Comic Blog

Mish Mash Monday: Wildcats

2009-04-21T05:21:16Z

I never really read much Wildstorm back in the day. My Image consumption just wasn't as in depth as it was for the Big Two, and something about the Wildstorm Universe just never grabbed my attention. I read Alan Moore's run on WildC.A.T.s and the first dozen or so issues of Gen13 but that was pretty much it. So, I decided to try and remedy that with my first ever Mish Mash Monday. Fortunately, between my friends and a small run to my local (extra special thanks to Guy), I was able to collect most of the issues.

WildC.A.T.s is everything bad with 90s comics. There's not a narrative story. It's just pretty pictures with some text. What's funny is that Image was made by artists but how much they rely on writers. I mean, look at this:

Look at how much text there is versus how much art. There's less text in the Joss Whedon/John Cassidy X-Men run. And Whedon is one of the better writers.

It's also bad because it just drops you in media res. True it was going on in 90s comics with the Big Two but they did have decades of stuff going on that people could stand it (including me... although some of that dense text would even piss me off). But this tries to fake that much dense background and to be fair, it just doesn't play.

Team Zero #1 - 6

2009-04-20T05:15:54Z

I was sadly disappointed in this book. I can't say what I was expecting, but it wasn't this.

Comics & Cocktails: Wanted & Jägerbombs

2009-04-18T03:50:48Z

Guy called me this evening to ask if I had finished reading his copy of Wanted. We then had the following conversation:

"Yeah," I told him.

"And?"

"It left my mouth tasting like shit."

To be one hundred percent fair to the makers of Wanted. The Jägerbombs I had at my local bar hadn't helped. But even if I had gone in sober, it probably would have left a similar feeling behind. Here's the secret about Wanted: it is a shitty comic.
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But I digress. Let me backtrack a bit. I'll start off with why I chose the Jägerbomb as the pairing drink. Well, going into Wanted I knew it was about a some poor office schlup, who finds out that his dad is a supervillain who just died and that he inheirted the family business. From what I was told and from what I could guess knowing what I do about Mark Millar, I thought this would be a transforming tale of some drone bee turned into an über-alpha male. And there's something about the Jägerbomb that just screams newly-minted alpha to me. It seems like the type of drink that an overly aggressive frat boy named Chad or Todd would order for the table and dare everyone to finish in one go. It seemed, for lack of a better word, what a douche would drink.

So, I walked back up the street from my local and sat down to read Wanted. Now, before I go on my diatribe, let me get some synopsis stuff and gut reactions out of the way. Wanted follows Wesley Gibson, a loser who works in a job he hates, lives with an unfaithful girlfriend, suffers from a variety of psycho-somatic problems, and has no money or ambition to speak of. One day he is approached by The Fox and told that his father, who walked out when he was eighteen-weeks-old has died and left him millions of dollars on the condition that he takes up his legacy of being a supervillain. Gibson agrees and after undergoing a severe training regimen assumes his father's identity: the Killer.

Now, while this world does have supervillains it doesn't have superheroes. Back in 1986, all of the supervillains teamed up and defeated the heroes and carved up the world into five domains. Then they remade the world into a darker, grittier place where no one even knew that the heroes had ever existed. However, the truce between the villains now grows uneasy and a coup is attempted. To make a long story short, the worse villains attack the better villains and it is up to Gibson and the Fox to return the world to its status quo. However, then it is revealed that Gibson's father is still alive. He faked his own death so that his son could get the training and become a man. Now, his ambition achieves, he has his own shoot shot him in the head and go to join the super crime syndicate that is controlling the world.

Roll credits. The end.

I had been told (by Guy and a few others) that Wanted was like Watchmen for super-villains. The problem is that it's not. At all. I will admit that there are certain similarities. The deep construction of the world, its rich tapestry of history. There's also a certain commentary on superhero comics that both books have. But that's about where the similarity ends. Watchmen is considered to be one of the best comic stories because it plays on a variety of levels. Whether its the heroes as stand-in for differing philosophies (Ozymandus' ends justifying the means, Rorschach's refusal to compromise even in the face of armageddon, or Manhattan's emotional detachment), a murder mystery, or as a Shakespearean-style tragedy (heroes are banned because they are thought to do more harm than good, and in trying to prove them wrong the heroes do more harm than good). Whereas Wanted works as a commentary on the darkening tone in superhero comics and as a rallying cry for insecure beta males.

