The New 52, Wave 2, Part 1: Batwoman's worth the wait

After a few work-intensive days, I finally finished reading all this week's releases in The New 52. This week was very different from last week, with the best entries coming from unexpected sources and some of the books I thought would at least be strange and interesting falling short.

Again, I'll do these in the order I read them, and likely break them up into multiple posts to make it easier to read.

Batman & Robin #1 comes only two years after the previous Batman & Robin #1, which was a blockbuster by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely. This version is by Peter J. Tomasi, Patrick Gleason and Mick Gray, and features the same Robin (the Damian Wayne version) and a different Batman (back to Broce Wayne from Dick Grayson). The crux of the issue is the relationship between the two, with Bruce addressing various family issues and explaining himself to Damian. There is some action in here, but the overall tone focuses on the the relationship with the result being a fairly slow and not especially exciting first issue. The art is often dark and murky to the point where it's a bit tough to follow and pages look like a sea of ink. Neither element makes this a particularly compelling debut and I can't see this appealing much beyond the Batman completists.

Mister Terrific #1 is another reasonably solid comic book that I think could have been better. I think it's admirable that DC has put out so many books with non-white lead characters (Static Shock and Batwing being the other two to date), even as they've gotten so much flak from fans about the dearth of female creators and characters. I'm not exactly familiar with this character, who I think previously appeared in the JSA. The script by Eric Wallace and the arty by Gianluca Gugliotta and Wayne Faucher is all solid but not spectacular. It's all pretty standard first-issue superhero stuff, that I wish was in some way more memorable than it is.

Suicide Squad #1 has a terrific cover, though I had to read the interior of the book to figure out that it's Harley Quinn front and center there. This issue sees the SS team assembled, sent on their first mission and enduring some torture. This is a book that really could have benefited from a more straight-forward approach to the storytelling. A title like Suicide Squad suggests a high-concept series with a heavy dose of crazy, and instead it's a slow-moving, somewhat unpleasant story with lots of scenes of torture in it. It just doesn't stand out.

Ah, Batwoman #1. At last. Much delayed, this one was definitely worth the wait. Yes, Greg Rucka has moved on, but J.H. Williams III is still drawing, and working on the stories with W. Haden Blackman. This looks absolutely amazing, with appealing and distinctive characters engaged in a clear, interesting story. Plus, it's super sexy and realistic in a way that shames that the typical bubble-boobed heroines that normally pass for "sexy" in comics. There's no reason to not pick this up. Excellent.

Legion Lost #1 was aptly named — I was lost. I have never had much luck at penetrating the continuity  of Legion of Super-Heroes, though I do recognize a couple of the characters in this book. Apparently the premise is a group of Legionnaires are lost on present-day Earth. Not much else was easy to absorb from this issue. Introductions are important and, on the second- and third-tier books, there may not be a chance to draw an audience down the line the way you can with a high-profile first-issue.

I liked Grifter #1 a lot more than I expected to. It's less of a superhero story and more of a straight action story. Writer Nathan Edmonson and artists Cafu and Jason Gorder capture some of that old-time Wildstorm energy for this globe-trotting tale. The art was really attractive, but the story wasn't quite crazy and strange enough for me to be sure I'll come back for a second issue.   

Demon Knights #1 is overall a pretty good comic. For one, even though it's got Jack Kirby's Demon in it, it's more of a fantasy comic with lots of action. Uniqueness of genre, some appealing depictions of the characters and pretty good art from Diogenes Neves and Oclair Albert take this pretty far for me. Like a lot of these books, there are issues with characters not being terribly well introduced or there being enough interesting story, but in this case there's enough charm to overcome the shortcomings.

Next: Red! Green! Superboy! 

'Pariah' slickly covers familiar ground

Pariah is indicative of the current state of indie comics: It's a high-concept story that's slickly produced and has some kind of movie ambition and/or Hollywood connection or talent behind it.

First, the book itself. Pariah #1 starts with Brent Marks, who we're told is a "Vitro," which makes him superhumanly smart. Completely isolated from other Vitros, he lives a miserable teenage life in Ohio, where he can't meet girls at high school and hates his brain-dead parents. But he's also got this idea for a working interplanetary spaceship and has started building components for it in his room. Then, an explosion at a weapons research laboratory that employs a large number of Vitros releases a deadly toxin in the air, making Vitros persona non grata. Brent runs afoul first of some bullies, then of the law and is captured for what is certain to be a nefarious purpose.

The high concept here is the idea of Vitros, which is based on real world research that indicates genes can be modified before birth — i.e., in vitro — to achieve certain genetic outcomes. I wish this had been explained in the book itself, though. I learned this fact from the press kit that came with it.

(As a total aside, this was one of the best press kits I've ever seen for a comic book release. It included several professional-quality press releases, bios of the creators, a bookmark, printouts of reviews, a hand-written note from the publicist, a copy of the book and even synopses of upcoming issues.)

Small Press: Diamondback is Unpolished but Enthusiastic

Every so often, folks send me an email asking if I'll take a look at and review their comics. For a long time, I had no time to do so, but a couple of recent requests piqued my interest and so I'm going to do a couple of these indie reviews before I dig into this week's tantalizing pile of The New 52, sitting since yesterday afternoon on my desk.

I have here the first two issues of Diamondback, published by Colorado-based Anasazi Comics, each $3.99 for 24 pages in color. Written by Jeremy Lee, who created the series with Michael Andereck, Diamondback is set in an "anarcho-capitalist" future in which all government has collapsed and the only justice you can get is what you pay for. In the massive Denver City, a man named Jack Cody's wife is killed in a gangland gunfight. Lacking legal insurance, his child is taken from him and Jack is sent to prison, where he makes socks and his soul dies. He's pulled out after a year by a an agent named Cowboy, who believes Jack also can be an agent for the Carroll-Dodgson company and begins training him. Jack takes on the name and identity of Diamondback, and he and Cowboy immediately clash with the big boys of the agency game at Dyja International, which forms the spine of the first two issues.

There are some interesting tidbits in here and I think this could be developed into something that works as a story and would be quite interesting as an action tale with some social commentary in it. The execution leaves something to be desired, even though it makes up for its many technical flaws with sheer enthusiasm. I wish the script had an editor who could make sure that the concepts in the book were clearly explained.

