Storyteller

 I have a copy of Conan #1.

Published in October of 1970, almost a year and a half to the day before I was born, it is one of my favorite pieces in my comic collection and while I can attribute this to a  number of things, it is one of the few pieces that gets special credit for the artist whose work graces it.

Surely most of you have noticed by now that I gush about writers, and seldom throw any love in the direction of artists, despite the fact that without them our writers would simply be novelists. Well I'm prepared to break the trend in this case.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the man whose name I'm about to bring up, I would recommend that you familiarize yourself quickly.

He is a legend.

His name, is Barry Windsor-Smith.

 I could fill any number of blogs by focusing solely on the terrific ability to convey a unique and captivating story with original and mesmerizing characters that this man possesses, but I've decided in this blog to simply give you a quick look into his career highlights and then to focus on one series in particular. Barry is well known in North America as the man who handled the original Marvel Comics run of Conan The Barbarian, a title which will never be forgotten. His impact on Marvel didn't end there though, as he was also the man who took the first official run at the secret origin of Wolverine in a serialized tale called 'Weapon X.' If you are one of the people who understand just how awesome an accomplishment that Valiant Comics was in the 90's, Barry was there.  He did unbelievable work breathing life back into characters from the sixties like Doctor Solar, Turok The Dinosaur Hunter and Magnus the Robot Fighter, as well as helping to launch some new characters and series that were equally impressive.

The man's pedigree is beyond reproach and his artwork is distinct, unique, and arguably amongst the best of all time.  I certainly find his style worthy of great praise, and feel like it stands apart from the rest of the industry.

But Barry was more than just an artist, he was a Storyteller.

Which is why we're discussing him here today, as I have dug out and dusted off his 1995 series of oversized comics entitled Storyteller. This series featured a glossy, gorgeous cover o 12.5" x 9" stock and contained three stories being told in serialized format.  It was published by Dark Horse for nine issues, and then canceled despite the tenth issue having been completed. I have copies of all nine of the original issues, and I still enjoy them every time I take them out and read them.

The features inside were:

The Paradoxman - A dark sci-fi story with some very strange twists and turns.

Young Gods - Which feels like an homage to New Gods or Thor, and features brilliant artwork woven into a tale of cosmic proportions.  Letting a man like Barry loose in the realm of Gods is a brilliant idea, because there is nothing he cannot draw and explain rationally as a part of the tale.

The FreeBooters - Which feels like a Conan tale about an aged mercenary who now runs a tavern and lives off of fame.  For those who roleplay in the fashion of D&D (which is crap - you really should play Harnworld) the lead character Axus smacks of the kind of Tavern Owner you would long to encounter.  The story is light and fun, and engaging.

One of my favorite pieces of work from him is a graphic novel from the late nineties called Adastra In Africa, based on one of his characters from Young Gods. I have heard it said that it was originally intended to be an X-Men graphic novel, but the Marvel editors decided that since it wasn't written under their supervision or guidance that they wouldn't publish it. It languished for some time until Windsor-Smith decided to revive it as a stand-alone Young Gods novel about Adastra.  While I cannot confirm the validity of the reason it was never published at Marvel, if the story is true.......

Marvel editors made a big mistake.

In any event, I like to champion things I think get overlooked on here just as much as I like to rant about how terrible Spider-Man is, or how awesome Batman is.  Barry Windsor-Smith is one of those gems of the industry that I think a lot of my friends have no idea about.

Do yourselves a favor and change that.

A fan of the black...

I've extolled the value of a good read over Reginald Hudlin's run on The Black Panther, which was met with some general disinterest amongst most of you (a mistake!), and now I'm turning my attention to another book that begins with that ever important first word 'Black.'

The difference of course is that the books couldn't be less similar.

Unlike The Black Panther, which is a story about a King from the African nation of Wakanda, I'm talking about a superspy from the Super Power formerly known as the U.S.S.R.  I'm talking about The Black Widow (and not the one depicted in the latest Iron Man movie by Scarlett - okay, yes that same character......but you know.....with more depth, meaning and background than they bothered to give Scarlett to work with.)

Marjorie Liu is breathing new life into this character, and after two issues I'm sold on giving this book a serious look for the foreseeable future. For those of you who don't know Liu's work, she's been running as co-writer on Dark Wolverine with Daniel Way and doing a terrific job of developing the story that will ultimately dictate the outcome of the parricidal story of Wolverine's son Daken.

Liu introduces us to Widow in a well paced, tightly written first issue in which we are reminded of the woman's deep-seeded roots as a soviet spy with too many secrets in her past. We also get a glimpse into her romantic links in the Marvel Universe, which nicely sets us up for the suggestion that all of her time as an Avenger (since her defection years earlier) may in fact have been a deception.

The hanging ending of the first book and the underlying tone of the story suggest that we're in for a story which will really dig deeply into whether or not you can ever trust the world's second best spy (*ahem* Nick Fury of course being the best) and what happens when the people who think they're closest to her finally have to start doubting the trust they have always had for her.

I like books that make me think, and I get the impression I'm going to spend some time trying to decide when and where the twists and turns are coming in this one. Frankly I don't care if she's really an agent who's been on assignment all these years, or if somebody's just trying to frame her and take her down.  What I care about is that we're delving into the roots of the character in a smart way, and that the story is going to be an exciting mix of violence and cunning.

If you're looking for something new to try, this may be a book of interest for you.

Where were you Jeff? Plus, I'll let you in on a secret!

A month ago the blog went dark.

No new posts and no talking comics.

Rumor has it that it became a dark time in many people's lives.

Well the story is kind of simple; it was Sponsor Wars time.  And if you don't know what that's about, be thankful and just move on to the latter part of this blog.  For those of you who do appreciate the roleplaying challenge of being victorious in Sponsor Wars, you must understand how much time and attention it took for me to emerge victorious for the second year in a row.  Sadly I had to leave that douchebag Genocide in the dust this time around.

Alright.....the explanation's out of the way, and we're on to the secret.

And it's a good one.

This is for the math geeks out there: Secret Avengers > Avengers.

I picked up Secret Avengers #1 because I've enjoyed Ed's work on Captain America and I felt like I should give him a chance to show me that he can manage the "black ops" team of Avengers who do the jobs that the rest of the world cannot know about. Unlike the first issue of Avengers, this one is something worth writing home about.  It had a better pace, and a feel that seemed to be more on the mark.

As of right now, this is the Avengers book I'm going to be recommending to people.

Read it.

Avengers Assem.......................blah!

Captain America is alive!

Tony Stark once more wears the suit of iron!

The God of Thunder is an Avenger again!

We emerge from Seige into the Heroic Age of Marvel, when we will once again see greatness as the 'big 3' come together at the formation of a new Avengers (as opposed to the NEW Avengers.) Steve Rogers has been handed Norman Osborne's old job as chief of United States security and he has gathered together a large assortment of former heroes and made a simple request of them:

Avengers Assemble.

Those two words, for me, have been a timeless reminder of the true power of Marvel's team comic book. Written by some of the greats in the industry, this team book is Marvel's answer to the Justice League and at its core it too has always had a BIG 3. In recent years the events of Civil War and other events have shattered the bonds that made those heroes great, and now Marvel is setting out to rebuild them.  For a guy like me, who has always had a soft spot for nostalgia and the iconic characters who stand amongst the Avengers (and in case you're wondering......my Avengers DO NOT include Spider-Man) this book should be a rallying call for the emergence of a new time at Marvel.

Right?

WRONG!

After a read of this book I cannot recommend it to anyone. I found it particularly uninspired and utterly vanilla. It could have been written by the kid down the street and I'm not sure it could have been less captivating. The surprise on the last panel is mildly intriguing, but comes too late to make up for an uneventful encounter with Kang, a lot of subplot development that I couldn't care less about, and a Steve Rogers who looks a little bit too bright and chipper for a guy who's seen his world torn apart by the failure of the Avengers in recent years.  Plus the awkwardness between Tony and Steve isn't nearly awkward enough to be real after what's gone before. I'm not sure that John Romita Jr is the right artist for this book, that while entitled for the onset of The Heroic Age is really about rebuilding the greatness that lies in ruins.

Romita's art hearkens to a brighter time in the past, or that may yet be coming, but seems out of place in what should be a somber, if optimistic, time amongst Earth's Mightiest Heroes. All in all, the book doesn't work for me in other ways than the art, and its a bit of a footnote, but it starts to compound other concerns. I need the Avengers to stop pretending that Wolverine and Spider-Man belong with them, and I need this rebuilding to be exactly that.....a rebuilding.  You don't just wipe the slate clean and start over with everyone bonding, which too much of this book felt like to me.

Sorry folks, but this is one big disappointment from Mr. Bendis and he's going to have to do a lot of hard work to convince me that it's going to get better.

Xanadu

No, not the lame Olivia Newton John movie (or song.)

I'm talking about Madame Xanadu, a perennial DC background character who has finally returned to the 'mainstream' with her own series.  It's just over twenty issues in, and I have to say I've been liking it.  I gave the book a try early on because of a number of things.  Here's a quick list:

1.I was interested in trying a series written by award winning author Matt Wagner (Mage!, Grendel, Trinity & Sandman Mystery Theater)

2. Early cover art looked sensational.  I don't buy books based on art, but it doesn't hurt when somebody is really nailing it!

3. Vertigo.  I love when DC characters get moved over to Vertigo, because I feel like its a sign that the title is going to explore more intense and unchecked creative paths. (Hellblazer, Swamp Thing, Sandman, etc)

4. Madame Xanadu.  I was mildly interested in the character herself and what role she might play in a bigger story.

The first story arc really hooked me, and opened my eyes to what Matt was going to be doing with her. Deep histories that are going to be slowly unfolded across the series and across time are always a way to drag out my interest.