The only real meaningful message it has is that it is making fun of people who read superhero comic books. That the world is a dark and miserable place where elections are fixed, where rape and murder happens, and where people find themselves in dead-end jobs before going home to people whom they don't love. And that if a person wants to escape from this joyless world into reading about superheroes than they're either naive or a pussy. As Gibson says to the audience at the end of the series, breaking the fourth wall, about their decision to read the comic at all "this is my face while I'm fucking you in the ass." Wanted speaks to the innate fascism in superhero comics and stands as a dark reflection of its fans' power fantasies.

Gibson's rebirth as a superhero is pretty much the same power fantasy as in the X-Men. That there comes a time in your life when its revealed that you're special, that you shouldn't have been judged or prejudiced against. That you are better than the people around you thought and perhaps than you yourself gave yourself credit for. But instead of the positive "they just didn't get you" message of X-Men, there is a more mean-spirited "you were just a fuckin' pussy and you should have sacked up and kicked in the world in its' goddamn teeth."

The problem that I have with this is first and foremost that it's kind of an easy and one-note chord to strike. Also, the fact that Mark Millar is heralded as one of the great superhero writers of our day, so if he really feels that way, then he should quit working for Marvel and DC. I don't think it's fair to have this big an issue with people who like escapist fiction and still write it.

Part of the greatest problem that this book brings me is similar to what I've had from other movies and books that push the envelope. For instance, let me just bring up Fight Club and Clockwork Orange both of which are ultraviolent commentaries on ultraviolence. Fight Club the book (which I would argue is not very good and doesn't deserve much credit) ends with the hero stuck in bed, impotent, unable to stop this masculine revolution that he's started. Fight Club the movie, however, ends with the boy decisively killing that overly-masculine false version of himself and getting the girl, and with the world crumbling around them they are unsure of how to move forward but will do so together. Clockwork Orange the book has Alex seeing a former gang member having settled down, and Alex decides to do so as well of his own free will. While the movie has Alex freed from his treatments and free to pursue his violent ways once more, the government is revealed to be as violent and cut-throat (or even more so) than Alex himself ever was.

Wanted ends in a similar vein as Fight Club the book. It points out that there is no John Wayne anymore. That Clint Eastwood has become old and feeble. That "gee, men just sure ain't what they used to be." Then it has the men chasing this false ideal of masculinity. End transmission. The bigger problem is that's just not good storytelling. I'm not saying you need a happy endig, the movie of Clockwork Orange has a killer and rapist preparing to go about his business once more. But it has a deeper level. You can't stop there and expect to patted on the back.

And why not? Because the inherent theme of the book is a lie. There is no ur-masculinity. Taxi Driver isn't about Travis Bickle going into a hotel and shooting lots of people in the face. It's about seventies America, how lost and listless we were. How much Vietnam damaged us. How the only way we knew to show affection was through violence and self-destruction. Even John Wayne commented on his own cowboy persona, in John Ford's the Searchers saying the macho cowboy led directly to genocide.

Not surprising then is how this book handles gender and race. Everyone who is not a white male is portrayed badly. Professor Seltzer might be one of the five most evil people in the world, but he comes off like a wise old grandfather-type. Doll-Master may be a villain but he loves his wife and children, and wants to protect them (while, simutaneously, his wife is portrayed as a foul-mouthed shrew). Even his father, who is a mass murderer several times over and walked out on Gibson as a child is presented as a sympathetic character who the audience is supposed to like. Gibson's boss is shown to be a "black bitch." His neighborhood is full of cholos who should be judged and disdained. His girlfriend "can't go to buy cigarettes without sucking someone's cock." Even Fox, the most prominent of women in the series is shown to be heartless (she kills a restaurant full of people to show she can) and unhinged. In a world full of villains no one seems worse than women and minorities.

Well, now that I've railed against the book let me say what is has going for it. First and foremost, the art is just gorgeous. JG Jones does the penciling (and inking, I believe) and he just does an outstanding job as per usual. The feel of the world is also very well done, it has a rich history and the book does a good job of giving us a peek into that world in a very short period of time. Finally, the commentary on the world of comicdom is very well done, both in terms of jokes (how Batman was convinced he was just an actor in a campy 60's TV show or how there was a 'crisis' in 1986 that retconned the whole world) and in terms of plot (comparing the crisp and clean Golden Age to the dark and gritty Modern Age). And I have to admit that is some clever and even some fun bits of ultraviolence. But sadly, all of that is far too little to overcome the massive holes in the work as a whole.