New 52, Week One, Pt. 3: JLI, Swamp Thing, Batwing and Static Shock

Delayed slightly by a short-lived, mildly annoying illness and tons of work and baby duties, here, now, are some thoughts on the last batch of releases in the first full week of DC's The New 52.

Swamp Thing #1 is a very tough comic to do, because no matter how good the book is it always has to live in the shadow of great runs by Alan Moore and the original run by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson. Also, after nearly 20 years as a Vertigo property, I find it somehow incongruous to see Swamp Thing appear alongside Superman and other mainstream superheroes. None of which has anything to do with this particular story by Scott Snyder and Yanick Paquette. I"ll start with the art, which I found to very good and atmospheric and, appropriately, lush. I had to double check the credits because I was sure those distinctively-inked faces meant Kevin Nowlan was working on this issue, but it is all Paquette. Snyder's story does a decent job of resetting the character and his Alec Holland alter ego in the DC Universe, but still failed to really sell the idea as a good one. The horror elements were good. But I don't think this version of Swamp Thing is distinctive enough to work as a Swamp Thing comic for established fans, while this is easily, I think, the most confusing first issue for neophytes. 

I was surprised in a good way to see Justice League International among The New 52. I am, as regular readers of this blog will know, a fan of the Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis run on the title from the late 1980s. Those writers haven't returned for this version, which is written by Dan Jurgens with Aaron Lopresti and Matt Ryan on art — all solid superhero creators. The key to this seems to be Booster Gold, who Jurgens created a long time ago and whose series he was writing and drawing before it ended with Flashpoint. The supporting cast includes JLI stalwarts Guy Gardner, Batman, Rocket Red, Ice, Fire and Batman, along with Vixen, a Chinese hero named August General in Iron and a cheeky brit chick named Godiva. The premise is a little odd, as the United Nations agrees to form its own Justice League that it can control, under the leadership of U.N. Intelligence Chief Andre Briggs. So the JLI has no relation to the other Justice League, even though Batman's in both. The story itself is decent but not spectacular. It has a  plot that it clearly tells, with a couple of character moments that old fogeys like me will be familiar with but may appeal to the newbies. There's foreshadowing of conflicts, a cliff-hanger ending, some mid-level superhero action and it all looks very clean if average. All of this makes it hard to recommend one way or the other — it's far from bad, but it's nothing special enough to go out of your way for unless you already like these characters and this concept.

Static Shock #1 is perhaps the most standard first issue of the bunch, running through the standard story points of introducing the hero, his supporting cast, the premise and giving him a first villain to fight. I admit to not having read really anything about this character after about the first year of the original Static series from Milestone in 1993-94. I know there was a cartoon, and I know this was a signature character for the late Dwayne McDuffie. But this doesn't match up with anything I remember liking about those original comics, which to me evoked Steve Ditko's early Spider-Man work. This is a just a lot more generic. The story is by Scott McDaniel (who also does the art) and John Rozum, with Jonathan Glapion and LeBeau Underwood on inks. I really wish this book was better, but I fear this will be one of the first on the block for cancelation.

The last book on the list is Batwing #1, by Judd Winick and Ben Oliver. This is another book I was hoping would be a surprise simply because it's new. And it's a bit of a mixed bag, mostly because it didn't grab me the way I expected it to. This is a new character, sort of spun out of the idea of Grant Morrison's Batman, Incorporated idea, about David Zavimbe, who is, essentially, the Batman of Africa. His secret identity is as a police officer in the city of Tinasha in the Congo. The city is corrupt, there is plenty of rather ghastly crime and no one to fight it except Batwing. The first issue sees Batwing fight his new nemesis, Massacre, and establishes the setting, etc. It reads OK and looks very nice, but I think the reason this didn't grab me is it just feels like old DC. Most of the new books seem to have attempted to put in more plot and tell the stories clearly — this feels sparse and slow. It also doesn't show much of Africa itself, which I would have thought to be a major source of cool imagery and therefore a selling point for the book. I'm not sure it's future looks much better than that of Static Shock, but the concept is one that I think could work well with a more energetic take on the material.

And that's it for week one! Plenty more to come next week ... 

Batgirl Surprises, 'Tec Shocks and Two New 52 Surprises

It appears that Batgirl #1 by Gail Simone, Ardian Syaf and Vicent Cifuentes is the surprise hit of The New 52, becoming the first book to sell out in many stores. It's no surprise that Simone writes a great Barbara Gordon, but I was especially impressed by the artwork. Not only was it attractive looking and nicely polished, but the coloring by Ulises Arreola really added to the tone of the book without sacrificing clarity. I keep harping on this point, but coloring has been a real weakness at both Marvel and DC in recent years and it's nice to see DC make a concerted effort to improve the coloring in their comics. The story was very engaging, though I missed exactly how Babs got the use of her legs back. The new outfit is very cool and the book is overall just a good bit of fun. I'm not sure why this particular book is so in demand — it could just be pent-up demand for seeing Barbara back in the cape, but I think there's more going on here and I hope the book continues to be as much fun to read as this first issue.

OMAC #1 was a book I thought had potential right from the start. This was a great concept for the character when Kirby came up with it back in the 1970s, but its original run was cut short and no one has ever quite found the right mix. But Keith Giffen, getting back into the Kirby mode he exhibited years ago on Legion of Super-Heroes, really delivers a story that gets the Kirby spirit right. Working with Dan DiDio as co-writer and Scott Koblish as inker, this is another action-packed and fun comic book that evokes the King's work in every panel and twist and turn of the story. That it does so without seeming dated is an impressive feat that few other Kirby imitations have succeeded in doing. This is exactly the sort of book I was hoping to find in the New 52 — an unexpected surprise that delights and entertains.

Detective Comics #1. The last time we saw a Detective Comics #1 on the stand was March 1937, and this  is the title from which the company derives its name. (Yes, DC Comics does mean Detective Comics Comics, and trying to correct that lack of logic is just as pointless as trying to get people to stop saying ATM machine.) So, this is one of the titles that changed the least, with writer and penciller Tony S. Daniel moving over to 'Tec from the same job on the just-concluded run of Batman. Daniel does raise the bar here. The storytelling is better, the color is better and the scripting is better than his recent Batman run. He's also telling an especially intense story with a conclusion that is already getting a lot of shocked responses online. I admit that it surprised me, by being both unexpected and particularly gory for a Batman comic. But it does make me want to read more.