From Wikipedia:  "Madame Xanadu's origins are explored in an ongoing Vertigo series. According to this series, her full name was once Nimue Inwudu and she is a sister of Morgana le Fey and Vivienne, the Lady of the Lake. The sisters are descendants of the Elder Folk, survivors of Atlantis who evolved into the race known as the Homo Magi. Madame Xanadu is the same Nimue who casts an imprisoning spell on her former lover Merlin, blaming him with manipulating Camelot and the course of history for his own gain. Merlin has the last laugh, though, as he succeeds in stripping her magic away from her, forcing her to use potions to maintain her immortality."

This information was revealed to me in the early issues and cemented that I was going to hang around for a while and see what Wagner did with the character.  After all, who doesn't love Arthurian threads, mixed with Atlantean culture as a basis for following an immortal's life down through the ages?  Even more tempting is the idea that as stories unfold in different eras, we'll get some glimpses into DC's own development in that time.

One of the feature moments in early stories for me was the appearance by The Phantom Stranger, who I find to be an enigmatic and compelling mystery. The character is very clearly tied to her, and yet we are left wondering why he is involving himself in her life as we watch it unfold.  Terrific stuff.

I don't know why I felt compelled to comment on this series now, given that I've been following it for the better part of two years now, but I read a couple of the recent issues and really enjoyed them.  This isn't your average comic story (as with so many things I comment on) but it is a terrific blend of the fantasy genre with historic fiction.

If you have an interest in different types of stories, this one might be worth a look.  Gorgeous artwork doesn't hurt either.

Fairy Tales that should be at the top of your reading list

Comic books are the modern equivalent of fairy tales.

Some even more than others.

I have no idea how it has escaped my radar for so long, especially given how many times we've brought up the topic of non-traditional comics that don't focus on people in tights (how do the guys not.....ummmm....embarrass themselves when they see the women in spandex all the time?) but I think we need to talk about a book by Bill Willingham called Fables.

Ladies and gents, if you're looking for something well outside of the normal stream of comic book fodder, that is brilliantly written, artfully illustrated and manages to be both mature and childish at the same time, then this is the book you'll never get tired of. The characters of our childhood have taken refuge on Earth, hiding from the Enemy who has conquered the fable worlds and driven the final survivors to earth, where they have secreted themselves amongst the Mundys (mundanes.)  What follows is a systematic re-imagining of many of those fables you remember from your youth, and plenty that you won't recall at all.  We're taken on an interesting journey through their culture and the changing dynamics of their relationships for a couple of years, and then just as we start to settle into a comfortable place where we think we have a handle on the culture they've built in Fabletown and on The Farm, we discover that there's more to this story than meets the eye.

War.

The Fable leadership is making plans to deal with the Emperor who quashed their lands, and ultimately preparing to lead their eclectic assortment of allies into a perilous confrontation with the Enemy. The intensity doesn't slow down there either, because even once the war is over we find that danger continues to loom and ancient powers begin to creep back into the world.

The book is captivating, creative and fresh and I don't see it as formulaic or routine at any time.  Willingham has captured childhood imagination and mixed in brilliantly with a mature glimpse into an impossible world. I find the characters both intriguing and refreshing in comparison to most comic books, and I would encourage you to explore the convoluted world of Bigby Wolf, Rose Red, Snow White, Prince Charming and of course, Jack.  The cast is literally hundreds deep, and each arc brings into view an assortment of fables to examine.

This book is a sensational read.

Kick Ass

So last night I saw the movie.

I don't say this often, so listen up; the movie was better than the comic.

The changes that they made in order to make the movie work, were things that I actually thought enhanced the story and made it more sensible. While some of the special effects were corny/cheesy, I did think there was a reason for that.  It was a comic book movie.

Overall I thought that the movie was packed full of some ridiculous violence, supported by an insane story about a loser who ends up winning big because he grew up a comic book nerd. How he gets the girl is beyond me, because he really is just a moron in tights, but in the end he gets fame, the girl and a chance to grow up and live out the rest of his life without wearing a great big sign on his chest that reads "in over my head." Unless you count the final shot of the movie, with McLovin' stealing a line from the Joker and inferring that he's going to rise up to become some terrible nemesis.

I could have done without that line.

Some of the best moments in the movie were comedy moments, and they belonged to his best friends, who should have been punched in the face.  Geeks or not, they were begging for a fist to the melon.  The amount of crap they give to their friend is unreal. It's also hilarious. I think as far as action sequences go, the scene that got the best reaction from the crowd is when she goes to the night-vision goggles and then runs around and kills the mobsters.  I'm pretty sure that gameboys everywhere were geekin' through the whole scene, but they probably climaxed when she stabbed the guy in the chest and then blew his brains out in a moment that looked like it could have come right out of an FPS.

Listen, Kick Ass isn't going to win any awards, but it should be applauded for being what it is; a terrific comic book movie that keeps you laughing and geeking from start to finish, despite the transparent plotline. Worth seeing in the theater and not waiting for the video.

It's a great primer for Iron Man 2 (in which we'll see Whiplash get elevated to the role of major villain, where he DOES NOT belong.)

Doom. War. Two of my favorite words.

I issue in and I do like Doomwar more than any of the other mage-super-unbelievable event series that Marvel has run in recent years, and that includes the recent event they hyped as seven years in the making; Siege.

You all heard me take up for Black Panther (both of the last two series) on this blog, and now the recent series of Black Panther looks like it was all leading to this; Doom is making a play for the Vibranium mines in Wakanda.  The Black Panther line has been deposed in a "bloodless coup" driven by a secret faction within the country itself.  They gained the technical aid to get it done by their most clandestine of backers from the country of Latveria.  What we're left with is a play taking place on two fronts.

While the public consumes the sudden isolationist policies of Wakanda's new government, The Black Panther and King T'Challa make plans to reclaim their country.  The writer does an excellent job of showing us how it was possible and why it happened, and I felt intrigued by the politics of the story just a little bit. The new government has condemned Queen Ororo as a witch and is preparing for an execution, which only serves to add to the drama of the situation as it is unfolding.

And with that bit of information, do you need me to tell you who Black Panther has recruited to her cause?

With the X-Men at their side, Panther and T'Challa are more than capable of winning back Wakanda.  But can they do it in time to stop Doom?

And why did Doom secretly back the takeover of Wakanda?  Why not simply attempt a takeover of his own?  The answers are revealed in Doomwar, but his involvement adds another element to the story.  Taking back the country won't bother Doom at all, so long as it happens after he gets his hands on the refined Vibranium that Wakanda alone possesses. This is the second tier to the series, and actually is a little bit more difficult to stomach.  Apparently Vibranium not only is an incredible alien ore that when refined can craft things like Captain America's shield, but it also can be used to amplify energy.  All types of energy.  Including arcane energy.

What?

You forgot that Doom is also a recreational sorcerer with a megalomaniac's delusions of universal conquest?  Well now's the time to be reminded.  If Doom gets access to the Vibranium, we are assured that he will be more powerful than anyone.  Laying it on a bit thick to make their point?  Sure they are.  But the writing is solid and the story does flow.

As is almost always the case though, it's going to come down to the finish.

For me, most of Marvel's biggest events have died because the great idea didn't reach a great climax.  Given the two arcs in front of me right now (Doomwar & Siege) I'm prepared to bet more money on Doomwar and a writer I don't know than I am on Siege.  I'm hoping for the best with it, but acknowledging the trend by Bendis to turn a great idea into a disappointing climax.

I'll let you know my final thoughts when I get to the end of it, but I had to comment because I've really loved the way that this book flowed from the most recent 12 issue run on Black Panther.  If you didn't read it, I seriously think you lost out.

Random observation day

* Garth Ennis writes about God a lot.  Like a lot, a lot. Evidence:

True Faith
Hellblazer (his run on the book has a lot of religious theme)
The Demon (heaven/hell.  It counts)
Goddess
Preacher
Bloody Mary
Bloody Mary Lady Liberty
Crossed (*don't tell me there isn't religious theology in this)
Chronicles of Wormwood


* Dark Avengers is better than New Avengers

* Secret Warriors is still good after 15 issues.

* Everybody raves about Grant Morrison on Batman & Robin.  I'm luke warm. Why does Dick come off as a mediocre Batman who's never prepared for anything in this book? I'll call this no-selling.

* This new book S.H.I.E.L.D. is tight.

* Jonathon Hickman can write and Marvel should tie him up.  He writes S.H.I.E.L.D., Secret Warriors & Fantastic Four.

* Speaking of his run on FF.  Why did it take this long for somebody to figure out that this book is about a family that adventures together? Best run of FF in ages.

* Blackest Night in 60 seconds is some very, very funny stuff: http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/04/07/blackest-night-in-60-seconds/

* Barry Allen with the blue ring on is pretty cool, even if he should have stayed dead.

* I don't care what anyone says, the Specter shold have dealt with the whole Black Lantern issue.  He's THE SPECTER! Story would have been 7 seconds long.

* When I get a month's shipment I always find i t interesting what I feel like I "need" to read first.  Top attention getters from the last shipment included Irredeemable, Secret Warriors, Wolfskin & World Of New Krypton!

* Won't it be funny if Doom War turns out to be a much better story than any of Marvel's BIG event stories from recent years? There's a chance....

* Planet Hulk on Blue Ray.  Didn't even know they put it out, but I've got a copy.  I'm going to watch it tomorrow I think!

