chan’s best movies. A sense of urgent delight trumps any and all matters of practical drama.  And god knows, it’s not like the “will I ever be good enough for my exploding dad?” and “superheroes must punch other superheroes because this veiled allegory about check cashing businesses demands it!” and “superheroes had this one weekend in Vegas they all swore they’d never talk about but then somebody finds out” constructs aren’t getting a little long in the tooth by now.

But I don’t think Steve Ditko left Dr. Strange in a particularly awesome place, honestly.  Doc’s supporting cast is basically Wong, Clea, and The Ancient One.  And then The Ancient One dies, and Clea leaves.  It is absolutely and entirely no surprise that Dr. Strange ended up in The Defenders: the weaker your supporting cast, the greater the chance you’re just going to end up on a super-team without a title of your own.  Once the mystic obsessions of the ’70s get watered down to New Age pablum (“By the hoary hosts of Hoggoth! These ‘healing crystals’ are the kidney stones of the Dread Dormammu!”) and you play connect-the-dots with every other mystical concept in the Marvel Universe (“By the kidney stones of the Dread Dormammu! The hoary hosts of Hoggoth are The Kree!”), what’s left?

Well, Neilalien would know.  He’s been paying attention.  But I just kinda tuned out, revisiting the Ditko stories and wondering why the hell Marvel Unlimited won’t put the Englehart/Brunner issues on there.

All of Which is to Say: Doctor Strange Makes for a Pretty Great Pinball Game

Doctor Strange has never really had a lot of merch.

I mean, you know, apart from the black light posters. And the action figures. And the Maisto Marvel Mega Monster Truck from Series 2. And these Slurpee cups that I actually cried a little bit upon seeing. And the astral form Heroclix figure. And the pogs.

But apart from that? Not a lot of merch.

Not a lot of tears, but a few.

A few tears.

So I found the prospect of a Dr. Strange pinball game, available through the Zen Pinball app on the iPad, more or less irresistible.  I’m not a huge pinball fan–it’s kind of tough being a fan of doing something you are utterly horrible at–but I like the idea of pinball, and I especially like the idea of virtual pinball, where the concept of pinball could easily grow more and more abstract, physical rules but without physical constraints.  However, much like superhero comics, pinball apps appear to be aimed toward and consumed by hardcore nostalgists who know what they like, and what they like are licensed products reflected in the figure festooned table and the dot matrix display minigames of the late ’80s/early ’90s.  (Don’t quote me on the dates–I’m very much a pinball dilettante.)

And you know what, there are some things for which that approach works really, really well.  I’m never a big fan of Zen’s voice actors (and the repetitive idle movements of the figures can get kinda annoying), but their  Infinity Gauntlet board was a pretty loving tribute to the Starlin miniseries.   (Warning: do not try watching either of those two links in their entirety unless you are very, very high.) Adam Warlock and Thanos talk all the time and what comes out of their mouths is straight, uncut Starlin.  There are different challenges for each of the infinity gems. It’s fun.

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Somewhere in there is Doc vs. Nightmare

Similarly, a crew with either tremendous affection or a deep chop for research put the Dr. Strange board together.  You’ve got two challenges each from Dormammu, Nightmare, and Baron Mordo.  The dot matrix display pans across comic images of Doc, and the early ones do give a little bit of that black light poster appeal. Wong and Clea cheer you on. For a terrible player like me, it’s a mean motherfucker of a board–you could probably draw a Doc Strange comic in the time it takes to get the side kickbacks activated–and yet I found myself playing a lot more of it this week than I did (ahem) reading comics. There’s stuff that’s wrong, of course–Doc’s astral form looks more like a ghost, and I’m pretty sure his voice actor thinks the man-servant is named “Juan”–but in its various ways it scratches that itch for me better than a lot of Doc’s more recent stories do.

