Woeful Wednesday Comics

It's Wednesday, and as any nerd worth his salt knows, new comics hit the shelves today. Or, if your like me and get your comics through the mail, you come home from work to find a nice little box by your door. Me being who I am, and this being the month it is, I figured I'd take a moment to highlight a title or two that fit the holiday mood.



Releasing today is the second issue of Neonomicon, Alan Moore's official take on the Cthulhu mythos. He's flirted with Lovecraft throughout his career, allowing traces of his works to show up in League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but with Neonomicon he tackles the Great Old Ones head on. This is a direct sequel to his slim graphic novel The Courtyard, although each can be read separately as the first issue recaps the conclusion of that story. The Courtyard was a slim, foreboding and creepy work, but lacked a lot of the punch of some of Moore's other works. It felt, in the end, a bit half-formed. Alan Moore has written some killer short comics(Batman; the Killing Joke, Mogo Doesn't Socialize) in his days, but his strength lies primarily in his longer works, where he allows the characters to grow and your expectations to crystallize before blowing the scope and breadth of the work wide open. Although still in the 'setting the stage' phase of this four part miniseries, Neonomicon is poised to deepen the mystery and horror of this cops and Cthulhu story. In this series we follow a pair of FBI agents as they try to discover why one of the colleagues killed several people in a ritualistic manner, and now speaks in gibberish that should be familiar to most horror fans.

Now, this is released by Avatar Press, which specializes in bizarre one-off stories by high profile writers like Garth Ennis and Alan Moore. They basically provide an outlet for some of the comics these writers have in mind but can't really market to any of the larger companies. This is great in theory, but often means they're simply packaging Warren Ellis' shopping list in comic form. They also have a very small stable of artists which give most of their books a rather similar and, frankly, amateurish look. Luckily, however, Moore has been teamed with Jacen Burrows, by far the most talented and professional artist working for them. His clean and polished style contrasts wonderfully with the often horrific images he's tasked with drawing.




One thing the original Courtyard graphic novel did extremely well, and Neonomicon continues, is the very unsettling way things unfold. Both stories begin as pretty standard, although very dark and grim, police procedurals. It isn't until you get deeper into the book that the weirdness starts to really creep in. From weird psychoactive drugs, cults, and cities in domes, all this stays on the sidelines but begins, after awhile, to feel overwhelmingly, opressively horrific.

Perfect reading for this time of year.

If only I didn't have to wait two weeks for my shipment to arrive.

Superman's Dark Desire

The characters of Nightwing and Flamebird in the DC universe have a bit of a complicated back story, with at least half a dozen separate characters taking on each of those names. For example, the Nightwing and Flamebird that are currently the focus of Action Comics not that Superman is off in New Krypton bear no relation to the Nightwing of the Batman comics, which is the costumed identity of Dick Grayson, the first Robin(although he was inspired by the characters, who were inactive at the time he chose the mantle). Basically the names Nightwing and Flamebird are archetypal, and many people have taken over the mantle in order to give a symbolic weight to their heroic antics.

But that's not how the characters first saw light way back in the early sixties.

In the Superman comics of the 60s and 70s, Supes and his pal Jimmy Olsen had a series of adventures in the Kryptonian city of Kandor, which had been shrunken down and bottled by the villain Brainiac. In this miniature city Superman had no superpowers, and through some weird misunderstanding he was branded an outlaw, so he fashioned himself a new identity based on a bird native to Krypton; Nightwing. Jimmy Olsen joined in as Flamebird, and together they became a famous vigilante duo, fighting crime and righting wrongs.


The implication is clear: Superman's secret desire is to be Batman, and he roped Jimmy Olsen into his role-play fantasies as his own Robin. This is a theory pretty much confirmed by the comic itself; the persona's of Nightwing and Flamebird conform to the Batman and Robin iconography, with Nightwing in all black and Flamebird in bright oranges and yellows. Instead of a Batcave they have a Nightcave, and a Nightmobile instead of a batmobile. If that wasn't explicit enough, Superman chooses the name Nightwing because there are no bats on Krypton, so the name Batman would just confuse people.

But wait, there's more!