Green Arrow #1 is another example of the kind of book I was hoping to find in the New 52. Now, Green Arrow has never been a character I've been especially fond of. He is, after all, a guy with a bow and arrow. I walk my dog in Lower Arroyo Park in Pasadena, and see archers there almost every day at a public range down there. Archery just isn't threatening to me in the same way that firearms would be, even in a safe setting like a shooting range. As a character, Green Arrow has always been a bit of a caricature, going all the way back to his role as the voice of hippiedom in superhero comics when he teamed up with that square dude Green Lantern way back in the early 1970s. This new Green Arrow keeps Oliver Queen as the hero, but updates him to be much more modern and less one-note. Gone is the goatee, and Queen is like a young Steve Jobs who runs a major tech company as a side job to playing superhero. He's assisted by tech girl Naomi and skeptic Jax. The book is, again, heavy on the action and it plays like vintage late 1980s DC, courtesy of writer J.T. Krul, penciler Dan Jurgens and inker supreme George Perez. The art really helps sell this book, as both Jurgens and Perez are veteran superhero artists who seem to relish the opportunity to revisit a more fun take on this character. This book would have easily fit into the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths relaunches of 1986-1989, which makes me very happy because that's perhaps my favorite era of DC Comics.

One more post to wrap it up.

First Batch of New 52 Releases Delivers Solid Comic-Book Entertainment

Sometimes, life is great. Yesterday afternoon, FedEx rang my door and had me sign for a package from the publicity folks at DC Comics. Quickly tearing open the package, I found inside all 13 of this week's releases of The New 52.

It was tough to not just stop working and dig right into the big pile. I took a little break and read Hawk & Dove #1 followed by Action Comics #1. I read the rest of the books last night and now will delve into them for your reading pleasure.

The good news is these books are overall quite good. After the mild letdown of Justice League #1, I found every one of the 13 new books to deliver a satisfying and entertaining story. These read a lot like comics from the late 1980s or 1990s, with more story, more action and fewer talking heads than superhero comics have delivered of late. They also have some sharp art and, thankfully, overall good coloring. The books look quite sharp. I still wish there was some kind of introductory text page and maybe a house ad promoting comic shops, explaining digital availability and an ad offering subscription info.

I don't know how truly new readers will receive these books, but I give DC great credit for doing a pretty good job delivering on material that I think has a wider appeal than superhero comics have delivered in a while.

So, let's go through them, one by one. I'll try to avoid spoilers, but if you're a stickler you might want to wait until you've read the books to proceed. Also, this may take multiple posts.

I started with Hawk & Dove #1 just because a comic by Rob Liefeld always evokes some kind of interesting reaction. Yes, the anatomy on the cover is awful, but the image still has that unique energy Liefeld brings to his projects. Inside, the story by Sterling Gates was better than I expected, though in a crazy, comic-book kind of way. It at least delivers on action, complete with monsters, zombies (or maybe monster/zombies) and a close call between a plane and a national monument. The books keeps it simple, though some of the ideas in here are a bit puzzling (what is a "science terrorist"?) if you think about it too hard. The dialog is a bit hammy, especially from the slightly one-note characterization of Hank Hall as a hothead. Still, this works in a very basic way thanks to lots of action and a couple of good twists toward the end.

Action Comics #1 is THE high-profile book of the week, featuring Grant Morrison and Rags Morales' anticipated revamp of the Man of Steel. And boy, does this get the blood pumping. If you go back and read my take a few months back on how to fix Superman, it looks like Morrison had a lot of the same ideas. This issue is all about the action, and features some great, gritty sequences. Morrison takes Superman back to the beginning — this version of the character is surprisingly similar to the original concept by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. This Superman is a crusader, tackling the powerful interests of Metropolis that are otherwise above the law. His power levels also are scaled back and he leaps more than flies, and has the potential to be hurt. This Superman also is young, but not mopey — he's out there acting on his convictions and doing what he sees as right. This is a great first issue and it succeeds at being an exciting and fun take on the Man of Steel.

Reviewing DC's Justice League #1 in print and in digital

I haven't reviewed new comics in a while, though I've had a few requests and will get some comments on those books up in the next day or so.

In the interim, DC's New 52 kicked off yesterday with the release of Justice League #1. I got a copy from DC, and found it to have some good points and some bad. I also tried the digital edition on my iPhone and that spurred lots of ideas on what works and what doesn't about that format.

But first, the comic itself is good but not great.

Wilma Flintstone in Batman? Joker in X-Men? It's all in the coloring ...

It's strange the things you notice when you're reading a comic. Take this panel from DC Retroactive 1970s Batman:

"Oh, Willlllmmmaaaa!" 

I don't know if this was intended by writer Len Wein and artist Tom Mandrake or if colorist Wes Hartman is just having a bit of fun. Of course, The Flintstones is part of the Warner Bros. animation empire, just as the DC Universe is.

It reminds me of this panel from X-Men #130, about which artist John Byrne later said he had hoped colorist Glynis Wein would pick up on his idea and color it in green, white and red. Here's the printed panel:

The joke's on Scott and Jean.

Oddly, Byrne also has said in interviews that he realized as a child that he could write stories with the best of them when he came up with an idea for a TV series about cavemen who had prehistoric equivalents of modern conveniences long before The Flintstones came on the air with much the same idea. 

I admit I liked the three Retroactive issues DC publicity was kind enough to send me, though I admit to not being interested enough to buy any more of them. This is a good idea for a project, and the reprints were nicely chosen, but it should have been spread out over more than a month. Six specials each for the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s at $4.99 a piece ads up to a whopping $89.82, which is way too much.

X-Men: Schism Takes the Low Road to Mediocrity

In Marvel and DC’s near-constant onslaught of mega-events to drive sales, the X-Men titles that popularized the gimmick have fallen victim to one of the most underwhelming and skeevy events in its history with the arrival of X-Men: Schism.

I have a lot to say about this one after reading the first three of five issues in the series, so consider yourself forewarned. I also think I need to explain why something like this is worth writing about in detail when it really would be easier to just roll my eyes, say “it stinks!” and move on to something worthwhile.