Some other random thoughts that I had scribbled down:

There's something odd about the fact that Gibson has the stone cold killer skills even before his training. It's in his DNA, apparently. He's better than the masses because he was born better. Best case scenario, Millar is just taping into that superhero-trope of the protagonist being better than the world gives him credit for. How it reads in this book is, the protagonist was born a white man and with that comes some innate power. Worst case scenario there's this vague Nazi-esque propaganda to it all.
I don't know what's up with Millar and President Bush, but it's a little odd. This series has Rictus' parroting Bush's infamous "bring it on" line.
Because his mother raised him by herself, he is inheirently flawed? A single mother cannot raise a boy without him becoming weak and effeminate?
It seems fitting that the hero's look was based on Eminem. Like Eminem this book seems to be trying to get money out of men badly seeking validation and an excuse for middle-class rage.
I don't know how much more you can say about the metaphor in this book then that one of the villains is told what to do by his thirteen inch penis.
His father wants his son to kill him because he's not the best anymore? Once more the ultimate achievement in this world is one's virility.
Instead of quality dialogue or even good shocking dialogue (such as Warren Ellis can whip up in his sleep, and probably does), Millar just seems to put the word 'fuck' in a lot.
Wait... he has to kill his dad? And then become him? How fucking Oedipal.

A second look at X-Men 2

2009-04-17T03:31:45Z

It's so funny for me to read back on what I wrote about X-Men 2 all those years ago. There's so much about that movie that I can see now so clearly that were lost to me all those years ago. Since then we've seen the Bush presidency unfold, the horrendous X-Men 3 come out, and (I argue) the misunderstood Superman Returns.

There's a thoughtfulness to this movie that I don't think I appreciated fully at the time. At the food court when Pyro makes the flame burst, Iceman cools the guy off, and then Professor X freezes everyone. The shots are gorgeous. Super tight. Eyes. Cigarette. Xavier rolling into focus. It's all very well constructed. It's by a filmmaker and not just a director; it's a subtley that is sorely lacking in X-Men 3.

This film is also interesting to look at as film history. Seeing the opening scene where Nightcrawler breaks into the White House is very post-Matrix. Nightcrawler takes out a room of secret service agents and it is a mix between slow motion and bullet-time. There's also this awareness of this is a movie that people will watch on DVD, in higher definition (although HD as we think of it today didn't exist yet) and in frame-by-frame stop-motion.

The President. He's so aggressive but so hands off. He turns things over to Stryker with the full knowledge that he might do despicable things. He's both a villain because he allows things to happen and hides behind "well, I didn't know..." but unlike how we view W now but probably did then he's childish. He just doesn't think. Once he's made aware of the situation, he regrets it. Changes course. This is the W that we hoped for in 2003. Someone who would change course if only he knew or understood how the world really works.

Magneto is held in this plastic prison "for forever." It's such a Gitmo situation. And when Xavier comes and is upset at his brutal treatment? It's such liberal outrage. Of course we want things safe, we want fundamentals of them of the streets. But when Xavier comes to visit and sees a human being, his friend, having been mistreated... well, it degrades the word 'humanity,' a thing which Xavier holds up quite highly.

In general, Professor X is never as cool in the comics as he is in this movie. I think it's the dry English wit. How to make Xavier not be a tool? Think of him like Stephen Fry, Patrick Stewart, or others... He needs to be wry, intelligent, charming.

Part of the beauty is in the casting of Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart. The scene they have in his prison is gorgeous. It humanizes him and ends with his perfect line delivery of "the war has begun."

Wolverine's fight scene when the mansion gets raided? It's honestly one of my top ten favorite five minutes of cinema. About thirty minutes into the movie, when Wolverine wakes up. Talks to a kid. Talks to Iceman... it's all good. I mean, really good. It's more human than a sci-fi action film has to be. But, oh at... 35 minutes in. That... is... when... shit... gets... real... You see a major motion picture character just massacre people. He stalks them, he kills them. He is efficient. He is a killing machine. He is an animal.

And it is the striking shift from paternal figure to this military-made thing that is so amazing. Not just for the gorgeous brutality, but because it makes a statement about who he is. He knows killing. He chooses people. He chooses peace. However, like a mother bear, once poked he cannot rest until he knows that his cubs are safe. Culminating in the "you wanna shoot me? Shoot me!" I hate to boil it down to simple fanboy-like commentary but that is fucking awesome.

I think I was too harsh on how Nightcrawler was treated when I last wrote about it. His faith is present. He is interesting and colorful. But while I might have simplified my view of how he was used, I think my complaint is still valid that he gets boiled down to a plot device by the last act.

