Author: John Ostrander

John Ostrander: A Return To Those Thrilling Days…

Once Upon A Time In The West

I came late to the western. Oh, I saw many of them when I was a kid growing up in the 50s and early 60s but they were Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autry and others of that ilk. Saturday morning horse fodder. Later the westerns got more sophisticated with Gunsmoke, The Rifleman (a personal fave), Wanted: Dead or Alive, Have Gun Will Travel, Rawhide and more but I wound up cowboyed out for a long time.

My late wife Kim Yale was a big Westerns fan and it was she who got me hooked on them. She taught me the difference between the different directors – primarily John Ford, Budd Boetticher, Anthony Mann and Howard Hawks – and the brilliance of some of the films, chief among them The Searchers, Winchester 73, Shane, Red River and others.

And then came the guy who broke the western mold: Sergio Leone. He may be best known for the Dollars trilogy – A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. They also made a star of Clint Eastwood. The other night was I came upon my DVD of Once Upon A Time In The West and sat down to watch it again.

There are some who believe Once Upon A Time is Leone’s best film, his masterpiece. There are some who find it to be overly long, confusing, and his most stylistically excessive film. I’ve seen it described as epic and operatic. Some others find it slow and mannered. In Europe, where the film was released in its original length of 166 minutes, it was an economic success. In America, where distributor Paramount cut the film to 145 minutes, it was a flop.

For me, Once Upon A Time in the West may be my favorite “spaghetti” western and one of my fave of all westerns. It has a superb cast with some actors cast way against type. Jason Robards Jr plays Cheyenne, a bandit and very tough guy. The real revelation in the movie, however, is Henry Fonda who plays Frank, a really evil sadistic killer. Fonda’s startling electric blue eyes are cold and hard. The first time we meet him, he shoots and kills a boy of about 10 with a slight sadistic smile as he does so. It’s incredibly chilling. Fonda was known for playing good guys and heroic types, with the exception of Fort Apache where he plays an arrogant son of a bitch. But even there, it’s nothing compared to the character of Frank who is just one of the coldest and evilest villains I’ve seen in film.

My Mary has suggested that Robards’ Cheyenne is a Coyote type character, a trickster in Native American folklore. I think that’s accurate. He brings a slight bit of humor to the film. There’s a gag involving a gun in a boot that’s one of my favorite moments in this or any film.

A character known only as Harmonica is played by Charles Bronson. I find Bronson most effective when he has only a handful of lines as he does here (as well as in Hard Times). There’s a scarcity of dialogue in the film as it is and Bronson has the least of all but he makes the most of them. He’s perfect as the man seeking vengeance. I read somewhere that Clint Eastwood was originally offered the part but turned it down. That’s probably just as well; I can’t see him doing it better than Bronson.

Rounding out our foursome for this film is Claudia Cardinale. I don’t know if she was ever more beautiful than she was in this film. Her part, Jill McBain, is pivotal to the story. She’s a survivor, one with her own secrets and backstory and the story flows around her and her choices.

As far as I’m concerned there’s another major character in the film: Ennio Morricone and his score. Morricone provided the music to Leone’s other Westerns and here he creates his best one. Cheyenne, Harmonca, Frank and Jill all have their own specific themes. The music was actually written from the screenplay before it was filmed and was played during the filming. Leone let the music dictate the tempo of the scenes. Days after I watched it, the music is still echoing in my mind.

It’s the music and the very deliberate pacing and editing of the movie that gives the film its operatic feel. I don’t know if Leone could have gotten away with it today when everything is intense and quick cuts. He didn’t completely get away with it back then since the movie’s length panicked the Paramount executives who ordered cuts. I’m not sure that the generation today would sit for it; obviously, not everyone in my generation stood for it.

Once Upon A Time In the West demands that you meet it on its own terms, that you surrender to its pace and style. It is at the same time a very cynical and realistic look at the Old West while also being the telling of a myth, as the “Once Upon A Time. . .” of the title suggests. For me, the film is a masterpiece, Sergio Leone’s finest film, and one I will continue to watch again and again.

 

John Ostrander: Face To Face

Floyd_Lawton

Stranger Than Fiction, a 2006 film from director Marc Forster (Finding Neverland, Monster’s Ball, and World War Z, among others), is a favorite of Mary’s and mine. It that starred Will Farrell in a very atypical Will Farrell role, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Queen Latifah, and Emma Thompson.