Comics are the only reason where I’ll bother being critical like this because the comics is so dominated by superheroes and franchises from Marvel and DC that the failure or success of any one such franchise has a much greater ripple effect than it would in any other medium. When something like X-Men (or Batman or Spider-Man, etc. — take your pick), which has so long been a dominant creative and commercial force does just about anything, you just can’t ignore it the same way critics can pass over, say, Sucker Punch, Glee or a new album from David Archuleta.

So here we have X-Men: Schism, a five-issue miniseries that sets the stage for the next relaunch of the entire line this fall. It’s written by Jason Aaron, with each issue drawn by a different artist. Carlos Pacheco and Cam Smith draw issue one, Frank Cho is on issue two and Daniel Acuña does it all on issue three. Alan Davis is slated for issue four, with Adam Kubert apparently on issue five. There also are no fewer than four editors credited on the book, which makes the errors in execution even more questionable. Plus, these books aren’t cheap, with the first costing $4.99 for 32 pages of story, and issues two and three cost $3.99 for 22 pages of story each.

Good Nonfiction Books About Comics, Part 5 - Comic-Book Movies and Mutant Cinema

I don't have a lot of books about comic book movies, in part because I don't think there are many out there that are not direct tie-in books. I have a few of those, including Frank Miller's Sin City: The Making of the Movie, The Art of X2, The Spirit: The Movie Visual Companion, and one or two more. Reference works are common, including Comic Book Movies by David Hughes and John Kenneth Muir's comprehensive and readable (though pricey) Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film and Television.

Of actual books on comics movies, I only have a few, including my own. So I'll start there with a quick recap of how Mutant Cinema: The X-Men Trilogy from Comics to Screen came to be.

FF Re-read: The Fantastic Four #10 (Jan. 1963)

“The Return of Doctor Doom!”

Script by Stan Lee

Pencils by Jack Kirby

Inks by Dick Ayers

Letters by Art Simek

They might have titled this story, "Lo, There Shall Come — A Stinker!" The previous nine issues all saw improvements of one kind or another, but this issue is truly weak in every respect. This issue is, in fact, so bad that all I can really do with it is do a quick run through and make some snarky comments about it, so here goes.

This issue begins with Reed trying to figure out how Sue's invisibility power works, using a big machine that looks like a cross between a howitzer and a vintage camera. Far from Kirby's best splash page, it's made even weirder by the fact that the Human Torch is assisting Reed by taking notes while in full flame mode. It's so odd, that it gets a mention in Sue's dialog, just before the "4" signal appears in the sky and the trio assume Ben's in trouble and rush off to help.

And it just gets weirder from there.

Good Nonfiction Books About Comics, Part 4

I don't have nearly enough books in the category that this post covers: Books about the art and lives of specific artists. I think there are a lot more out there, but for some reason I don't have as many of them as I thought I might.

I'll start with The Amazing World of Carmine Infantino, which I bought at a convention directly from the publisher and it was an autographed copy. I only met Carmine once, and it was at a convention and I simply said how much I had enjoyed his art on the old Marvel Star Wars series. That series was the one that got me reading comics and I had, as a kid, mixed feelings about the art. First, the comic was a lot better as soon as Infantino came aboard with writer Archie Goodwin. The stories were cool, fun to read, easy on the eyes and had some very clear storytelling. On the downside, none of the characters in the comic looked like the actors from the movie. That part bugged me enough — especially after seeing the bang-up job Mike Vosberg did on Star Wars Annual #1 — to write a letter to Marvel about it. All of which digresses from this book, which is an amiable recounting of Carmine's career as he remembers it. That's both a good and bad approach — there's lots of good little anecdotes and plenty of cool artwork throughout the book, but there's not much criticism. That leaves a few areas of comics history — especially during Infantino's tenure as top editor at DC Comics during the late 1960s and early 1970s — no closer to any kind of definitive history than we were before. Still, fans of Infantino's artwork should get a real kick out of this volume.

FF Re-read: The Fantastic Four #9 (Dec. 1962)

“The End of the Fantastic Four!”

Script by Stan Lee

Pencils by Jack Kirby

Inks by Dick Ayers

Letters by Art Simek

Another big leap forward for the series in a story that’s as off-beat as anything done in Fantastic Four previously.

There’s a lot to like in this story. I love the idea that the group loses its fortune on the stock market and has to sell everything off. Namor’s oddball idea of buying a movie studio and tricking the team into making a movie is just plain weird, but it gives Kirby in particular a chance to draw in some real-life movie stars. The fight between the Thing and Namor is particularly good, and the overall results are good enough to overcome some huge holes in the plot.

The cover to this issue is one of the best to date, giving a terrific tease for the story inside. Namor’s confident pose and the rundown Baxter Building, complete with broken and boarded up windows, are perfectly executed details. I also love the coloring — I don’t know if anything could properly recreate that lovely shade of reddish orange used for the background.

Good Nonfiction Books About Comics, Part 3

This time, I look at the how-to-make-comics books on my shelves.

Alan McKenzie's How to Draw and Sell Comic Strips was the first book I ever saw that specifically devoted itself to this particular topic. I saw it in the bookstore at the University of Arizona when I was a freshman in 1987 and was particularly interested in seeing what comics scripts looked like and how pencils differed from inks — both topics that seem to always confuse fans when they first ask about them. McKenzie's book featured some nice historical material on comics and some great tips on how to learn to draw everything you need to be able to draw to do comics. He creates a sample comic in the book, complete with a full script, pencils, inks and colors. The book also covers production issues as they were in the day, i.e., lettering pages before they were inked and how to hand separate color plates. It's a great book, even though it did nothing to help me learn to draw. My efforts in basic drawing class earned me only one of only two C's in my college career, convincing me that drawing was not where my talents lay. It looks like this has been revised and updated for a couple of new editions, and should be pretty easy to find if you are so inclined.

Will Eisner's Comics and Sequential Art is a classic in the field and the first book to explore the specific qualities of comics as an artform. I enjoy this book more now that I've read a significant amount of Eisner's work. The book appears to me to be more useful for artists who already know how to draw in applying their skills to comics. As I've discovered, it's not easy to learn to make art (and, I imagine, to teach it) when so much of the experience is subjective and difficult to communicate through words.