* Jeremiah (the TV show) was based on a comic book I think I'll have to read.  Always interested to see how far from the source material it fell, especially since the producer is now a comic guy.  Anyways, I really liked Season 2.  Liked Mister Smith.  Reminds me of somebody I know.

* It's past my bedtime.

Why bother Fabian?

I've had to make some hard decisions in the last 60 days about comic books.

My ongoing struggle to find work has slowly tightened the noose around the neck of my comic book orders, and April's shipment of books from my supplier will be my last regular shipment until such time as I secure a new career. The result of this was that two months ago, seeing the possibility coming forward, I had to carve out some of my reading list in advance of an absolute cut-off.  One of the books I chose to cut was Azrael's new series by Fabian Nicieza (a writer who's work I have enjoyed in the past.)

To understand why this is something a tough choice, you need to appreciate that on average I get my shipment two months after books are released.  The process saves me a significant amount of money, but the other side of it is that when I'm ordering my books (which are ordered two months in advance of shipping) I'm often working with a lack of opinion or information on the current quality of a series.  That's what happened when I cut off the orders for Azrael based on only having read issue number 1.

Sometimes this process burns me, and I end up scrambling to scoop up a couple of issues to fill in gaps created by the decision, because I realize or discover two months later that the book improved and became a real keeper.

Well I just read Azrael #4 (two months after I canceled my orders for the series in advance of issue #5's solicitation.)   Guess what?

It sucked.

Turns out that my gut instinct from two months earlier was spot on, and the series continues to be completely missing the captivating essence of this character's past. When Dennis O'Neil wrote Azrael's first story I was intrigued and stayed with the book for his entire run on it.  Fabian, it turns out, doesn't have any clue what makes the character work and demonstrates it every time he sets pen to paper.  Issue #4's climax, in which we finally discover the identity of a murder that has haunted the new Azrael's civilian identity for years, is uninspired and flippant, offering us neither actual closure or heightened interest.

The tones of spiritual obsession that ran through the original series are marginalized in the new series, and the new Azrael lacks the depth of character I found so captivating in the original. He isn't the programmed solider or an ancient order, shrouded in mystery and at odds with the modern world, which is a big piece of why the character worked for me in the past.  Now he is a police officer who has taken on the duty out of obligation, submitting to the requirements of the uniform.

It may not be too late for Fabian to save the title from complete death, and there may be a bigger picture unfolding in the confession at the end of #4 that 'the devil made me do it,' but if that does turn out to be the case, for me it is too little too late.  I tuned in for more deep, dark secrets about an ancient offshoot of the Christian faith sending forth it's soldier to defend their purpose in a world that no longer relates their values.  I wanted to find out if the Order of St. Dumas had been cleaned of its corruption, and reborn with a new purpose.

What I'm getting instead is a largely uninspired story about a cop who became Azrael trying to balance his past with his present, all tied neatly into the radius of Gotham City.

Blah.

Not done yet.....a lesson in how to be wrong....A LOT

And the hits just keep on coming...

Ok lets move on to costumes. Yes... Spidermans costume sucks. Its original, but it still sucks. Lets look back to many other superhero's costumes. Superman.. is flying around in pajamas and a speedo. Powerman, he is wearing 80's disco cloths with some crazy thing wrapped around his head. Everyone's favorite Wolverine, look I dont even know how to describe that thing, but if you look at the original outfit, man I dont know what they were thinking. Captain America, Well hes wearing red WHITE and blue, are you going to say he ripped off of superman for wearing red and blue?

Here's a handy little tool for you folks out there who might feel inclined to jump onto the blog and throw around some opinions; don't assume I make crap up.  (*also don't make crap up.....I hate that)

On the point of originality......Superman wins.  Why you ask?  because his was the first one.  He was the first one.  So if originality counts for costumes, he ALWAYS wins that. Wolverine's original is questionable, sure (actually it's ugly as hell).....no argument.  Not even in Canadian colors, which could have made some sense. Captain America is the ultimate American soldier wrapped in the stars and stripes.  That makes sense. But your suggestion that *I* said he ripped off Superman for sharing his primary colors suggests that you think I made that part up.  I didn't, which you would know if you bothered to actually learn about the topics you're arguing about. During the period in question, most comic characters were designed using primary colors.  Like Captain America, Superman was designed to be an 'AMERICAN' hero.  The color choice was based on the colors of the flag, both of which were primary colors.  For patriotic heroes it made sense.

For a guy based on a spider?

Get a grip.

And last but not least Peter Parker is an average loser, like any of us.

Don't include us in your 'us.'

He chose to be a wrestler when he first got his powers. Now tell me, if you were a nerdy loser who stayed locked in his room all day what would you do? Lets see, after hours of masturbation behind your computer over a hot red head girl you watch from your window like a stalker, you would watch tv. Who did you think was the strongest person in the world when you were a kid? Lets see next to Arnold Schwartzeneger (or however you spell his name) it was Hulk Hogan. So, if you suddenly got super strength who would you want to kicks ass in your nerd rage to feel like a bigger man?

Your assessment of how teenagers behave and what they watch on TV is......creepy.  Does somebody check in on you on a regular basis?  That isn't how Spidey chose to make money from wrestling either.  Do some background research.  He was an opportunist who saw a chance to make some money.  Sitting at home watching wrestling never entered into it. I just find it incredibly funny that you would even consider defending that point.  Hilarious.

Anyway he let a mugger run past him when he had super strength. Lets see. You suddenly have super powers, Idk about you but I wouldnt want to suddenly have attention on me from the police for being a young boy taking out a criminal.

I'd like to think I've been raised better than that and if I had the power and the ability to help somebody stop a crime, I would take it. That thought process you're demonstrating as you align with Peter is exactly the reason he isn't a hero.  He's a selfish prick.

At least wrestling he can say is fake, actually using the powers in a non staged way would draw attention; I mean he was exactly what you said a nerdy loser who stayed in his room all day.

 How is a 16 year old, scrawny runt going to say its fake when he picks up a 275 lb man and spins him around and throws him like a rag doll?  Even the fans watching won't believe it's staged.  I wouldn't believe it if I saw Rey Mysterio pick up Big Show. The idea that nobody would figure out he was unusually (REALLY!) strong for his size because it was wrestling suggests that everyone there is dumber than a stump. So he's either worried about being discovered and doesn't do anything with his super-strength or......maybe.....he's just a selfish prick who didn't care about right and wrong.

Do you think he wanted the world looking at him on tv?)

Yes.  Otherwise you don't go on a wrestling show.  Dur.

Now He let the criminal kill his uncle by letting him go. Yes I agree, in fact there is no way to argue that, but what defines him, and anyone else who could have been put in that situation, is what he did afterward.

Lie to his aunt and act out of guilt?  I agree, those actions do define him.

If you simply define him by letting the man go, then by definition, Batman would be responsible for every person any of his villains killed because he put them in Jail. Why you ask? Because he knows they are going to escape; I mean lets face it how many times have they done it. With one exception being the Penguin (and the Riddler for a little while) name a villan who left arkham and didn't kill again? I mean hell throw all the villains out the window if you want, Joker is not going to be rehabilitated no matter how many times you lock him up. Joker alone should give Batman a reason to argue the death penalty. 

This argument is so colossally flawed, I'm not even sure where to start cutting it up.  Batman isn't responsible for any of the crimes that people he captures commit because he turns them over to the legal system to be processed.  His job isn't to keep them incarcerated.  You can't just assign guilt to him because they escape (or are let out) in the future by the state.  I get that you like the Punisher and think that murder is justice, but try and keep your arguments a little bit more lucid on here.  Maybe take a Valium before you write this crap. Knowing that the legal system may fail does not in any way obligate Batman or any other hero to commit murder.  What in God's name is wrong with you?

There is no similarity between actively ignoring a crime in progress and not killing a criminal who you suspect will escape or be released to commit crimes again one day.  NONE.

 All in all, if you are going to hold Spiderman up to a microscope; put any other superhero under it and you can realize how silly they are. Just go back and look at any of there original storyline and they are just dumb by our standards. Comic books go by the generation. They are subject to the silly things that that generation is into. I mean in 50 years people will be having this same argument because lets face it they will be different people (probably speaking Chinese if we keep going the way we are.).

I'm not sure whether that last comment was supposed to be funny or serious, but it comes off as sad. I could put any number of heroes under a microscope and find flaws with them but I chose Spider-Man because he sucks.  I watched you try and do the same thing to Superman, but your arguments were flawed, empty and completely inaccurate.  Better luck next time.

And so you know, I am not a Big spiderman fan.

Really?  Me neither. We should hang out.

Hes ok. My actual favorite is the Punisher and I even argued that he is silly at times.

Plus, he's not a hero.  He's a serial killer.  That you consider your favorite.  You know what?  We shouldn't hang out.  I don't hang out with people who love Ted Bundy either though, so don't take it personally.

Truth be told I just simply think that if you put a hero up to those standards you are going to find a fault. Spiderman was based to be like every other person in this world (because he was Marvel) and you cant compare him to a DC character because they are meant to be larger than life.

Another flawed perception of the different between DC and Marvel, easily countered with a quick list:

Marvel: Thor, Silver Surfer, Hulk,
DC: Azrael, Booster Gold, Flash, 

Every time I hear the argument that Marvel makes more 'human' heroes I almost fall down laughing. Is Hercules human? Thor? The Surfer? Are the Inhumans? There is a scale of power from mortal to godlike in both companies.  The difference is that DC has done a better job of hitting more ICONIC notes in their origins.

Green Lantern v Nova.  Same basic idea.  1 company rocked it and the other botched it (until recently.)
Flash v Quicksilver.  Same again.
Green Arrow v Hawkeye. Same again. Remind me to tell you guys about the time I thanked Bendis for killing Hawkeye.
Aquaman v Namor. And again.