The story concerns an IRS auditor named Harold Crick who starts to hear a narrator in his head. The voice turns out to be a world famous author who is writing a story about an IRS auditor named Harold Crick. The author, Karen Eiffel, always kills off her main character at the end of the book. The real Harold’s only hope to survive is to find the reclusive author and convince her not to kill him. Eventually, they meet.

Karen Eiffel, understandably, is freaked to encounter an actual Harold Crick. He’s just as she pictured him. They both know that if she kills him off in prose, he will die in reality. She is confronted with the reality of what she does; Harold Crick isn’t just a creature of her imagination. He’s a flesh and blood person.

As a writer, I find that notion unnerving.

I had the opportunity a few weeks ago to have a somewhat similar experience. At the Motor City Con I got a chance to meet the actor, Michael Rowe, who was playing Floyd Lawton – Deadshot – on the TV series Arrow. And, yes, a bit of Stranger Than Fiction ran through my head. Of course, Mike Rowe is not Deadshot; he was perfectly nice and friendly and complimentary. However, I had a few nanoseconds of feeling, well, anxious.

When it comes right down to it, I don’t think I would want to meet most of my characters face to face. Why? Because I’m the guy who makes their lives miserable. I can see most of them wanting to take a swing at me – or worse. For them, I am the Creator. I incarnate their lives and their adventures. I’m god. Not the god but a god (as spake Bill Murray in Groundhog’s Day).

Have you ever had a day when you really just wanted to haul off and hit your Creator? I know I have and I’m an agnostic. When my late wife Kim was dying, I was sitting in the car at one point, hitting the steering wheel and cussing out God. I thought we had a deal; I would accept her death and she would die without pain. That day she was in excruciating pain.

I talked it over with my pastor, The Rev Phillip Wilson, and he thought my cussing out God was a good thing. He said that the Bible had lots of instances where the human argued or yelled at God. Towards the end of the story of Job, the title character learns that all his troubles stem from a bet between God and Satan and lets loose on Yahweh for destroying his life. Job was justified if you ask me.

God’s answer? Essentially, God skirts the issue and demands, “Hey, where were you when I created everything?” He tells Job that he’d better button it. Not a real answer but I can see why Job didn’t press the issue. This is Yahweh after all who drowned the earth in a fit of pique.

So why do I do it? Why do I make my characters’ lives so miserable?

It’s for the sake of the story.

When we were first married, Kim used to ask me how would I react in such and such a situation. How would I feel?  (I could get myself into trouble by suggesting that this is the sort of speculative question some women like to ask their men. I don’t want to get in trouble by saying that, although I admit to thinking it.) I would always answer “I dunno. Ask me when we get there.”

I felt and feel that’s a fair answer. We don’t know how we would react in a given situation or facing this or that pressure. We only know how we’d like to think we would act but until you’re in that moment, you don’t know. You can’t until you’re actually faced with the situation.

How we react in those situations reveal who we really are – not who we think we are or hope we would be. In a story, it reveals character. The tougher the situation, the clearer we see who the character really is. It’s one of the rules about character. It’s not what they say, it’s what they do that really matters – just like in life.

By putting my characters through the wringer, I reveal who they are and the reader, by vicarious experience, may learn something more of who they are. That makes the whole exercise worthwhile. That can make the story compelling and memorable.

So what I do to my characters is not out of sadism (well, not only out of sadism) but for the sake of the story.

However, I still wouldn’t want to meet GrimJack or most of my other characters in a darkened alley in the middle of the night.

Brrrr.

 

John Ostrander’s Story Behind the Story

Suicide Squad

There’s a lot of attention focused on the Suicide Squad, what with the movie being filmed right now and coming out next year, and, yes, it’s based on the version of the Squad that I created back in the 80s and, yes, I should see some money for the use of Amanda Waller (not the Squad per se since it already existed in another form in the DCU) and that’s all pretty cool. Might as well tell my version of how this all started and give some credit where credit is due. You may have heard/read some of this before but I’m at the age where repeating stories is de rigeur so let’s do this.

My first shout out goes to Robert (“Bobby”) Greenberger who was our first editor on the Squad. I had met Bob at several conventions and while waiting in airports afterwards for our respective planes. I was working only for First Comics at that point; I hadn’t yet moved up to the major publishers. Bob and I got along really well and he broached the idea of my doing some work for DC. I was perfectly amenable and we started talking what I might do.