"You wanted me to cure your son but mutation is not a disease..." Oh, how gay. And I don't mean that in the colloqual 'gay equals stupid,' but instead in terms of queer studies. Not to mention that in the following scene there is a "have you tried not being a mutant." And then it keeps going. When Nightcrawler asks Mystique since she can pass why she doesn't and she says "we shouldn't have to." So much of how Bryan Singer chooshes to relate the X-Men to the audience is through the metaphor of homosexuality.

Which is also why I think Singer has been misaligned when talked about Superman Returns. This movie is so similar. It's about otherness. Character motivation. Action. Thoughtfulness. Superpowers. Part of what's different from the two movies is the person vs. team dynamic. In the X-Men he can have them doing super stuff then have a good character beat. Whether it's Wolverine going crazy, Bobby's "have you tried not being a mutant?", or Nightcrawler's prepared "but in the Munich circus I was the incredible Nightcrawler" line. Whereas Superman Returns has to be carried pretty much by Superman alone.

As an odd end note, I think there is a problem in that Wolverine was part of our lens in the first two movies. So when he says to Jean "I could be the good guy" then kisses her (after she says "I married a good guy"). We want him to win. Cyclops is an Other. He is foreign to us. We've never really established a connection to him, the way that we have with Wolverine. I'm not saying they should have changed it, I'm just saying that it sort of doomed Cyclops to being a little unlikeable. A fate he seems to end up with without any help from the filmmakers.

Penny-Penching Marvel

2009-04-03T18:25:39Z

Let's be honest, Marvel Studios are shrewd. Not only are they in the midst of creating a writer's group to pitch and rewrite Marvel projects, they've also been very aggressive in their contract negotiating.

The first thing they did was walk away from Terrence Howard and sign Don Cheadle rather than haggle over his price. Jon Favreau almost walked away due to Marvel not offering him a fair deal. Sam Jackson, who was very excited about being a part of the Marvel movie franchises, practically got dropped as well before a last-minute nine-picture deal was struck (while signing someone to a nine-picture deal might seem like tying up a lot of money, and it certainly is, Marvel is definitely looking at like they're tying Jackson down long-term to work on a fixed rate). Scarlett Johansson and Mickey Rourke, both of whom are in demand, were offered a measly $200,000 before settling on somewhere in the still-low-ball $400,000 neighborhood.
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Even after those hits come, though, I wouldn't expect huge all-star cast films. Marvel seems to be developing a certain approach to how they make movies. Cast a solid lead actor whom you can build the franchise around, such as Edward Norton as the Hulk or Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man, then fill out the rest of the cast with solid, but lower-financial-tier actors: Liv Tyler, Johansson, Jackson, et cetera. It's the way to get the biggest payout while keeping costs down. Not to mention that such cost-saving measures will certainly be necessary when larger pictures come along such as Avengers who will need to pay the salaries of all of those franchise actors.

So I'd say expect to keep hearing complaints of Marvel low-balling actors and directors. As long as they keep producing results, however, it's hard to fault their business sense.

The Marvel Bullpen 2.0

2009-03-26T18:12:56Z

So as everyone probably knows by now, Marvel Studios is looking like it will hire five to six writers to form a sort of Hollywood bullpen, who can create pitches and do rewrites. This formation is getting coverage on a couple of different layers and is only right and proper because despite the fact that this sounds like a rather straight-forward idea, there are a couple of different things going on at once.

First, this is great for Marvel moviegoers. It means that Marvel will be able to create a variety of pitches for several different properties. It also means that since Marvel Studios owns the rights to most of their characters (Sony still owns Spider-Man, and Fox still owns the X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Daredevil franchises) the writers are free to drop mentions or have cameos by anyone in the entirety of the Marvel Univese which should result in the films having a richer, deeper fee for it. And since it would be a small group of writers, it's easier for everyone in the room to be on the same page.

Second, it's a bad thing for Marvel moviegoers. By getting this crew together, Hollywood is about to be bombarded by superhero pitches and with the box office bank of Iron Man and Dark Knight, expect distributors to be very interested. This could lead to a glut of movies and TV shows which will flood the market which could then bore audiences and/or mean that several of the projects will be of lower quality.

Third, it's good for writers. Marvel is looking at bringing in already established screenwriters and writers for Marvel Comics. With the current economy, any work is good work in Hollywood. Of course, this also doubles as bad news for aspiring writers as I'm sure there are many Marvel Zombies who read headlines about this program and started to dream that they'd love to work for Marvel. If so, I hope they already have an agent, because otherwise it's just not going to happen.

Finally, it's horrid for writers. This program is not the most writer-friendly, because it doesn't have to be. With this economy, writers are lining up to be taken advantage of and this deal certainly does that. Before a writer can come in they have to sign a 70-page non-negotiable contract and non-disclosure agreement. What's in the contract? Anything you write in that year is owned by Marvel (a similar clause is what led to DC not having to pay Siegel and Shuster any cash for Superman), plus first look and last refusal on any script written for two years before or after the program.