In post-Crisis continuity(for the non-comic nerds, Crisis on Infinite Earths was an event that spanned every DC Comics title in the mid-eighties, ending in a massive rewrite of the continuity up to that point, in an effort to streamline the comics and in some ways start from scratch) Nightwing and Flamebird were re-written as part of the Kyrptonian creation myth. Nightwing and Flamebird are part of a trinity of servants to Rao, the Kryptonian god(the third servant would be Vohc, the Breaker). Each generation, the essences of Nightwing and Flamebird are reborn in two individuals with a great love for each other that is doomed to end tragically in death.

I'm not quite sure how Jimmy and Supes fit into that equation.

Nerd Alert!

With Final Crisis just around the corner, written by one of my faves Grant Morrison(even if I have been a little let down with his Batman run), and Geoff Johns doing a pretty spectacular job of reigning in the often convoluted and ungainly DC continuity, I'm finding it a pretty good time to be a DC fan. Especially with the awesome conclusion to The Last Son of Krypton, written by Johns and his former boss, Richard Donner. The story started almost 2 years ago, and the last we've seen of it were the words 'to be concluded in Action Comics Annual #11.' That was 13 issues ago, and the wait has been pretty frustrating. But with this issue, with it's grand cinematic scope(a cliche when talking about comics these days, I know), and incredible Kubert art, almost made the wait worthwhile. I only say 'almost' because a year is too long to ignore such a momentous series of events within the Superman mythos. But wait, there's some things here that don't add up.

The story started way back when, with the arrival of an alien ship containing a young boy who exhibits the exact same power set as Superman, and who speaks Kryptonian. Upset with the governments attempts to isolate and study the child, Superman kidnaps him, and has Batman draw up a paper trail that turns the new Kryptonian into Christopher Kent, a cousin of Clark. Lois and Clark adopt the kid, and all seems fine for about five minutes until Zod, Ursa and Non(of Superman II fame) show up, and it's revealed that Christopher Kent is actually Lor-Zod, General Zod's child with Ursa from their time in the Phantom Zone. Zod and an army of Kryptonian criminals(also from the Phantom Zone), banish Superman to said Phantom Zone, and enslave the Justice League, setting up their own kingdom in Metropolis. It's no spoiler to say the Supes escapes, and seeks Lex Luthor to help him use his expertise to take down some Kryptonians. Cue dramatic music and intriguing 'to be continued.' Flash forward about a year, and it seems that the story is now wrapped up. But wait, what about that year in between?

And here's the problem. For that year, the rest of DC continuity was moving forward, with no mention of the Kryptonian invasion of Earth, and Superman figured prominently in that continuity. Meaning that he was obviously not trapped in the Phantom Zone for all that time. It would make sense to assume that those stories take place after the events of The Last Son of Krypton, and yet it's clear from the final issue that this isn't the case. (SPOILER ALERT) For at the end of the storyline, young Christopher Kent sacrifices himself in order to trap the Kryptonian criminals back in the Phantom Zone, and he along with them.

And now we have a years worth of story lines involving Christopher Kent, adopted son of Lois and Clark. We get to see him learning how to use his powers, moving into a new super-swank apartment with his family, and even meeting and hanging out with Robin(something the last issue paradoxically mentions). What happens to all of these stories now? Did they happen? If so, when? The Last Son of Krypton storyline took place in such a short time frame that there's no room in there for the other adventures to have happened. Do they get retconned out of existence? If so, how do you account for the several references to those adventures that are littered throughout this latest issue.

It's things like this that turn people off of comics, in particular DC. While DC isn't any worse than Marvel at these things, Marvel at least doesn't tie themselves into knots quite so often. DC almost requires a PhD in comic book history to understand everything in their books, and glaring errors like this just confuse and frustrate the fans.

The shame here is that Geoff Johns and Richard Donner have had a pretty splendid run for awhile, and this Last Son Of Krypton storyline had some pretty awesome beats to it(Lex's Superman Revenge Squad, with a trained Bizarro, an upgraded Metallo and Parasite being a highpoint). Johns' encyclopedic Superman knowledge, with Donner's cinematic take on the character, made for some pretty awesome reads. If it weren't for the delays in the title, everything would have been fine.

Download

Well, on Tuesday I wrote a 'review' of an older Kurt Busiek JLA issue, and spent a bit of time praising his work on Superman, and not it appears that's all about to end. At least for the time being.