I loved the title “Challengers of the Unknown” which was lying fallow at the time. I considered, then and now, that this was one of the great titles in comics. All by itself, it conjured up possibilities. Really cool.

Unfortunately, someone else had already grabbed it for development so it was off the table. Then Bob suggested “How about Suicide Squad? It only appeared for five issues of Showcase a million years ago and nothing is being done with it.”

My first reaction? What a stupid name! Who in their right minds would belong to a group that called itself Suicide Squad? And just as I was dismissing the whole thing, an answer struck me: the only ones who would join would be those who had no other choice. Who doesn’t have any other choice? Folks in prison. Supervillains who’ve been caught. How do they get out of prison so fast? The Squad.

I thought about the Dirty Dozen and Mission: Impossible and The Secret Society of Supervillains, a DC title that teamed up loads of supervillains. I loved that. So the idea was to have a team of supervillains, rogues, enrolled by the government to take on secret missions deemed in the U.S. national interests. If caught they could be disavowed easily; they’re bad guys running around doing what bad guys do. If they die, who cares? They were bad guys. If they succeeded and got back alive, they would have time shaved off their sentences or outright freed.

It would also give us a chance to see the villains as competent and even deadly in their own right. Make them dangerous. For the missions, I’d comb newspaper and magazines for real world ideas. In fact, our first issue had a super-powered terrorist group attacking an airport while Air Force One was landing. I doubt I could get away with that today.

Bob suggested we also have some superheroes in it as well; not A list or maybe even B list. I was resistant at first; I wanted it to be all bad guys. Bob was insistent and it turned out he was right.

I wanted B-listers because I wanted to be free to kill any of them off. I wanted the missions to be dangerous; in all other comics, you knew the heroes were coming back alive because they had to be there for the next issue. Not with the Squad. We could kill them off with impunity. And we did. Always added to the suspense of the story – you never knew who was coming back alive.

To run the group I created Amanda Waller, a.k.a. The Wall. Tough as nails, heavy set, middle aged, bad attitude, African American woman. Why? Because there had never been anyone like her in comics before (and there hasn’t been since). Actually, she was based on my paternal grandmother who scared the bejabbers out of me when I was a kid. One glare and that was it; whatever I was doing, I stopped, even if I wasn’t really doing anything.

Bob also brought in Luke McDonnell as our artist; Luke had just finished some Justice League and was looking for another gig. Luke had (and has) great storytelling and real good character skills. Not flashy but that suited the stories we were telling. Bob also added Karl Kesel as our initial inker. Karl was a hoot; he was brimming with ideas and I’d get what I would call “Kesel Epistles” where he would share his notions. I used some but always encouraged the participation; I figured that was the best way to make a good team. Let everyone have a say if they wanted it.

We picked our members and I wanted the ones that no one else wanted. Deadshot had a cool name, a really stupid costume when he first appeared that Marshall Rogers later revamped and made really cool, and only a few background facts. He was technically a Batman villain but the Bat office said they didn’t want him so I was free to give him a backstory and a bit more of a character.

Captain Boomerang was a Flash character but the Flash had also just been revamped as a result of Crisis on Infinite Earths and, at that point, the Flash office was no longer using the rogues. Bob suggested we use him and, at first, my reaction was, “What a stupid character.” (I really needed to learn not to do that.) However, I decided to make him like the character Flashman in the Flashman series of historical novels by George McDonald Fraser. Boomerang was an asshole but he knew what he was and liked it. Every time you thought he could sink no lower, he’d find a new level. He quickly became one of my favorites.

Bob also got us an issue of Secret Origins for the same month as our first issue so we could use background material; and reference the original Squad(s).

This is when Mike Gold stepped in, Mike is an old old old friend, my former editor at First Comics, and the one who gave me my first shot as a comic book writer. (Yes, it’s all his fault – unless you like my stuff in which case it’s all due to me.) He had gone over to DC and was intent on taking some others with him, including me. Mike got me a shot at plotting the first company wide crossover since Crisis, which we called Legends. Mike felt it would be a good idea to include the Squad in it for their first appearance since lots of attention would be drawn to the series. Among other things, John Byrne would be drawing it – his first work at DC after leaving Marvel.

Of course, I wasn’t sure. (Notice a pattern here?) I didn’t want the Squad getting lost in the shuffle. They weren’t, and we had a great launch.