Iconic origins Marvel did hit well?  Hulk. FF. Cap.

Also, they don't compare in terms of being smart about which companies they absorbed.  Dc absorbed Fawcett and got SHAZAM.  Marvel absorbed Malibu and got.....ummm......Prime.  Wow.  Epic fail.

Marvel have human weaknesses, and with the exception to batman (and green arrow) DC characters dont (a frikn rock).

Thor does NOT have a human weakness.  I suppose you could argue Banner does, though Hulk does not. Surfer doesn't.  Nor does Black Bolt. What is Wolverine's? Will you argue that Banner makes Hulk more vulnerable than Kryptonite, Magic or Lois Lane make Superman?  Probably.  You're reliably weak like that. This is as lame an argument as every other one you've brought forward.

Maybe you should leave the comic commentary to those of us who actually read the damn things, because you sir......are clueless.

 

 

 

 

 

Picking up with a simpleton's attack on Superman Part II

When last we met, I.....you intrepid host......was dedicating time and space to a friend of Jordan's who took great exception to my abuse of Peter Porker and used it as a basis to launch a poorly constructed character assassination of Superman (presumably under the impression that it would in some way change the fact that Spider-Crap is a terrible character somehow.)

Let us return to that moment...

Onward to your next argument. Spiderman seems to not sacrifice anything. Ok, what does Superman give up? His planet blew up? Oh boo hoo. It happened before he became a hero which sort of throws that argument out the window. What did X-man give up? Um they are basically a recreation of the civil rights movement. Therefore they give up nothing, they are born that way. What did Punisher give up? Nothing his family was killed and he had no control over that. How about Hulk? Again nothing he was caught in an explosion of his own screw up and instead of being a hero runs around destroying little timmy's backyard anytime he has a temper tantrum. 

Actually, if you're going to misrepresent my points, you'll need to make sure you don't get an answer from a guy who can refer people back to the blog I wrote.  I didn't single out sacrifice as essential, I grouped it with my search for a 'heroic moment,' 'inspiration,' or 'sacrifice' that took place at the inception of the character.  All of which I feel Spider-Crap lacks.  But let's move past that point and stick with your attack on the other characters.

You start with Superman (note the trend ladies and gents) and act as though Clark Kent never sacrificed anything.Your facetious 'boo hoo' over the loss of his entire species doesn't actually address the hero's creation.  Superman wasn't born when Clark was born.  Clark grew up with his powers and went to great lengths to ensure that he didn't use them or abuse them in some way that would be unfair. What's that?  You don't think that's sacrifice?  Hmmmmm.  You might be right. Perhaps it's just responsibility (which in a teenager I actually find inspiring!) Perhaps we should compare it to your friend Peter, who immediately went out and tried to use his powers to make money and profit from them.  At least one of the guys understood the nature of power without having to listen to a dying uncle explain it to him.

But from there your argument simply continues to fall apart.

The X-Men didn't give up anything?  Almost all of them could pass for normal humans given a reasonable amount of effort.  Once they were trained by Xavier to control their powers better they could have gone back out into the world and simply looked out for old #1 (we refer to that as pulling a Parker.) But they didn't. They set aside that chance and came together to fight for equality, not just for themselves, but for their less fortunate peers.  Those that couldn't blend into society.  THAT is sacrifice. They gave up freedom and anonymity for scorn and ostracism so that they could make the world a better place.

Do you even understand what sacrifice means?!?!

Again with the Punisher.  He the only thing he ever sacrificed was a person.  He's a serial killer.  Stop lumping him in with heroes.

Hulk is a neat one though.  What did Hulk ever sacrifice?  Maybe I could build this case, but I won't.  Because I think I should build the case for Bruce Banner.  You know him right?  The guy who ran out onto a gamma test site while the countdown was going on, and sacrificed the rest of his 'normal' life to save Rick Jones. You might want to do some reading before you make retarded comments about a lack of sacrifice in the character next time. The explosion wasn't his screw-up at all.  You don't have your facts straight.

Lawyered.

But this one.......this one I like best:

And since Jordan brought up Batman Ill even tear him down (even though I like him). Batman gives up nothing, his family got shot just like Punisher's and every other person who lives in a bad neighborhood. He throws a fit and decides to start a crusade of ridding the world of violence and does a good job of it. However he does not do it for other people's benefit he does it out of a psychotic compulsion to basically try to unravel events that happened in his past.

This is the dumbest assessment of how Batman came into being that I've ever read. If Jordan hadn't told me that you're about to get your degree (and I did ask if it was the kind you mail away for) I would have assumed you were his 6 year old nephew after this one. To suggest that somebody who has fabulous wealth, social standing and power gave up nothing in becoming the Batman is to be brain dead.  To start with, Bruce gave up his youth.  He sacrificed the years that any other child would have grieved, and then gone on with being a child and he dedicated his life to learning all that he would need to know.  He didn't do it for the grades, or the success either.  He did it because he had a plan; to stop other people from suffering like he did.  That's enough sacrifice right there, but for Bruce it doesn't stop.  When he dedicates his life and his fortune to protecting others that too is sacrifice.  He has the wealth and fortune to life a life of luxury, and yet he does no such thing.  In fact, he sacrifices his own identity, turning Bruce Wayne into the mask that allows Batman to be successful.

More on this later, because I've talked to Jordan and I'm going to blog about how wrong you are about The Punisher and about Batman.  By now you're used to being wrong though.

I'm sure of that.

Why do stupid people hate on Superman?

It's a pretty simple question.

I promised you guys that I was going to dedicate a blog to responses posted here by Jordan on behalf of one of his friends. It became apparent to me as I read the lackluster commentary he supplied and the completely ineffective points he tried to raise that he loathes Superman.  I'm fine with that, of course.  Different strokes for different folks, and all that, but I was intrigued enough by his contempt (erroneous as his points were) to do some web browsing and I found a number of bloggers who shared his opinions on Superman.  So I did what anybody interested in other people's opinions on a topic should do; I read the blogs.

Here's what I learned; people who hate Superman are stupid.

That's it.  There's no deeply hidden secret wisdom to be found anywhere in this topic.  Just an observation that the single most defining trait of these people is an apparent lack of intelligence and the inability to represent Superman with anything better than the shallowest of understandings of the character.  I can't tell you why stupid people feel compelled to hate on him.  I can't tell you why stupid people are driven to share their stupidity and boast about their ignorance of the character.

I can only tell you that they do it, and reading their arguments makes me lament for the educational system.

Now that that is out of my system.......how about we start punching holes in what was a very poorly thought out assault on the brilliant tutorial I gave all of you on how to hate Spider-Man.  And before any of you say it.........

YOU'RE WELCOME.

 We're going to start by taking this argument apart as we work our way through it.  I have not edited this argument in any way. Where would be the fun in that?

"Im not necessarily defending Spiderman by your point of view, just simply having a debate. You say that spiderman is motivated by guilt and on this note I do agree; however, what motivates many of our other comic book characters? Batman= obsession (possibly mental derangement), Punisher = vengeance (another psychopath), The X-man= basically ethnic struggles (nothing heroic they are just trying to fit in. Even if they got rid of the segregation they would still naturally segregate the way people of different ethnicity do now.) Captain America= he is simply a soldier. He is possibly the most heroic but basically hes just a man following orders. Maybe if he made these decisions on his own I would say he was a super hero but hes simply the same sort of hero any firefighter or police officer is. Hes doing his job."

Wow. We jump right out of the gate and go straight for some of the most uninformed arguments I've ever seen.

Batman: I'm okay with the argument that Batman is suffering from obsession, although I think that's a very surface level view that doesn't fully encompass the motivation of the character.  Batman is also seeking justice, not just for himself, but for everyone.  Which IS heroic.

Punisher: After that start though, we lose ground quickly and I have to ask....who groups Punisher in with heroes?  Anyone who reads that book knows that the guy isn't a hero.....he's a serial killer. Lumping him into this argument suggests that you don't even have a full grasp on what we're debating.

X-Men: There's nothing heroic about ethnic struggles?  So Rosa Parks wasn't heroic for what she did?  Dr. King wasn't demonstrating heroic leadership in the face of terrible adversity? Civil rights leaders didn't show great personal sacrifice and heroism in pursuit of what was morally right? Suggesting that there is nothing heroic in ethnic struggles for equality all but eliminated you from being allowed to express your opinion here in the future. That was a colossally ignorant statement.

Captain America:  Simply a soldier? Just following orders?  Do you even read Captain America?  There is almost no basis for you to make that argument, and just to clear it up for those people who don't read Cap on a regular basis.....he doesn't follow orders because he's NOT in the military anymore.  In fact Cap was the person who rebelled against the United States government and defended personal liberty and freedom during the Civil War.  Your understanding of that character is grossly flawed.  Cap is very heroic.  He is a time-lost solider who has returned to a world that has left his values behind.  Instead of submitting himself to the modern ideal, he holds to values and virtues society has left behind and he fights for them at great personal cost.

Firefights & Police Officers: Can be and often are heroes as well.  Like Super Heroes, what motivates everyday people determines whether or not what they do is heroic.

In summation.....after rereading your opening sortie a number of times..........I'm still looking for a valid point.  Spider-Man is still the biggest loser ever, and his motivation for action remains the most selfish.  He's a douchebag.

Now, on to more of your argument....