Newsarama has an interview up today with Busiek where he discusses his Superman run, and his premature exit from the title. Issue 675 will be his last, which means there are only 3 issues to go. With a storyline still ongoing, we may not get to see that anticipated return of Paragon that he had promised earlier in the year.

It isn't all bad news, however. He's leaving Superman so that he can focus his energies on a top-secret title he's working on with Mark Bagley(artist of Ultimate Spiderman's first 100+ issues), and he has a Superman mini that will be coming out sometime soon, as well. Plus he says he has plenty of stories in mind if he makes it back to Superman after finishing this project.

Oh yeah, and he said earlier that Arrowsmith may be getting a sequel series. So there's a silver lining in there.

If your interested in the whole interview, which is a bit dry, follow the link.

Back Issue Tuesday

Justice League Of America #224 (1984)



This week's entry will likely be a bit short, and it will certainly be lacking in those nice, space-filling illustrations I usually scan. The reason, simply, is because this issue isn't very noteworthy. Yet. It's well written, is the first appearance of a sorta cool new Supervillain(Paragon), and is a cool example of the early writings of Kurt Busiek. Busiek has been a favorite of mine since his Superman miniseries Secret Identity, and was the sole reason I picked this issue up. Secret Identity, along with Tom de Haven's excellent novel It's Superman!, was what got me into reading Superman on a regular basis. From there I've followed Busiek around to his miniseries Arrowsmith(a cool alternate history tale set during World War I, with dragons!), his Aquaman run(which, while certainly the only rational version of Aquaman I've read, was still Aquaman, and kinda lame), and various other projects like Astro City. When it comes to comics I tend to follow writers(and sometimes artists) more than I do characters.

I say that this issue is inessential, so far, and that's mainly due to the fact that nothing introduced in this story carried over to any other title or story in the DC universe. The new villain, Paragon, was never brought back again despite the inclusion of a question mark after the words 'The End' on the last page. It may seem like, after 50+ years of comics history, every minor villain or hero would have been brought back countless times, but there are numerous examples of stories and characters that are ignored or forgotten by the comics companies. Just recently Grant Morrison's work on X-Men was completely ignored(if not written out of continuity entirely) until Joss Whedon ressurected some of his ideas for Astonishing X-Men.

In the beginning of the issue we see Black Canary about to interrupt a mugging, until the victim unleashes some killer kung fu moves on the criminals. She steps in once it looks like the vigilante is going to go to far with his punishment. The vigilante, we will learn shortly, is Paragon. It isn't explained right away what his superpowers(if any) are, but he quickly gains the upper hand in his fight with Black Canary. Luckily, Superman, Green Arrow & Green Lantern were all nearby having lunch, and with Superman's super-hearing they knew Black Canary needed help, and quickly show up to intervene. Superman flies in and delivers a blow that should incapacitate Paragon, but he simply shrugs it off and punches Supes so hard he flies off into the distance from the force of it. By the time Green Arrow & Green Lantern show up, Paragon is long gone.

Back on the JLA satellite, the entire team discusses what to do, and with some fairly convenient deductive reasoning, they narrow their suspects to Nobel Prize winning scientist Joel Cochin. The team sends in the big guns, and everyone heads off to confront Cochin/Paragon at his home, but unfortunately they haven't put much thought into just what powers he might have. Whatever his power is, he makes quick work of the entire team, knocking them unconscious and attaching them to a huge machine in his laboratory. It turns out Paragon has the ability to mimic the superpower of anyone within a certain radius(although only natural abilities, he wouldn't be able to mimic Red Tornado because Red Tornado is a robot). The machine is either going to boost his abilities so he doesn't need to be near a villain/hero, or destroy 80% of humanity. Maybe both. His exposition isn't very clear. Neither is his origin story, where he says his powers were natural, but then implies that he created a machine that gave him his abilities. In the end the team saves the day by having Superman fly away so Paragon loses his strength, and then the above-mentioned Red Tornado distracts him until the other members of the JLA can subdue him.