I almost put Writers on Comics Scriptwriting in the interviews section, but decided that this book by Mark Salisbury (and its sequel volume) fits better in the how-to category. This is a very nice collection of lengthy Q-and-A interviews with top comics writers on the craft of creating comics. Among the folks in volume one are Peter David, Garth Ennis, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, Kurt Busiek, Grant Morrison, Mark Waid and Warren Ellis. Volume two (by Tom Root and Andrew Kardon) covers Brian Azzarello, Dave Sim, Brian K. Vaughan, Mark Millar, Geoff Johns, Mike Carey, Kevin Smith, Greg Rucka and Brian Michael Bendis. I believe both books are currently out of print, but they are worth tracking down if you're interested in writing comics.

Off the Shelf: Saga of the Swamp Thing, Vol. 2

It was more than two years ago that I read the first volume in this new hardcover series collecting the influential mid-1980s series by Alan Moore et al. and wrote about it here. I finally bought the second volume a few months back while visiting Santa Barbara and just got around to reading it now.

Pretty much everything I said about the first volume stands for the second. This collection deals largely with the relationship between Swamp Thing, his former life as Alec Holland and with Abby. It is Abby at the heart of these stories, as the meat of this book is the confrontation between Swamp Thing and Abby's husband Matt Cable.

Moore's handle on the craft is still improving here, leaping by bounds per issue, and he avoids the kind of obvious superhero confrontation that would have been very easy and pleasing for fans in favor of a story and a resolution that is much more thoughtful, mature and will resonate for years to come still.

There's also some fun in here — with "Pog," an issue in which Swamp Thing meets some aliens that are surrogates for the cast of Walt Kelly's Pogo.  This sounds like a disaster, but Moore manages to pull this off and make it work within the series and without being so incongruous, goofy or in love with itself that it breaks the spell.

The series concludes with a stunning issue in which Swamp Thing and Abby admit their love for each other and he allows her to see the world as he does. The techniques used here foreshadow the bulk of what Moore did with Promethea, and works completely and beautifully. The excellent art by Stephen Bissette and John Totleben make it completely natural to slowly turn the book in your hands until it's sideways and then back again.

It's amazing to look at these stories and realize how much DC and Vertigo built on the ideas and techniques Moore pioneered even in the first year and a half of his work on Saga of the Swamp Thing. It also is hard, if not impossible, to imagine that any comic produced in 2011 could have even half the impact that this series had in 1984 and 1985.

I hope I get around to reading Vol. 3 sometime before 2013.

First Look at Henry Cavill as Superman in 'Man of Steel'

Warner Bros. released today the first image from Zack Snyder's upcoming Man of Steel movie, featuring the first image of actor Henry Cavill as Superman.

Here's the pic:

I admit to quite liking this. As great as Christopher Reeve was, I think it's a good idea to steer clear of trying to imitate what he did and find a new version of Superman for the big screen.

This image shows a powerful, muscular Superman that's a bit more in line with the original concept of the character, as created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. I like the long, heavy cape, but think we could try and do away with every superhero having some kind of 3D plastic emblem glued to their chest.

Snyder stumbled with fans on Sucker Punch. While not a great movie by any means, I didn't think it was as horrible as everyone else did, at least in part because it delivered exactly what the trailers promised.

I do think Snyder is a good director. He may not have the kind of grand cinematic vision that changes the artform, but he does have a surprisingly good grip on the details and can pull off complicated movies pretty much on time and on budget.

The casting also is really good on this. Amy Adams, Laurence Fishburne, Kevin Coster, Diane Lane, Michael Shannon, Julia Ormond and Russell Crowe all should be much more interesting than the cast of Superman Returns.

I'm also glad they're not making Lex Luthor the villain this time out, but we have already seen Zod so I don't know why we need to revisit him when there are so many other Superman villains out there to choose from.

After the jump, you can read the press release that came along with the photo. What do you think, Superman fans? Does this look good to you, or is it cinematic Kryptonite?

Good Nonfiction Books About Comics, Part 2

Lengthy interviews with comics creators have produced some fantastic reading over the years, particularly in the pages of The Comics Journal, which borrowed from the traditions of Playboy and Rolling Stone to set the standard for comics. As I said in my recent post about covering the junket for Captain America: The First Avenger, this kind of writing is surprisingly tricky to do well. It's also produced some of my favorite reads about comics, as well as a few clunkers. I'll start off by crediting The Comics Journal, of which I have dozens and dozens of individual issues packed up in a box somewhere. But this is about the bookshelf, so here are some more of my favorite good books about comics:

The X-Men Companion I and II were published by Fantagraphics in 1981 and 1982, culled largely from material that had already appeared in the magazine. But when I came across it in 1990 or 1991, again at Bookman's in Tucson, it was a revelation. The interviews by Peter Sanderson are excellent, and span the entire run of the comic up to that point. Interviewees include Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Len Wein, Dave Cockrum, Chris Claremont, Terry Austin, John Byrne and a joint interview with Claremont and then-editor Louise Jones about the future of the book. That these interviews were done at a time we now consider early in the book's history, it's fascinating to read about how these stories came together and where everyone expected to take the book in the future. I also very much loved the excellent reproduction of so much art in the book — most of it blown-up black and white reproductions from Marvel stats that look absolutely fantastic. Because of this book, I promised myself that if this material was ever reprinted in black and white I would have to buy it, and I did so when Marvel started its Essentials line around 1997.

Covering 'Captain America: The First Avenger'

Chris Evans stars in Captain America: The First Avenger.

I should mention that I occasionally write for Newsarama.com, and wrote for them some articles on Captain America: The First Avenger.

These usually involve attending a junket, which consists of some combination of a press conference, roundtable interviews and one-on-one interviews. Nine times out of ten, these junkets are held at the Four Seasons Hotel on Doheny in Beverly Hills, so anyone who's looking for a star sighting in L.A. could do a lot worse than to hang out at the valet station of this hotel. For example, while waiting for my car after the Cap junket, actor Jason Bateman pulled up and hopped out to meet with some publicists working on, I assume, something related to Horrible Bosses or The Change-Up.

Anyway, in addition to getting to see the movie in 3D a week early on the Paramount lot, I showed up at the Four Seasons for a press conference with the filmmakers. On the panel were director Joe Johnston; screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely; and Marvel Studios execs Kevin Feige and Louis D'Esposito. You can read what came of that session here.