"And finally to what i would assume is you favorite: superman. Dude.... hes an alien.... Nothing "Super" about that. Hes the same as a green man from mars with a little ray gun. ANYWAY... he has super powers... ok. Lets look at them. He has: Super strength, flight, freeze breath, eye beams, invincible, super speed, apparently he thinks faster than a normal human, and he comes back to life just about any time he dies. Whats s hard about saving the earth at that point. And ok you make a good point. Supe has a very iconic villa. Hell probably one of my favorites. I mean whats not to like about your basic average human being taking on a GOD. But hey, lets even talk about his iconic villain (who isnt named after an insect, but actually a wrestler). Ok what is superman's weakness... A frikn rock (weak). But moving on this rarity of mineral is apparently fragments from Superman's home world, which apparently is supposed to make him "mortal" again yet somehow always makes him wallow in his own self pity. Again to my real point about this rock. It is fragments from a planet which blew up. Now if this rock is from light years away How in the world can you explain that every villain seems to have pieces of it; more so How does Lex Luther seem to be able to shit bricks of this crap out anytime hes facing superman? I mean come on in one issue he had Kryptonian steroids :S."

Ah, the attack on Superman.  How original, and utterly uninspired. Apparently now we're embracing racism at its highest level, because you can't be "super" unless you were born on Earth.  I guess that would explain why there was nothing heroic about the X-Men fighting for equality for all peoples. Superman's place of origin has absolutely ZERO bearing on whether or not his actions or motivations are heroic, which is why Adam Strange, Hawkman, Martian Manhunter, Thor, Silver Surfer and a host of other non-humans also qualify as heroes. This was a truly ridiculous statement, and I'm done with it.

I'd be interested to know where you got your summation of his powers, and what reference you used to determine that Clark Kent thinks faster than a normal human does. I'm not saying that it isn't true, but it certainly doesn't show up that way in any of the comics I've read.  My understanding is that he simply reacts faster because of his superspeed.  That isn't the power description I take actual exception to though.  It's the suggestion that he comes back to life "just about any time he dies." This exposes the motive behind your anti-Superman rhetoric and thankfully you are now just a statistic in my review of people who hate Superman; you don't know shit about him.  You clearly don't read him, and you've never read any one of the number of brilliantly written Superman stories told by some of the finest authors to grace comics.  It's called a PREJUDICE because you prejudge without gathering facts.

For those of you keeping score at home, Superman has 'technically' never died.  But to make things simple and easy for everyone who stays 9 miles from Superman stories and only reads the hype, we'll credit him with one actual death and resurrection.  Sound like anyone else you know?  Nick Fury? Steve Rogers? Hal Jordan? Barry Allen? Jean Grey? Professor Xavier? Frank Castle? How long a list of people with this apparent super-power do I need to make before the stupidity of that comment becomes glaringly evident?

What's hard about saving the earth? Is that supposed to be a serious comment? Casting aside the obvious answer that super heroes are confronted with super villains every day, or that nobody could be everywhere at once, smart writers manage to remind us every day that for somebody who holds himself up a living example of how to do the right thing, he is constantly faced with numerous challenges that aren't resolved with simple displays of power.  Like anyone dealing with our fractured world he struggles with politics, government policy and the law and how it relates to doing what is right. He struggles with emotions, and intellectual conundrums which are at the heart of all good conflicts as well.  All of this you might know if you ever cracked open a Superman book and pulled your head out of your ass. What's hard about saving the earth?  Well for starters......there's all these stupid people on it who are constantly making things worse.

Lex Luthor fun fact #1: he wasn't named after a wrestler and that's the most retarded comment I've read yet.  Which wrestler who was around in the 1940's exactly are we talking about?  Moving on....

You refer to Luthor as a basic, average human being taking on a god. Lex Luthor fun fact #2: he is not an average human being, and nothing about his is basic.  The man is a scientific genius on a level that surpasses Bruce Wayne, has access to the kind of financial backing that rivals Batman and manages to work in the kinds of shadows that are not Clark's forte at exposing. That doesn't sound like me.  Or my neighbor. Or anyone who lives in my town come to think of it, which I suppose would then mean that he's nowhere near average. He is, in fact, the perfect foil for Superman because he relies on his cunning and unscrupulous brilliance to stand down Superman's other-worldly power.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time defending the Kryptonite argument because it's as shallow an assessment as anything else you've brought up.  I'm not going to get into the explanation of why radioactive isotopes might adversely affect a man who is effectively just a solar battery, because I've already seen the puddle deep thinking you're capable of and I don't want to risk you having an aneurysm trying to keep up. Suffice it to say that I don't mind if you hate that aspect of his story, but I do mind that you think it's his only weakness.  Just another sign that you have no idea what you're talking about.  The wallow in self-pity line only underscores your desperation to join the 'Stupid people hate Superman' club. You're lashing out and making things up as you do it, and for what purpose?  You could have just written, 'I hate Superman' and moved on.

Oh, and yes some of the less talented writers who have gotten their hands on the character over the years have left people with the impression that there is an abundance of Kryptonite on earth.  Is that the character's shortcoming, or just bad writing? For the record, most villains do not use Kryptonite, so we'll just add that to the list of thing's you're completely wrong about.  Bringing us to a grand sum total of......everything.

Before we kill this evisceration of the worst argument ever put forward, I'd like to draw everyone's attention to a small, yet fun fact.  Your review of characters was meant to challenge the motivation of them in comparison to Spider-Crap, yet when you got to Superman you changed gears. Why?  Well that's obvious.

Because of all of the heroes he has the most noble motivation.

He does it because it's the RIGHT thing to do.

Wow.

I'm not even half way through and I'm a full blog into revealing highlighting your raging idiocy to the world.  I can't reveal it, because you took care of that when you wrote this inane response. Looks like we'll be back for more kicking of your opinion's ass soon.

Until then......I'm right.........and Spider-Man still sucks.

Secret Origins - the second try

I wrote something really clever.

Honest.

It was this scathing response to the fact that most secret origins are completely lame and absolutely lost in a history that doesn't reflect the modernity of comic readers at present.  I also did an admirable job of pointing out that the origins used by DC to create their biggest stars felt more like modern mythology than the origins used by Marvel, which for the most part were terrible.

And then I pressed the wrong button and lost it all.

Here are a couple excerpts from my review of secret origins that I recall clearly and that I think merit commentary.

Fantastic Four - What on earth were Susan and Johnny Storm doing on board the experimental flight?  I get that Grim was an air force pilot and Reed was the genius and his best friend.  Who takes their girlfriend and her kid brother on a test flight into outer space?  Even if they did all get wicked super-powers, shouldn't that have been the first sign that he was a criminal? Negligence that seems almost willful isn't heroic at all. On top of that.....since when do test pilots let the designer fly with them?  Maybe Grim's the problem......or maybe Doom's been right about Reed all along. Doctor Doom's public service announcement; Reed Richards sucks.

Thor - Thor actually is a character with an epic mythological background, and yet his actual origin is almost as lame as Spider-Man's.  While walking through the wooded hillside (on holiday) in Norway, Dr. Donald Blake stumbles on an alien scouting party preparing for an invasion of Earth.  *Raise your hand if you would have just let the Aliens have Norway.* Blake limps away into the hills to try and escape them and stumbles into a cave where he finds his path blocked.  In frustration he slams a stick he found into the ground and is transformed into Thor. DUMB.

Spider-Man - Seriously?  I've covered this already.

Green Lantern - Intergalactic police force that recruits without even an interview process.  Canada's police force isn't perfect, but at least there are tests you have to pass.  Not Oa's force though.  The light picks you and then they give you access to the most powerful weapon in the universe. Anyone else not at all surprised when you find out that the Oans have had problems with their police force from time to time?  At the very least shouldn't somebody run a background check on you?  So what if you have the ability to overcome great fear?  You could still be a complete jerk.

Wonder Woman - If Amazonians are immortal and don't age, why did she? Other than that, she has a very classic Greek mythology origin, and I like it.

Amadeus Cho - Might be Marvel's best origin ever.  If you don't know it you're missing out.  The character shows up in Incredible Hulk right before World War Hulk and we are introduced to him as the seventh smartest person on Earth. He has a hypermind (his mind is a functional super-computer - mutant?) and runs thousands of calculations every second.  Using this he ends up aligned with Herc to help Hulk.  Long story short?  Herc's sister Athena is preparing him to become the next HERO (in the classic Greek sense) of Earth, as Hercule's time is coming to an end.  Very cool all the way around.


Also, some origin's I would like to see:

1. The non-origin: I'd like to see the character that doesn't explain his origin.  EVER. Ten years into the story I want to find out that he's like Mar-Vel and he's come to earth to prepare us for invasion.  Then I want to look back on the decade worth of books and be like "WOW......how did I not see it?"

2.  Secret Society.  Aztek, a largely ignored Grant Morison character from the nineties tried this, but because the book didn't last long enough I never got to see it fulfilled. I like the idea of a person brought into power as the direct result of a secret society with an agenda that may or may not line up with what other heroes believe is best for the planet.  This is also the format for Azrael, but I don't find the new Azrael captures it like Denis O'Neal's did.  In any event, I'd like to get drawn deeper into the world of secret societies in one of these books, maybe even finding a society hidden within a society.

3. Bitten by a radioactive animal that is cooler than a spider.

Alright, I'm out.

Unions, Flash & Transmetropolitan

Unions. Women in wrestling.

I just wanted to prove that there were at least two other things I hate as much as Spider-Man.  I've been getting some suggestions from people that maybe I am letting a lot of my own personal anger manifest in the topic, but I assure everyone that I retain special levels of contempt and dislike for many other things in this world.Stupidity might be at the top of my list.