I'm not really sure why Paragon has never been utilized again since this 1984 issue, since he seems like he'd be a pretty good all-purpose villain. Someone who would be a fitting antagonist to whichever hero you wanted to spotlight. Whatever discrepancies I mentioned in his origin/motives could easily have been fixed or clarified with some simple exposition, and I look forward to this when Paragon makes his return sometime later this year. For anyone looking for a good Kurt Busiek story I can't recommend Arrowsmith or Secret Identity enough. Secret Identity is especially good for someone who doesn't really want to commit to the boy scout morality of an ongoing Superman title, but is open to the idea that the character can shoulder a pretty damned entertaining book.

Also, one final note on that cover, which seems to be designed after a famous image from the 1967 Spiderman issue 'Spiderman No More':

The JLA cover shows Paragon walking out of an alley where a trashcan is stuffed full of the accoutrements of various JLA members. Green Arrows bow(with a broken string), Superman's cape, Red Tornado's torso... and Wonder Womans bra. The most identifiable symbol of Wonder Woman is her bra. Which also means she's out there topless somewhere, which is certainly a thought that will please many a fanboy.

Back-Issue Tuesday

Action Comics #466(1976)
(as always, if the images appear too small, just click on them for larger versions)

Yep, another Superman cover. Get used to it; I picked up a healthy stack of silver-age Superman comics and picked up a few story arcs off of ebay, so I have Superman backissues to last me awhile. The reason I picked this one up should be obvious to anyone who can see that cover. The story I made up in my head involved Lex Luthor finally snapping, gleefully beating up small children for their halloween candy. I mean, look at that face, notice the pure unadulterated joy. Luthor's having one hell of a time.

Anyone not wanting to be disappointed is advised to just quit while you still have that glorious image in your head, because the story inside is a bit of a letdown. I've actually really been enjoying the silver age stories in the old Superman comics I picked up, but that probably has a lot to do with the writing talents of Denny O'Neil. Cary Bates is the writer of this issue, and I can't say that I was impressed much.

Action Comics #466 is actually a continuation from the previous issue, and begins with Superman already reverted to a Superboy, but luckily there's a lengthy flashback showing Superman meeting up with a 10 year old Batman and a teenaged Flash, who warn him that Luthor is gunning for him next.

I wish I had more to say about this issue, because that would mean that it had been more interesting. The rest of the story involves Superman, Flash and Batman attacking Luthor, who, in a prototype of his armored super-suit, overpowers the juvenile heroes. The fight between the four actually has some pretty cool moments, and it's a bit shocking to see Batman and the Flash die, even if you know it won't last til the end of the issue. After "killing" the two heroes, Luthor puts one of his power gloves on Superboy, forcing the young superhero to punch himself in the face repeatedly.

There's some hokey hoodoo bullshit here that I still don't completely understand, where Superboy's self inflicted beating somehow makes him realize that young Batman and Flash were, actually, robot versions of his friends. He even explains, in inner monologue, how when he used his X-Ray vision to look under his friend's cowls he saw his friend's faces because that's what he expected to see, but in actuality they looked nothing like who they were supposed to be. This is odd because it was never mentioned previously that Superboy had done that, and so it was a completely unnecesary bit of explanation that only makes Superboy seem like an idiot. And a jerk. I mean, way to respect the privacy of your colleagues, Supes.

After realizing his friends weren't actually killed by Luthor, Superboy is suddenly aware that he was never turned into a child after all, but it was only the power of suggestion! Or something like that, it doesn't really say. All that's made clear is that when Superboy makes this realization, he suddenly grows into a Superman, and punches Luthor good. The end.

One interesting thing to come out of this comic is a pretty hilarious explanation of why Luthor hates Superman;

Yes, the official history used to be that Superboy, in the act of blowing out a fire in a young Lex Luthor's laboratory, spilled some chemicals that made all of Luthor's hair fall out. This is probably the most petty backstory in comics. Fortunately DC realized this, and eventually retconned the whole thing so that, not only did Lex go bald, but Superman failed to save a lifeform Luthor had created. That's a little better. Nowadays they don't much mention a backstory between the two, and Luthor is just a power-mad genius billionare who despises Superman for being an alien and holding back humanity by always rescuing it. Or something like that. Really, it depends on the writer.