That was followed by roundtables, where a hotel room is set up for groups of journalists — usually around a dozen or so at a time — to interview the talent. These are strictly timed and usually very short, forcing the interviewers to jockey for position to ask their questions before your 10 minutes with Chris Evans is up. For Cap, the actors did the roundtables, and we got a few minutes with Evans, the charming Hayley Atwell and Sebastian Stan. Read what came my group's short session with Evans here.

Sometimes there even is a takeaway or, more accurately, a gift bag offered to the press. The bag at Cap included an action figure, a collectible cup from Dunkin Donuts, a copy of the soundtrack on CD and a Cap-branded copy of Norton Internet Security 2011 that is useless to me because I only work on Macs. There also are production notes with bios, credits and information on the making of the film for journalists to use as reference.

The third and final piece I wrote from the Cap junket was this review, which most people reading this blog will be able to compare with their own views on the film now that it's been out in theaters for three weekends.

A lot of sites will take some of these interviews and transcribe them into Q and A style interviews. I've tried to do that in the past, but have come to the conclusion that it's a huge pain in the ass and not nearly as effective as writing a more traditional news story. Writing an article, you can put the appropriate emphasis on what people say in interviews, provide context and get the point across much more clearly. Transcribing an interview is a tedious process that exposes the vast divide between the way people use language when they talk and clear writing. The latter is almost always better, devoid of the filler language most people are never aware is used unless you have to try to write it out. Email interviews are almost always better for quick Q and A's. Long audio interviews like you'd find in the Comics Journal would require a lot of back and forth, editing and copy editing to get to the published state.

I managed to see Captain America: The First Avenger a second time when my wife and I had the opportunity to leave the house without the baby while some friends babysat for us. I liked the movie more the second time, and even though I enjoyed the 3D on the first viewing, I saw the 2D version the second time and it didn't affect my opinion of the experience in the slightest.

I think Avengers looks like it's going to be the blockbuster of 2012, and I'm impressed with how well Marvel Studios has pulled off this big plan to build to it, starting way back with the first Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk. I liked Thor okay and thought X-Men: First Class was terrific, so the summer's been good for Marvel movies.

I was less impressed with Green Lantern, which was never obviously terrible but was so formulaic in the way it told the origin story and so rigidly followed the conventions of superhero movies that it just never added up to anything memorable. Green Lantern 2 needs to go in a different direction, so I suggest they reduce Hal Jordan to a cameo and make the movie about Guy Gardner, John Stewart and G'Nort. It most likely would tank at the box office, but at least people would have a reaction of some kind to what's on the screen, even it's just that two of those three characters are annoying as hell.

Kirby Copyright Verdict Should Surprise No One

I wrote a lot about the copyright case between the family of Jerry Siegel and DC Comics over Superman, but I have a lot less to say about the recent ruling against Jack Kirby’s children. Read the ruling here.

From a legal perspective, nothing should have surprised anyone about either of these cases. The facts in the Siegel case make it an ideal candidate for copyright termination while the Kirby case always depended on making a convincing argument that Jack didn’t work under work for hire rules. The depositions posted at 20th Century Danny Boy a few months back were fascinating for the details they mined about how Marvel operated in the late 1950s and early 1960s. But nothing in that testimony did anything to refute the idea that Kirby was a freelancer doing work for hire.

I wish this had at least gone to trial, so that we could hear the arguments the Kirbys’ lawyer, Marc Toberoff, planned to make in this regard. But Kirby’s life and work have been pretty thoroughly documented by this point and there appears to be not even an inkling of a smoking gun document somewhere that would turn the tables.

The Kirby and Superman cases are similar in at least one way: Neither would have been necessary had the corporate owners of DC and Marvel simply stepped up to the plate and done the right thing by giving credit to and sharing even a sliver of the wealth these artists generated for them.

Comics artist Stephen Bissette has written a lengthy post at his blog urging comics fans to engage in a boycott and stop buying any Marvel products derived from Kirby’s work. He’s picked up this idea from the success of one DC fan’s efforts to ask DC creators and execs at Comic-Con why they haven’t hired more female creators or publish more female characters. It didn’t take much — she asked the questions at several panels and it got some buzz in the comics press — but it did result in a statement from Jim Lee and Dan DiDio saying they would hire more women creators. I don’t think most fans will stop buying FF, Thor, Hulk or X-Men comics on those grounds. But bad publicity helped put some pressure on Marvel during Kirby’s art return dispute with the company in the 1980s. It also helped Siegel and Shuster get a deal in the mid-1970s for an annual stipend and health benefits. Maybe it could work again.

It would be the right thing, the moral thing for Marvel to honor Kirby’s contributions with credit and a share of the immense profits it generated.

I’m also interested in this argument Bissette has linked to that questions the legal basis of corporate ownership of copyrights and the entire work for hire concept. The United States is a very friendly place for corporations, so I expect we’ll never see corporations lose their rights to own a copyright. In fact, the opposite is likely — that corporations will get more rights and extend copyrights even further beyond the limited terms called for by the Constitution.

The best lesson for comics creators to take away from all this is to create your own characters, your own comics and don’t sell them to the first publisher that offers to put out your book. Comics as an art form and as an industry needs new ideas and new books. Much of the malaise many fans feel comes from the fact that the market is so dominated by Marvel and DC characters that are, in most casts, between 50 and 75 years old. They’re great characters, but it might be time to make some new ones, or the industry and the art form risk dying off along with the audiences that are still hanging on to ideas that increasingly struggle to be relevant to the lives of readers living in the 21st century.

FF Re-read: The Fantastic Four #8 (Nov. 1962)

“Prisoners of the Puppet Master!”

Script by Stan Lee

Pencils by Jack Kirby

Inks by Dick Ayers

Letters by Art Simek

Some of the formula that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had figured out for the title was starting to settle in at this point, with the opening argument between the Thing and the Torch being both familiar and executed very well. The argument this time begins when Reed asks Johnny to keep Ben out of his lab. Ben throws a temper tantrum worthy of a 2-year-old and storms off, followed by Sue.

While they argue, they spot the first act of the mystifying Puppet Master, who uses his ability to make people do anything he wants by making little puppets of them from radioactive clay and then making them act out his wishes in miniature play sets. His first act is to make an apparently random man jump from a bridge to his death.