For me at least, pinball and Dr. Strange are perfect for one another. Maybe it’s because their potential for long-term drama is roughly the same. Maybe it’s because pinball at its best commands your attention in exchange for urgent delight.  Or maybe it’s because both are currently derelict ships, moored in the lowlands, far from a fickle tide that took them there.  Made for each other–if not there, at the beginning, then perhaps here, near the end.

 

[Author’s note: I ganked a lot of my images from Colin Smith’s excellent Dr. Strange essay over at Too Busy Thinking About My Comics. Though we share an occasional conclusion, my callow points are my own and I wholeheartedly you checking out his piece if you haven’t already.]

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Coming Distractions: Jeff’s Post Will Be Here Sunday….

Go read this. It's great.

Go read this. It’s pretty great.

 

Sorry, all.  Got a bit behind the eightball scheduling-wise so my latest entry is running long and running late. It’ll be up by Sunday.

I asked Graeme what I should do and he said, “just tell them it’ll be coming later and then link to Becky Cloonan’s glorious zucchini bread recipe comic.”

That Graeme McMillan–is there anything he doesn’t know?

Anyway, have a good weekend and check back Sunday (or heck, Monday).  My apologies for the delay.

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The Reborn Identity: Graeme Is Surprised by Grayson

“Mr. Minos. The Man with the Labyrinth Face. It’s so delightfully tacky. Very 60s Fleming. It’s so fun to play spy.”

grayson1Two issues in, and DC’s new Grayson series is, if anything, even more enjoyably off-kilter than it was to begin with; for a series with such an grounded concept — it’s Dick Grayson, faking his death to go under deep cover for Batman! — and, let’s be honest, a final issue of Nightwing by the same writers as this series, it wasn’t a book that promised much. And yet, with the second issue, it unfolds its freak flag just a little bit more and continues to have fun with the toys it has to play with.

Dick Grayson is, of course, a character full of potential. The first issue’s terse opening, attempting to echo the All-Star Superman launch by summarizing the different stages of Grayson’s life (“Sidekick. Sensation. The Boy Wonder. Robin.”) hints at this, but it’s what follows that properly illustrates why this series works: Grayson isn’t a spy; he’s a showman, and even though he’s very good at what he does, he’s working against type here, and that that tension — that he is more light-hearted, more “fun” than the genre traditionally allows, at least in contemporary thrillers — is what makes the book so charming to me.

Well, part of what makes it so charming. It helps considerably that Tim Seeley and Tom King, the writers of the series, seem to hew closer to Grayson that grim and gritty so far. It’s not just that Dick is having fun despite himself, the series is, too; how else to explain the appearance of dialogue like “You may have taken out my boys Choker, Puncher and Drowner. But you ain’t never gonna break the Cycles of Violence?” coming from the leader of a biker gang in the second issue, or the introduction of The Authority’s Midnighter as the antagonist of the series (A role he plays remarkably well; it’s tempting to suggest this is the best use of the character since Ellis created him).

Mikel Janin’s art is also a selling point. Long one of DC’s secret weapons via his Justice League Dark work — I maintain that the work he did with Jeff Lemire (and later, Ray Fawkes as co-writer) on that book between #7 and #21 is some of the most underrated New 52 stuff to date, again despite a relatively weak premise — this is hopefully a series that’ll see him rise to greater prominence and his clean, kinetic lifework get the attention and praise it deserves.

Grayson is the spy book that you wouldn’t expect in the current DC firmament for a lot of reasons: it’s fun, instead of grim (Not only does it tie into Grant Morrison’s Batman, Incorporated in subject matter and tone, but there are also Avengers nods — not the Marvel team, but the Steed and Mrs. Peel team), it doesn’t tie into the dominant, Jim Lee-inspired visual style, and it can — and arguably should — be read independently of the other Batman books.

While books like Batgirl and Gotham Academy appeared to herald a new DC when they were announced last month, it’s possible that Grayson might have been the stealth launch of the future of the publisher all along. Here’s hoping everything stays on target for the foreseeable future.

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