Bonus; on a slightly more unintentionally humorous front, we get a bonus one page story at the end. Part of a series entitled 'Justice For All Includes Children,' where we see Superman offer nuggets of advice about how to help kids. This issue's story was about physical child abuse, and while it isn't quite on the same level as that mid-80s Spiderman/Power Pack issue about child abuse, I still get a kick out of the father's earnest reply here.

Things You Notice In A Comic Shop

This is the cover(without logo) for the newest issue of The Authority; Prime. It's not a book I read, but it generally has good writers attached to it, and I have read some of The Midnighter's(the guy in black, in the bottom foreground) solo stuff. Take a look:

I really like this cover because the guy at the top is apparantly punching himself in the face. Really hard. Because clearly the man he's fighting has missed him completely.

Tales From The Discount Bin: Comic Book Edition

[Some of the images in here may be too small to read, but clicking on any of them will enlarge it to full screen size.]

I have a certain soft spot for silver age comic book covers, it's absurdly hilarious the different ways comic book companies tried to entice readers with wackier and wackier images. Every now and then, while working at the comic shop, I run across one that seems especially noteworthy. And, if the price is right, I'll usually pick it up(some of those books from the 70s are a bit prohibitive in cost). Superman #240 is not the silliest or most incomprehensible cover out there, but I still got a kick out of it. From both Superman's jilted, whiny dismissal of humanity to the pure anger and hatred thrown towards the man who's by this time saved Earth countless times. Of course, it's entirely possible that Superman deserves all of the hatred. I mean, what if he failed to save a busload of orphans on their way to Disneyworld from falling off a cliff because saving them would mean dropping his ice cream cone? I could see that pissing some people off.


The book opens on a building almost completely engulfed in flames. The fire crew are helpless to stop the blaze, and would let it burn itself out if not for the woman and her children trapped on the top floor. "if ever there was a job for Superman, this is it" the fire chief tells Supes. Despite the fact that his powers have been weakening lately, Superman does what he always does, and rushes in to save the family. Note the boredom evident in the crowds reaction. A building going up in flames and threatening the lives of a family? Pure excitement. It's a shame they had to call in that killjoy Superman to spoil the bonfire.


So, does Superman's failure involve letting a family burn to death because his powers have failed him? Well... no. Superman saves the woman and her two small children and flies them to safety, but that's not enough for this town. Metropolis has apparently become so used to Superman saving them from everything that they expect it now, treat it as their right to have Superman save them. Look at how the landlord reacts to Superman saving the lives of his tenants:



So there's Superman's big failure. His weakening powers meant that instead of holding the building up while the fire raged around him, the building collapsed and buried him in rubble. Thankfully he was not seriously harmed, but that's not how the citizens of Metropolis see it. 'Superman Fails!' is the headline that day, and he's become a laughingstock.


"Be careful no buildings fall on you!" has got to be the strangest way to mock someones masculinity. The guy flew into a raging inferno, saved three people, and then had a building collapse on his head. And then he walked away practically unscathed. He may not be as strong as he once was, but he's still not a guy I want to be taunting and mocking. Also, what is Superman doing? Does he normally just go for strolls through Metropolis streets in his costume?

But dimwitted construction workers are the least of Superman's worries, for the headlines touting his weakness have caught the attention of the unimaginatively named 'Anti-Superman Gang', who have decided to use this as an opportunity to test their power against Superman. In a daytime bank heist, complete with anti-aircraft guns, they shoot Superman out of the sky and are only stopped at the last moment when Superman hurls a vault door at their getaway vehicle.

Back at work, as Clark Kent, he receives an odd visitor; I-Ching, a blind Asian mystic who is normally seen in the pages of Wonder Woman. He is aware of Superman's secret identity, and of his recent problems, and offers his aid in trying to regain Supes' powers. But the anti-Superman gang is watching, and they follow Kent hoping he will lead them to the weakened Superman.


Now, I can forgive people not recognizing Superman and Clark Kent are the same person. In fact just a few years prior to this comic the official explanation was that Superman vibrated at a rate that made photographs of him in-costume unreadable. And Jeph Loeb made a convincing argument in recent history that no one would assume Superman is Clark Kent because, well, how could they see such a godlike being as just a regular guy? But come on. These guys are idiots.