As much as I detest Spider-Man, I love The Flash.  Like the explanation regarding Parker, I didn't grow up adoring Flash.  Sure I knew who he was, and sometimes when I was running around in my backyard as a kid, with my towel wrapped around my neck playing super heroes with the neighborhood kids, I would run really fast and claim I was the Flash.But my love for the character never really manifested until the strangest of Novembers (or was it Decembers) in Ottawa.

I was in the Silver Snail, walking through the aisles with my then girlfriend, and commenting on the different books that had been released that week.  She asked me if I read The Flash, and I told her that I had never gotten into it.  I explained that it wasn't that I didn't like the hero, but for me The Flash died with Barry Allen's noble sacrifice in Crisis On Infinite Earths.  This was the first time that DC felt that a teen sidekick was ready to take over and they made a big play by doing it through the death of a well established character.  While I had been explaining this to her, she had been leafing through the recent issue, and she put it back on the rack awkwardly, and before I could walk away, the issue fell open to the back page.

Standing there was Barry Allen.

I paused, and did a double take.  I bought the issue, because I needed to know how, and why.  At first I was excited, but as I drove back to my dorm trying to get my head around what I was going to read, I started to get angry.  Barry alive?  Didn't that slap Crisis in the face, and demean his sacrifice? The read was actually very good, and so I bought the next issue.  And the one after that.  What unfolded before me changed my view on The Flash forever.  I had read Waid's work before, but I had never been so captivated by the story that I bothered to find out who he was.  This run changed all of that.  It is called The Barry Allen Saga, and without ruining it for anyone who's never read it, it changed the way I viewed The Flash, and more specifically Wally West.

It didn't stop there either.  What Wade, Augustyn and eventually Geoff Johns did on the rest of that run, and into the next one, was make The Flash one of the greatest comic books of the nineties and into the new millennium. If you're on the outside, looking in and wondering why all the Flash love in comicdom, read that series.  The Flash, Volume 2.  The Barry Allen Saga. It's terrific.  And in it we meet all manner of speedsters from across the DC Universe.  For me, this is when the book starts to become about the legacy of speed, and not just about Jay, or Barry, or Wally or Bart.

It's good stuff.

A couple of questions before I go.

Wonder Woman's getting up there in age.  Shouldn't she be going into her nesting phase any time now? Her mother prayed and reached out and sought a boon from the gods in order to create Diana.  Isn't it time for her to give mom a grandchild?

I always liked the idea that Arthur would be her husband one day, but apparently that's not going to happen after all he's been through.

Why does the X-Universe always have to be such a colossal cluster?  I miss being able to care about mutants and what was going on in their world.  When did it become too much of a nuissance?

Why isn't Transmetropolitan a movie yet? Spider Jerusalem is a personality that belongs on a bigger screen.

I'm out.

What NOT to like about Spider-Man; a guide to hating Marvel's most overrated loser

The title says it all.

I got an email from an old friend who is a follower of this worthless blog, and he inquired about my seemingly unrelenting assassination of Peter Parker as a character.  Rather than answer his email, because that seemed like too much work, I thought the topic would bear some commentary here, where other fans of the biggest loser to ever merit his own comic, could come to attack my opinion and get truly irate at my nonsensical contempt for Marvel's iconic web-slinger.

I guess I should start by explaining that I never went through that phase that so many other kids went through, where Spider-Man seemed like the coolest thing in the world.  Even as a youngster, growing up in a very small town about forty minutes north of Toronto, when I walked down the street to the local convenience store with my allowance and bought a couple of comic books on a Saturday afternoon, there was zero chance that the guy dressed up in Superman's colors and calling himself a spider was going to get my money. As a child the only thing that made Spidey even remotely acceptable was that his terrible television cartoon had a catchy jingle that should qualify as one of the worst songs ever written for TV.  Singing it over and over is the perfect formula for grounding, social alienation and even divorce!

It remains Spider-Man's greatest accomplishment.

I remember the first time I vocalized my contempt for Puny Parker (thanks to Flash Thompson for that name) and got looks of confusion from so many of my friends in elementary school.  They all loved the guy, and nobody seemed to see in him what I saw in him almost right from the start; Peter Parker is a selfish, whiny loser with no social confidence and even less moral certainty. How that guys scores Mary Jane Watson is beyond me, because that girl is HOT!  Way out of his league.  She's more in a Bruce Wayne league, and trust me when I tell you that he doesn't slum with Peter Parker!

In any event, it starts with the guy's extra-lame origin.  One night when all of his pals (actually he didn't have any....Peter was, by design, an outcast and an orphan) were out getting burgers and shakes at the local hang-out (I'm picturing Arnold's from Happy Days!) our titular loser was at a science demonstration.  Let me repeat; he was hanging out in his free time at a science demonstration.  Doesn't he know that all the cool kids go to math conventions? Man, what a nerd!  Now, even at a young age I wasn't one of those meatheads who mock guys for being smart.  In fact in those formative years I was the smart kid.  Top of the class grades.  Still, I couldn't relate to a kid who wanted to spend his free time checking out "science."  I thought it was stupid, and in retrospect......I was right.  Who knew I was so wise as a kid?

So an irradiated spider bites Peter and he becomes wicked strong, sticks to walls, gains a sixth sense and awesome agility.  All of a spider's natural skills, magnified in the body of a teenage boy, right?  Wrong.  Spiders don't have a sixth sense.  If they did, they wouldn't get mashed and die every time I hammer one with a shoe.  Even as a youth I knew that they just made that power up, the filthy liars. He didn't get the ability to spin webs though (although that would have been cool) but he did develop that through his own brilliant mind.  Just a little question here folks......why the heck was he so poor if he was so smart?  Why didn't he ever have any good ideas and patent anything that would make him some cash BEFORE the spider bit him? I mean, it's not like he was out hanging out with friends in his spare time.

Anyways, I digress. I hate the guy's origin.  In my opinion it's weak and it will always be weak.  But let's say we push past that and get into the formative moments of his life.  Step one.....he takes up wrestling.  Excuse me?!?!  Nerdy, socially awkward Peter Parker takes up wrestling?  Bleh. I get the argument that he was caught up in his newfound powers, but wrestling?  It's so far outside the guy's established personality that it doesn't make any sense at all.  You know what, though? I'm a decent guy.  I can ignore that. So let's move on.....to the costume.  You've heard me say this before, and I'll say it again.  He's SPIDER man.  As in....looks like a spider?  Nope. I don't know any red and blue spiders.  The truth is that he stole his colors from Superman, and of that I have no doubt.  Heck, the hyphen in his name was put there so people wouldn't confuse him with Superman.

Confuse him with.....were they serious?  One guy is awesome and the other guy couldn't get a prom date! One guy was rocketed to Earth as the last survivor of a dying world, and the other guy got bit by a spider. One guy's arch-enemy is Lex Luthor (future president of the United States and founder of the most powerful multi-national in the world) and the other guy fights people named after insects and animals (Vulture, Doc Oc, Rhino, Lizard.) Who the heck thought anyone was going to confuse Spider-Man with Superman?  Seriously! But that little tidbit is a fact folks.  Look it up.

Anyways, the costume is stupid.  Red and blue for a guy based on a spider makes as much sense as yellow for Batman.  The mask I at least understand.  I'd be embarrassed if I ran around dressed like that too. Still, we ignore the retarded origin, and the weakness of the character himself.  We step clear of the leap to pro wrestling for money (really!?!?  Didn't he invent a fluid that hardens to the strength of steel?!??) and we get past the lame uniform, and we go right to the crux of who Peter Parker is.

He's a guy who had a chance to do the right thing.......and didn't.

The result was the death of his Uncle Ben, a kind old soul who's only shortcoming in life was letting his nephew turn into a nerd recluse who hangs out at science experiments.  Poor bastard died because of that little jerk!

Anyways, Ben's death is what leads us to Spider-Man.  Peter vows to use his new power to do right.  Just a little bit late, and more than a little bit motivated by guilt. Where is the heroic moment?  Where is the inspiration?  Where is the sacrifice?  Peter Parker was a self-absorbed prick who let a criminal saunter right past him, and only when that criminal hurt somebody he personally cared about was he moved to action.  There's nothing heroic about that, and in my opinion it is the fundamental flaw of the character.

He isn't heroic, he's guilty.

Plus, and this might seem a little too complex an analysis for some people, but just bear with me....

....the guy's a loser.

Here's hoping Aunt May slaps the taste out his mouth the next time he whines, too.

So, any questions?  Or can we get back to talking about other characters, who are much more deserving of our time and attention?  People like Batman, Thor and Jesse Custer.

#&^* Spider-Man!

Comic rage, JLA counterpoint, team books

[insert curse word here]

I'm going on my second month without a steady stream of comic books, and I have to tell you guys, it's killing me.  I could take the easy way out and just download a whole bunch of them, but the last two days have been magnificent and I've had some time on my hands when I could have been sitting on the back deck, in the fresh air, just casually enjoying my favorite pastime in the whole world. Now not only can I not do that until I see a certain friend of mine in Ohio, but I'm teetering on the edge of not placing an order for May's comic shipment (because I'm still trying to find some steady work.)

Blah!

I've been hammering my way through the tens upon tens of thousands of comics in my basement, trying to add some more runs to the list of contenders for The Ten. I got caught up a little bit with JLA recently, and spent some time pouring over that once-great series. I have a theory that Mark Waid's run shortly after The Tower of Babel, which is classic, entitled Terra Incognito was a not-so subtle jab at how stupidly Grant Morrison had the White Martians behave in the four part series that he used to reunite DC's big guns and relaunch its flagship team book. It isn't just the story either.  On more than one occasion there is commentary in the books about how much more powerful a handful of them are than the Justice League.  Maybe I'll get around to asking Mark about that one day, so he can do the politically correct thing and say that he was just giving his interpretation and that he has all the respect in the world for Grant.