So, yes, the Puppet Master is one of the silliest villains in all of Marvel. Nothing about his power makes sense. Neither does his oddball physical appearance, or the fact that he was married at one point to the mother of beautiful blind sculptor Alicia Masters.

Good Nonfiction Books About Comics, Part 1

Finishing the Blake Bell book on Steve Ditko reminded me that I really enjoy nonfiction books about comics, comics creators and the comics industry. I also realized I have quite a few such books and they might make for an interesting post. Then I started listing them and realized it might take several posts.

So here’s the first one, focusing on books that offer historical overviews or essays about comics as a medium or specific comics characters

All in Color for a Dime and The Comic-Book Book, both edited by Dick Lupoff and Don Thompson. These are very influential books in comics history, being collections of essays about all kinds of topics from Jingle-Jangle Tales to Captain Marvel. All in Color was first published in 1970 and became a rare and expensive find by the time I learned of it, so I had to wait for the 1990s re-issue. The Comic-Book Book was one of the first books on comics I got, as it was commonly available in used bookstores. I picked it up the first time because of Don Thompson, whose reviews in Comics Buyers Guide I enjoyed reading quite a bit in the last few years before he died.

The Fascinating, Frustrating Enigma of Steve Ditko

I love books about comics, the comic-book industry and the people who make comics. I wish there were a lot of them, because I think it’s worthwhile to document these events and people while we still can.

Which brings me to Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko (Fantagraphics, $39.99), in which author Blake Bell examines the life and work of one of comics’ greatest enigmas.

Almost anyone interested in superhero comics knows Ditko was the artist who co-created The Amazing Spider-Man and Doctor Strange with Stan Lee. Those who go a bit deeper will know that Ditko also created some cool characters at DC Comics in the late 1960s and 1970s, including The Creeper, Hawk and Dove and Shade, The Changing Man. A few more willl remember him for doing layouts on the cult 1980s Marvel series Rom, and a dedicated few will have perused Ditko’s independent creations such as Mr. A. But given that Ditko has refused to be interviewed or appear in public for decades now, little else is really known about this artist, who created some of the most unnerving and interesting comics in the medium’s history.

Bell does the best job of any attempt I’ve ever seen to bring together everything we know about Ditko’s life and work. The result is fascinating, frustrating and eventually presents a sad portrait of an immense talent that withdrew from the world and denied it of his work and himself of the audience, acclaim and success that was easily within his grasp.

The Strange, Fleeting Fun of Jack Kirby's 'Devil Dinosaur'

Devil Dinosaur Omnibus

Jack Kirby was always a powerhouse comic book artist, but his work in the 1970s is among the most amazing of his career as well as the most divisive. I say divisive because Kirby’s work in that decade took some often strange turns — sometimes producing amazing classics and sometimes producing fascinating failures.

I have to place Devil Dinosaur in the latter category. This short-lived series only ran eight issues in 1978 and, according to Tom Brevoort’s introduction in the Devil Dinosaur Omnibus edition I just finished reading, it was an attempt by Kirby to capitalize for Marvel on some interest an animation studio had in the Kamandi series he created for DC.

Kamandi itself was an oddball series, reportedly inspired by the Planet of the Apes movies, the first issue of that series prominently featured a destroyed Statue of Liberty and was set in a post-apocalyptic future full of mutated half-animals and, of course, the titular last boy on Earth. Even though Kamandi borrows its premise at least partly from a popular movie series, that comic book’s storyline had somewhere to go.

Not so Devil Dinosaur, which flounders partly because it’s a pretty thin concept to begin with and partly because there’s not really any place to take the story. For those who’ve never read this series, Devil Dinosaur is a T-Rex style dinosaur living in prehistoric times who is burned by a mad mob of early human “small folk” and emerges bright red in color. He teams up with a young “Dawn-Man” named Moon-Boy, and together they defend their valley home from various threats.

Flashpoint vs. Fear Itself: A Much-Needed Win (So Far) for DC

Flashpoint #1

Like most comics readers, I'm getting weary of big events. And the promotional materials for Flashpoint did absolutely nothing to interest me in this series. I've never been a big fan of The Flash, the premise of the crossover was, at best, murky, and the sheer number of spinoff miniseries and specials was disheartening.

But I have to admit that when I sat down and read Flashpoint #1 (DC Comics, 40 pages, color, $3.99), I really enjoyed it. (Full disclosure: DC's publicity folks sent me a copy.) And having found little to enjoy in the DC Universe of late, it was nice to find an enjoyable way back in.

I can't deny that there's a weird bit of nostalgia at work. This is an alternate universe crossover, with cool art by Andy Kubert and Bob Harras at the helm. It's like a flashback to 1995 and the Age of Apocalypse, which was easily the most fun crossovers of this type and an archetype for Flashpoint. I doubt I'll pick up many of the spinoffs, but I will definitely be back for Flashpoint #2.

Fear Itself #2

The other major summer event is Marvel's Fear Itself. Again, thanks to event fatigue, I hadn't paid much attention to the advance marketing on this book. This is a nice-looking book, with Fear Itself #1 and #2 (Marvel, color, $3.99 each) showing the Asgardians returning to Asgard, Odin being a jerk to Thor and a bunch of mystic hammers falling to Earth and empowering those who pick them up with the power to glow like Tron.

It's OK, though my first thought was I'd already seen this kind of thing in Kurt Busiek and George Perez's  JLA-Avengers crossover a few years back and even in last year's Blackest Night. It also just feels more like a concept suited to a Marvel videogame than a major summer crossover, but that's likely just me. This isn't to say that Fear Itself is bad or that Flashpoint is good, but it is interesting how it's the intangibles that make one stand out — even if just slightly and for a moment — over another.

Who Can Canada Blame for Alpha Flight #0.1?

Alpha Flight #0.1

The absence of posts on this blog has been exacerbated by the preparations for and the birth May 2 of my daughter, Kaya. All is fantastic here at Bags and Boards central as we've spent the last few weeks getting to know each other. I don't know if she will like comics, but she's going to have plenty of them around to pass the time with as she grows up.

One such comic is Alpha Flight #0.1, Marvel's third attempt to relaunch the once-successful 1980s series about a group of Canadian superheroes. As a Canadian who first read the group during the John Byrne heyday of the early to mid-1980s, this issue is a distinct improvement on some of the previous attempts, most notably the humor-infused Scott Lobdell effort that ran a mere 12 issues starting in 2004.