All in all, I think this is a good thing but I just want to make sure that everyone is cognizant of the deal with the devil that is being struck.

Quantum and Woody #15

2008-11-30T01:47:10Z

This issue keeps the action train rolling and it is good.

Quantum and Woody #14

2008-11-30T01:29:49Z

This is an action-packed issue that reveals some of Woody's inner angst. While I had been having some trouble with Woody, this issue goes a long way to restoring the character in my estimation as it shows his funny-guy routine cracking. Not to mention the issue has an amazing ending with Woody crossing a moral line before both of heroes are defeated by an unknown enemy.

Quantum and Woody #13

2008-11-30T01:14:32Z

So this issue wraps up the previous arc and sets up the next one. The bad news? Well, the body swap arc silently fizzles as the two switch bodies back without much fanfare or even any real screen time. The good news is that there is a decent Amy Fishbein subplot and holy crap, the last three pages... they kill off their potential sidekick Taylor and bring back Magnum to act as a arch-villain. Now that's entertainment.

Quantum and Woody #12

2008-11-30T00:59:54Z

It's bizarre that Quantum had what was basically a superhero origin story before his actual origin story (spending two years training in the African wilderness after graduating from West Point) and yet it was Woody who suggested that they become heroes.

Quantum and Woody #11

2008-11-30T00:46:31Z

I'm not sure that I'm in love with Woody's backstory. It seems that he's basically a guy who had a horrible, very had life and now that things are better he's decided to try and shallow and just enjoy life. It makes a little sense but it's just hard to get behind. Either Woody is far too internal and thus hard to connect with or he's actually shut the door on his past and lives only in the present which means he basically is the himbo he appears to be.

Quantum and Woody #10

2008-11-30T00:19:56Z

Ah, too have "Doc" Bright back on the book. While Kobasick did a good job filling in last issue, I didn't realize until reading this issue how much the book relies on Bright's pencils. His clean style just fits in perfectly with Priest's stories and dialogues.
]]> The issue is amusing (some of the small things that happen when you take over someone's body such as bathroom behavior and different sleep cycles) but I look forward to where it's going. In particular I'm looking forward to some of the race issues that are almost certainly going to be dealt with.

Quantum and Woody #9

2008-11-27T05:48:06Z

So is there more to Woody then meets the eye? Oh, yes. This issue reveals the rough and tough upbringing that Woody had after his parents divorced and Woody left the high-born snooby Connecticut life that he had with Eric (or Quantum, if you prefer). We saw him as a troubled boy and teen, dealing with his drug-addicted mom. But the question that I have is whether or not this past will be reflected in his future. While it helps to explain his carefree attitude, if it's not something that he struggles with than it's just decoration not real character depth.

Quantum and Woody #8

2008-11-27T05:34:40Z

Priest described this series as a drama about two best friends but I never really saw it that way. I kinda felt it was more of a drama about Quantum with Woody being there as his comic foil, but I have to admit that the explosive finale of this issue left me feeling a little bit for Woody. While I'm not sure it plays as a two-man show yet, it did at least make me think that there might be more to Woody than originally met the eye.

Quantum and Woody #7

2008-11-27T01:50:26Z

This is the first issue where I started to get the bigger picture of what Priest is doing in this book. While a lot of writers pose the question "what would happen if superheroes existed in the real world?" And they come up with several answers: they'd be feared, they'd be treated like superstars, the wanton destruction they'd leave in their wake, governments stockpiling them in a new-style cold war, et cetera. Priest asks "what would happen if superheroes existed in my life?"]]> This issue has Quantum going after the man he believes lead to his and Woody's life-altering predicament. While Quantum, and the audience as well, has believed that Dave Warrant was attempting to kill them it turns out that he was actually trying to save them.

But why do I say that it reflects more day-to-day life? Well, the biggest issue of Quantum and Woody is the fact that Woody is a well-adjusted person who just needs to get his crap together while Quantum is a person who has gotten his stuff together but the problem is that his worldview is built on a series of incorrect preconceptions.

The real struggle in this book is an internal one inside of Quantum (Woody doesn't have enough depth to admit he has an issue, let alone struggle with it) and the struggles he face aren't really dependent on him having super powers. That's why I say it's about "real life" rather than the "real world." For all of the absurd humor in the book, its final word on superpowers is that it doesn't really change your life (sure, it affects the trappings but doesn't change who you are).