At some point into the Squad’s run I brought in my wife, Kim Yale, as co-writer. Kim was a very good writer in her own right and she complimented and completed my work with the Squad. To say it wouldn’t have been the same book without her seems obvious and trite but it is also true.

Bob eventually moved on to other work at DC and new editors took his spot although none could take his place. His love of the Squad and his enthusiasm for it shaped the book from the beginning and it would not have existed without him, or Mike, or Luke, or Karl, or Kim. Did it change comics? Beats me but we told some damn good stories and now they’re making a movie out of it.

Not bad for a series with such a damn stupid title.

 

John Ostrander: Choose Your Future!

Choose-Your-Future-Mad-Max-or-Tomorrowland

There’s an interesting duel going on at your local Cineplex – two very different views of the future. One is Mad Max: Fury Road and the other is Tomorowland. The first is a reboot of the classic Mad Max films, set in a very dystopian future, while Tomorrowland is based, in part, on a section of Disneyland. (While that might seem a bit thin a premise on which to base a film, keep in mind that the initial Pirates of the Caribbean was based on a ride at Disneyland and, the initial film at least, was delightful.)

While I haven’t yet seen the latest Mad Max incarnation, I know its predecessors very well and the trailers have certainly more than suggested that it’s the same landscape. Tomorrowland posits a city founded by the likes of Jules Verne, Thomas Edison, Nikolai Tesla, and Gustave Eiffel. In some parallel dimension, they created a utopia where the best and the brightest from all walks of life, art as well as science, can come and are encouraged to do anything they can dream. The four recruit other scientists and dreamers with a pin that has the letter “T” on it. It’s supposed to be science although for all extents and purposes, it’s a magic talisman.

I’m not going to do a review of either film but I am interested in the two contrasting visions of the future. Tomorrowland acknowledges the problems facing this world, any of which could lead to a dystopian future but it maintains that this future is not inevitable. As the villain in the piece, Governor Nix, maintains what makes it inevitable is that humanity embraces that dystopic vision, even runs towards it, because it is easier. All we have to do is nothing. Changing it requires doing something. I think doing something requires belief that the actions will have a positive effect, that the future can be changed, that it all can be made to work.

And that’s where it becomes a problem for me.

Dystopian futures are my stock in trade. Hell, dystopian present is a familiar stomping ground for me. That’s become even more so in the past few years. I look at the world, at the greed and the political insanity and the climate change and the droughts and the intolerance of all stripes, not only religious, and I don’t see it changing. I think humanity, like lemmings, are heading for the cliff and will jump off it.

Belief comes hard to me these days. For example, on the notion of God/god/ghod (pick a god, any god) I’m an agnostic in general and an atheist in specifics. Could there be a god out there? I don’t know. Quantum mechanics suggests all sorts of strange things; maybe within that a notion of god could exist. However, in regards to a specific god – Yahweh, Allah, Jesus, Zeus, Eshu, Thor, Shiva, Vishnu. Hecate and on and on – I don’t believe in any of them. The stories are interesting and can even have moral worth but I don’t believe any of their gods are real. If you do, fine. I’m not trying to correct you and tell you your belief in a specific image of god is wrong. It’s not mine, however.

Nor do I believe that humanity can or will come to its collective senses in time to avoid any of the disasters that seem lying in wait for us. There’s not enough profit, political gain, or perceived power to be had in doing something about any of this even if we could agree that something needs to be done and what that something would be.

And yet. . .

And yet, my heart responds to Tomorrowland. In it, they use the metaphor that we all have a bright wolf and a dark wolf within us fighting for control. Which will win? Whichever one you feed.

I know which future I think is more likely given who we are as a species.

But I want one of those pins with the “T” on it. I want to hope. I want to believe despite everything I think I know.

I want to go to Tomorrowland.

John Ostrander: It’s always Halloween at the Con

Before I was a professional comic book writer, I was a fan. I still am. I was going to comic cons long before I turned pro. Some are good, some are not so good, and some are the San Diego Comic Con which is too large to fit into any category. For me these days, cons are mostly working weekends where I meet with fans and fellow pros, sign some autographs, maybe sell a few of my trade paperbacks.