Speaking of the JLA, should the big team books in Marvel and DC be comprised of their biggest and their best?  The argument falls pretty clearly into two camps.  Either you envision your Avengers with Captain America, Iron Man, Thor etc, or you picture your JLA with Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Guy Gardner and Captain Marvel. I've heard both sides of the argument, including the fact that the big guns in both companies have their own books, where they are showcased month in and month out, and that the stage like Avengers should be used to give fans terrific writing about characters who otherwise don't have their own books.  I've even been told that super-teams take the fun out of the stories because they seem so daunting from the outset, and that it's hard editorially to keep everything lined up between the team book and all of the individual books.  They're all rational arguments.  All of them.

My Avengers still includes Cap.

There is, of course, that happy medium where one or two big guns are working on a team that includes one or two second tier talents who deserve the press time.  Cap, Iron Man, Hawkeye & Wasp make for a good Avengers team.  Just as long as Spider-Man isn't on it.  Or Wolverine.  Actually I find it funny that it took so long for somebody to finally put the X-Universe's biggest name in an Avengers book, and I find it sad that they finally gave in and put Spidey in one.  Obviously they were taking the JLA approach of "who are the biggest guns we have" and Spidey and Wolverine fall into that category in regard to their selling power. Makes sense.  After all, Wolverine is Canadian, and Spidey is.......well......a loser. He lost a fight to a guy named Dr. Octopus once, and once was enough.  LOSER.

It's like watching Guy Gardner in the JLA.  Painful.  Worst Green Lantern ever.  Worse than G'nort.

Speaking of Green Lantern, did Geoff Johns knock it out of the park with the concept for Final Night?  Admittedly when you're two months behind on new books you don't get to comment on how he finished it off, but coming up with the idea of a prophecy that was thousands of years old that foretold a war of light, and then introducing the other colors in the emotional spectrum?  Brilliant.  The guy can't spell his own name, but he can write.

Alright, I'm off to play some Diablo II.

It's an old school night.

Comics on tv

I watched the 1997 live action pilot for Justice League of America last night, and I now know why there isn't a JLA tv show. What I don't know is why there isn't a Global Frequency tv show. While we're on the topic of what I don't know, can somebody please explain to me who in Hollywood was willing to give some script writer money for that piece of garbage that they put together for JLA? The only decent thing about the league was the way they had Green Lantern's ring work, which was actually kind of cool.  Otherwise the whole thing was low budget, high school drama club.  Obviously they weren't given any of the A-list to include, so we didn't get a Superman or a Batman or a Wonder Woman, but I wasn't disappointed with the roster.  I was very disappointed with the writing though.  I can't even blame the actors, that's how bad it was.  Green Lantern (Guy Gardner), Flash and Fire were all completely misrepresented as characters, and The Martian Manhunter looked like a special effect that somebody made in their basement.

Why can't I get a job writing for Hollywood again?

Even I could do better than that crap.

I also got myself a copy of the Birds of Prey series, but I haven't started watching any of it.  I'm hoping it doesn't come anywhere near the corniness of JLA, and treads a little more gently on the mythos of the comics. I'll let you know when I've seen some.  Speaking of comic related television, which in case you haven't caught on yet is exactly what I'm doing today, I've been watching season 1 of Jeremiah, by comic writer of fame J. Michael Straczynski.  Luke Perry is well cast as a bit of a tough, rough around the edges guy with a heart of gold, and an annoyingly whiney voice, while I really like Theo Huxtable in this show. The overall premise seems pretty solid, an so far the episodes haven't become completely formulaic, with some continuity flowing from show to show. It's an alright way to kill some time at night.

After the conversation we had recently about movies that will never get made, I've spent some time reflecting on the difference between movies and television and I think that if television ever got the ball rolling properly they could just dominate the comic book genre.  The format is so well suited to replicate the monthly, episodic basis of most successful comic books.  It used to be that there was a financial reason for not doing it, but Heroes survives without running its budget out of control.  Do we really need any more than they can give us on that show? Hell Parkman's telepathy is effective and simple to demonstrate.  Anyways, the other argument has always been that not enough people would watch.  Again I say; HEROES.

What people won't watch is bad tv.

Knock out the corny approach and get rid of the cheese.  Take a serious look at some of the best story-telling comics ever and you could have yourself an substantial winner.  Y The Last Man would work wonders, as would DMZ or Global Frequency, and I can't tell you how much I would like to see 1 season of Planetary.

Maybe one day soon we'll be lucky enough to see some network exec figure it out.

Just not the guy who gave a green light to the JLA script.

That guy should never work again.

Movies I doubt they're going to make.

Production Hell.

Two words that seem to be associated with all of the movies I desperately want to see Hollywood get off their retarded buts and make.  For whatever reason the comic book movies that are being made are typically the b-grade ones and the front-line, A-list super-hero ones.  What about the front-line, A-list ones that don't fit into the target demographic that Hollywood so wrongly thinks it understands?  Where will our next 300 or Watchmen come from?  And will they have the stones to actually get it right, unlike the abysmal failure of V For Vendetta?

These days when you troll through the updates over at the revamped (and I can't say I like the new format) Comic Book Movies, you'll see all kinds of news that you can get geeked about.  Thor is coming.  If they allow the script to be written by an even half-way decent person who understand who Thor is and what the magic is that makes him such an exceptional comic figure, it's going to be terrific.  Spider-Man is being reset.  Will the new wave of his films be able to surpass the Toby Maguire era? Fantastic Four is coming back, with promises to completely overhaul it.  Can they finally get it right and introduce us to the world's greatest family the right way? How will Warner Brothers follow The Dark Knight?  Do they have the stones to actually do The Dark Knight Returns (No!) and shock the world with its visionary understanding of the end game for Bruce Wayne? Can Green Lantern deliver on the hype, and can they make Ryan Reynolds believable as Hal Jordan (my guess is no.) Most importantly.....when will we see The Flash?

These are the questions that we can bat around and ultimately find answers for, because these are the movies that Hollywood around going to make sooner than later.  Today though, I think we should throw around the names of the best stories we know they're never going to make (or in some cases they're never going to make WELL.)

Preacher
I'm going straight to the top of the list for this one, because it's been rumored for so long, and has had so many names attached to it.  The movie always seems to be in some kind of production hell, and really, how do you do this thing unless you're prepared to make at least 4 movies? From way back when James Marsden signed on to play Custer, right through conversation suggesting that it may turn out to be an HBO series instead of a movie, we have been sitting on pins and needles waiting for this one to finally come along.  Sadly, I think we may end up waiting forever.

Alpha Flight
Yes, I said Alpha Flight.  With all due respect to my American readers, I'm more than a little bit tired of Hollywood's assumption that super-hero movies where the main character/main story aren't American at heart will lead to failure.  I was annoyed when they turned John Constantine into an American and stole the charm of the British occultist from the silver screen, only to replace him with a pale imitation played by Neo. Why do I think Alpha Flight, Canada's super-team can make a great big-screen movie when the book is constantly getting canceled? Well to start with, there is that guy who sells more than any hero you can think of, who happened to be on the very first incarnation of Alpha Flight.  What was his name?  Oh yeah, Wolverine. Add to that Puck (a bad-ass dwarf in the movie?  Who doesn't want to see that?) and Shaman and the rest of the ensemble heroes and you have a visually incredible story with less histrionics than you get in an X-Men movie and more creative freedom for the script writers.  Dead in the water because nobody understands how great this could be.

Sandman
Simple, the concept is too big. Nobody will know what story to tell, and nobody will have the stones to go after it. I think the best bet for this is an HBO show not unlike the Twilight Zone, with independent episodes held together by the common theme of Morpheus.  If you had to do the movie, which story would you tell? How do you choose? The Doll's House? A Season of Mists? Dream Country? Doesn't matter, because you'll never see this one made, and if you do, it won't be done well.  Hollywood doesn't understand comics that are smart, which explains why they didn't think 300 would be big.

Batman - The Cult
You know how I know this one won't ever get made?  Because it's perfectly designed to be a Batman movie. Everything about this four issue series cries out that it's a movie and it fits into the mold of a stand-alone glimpse into the Dark Knight's never ending battle.  Instead we'll get another movie where they drag out two or three villains for him to face down, in a constructed story that feels forced and pointless.  Because, you know, that sells.

Superman
Wait!  I know they've already made a whole bunch of these.  I should have said "A Superman movie worth seeing." Not going to happen, because the best they could deliver after a decades long wait was a movie that might as well have been made twenty years ago.  Kryptonite, Luther, and Lois in distress.  Wow.  Even Smallville has thought deeper than that script.

Midnight Nation
12 issues of comic genius, and a story with a moral to it.  Religious themes, and a story so many people would be able to relate to.  So why is there no talk of getting this done?  I cannot stress how good this series is nearly well enough to do it justice, and a well done movie would be epic.  Bigger (I think) than The Watchmen as a movie (which was bigger as a comic.)

Days Of Future Past
THIS is the X-Men movie they should have made. Claremont, Byrne and Austin did in 2 issues what writers ever since have been trying to do in hundreds; they created a seminal moment in the X-Universe that is never forgotten. What would you give for a movie that opens in a terrible future where almost all of the heroes are dead?  Watching the remnants of the X-Men and the Avengers battle one last time to save hope, and humanity (from itself and its prejudice) of course.  Then have the story naturally fold back to the present where they set out to change the future and stop it from ever happening?  That's a movie script that is perfect in concept, and yet we get stuck with the crap they've been feeding us.  And yes, Wolverine was terrible; largely because it was stupid.