This effort does its best to restore a "classic" lineup with Guardian, Vindicator, Snowbird, Shaman, Aurora, Northstar and Marrina, but fails to distinguish itself from the mainstream mass of superhero comics and fails to do right by the basic premise of the series and its characters.

Written by Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente, the story centers on a terrorist named Citadel who seeks to disrupt a federal election by taking out the power grid in Quebec. Alpha's called in and finds Citadel's got help from Kara Killgrave, who once was called Purple Girl and was a member of Alpha Flight in the late 1980s when scripter Bill Mantlo was slowly but surely doing his best to make Alpha Flight the worst title Marvel published. The election goes on as planned, with former Alpha liaison Gary Cody winning as the leader of the fictional Unity Party.

Art wise, this is a decent-looking comic but nothing special. The art is by Ben Oliver with Dan Green and colors by Frank Martin. It would be nice to see some zing in the layouts if they stick around for future issues. But without some better writing, the art's not enough to justify buying or reading this comic book.

One of the long-term problems with Alpha Flight has been the way successions of writers have completely messed up the personal histories of the characters. Mantlo was the king of this, turning Puck from a dwarf who overcame the pain of his condition into a man possessed by some kind of black genie and making the twins Aurora and Northstar into the descendants of elves from Asgard. He also killed off Snowbird and had Marrina go so crazy after becoming pregnant with Namor's child that the Avengers had to kill her. I'm not kidding — these are actual Alpha Flight stories, and they set a precedent for writers to crap all over these characters. Since then, Guardian's returned from the dead multiple times in a new body and, according to this issue, has a child with Vindicator that has vanished.

I don't know how you end up with everyone back in the places we find them in this issue, but Aurora and Sasquatch are still an item; Guardian and Vindicator are back together in Ottawa and more boring than they've ever been; Marrina is back from the dead but not quite looking like herself; Shaman is performing open-heart surgery on a First Nations reservation; and Snowbird is back under cover with the police writing traffic tickets in the streets of Montreal. Oh, and Northstar is back after multiple stints with the X-Men living in Montreal with a new boyfriend. (Did you know he's gay? Well, he is!)

The big question I have is this: If the writers are looking to take this comic back to basics, why would they be so sloppy with the details that show they understand who these characters are and the most basic understanding of Canada and Canadians that really is the only reason for this title to exist? Specifically:

• Why is Snowbird writing traffic tickets for the Montreal cops when her power symbolically comes from the arctic? Her previous cover was as Constable Anne MacKenzie of the RCMP stationed in the Northwest Territories. It makes no sense that she's now a "commandant" — which is not a real rank with Montreal police or the RCMP and even if it was, a commandant would not be writing traffic tickets. 
• The take on Canadian politics is pretty funny. I have a feeling the Unity Party is meant to be some kind of anti-Alpha or radical conservative party, which is just plain boring compared to the real-world insanity of the Republican Party here in the United States.  
• When did Heather Hudson become a brunette? I guess it may have been previously established that she and James MacDonald Hudson got back together, but they're in no way a convincing couple. 
• Shaman was clearly established as being a member of the Sarcee tribe, which was primarily based in western Canada around southern Alberta. His medical practice was always a very basic, community clinic style of operation near Calgary. Here, he's performing open-heart surgery at the Grand Lac Victoria reservation in Quebec. Neither part of that sentence makes sense with this character. 
• Walter Langkowski and Aurora are barely introduced. All we know about them is they're an item. No mention is made of her being Northstar's twin sister. Also, which Aurora is this? She wears the original black and white costume with long hair, while on the cover she has the white and yellow costume with short hair she wore after Langkowski altered her powers slightly. Also, is she still a split personality?
• As for Walter, no mention's made of his code name or where his power comes from. I know the source and nature of his power changed a lot over the years, so an explanation would be nice. 
• Marrina looks completely different. Makes me wonder if this is a new version of the character. The cover shows the classic version, so some explanation would have been nice.
• Where's Puck? I might have missed the reason for this in another book.
• And boy, do Marvel writers love to write scenes of Northstar being a positive, modern example of the gay superhero. After his recent run in The Uncanny X-Men, can't Marvel find something else interesting about him? Or is he doomed to be a one-note character? Here's one idea: he used to be a member of the FLQ, a terrorist organization that sought the separation of Quebec from Canada. (That may have been the only good plot point Bill Mantlo ever introduced to Alpha Flight, so of course it happened in Marvel Fanfare #28 circa 1985.) 

The biggest failing about this comic is there is absolutely nothing Canadian about it. I know that may seem irrelevant to a lot of readers, but when you get right down to it, it really is the only reason I can think of for this comic to exist.

Ask a comic fan to explain what Alpha Flight is about and the answer will surely involve the phrase "Canadian superheroes." Therefore, these character need to be in some way representative of Canada, how Canadians relate to each other and the role Canada plays in the world. I don't know if Pak or Van Lente are Canadian, but given Marvel's track record on this post-Byrne, it wouldn't surprise me if Pak or Van Lente's sole experience with Canada was crossing the bridge at Niagara Falls and commenting on how there's a maple leaf added to the logo at McDonald's. (Don't laugh — I've had that tale told to me by more than one person.)

Again, I think it's important for a comic about Canadian superheroes have some kind of Canadian quality to it and Canada is not an easy place to figure out, even if you have lived there. It's in many ways a lot more regional than the United States and also a lot less known. I get that someone who's never been to New York could write an OK story set in New York because everyone absorbs the imagery and the icons through the media. But the same is not true for even the best-known Canadian cities like Toronto or Vancouver — and it's even less true for places like Ottawa, Nunavit, Victoria, Saskatoon, St. John, St. John's, Moncton, Quebec City or Red Deer.

This comic's failures would not be so obvious without the high bar set by Byrne in his 28 issues. Even though Byrne was not born in Canada and hasn't lived there in decades, he understood enough when he did Alpha Flight to inject as a theme Canada's struggle to define itself and maintain some control over its destiny and resources while dealing so closely with the incredibly rich, insatiable and friendly juggernaut that is the United States. Failing to inject something like this into the book leaves it no different from Avengers North, and not worth publishing or reading.