Caught in the midst of I-Ching's meditative therapy, Superman must fight off the thugs with the lack of any super-strength. Now completely powerless, Superman knocks the anti-Superman gang unconscious while thinking of what his new life without super-powers will be like. And the story ends on a slightly positive note with Superman deciding to live his life to the fullest. If he can't be the best hero on the planet, well, he'll become the best human being he can be.

This is actually part of a yearlong story-arc in 1971 where DC was trying to streamline and revamp the Superman mythology. There was an explosion where Superman got hit in the chest with Kryptonite, but afterwards found all Kryptonite on earth had become harmless lead. However the explosion opened the way for the Sandman, an inter dimensional being that began sapping Superman of his strength, eventually wanting to become Superman he took on his appearance as well. The story(and this issue as well) was pretty cool, and the writing, if you can get past the silver-age obviousness of the dialogue, is pretty solid. It's a shame DC immediately ignored the Sandman character and the events of this storyline, because it's an intriguing arc that could have had a much larger impact.

On a side note, this comic came with a pretty genius bonus story in the back. 'An Untold Tale of the Planet Krypton' that has a very distinct 'Tales From The Crypt'(or Tales From the Krypton, for those of you who love bad puns) feel. In it a scientist's assistant plans to use his bosses time machine to travel back in time 1,000 years with stolen technology where he can rule the planet. He steals and murders for this technology, and almost succeeds in travelling through time. However, the technology he took along on the trip causes a power surge in the time machine that reverses his direction in time, depositing him 50 years in the future. The last panel is of him floating in space, dead, because 50 years in the future there is no Krypton.

Bits and Pieces

I'm short on time today, but what else is new. My time restrictions are a little tighter today, so I'm going to do a quick rundown of some horror-themed reading material.


I work in a comic shop, which means that lately most of my reading has been of the 4-color kind. A lot of people tend to look down on that, even if they can appreciate that comics can be intellectually stimulating, it's still seen as a guilty pleasure. Frankly, I'm okay with that, even though I think a lot of comic writers deserve recognition from circles larger than just the comic book 'geeks'. My recommendation is one of those writers.


Anybody who's visited this blog more than once has probably heard me mention Warren Ellis, if not you've probably seen the link to his website on the right side of your screen. He's one of the most prolific writers in comics today, with never less than 4 series going on at the same time. He writes constantly, with varying levels of quality, but when he's good, he's peerless. Well, he's maybe second to Alan Moore, but no one today is at that level. One of the most interesting things about Mr. Ellis' career is his dedication to smaller, more personal projects while still continuing his higher-profile work for larger publishers. One of these books is Fell, a slight experiment in form, with it being much shorter than a normal comic, but without any advertisements, each issue being a self contained story, and all cheaper than just about any other book out there. He's stated that his reason for this book is the sympathy he felt for fans at conventions who wanted him to sign blank pieces of paper, saying they just can't afford to buy comics regularly.


Fell plays right into my interests, with it's incredibly creepy and disturbingly gruesome mysteries, and the fact that it's all self-contained. I've been really interested in condensing information lately, getting out as much information as possible for the least amount of exposition. Fell, despite having only 22 pages to tell an entire story, never overcrowds the panel with dialogue or narration. Warren Ellis has always had respect for the artist, and always gives enough room for the art to convey the emotion. Speaking of the art, Ben Templesmith gained fame in horror circles for 30 Days of Night(probably one of the most overrated comics in recent years, by the way), but his art never really impressed me before now. He's a great artist, but he always struck me as wrong for comics, since his style is so abstract. It's usually too dark and sketchy to make out any action. With Fell, however, he reigns back his normal style and makes it much more linear and clearer to the eye without losing anything of what makes his art unique.

The book only has 6 issues out so far, and since it's one of Warren Ellis' 'personal' projects, it's not very regular, but it's worth getting into. Ironically enough the book has gone through multiple printings, and finding the first couple issues of this 'cheap' comic could be quite pricey.









On the subject of Warren Ellis, I must also recommend the series 'Planetary'. It isn't a horror book by any means, but it should appeal to any horror fan(they go to Monster Island in one issue. Another has a giant Praying Mantis). Now is a GREAT time to get into the series, and I say that because the final issue just came out last week. The reason it's great to get into this series now that it's over is because you can read the entire story in one go, as opposed to the interminable wait we fans had during it's regular run. Although the final issue came out last week, the previous issue came out in 2005.