Planetary
You need 3 movies and they would all need to be extra long.  Unless you get James Cameron interested, I don't know how you do it justice. This is one of those series that smart people love, which is the perfect explanation for why Hollywood isn't all over it.

Okay, I missed a lot of good stories that will never see the silver screen. Which ones are your favorites, and what makes you think there's no chance it will be made? 
  
Cam, before you said it......what about Crossed?  Zombie flicks always seem to have a voice!
























 

World War One like you've never seen it before

My original plan was to spend some time in this entry talking about the critically acclaimed Mightnight Nation series by J. Michael Straczynski, which is deep with religious theme and really a fascinating read. I was going to follow it up by digging into a couple of other series he's done that will also be making an appearance in our exploration of the Top 10 Comic Stories Of All Time (henceforth know as The 10.) While I've been away (yes I admit that time is tighter that I expected and I'm not exactly hitting a one-a-day pace, so sue me!) I have been rereading some of my less traditional comic books to get my head around what stands out and which of them are worthy of consideration.  Last night's read has bumped Midnight Nation from the conversation piece for today.

ARROWSMITH

Picture if you will the first World War, fought by mages, trolls and vampires with ordinary men as their staunch allies. If you thought war was a terrible, horrible thing in the real world, you can scarcely imagine the horrors that the fantasy world can unleash when nations clash.

For six issues we are thrown into the world of Fletcher Arrowsmith, a young man from the United States who runs away from home against his father's wishes (a brief scene in the first issue which really sets the tension for the entire story) and joins up with the Overseas Aero Corps, the fantasy realm's version of pilots; flying men engaged in the seemingly elegant combat of the skies. 

Two reasons you need to read this series.

1. Its a good FANTASY series. There aren't enough good fantasy series being done in comic books.  For some reason the natural synergy between the two worlds doesn't seem to translate as you might think that it should. Often efforts to launch and maintain fantasy comic books are met with lackluster sales numbers and early cancellations, depriving fans of the medium and the genre of the beauty often created when they do come together.  Can you imagine Alex Ross doing a Tolkien adaptation? Just seeing Pacheco do the art for the Battle of Helms Deep would be awe inspiring.  Original works would be even more inspired I think.  This is good, creative and original fantasy and it should be read and appreciated.

2. Its a good WAR series. Other bloggers have suggested that there is an inherent beauty in war that detracts from an author's (or director's) ability to truly strike you with the tragedy and horror of it.  I disagree.  True it is easy to become lost in the gorgeous artwork that Pacheco presents in this book, often in its most horrific moments, but there is a tone to this story that you have to be willfully ignoring in order to miss.Like any great war story, it even reflects that ultimately it doesn't matter who is right and who is wrong, because war feeds upon itself and grows until everyone believes they are fighting for the right reasons, and nobody is willing to back down.  That is the horror of war; that right and wrong become irrelevant. In war, few are the people who may take the moral high ground, and that is clearly and brutally depicted in this series, to the heartfelt pain of the protagonist. There are no delusions about the war put forth by this book, and that realism doesn't often surface in fantasy stories where right and wrong are so clearly imagined.  It makes this story resonate more deeply I think.
 
A long rumored sequel to this series has never come forth, but I can always hope. Arrowsmith deserves to be read, and will be discussed at length in consideration for The 10.

Maybe one day soon we will even see another fantasy epic unveiled in the medium, which ultimately would be a true victory for the greats that have come before (big props to Conan on that front!) I know as a reader of fantasy that I would love to see it.
 

The 2nd species of man

You won't often hear me talking about artists on this blog.  It's just not the way that I look at comics, although I do often admire specific artwork above and beyond that of other artists.  The truth is that I'm almost always much more influenced by the quality of the writing and that drives my position on most comic reviews that I give. I am not immune to the effects of a talented artist on a series, and their ability to do more in the panels than their peers, in that way advancing the story effectively and making it better.  It just isn't what I tend to critique and reflect on. Like every rule though, there are exceptions.

Gary Frank

The exception of the day is Gary Frank, who I met while he was working with Peter David on The Incredible Hulk and whose work has shown up in some of my favorite stories.  He is widely recognized for his work on Action Comics, The Avengers and Gen13, but I think my favorite is Midnight Nation.  It helps that it is going to be a strong contender for the Top 10 list that I'm slowly sorting through material to put together. Today though I don't want to talk about the brilliance of Midnight Nation, or his work with Geoff Johns on Superman, or even his forthcoming work on Batman Earth One.  I want to talk about a little six issue series he did on his own and had published by Top Cow back in 2000.

I doubt you've heard of it.
 
In Kin, Frank shows us six issues that leave me intrigued for more.  In a very short span of time he posits an exceptional idea for a story and draws me into a world that I want to spend more time in. Unfortunately we only ever get six issues and in my opinion we're left wanting more.  I get the whole 'leave them wanting more' mantra, but this time it seems like we're left hanging because the first arc is done and sales didn't justify him doing another one.  If that's the case, it's a terrible shame.  If he actually always planned to leave us hanging like this, then he's a jerk!

So what's the hook? That's the question right?  Why do you like the premise Jeff?  What is it about the man's six issues that made you sit up and take notice? Well, to start with he begins the idea rooted in scientific research, before deviating just enough to create a sensational idea that while fiction, is just close enough to possible that we remain engaged by it.

Raise your hand if you knew that a long, LONG time ago there were two species of man? Well maybe not man, exactly.  It all depends on which scientist you believe.  Some classify the second as a subspecies of our own (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) while others classify it as a separate species (Homo neanderthalensis).

Neanderthal Man.

In the end though, the point remains that at some point in history, two species competed for the same resources.  Obviously we know which one dominated and ultimately won that competition, because.....well.....here we are. Some people believe that they crossbred with us until our genes dominated and they faded out, while others believe that they simply became extinct.

Gary asks a very simple question; what if our scientists are wrong?

In Kin he takes us into a world where a secret agency has discovered that Neanderthals did not interbreed with homo sapiens, and they did not go extinct.  They developed and grew along a very different social and technological basis, vanishing into the very corners of the world where we found it too inhospitable to follow and there they survived, building a society vastly different from our own.  He then reminds us that Neanderthals had larger brain cavities than homo sapiens did, and we start to see how they vanished and were never uncovered.

Kin only introduces us to one of their kind, and we watch as he struggles with two humans who empathize with his plight, as this secret agency attempts to force their way into his world.  In the end we are left feeling very much like our own warlike nature will ultimately wipe this culture from the earth, but I don't feel like we get any real closure on his story.

Despite that, I do really enjoy this book.  It's fresh and different, and presents an intriguing plot.

Hiding in plain sight.

Onslaught.

It all began with that one (terrible) decision by Marvel to run with a story in which the malignancy of anger and hate inside of Magneto's mind corrupts Charles Xavier and leads to the birth of the most potent and deadly villain ever; Onslaught. The fallout of this story was that Earth's Mightiest Heroes were lost (actually in most cases they were taken away from competent, talented writing teams and handed over to the Image founders to butcher and devalue for an entire year.)

But from even the worst ideas we sometimes glean inspiration for the best of ideas.

Enter The Thunderbolts.

With The Avengers, Captain America, The Fantastic Four and Iron Man all shunted into another universe by the awesome power of Franklin Richards there was a power vacuum in the Marvel Universe in desperate need of filling, and Kurt Busiek (who will always get a great deal of love on this blog) and Mark Bagley did exactly that when they introduced a new team called The Thunderbolts.  The team debuted in the pages of The Incredible Hulk, being written at that time by the greatest Hulk writer of them all (Peter David) and then later were launched as their own book.

It was the conclusion of that first issue which opened my eyes to the genius of the series concept and the brilliance of Kurt Busiek (once again!) The final panel of Issue #1 of Thunderbolts revealed that the newest super heroes of the Marvel Universe were, in fact.......The Masters Of Evil!! One of the most dangerous teams to ever square off against The Avengers, this plot twist represented one of the most impressive concept launches in the history of comic books, as we discover the true meaning of hiding in plain sight.

The series quickly became a fan favorite as it charted the nature of heroism and watched the eventual reformation of many of the Masters of Evil into genuine heroes. Kusiek wrote the series for thrity-four wonderful issues, and was replaced by Fabian Nicieza when he left.  The series continued its strong run, though as it approached issue #75, Marvel EiC Joe Quesada came up with a "brilliant" idea and almost killed the series forever.  Somebody get this guy away from Marvel's helm.  NOW.

After much tumultuousness and the series cancellation, some storylines came together which brought The 'Bolts back into being, although radically different and with new leadership. This second era of the 'Bolts was highlighted by the run of Warren Ellis, who came on board for the better part of a year and did the story from a very dark place.  With the fallout of the Civil War, his Thuunderbolts were criminals acting under the government's control to hunt down unregistered super humans.  It was a terrific, dark reflection of the power that political agendas can bring to bear on the world.

The book is now in the hands of Andy Diggle, and while it is no longer the book that Kurt created, it continues to be a series of interest for me because of the constant questions that seem to arise.  A new Black Widow leader Norman Osborne's Thunderbolts?  Maybe not.  An enigmatic Ghost who seems at cross purposes with Osborne? Doc Samson framed for trying to kill the President? Nick Fury responsible for the infiltration of the 'Bolts?

This book still has legs in my mind, and while it isn't yet back to the level of the story it was launched as, I'm not read to bury it.  This one may not be the greatest series being written right now, but it is an overlooked gem in the Marvel line-up and it's hiding in plain sight.