Now that the series is over, I can't say that it's the greatest comic book currently being published, which rest assured it was during most of it's run. The series starts slowly, and may be off putting to some readers due it's format. The series follows a team of archaeologists who specialize in the bizarre, and these people don't take a very active role in events for the first part of the run. It's weird, the book ending just before, or starting just after, big events take place. Big events happen, but you usually only hear about them for awhile. Once the book picks up though, everything becomes worthwhile, as mysteries unfold so ingeniously that you often don't even realize there's a mystery there until it's solved. The book is really an outlet for Warren Ellis' varied ideas, and a place to play around with every genre imaginable, touching on horror, sci-fi, superheroes, mysticism, 50s style sci-fi, aboriginal legends, and metaphysical philosophies.




It really is an excellent book, and well worth the money spent on a collection of trade paperbacks. So go buy it!

Random Musings

So I'm short on time today, and this bastard library computer's space bar is broken, so this is going to be very short. Basically I'm forcing you to read through me keeping my fingers limber.

As you've seen through the past couple posts, I'm trying to shift the format of this blog to a quicker, shorter stream-of-consciousness kind of thing. I started this blog as an outlet for all these little thoughts and ideas I find no use for in the real world, and mainly as a way to sharpen my writing skills. Time was, I used to fancy myself a pretty good writer. Well, a couple years of neglecting that talent have left it rusty and covered in cobwebs. I tried initially writing long expository posts, things that had "messages", and I've discovered that doesn't quite work for me. I was always a bit underwhelmed by the results, my frustration increasing because of the amount of work I put into a lackluster result. And so, I've decided not to overthink things, just let fly with whatever I want to talk about.
You can thank one person in particular for this change; Warren Ellis. Observant readers will notice I've included his website on my links list. He's a comics writer I'm becoming quite a fan of, but he's also one of the most prolific guys out there. I think only Brian Michael Bendis would challenge him in the contest of who's writing the most current comic books, and his aren't nearly as good. Bendis is more consistent, but he never gets close to the sheer insanity and genius put into every panel of a Warren Ellis book. It struck me after reading a few of Ellis' books, and reading his email column for a couple weeks, that he has no filter. Not that he's vulgar or offensive(although he is, often), but that he doesn't filter anything that he puts on page. If he has an idea, he writes it down and puts it out there. This leads to some interesting stuff, but also has a few problems. Sometimes he has a great idea, but doesn't take the time to explore it, and sometimes he has a bad idea and doesn't think about tossing it aside. I'm pretty sure that if he doesn't have a keyboard in his hands he'd be holding a gun and using that just as often.
For those of you unfamiliar with his work, it should be pretty easy to track down. His most famous series, Transmetropolitan, is available in paperback form, and at most libraries. It's pretty good, even if the main character is obviously Hunter S. Thompson blasted a few hundred years into the future.
Fell is currently ongoing, up to issue 4, and conveniently priced at 1.99 for those not able to buy lots of expensive comics. Each issue is a self contained story, free of advertisements. A bit shorter than most mass market comics, but very dense, giving you a sense of a complete world. It's apparently sold out, but entering second printings. It shouldn't be too hard to find, and the shop I work at still has a few copies of each issue hanging around.
He's also writing some more mainstream comics over at Marvel. The Ultimate Galactus trilogy is amazing, but probably not so interesting to people who don't normally read comics(true fanboys will already know what the story entails by the title). Nextwave, though, is a comic with so many D-List characters that it should only be funny to truly hardcore fanboys, but it's amazingly accessible. The humor might not be for everyone, but I urge everyone reading this who likes comics to go out and buy it. It's up to issue 3, and completely entertaining. It's amazing to me how much Ellis is able to get away with at Marvel. None his titles are too out there, but they do head farther away from the superhero stereotypes than the company usually goes.

So that's it for me. Thanks for reading through another meaningless message. I promise to balance my timewasting with actual informative stuff. Also, I've noticed a real lack of response to these things. I've had one or two responses, but I'm not even sure if outside those 2 people anyone is reading this. So, drop me a line sometime, either personal or on the comments section.

Clash of the Titans

So I've been thinking a lot about comics these days, which makes sense, seeing as how I work at a comic shop these days. You see an odd cross-section of humanity working at a comic shop, although I can't really say anything bad about them. People in glass houses and all that. The thing that makes a geek isn't what he or she is interested in, but when they begin telling people who don't give a crap all the miniscule details of their obsession. Let's just say I've learned when to shut up about the things I enjoy doing in my free time.
Still, comics are a great, and undervalued medium. We get the occasional old lady buying comics for her adult son who opines loudly on how comics are worthless, which of course, for her they are. But comics are a continuation of a great tradition. The Three Musketeers, Don Quixote, Great Expectations, all of them began life as short, serial publications that later formed a full novel. Comics are merely the 20th century evolution of that genre. And not only that, they could be seen as the perfect medium for our busy lives; short, compact bursts of information that can be single doses, or spread out over a year or two. In some cases, decades.
For the most part, my comic book reading has been confined to mainly independent or lower profile comics. The so-called 'literary' comics. Not to say I'm a snob, I love a good superhero yarn, but they never really interested me as much as books like Sandman or the current Y: The Last Man did. DC was my comics publisher of choice because one of their flagship characters was nothing more than an obsessed millionaire who dressed like a bat, lived in a cave, and got into fistfights with escaped lunatics. As you can see I was into the high concept stuff.
The only superhero books I really paid attention to were Alan Moore's dense reinventions and Batman, who isn't a superhero at all. The change in my attitude started rather slowly, with a loaned copy of the novel It's Superman by Tom De Haven. It's a great reimagining of the Superman myth from a more realistic approach. I'm not saying it's the Sopranos, but this Clark Kent actually lives through a very real depression era thirties. If your at all interested in comics, it's a great read. Then I noticed some good Superman stories by non-superhero writers like Brian Azzarello, and began to change my opinion a bit. I realized it wasn't really the character I didn't like, but the writers. Superman is too easy to make into a bland, one trick pony, but ocassionally great things can be done with the idea.
Once I got past that hurdle, along came DC's Infinite Crisis. Infinite Crisis is a huge universe spanning event that's going to change every single title that DC has. In fact, some of them have already ended due to the events of this storyline(I doubt that will last too long, though), and a few heroe's have died. Some of them you'll even recognize!
I have my coworkers to blame for the rest of my superhero acceptance. I was the only DC fan in a store full of Marvel fans, and it was only a matter of time before they tempted me over to the darkside. At first it was the low-profile title Runaways, which I contend to be the greatest book Marvel currently has in print. It's like the Arrested Development of comics; brilliant, but nobody pays any attention to it. The problem is, it has frequent guest stars from c-list heroes and villians across the Marvel universe, and it was enough to get me interested.
Of course, Marvel also just finished(some say started) their huge universe spanning event, House of M. In it, through a fairly simple but also boring to non comic fans, over 90 percent of the mutants on earth lose their powers. Bam, overnight their regular human folks. Only not quite regular. Some of them lose the powers, but not the freaky appearances, which is a bit disquieting. Basically what this did was set the clock back to the 1960's origins of the X-Men, where they were a minority persecuted by humans. This time around, with Xavier nowhere to be seen, the X-Men academy has become a relocation and internment camp for those mutants still left. It has some topical reverberations, but it's also turning out to be just a good read. Of course, after reading House of M I now have to read almost every single Marvel title to see what happens next. And I do. What I don't buy I read on break, or at least flip through, and I'm a hardcore comics junkie now.
In the end, I have to admit something that I'm finding very hard, given my past relationship with comics. In the battle between warring Universe Altering Events, Marvel is clearly the winner. It may be too early to tell, since Infinite Crisis has just really started, but House of M really outshone it. The thing is, Infinite Crisis is a horribly complicated story, with ambitious writers doing a pretty good job at keeping the pace and interest up. But House of M was a simple story executed almost perfectly. With DC you're forced to read everything and memorize 20 years of continuity, with Marvel you only had to read the 8-issue miniseries and whatever titles you already picked up, and you knew everything you needed to know.
DC seems to be falling under the weight of their own intellect. Where I once loved the more cerebral hich concept ideas, and was willing to forgive the occasional lapse in storytelling, Marvel has won me over with simple ideas playing into complex variations.
Of course, I work at a comic shop, so I'll be reading them both anyway.