Last weekend, I and My Mary were at the Motor City Comic Con in Novi, Michigan, and we had a great time. It’s close enough to where we live so that we could just drive there and the Con gave us a hotel room so we didn’t have to drive back and forth. The cats weren’t pleased that we were gone but they survived and, once we fed them, forgave us our absence.

Last time I had been to Motor City was maybe a decade ago and it has really grown. My understanding is that they had over 50K attendance over the three days this year. It was large but not too large and, while it had a nice selection of media guests, it was still a con focused on comics.

I managed to make contact with some old friends such as Jim Calafiore (we worked on Magnus, Robot Fighter together) and current ones such as Chris Scalf (we have a new project we’re working on). I also met Mike McCone, with whom I had done one of my favorite Batman stories (a three-parter in Detective) but whom I had never actually met. (Comics are often like that; you work with someone but you may not actually meet them in the process.) Arvell Jones was at the table next to mine along with his family; really nice folks and a pleasure to meet them.

One of the media guests was Michael Rowe, who played Deadshot on Arrow when the Suicide Squad appeared there. I thought it would be interesting to go up to his table, introduce myself, tell him I had defined Floyd Lawton in the comic. Surprise! He showed up at my table first. He knew exactly who I was and told me he had read everything I had written on Deadshot and used that as the basis for the character he played.

I knew there was a reason I liked his version.

He was really nice and actually had me sign some of his comics. That can make your head spin around. I remembered the movie Stranger Than Fiction in which a writer discovers a character she is writing is real and they meet face to face. I’m not sure I would want to do that, given what I’ve done to a lot of my characters – especially Deadshot – so meeting Michael was a little surreal but very pleasant. He didn’t hurt me at all!

There were a couple of things that really struck me about the Con. One was not only the number of cosplayers present but the overall quality of their costumes. I know some folks are not all that keen on cosplayers at cons; some actually want them banned. For me, I really like what they add visually to a convention. It becomes like a great Halloween party.

The 501st Legion was well in evidence and they always have great costumes. I got to meet and chat with Thomas John Spanos who I first met when he was cosplaying Ganner Krieg, an Imperial Knight that Jan Duursema and I had created for Star Wars: Legacy. This time out Thomas was in his Clone Emperor incarnation. Really nice guy. I’ve been struck by his artistry and talent and attention to detail, something I find in all of the 501st members and the cosplayers in general that I saw last weekend. For example, I saw a really well done Groot posing for pictures, especially with kids who were thrilled.

Which brings me to another thing that really struck me about the Con – the number of kids I saw there, from very small to teens. About ten years ago, I saw a drop in kids at Cons and that worried me. It seemed they were all going to video games. I felt that wasn’t good for the Comics Industry. The kids are where the next generation of readers would come from and I was afraid we had lost them. I personally think that unless you start reading comics by a certain age as a kid, you don’t get into them and they’re never going to be a part of your life.

What’s changing that? Less the comics themselves with all their relaunches, new directions, and crossover events than the movies and TV shows based on comics. (They may also be more coherent and accessible than the comics.) In any case, there were a lot more kids at the show than in the past and it’s amazing how many of them were cosplaying as well.

One last thing about a Con the size of Motor City; while I was pretty busy autographing books and doing interviews, I still had time to chat with those who came to my table and I really like that. I managed to tell a lot them about the new project Tom Mandrake and I are getting ready to launch and don’t worry, I’ll be telling all of you as well when the time comes. The fans and I talked about what I’ve done in the past and hope to do in the future. I am so appreciative of the support that the fans have given me and my work over the years. Thank you.

So it was a good time and more than just a “working weekend.” I hope to do more Cons in the future and, if I do, come by and say “hi.” I give good blather, I think you’ll find.

 

John Ostrander’s Writing Class: Our Characters, Our Selves

I’ve had a chance recently to catch some, not all, of Showtime’s series, Penny Dreadful, and I’ve enjoyed it quite a bit. It takes the same concept of Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (combine genre characters from the Victorian Age into a single story) and uses it with mostly horror and supernatural characters and elements, again in Victorian London.

The “real” penny dreadfuls were the pulp fiction of their day, precursors to the pulp magazines and also comics. The TV series was created by John Logan (who, among other things, wrote Skyfall and will be writing the next two James Bond films as well) and is the co-executive producer along with James Bond director Sam Mendes (he also directed The Road to Perdition).

There are also other Bond connections, including Timothy Dalton as the African explorer Sir Malcolm Murray, who is the father of Mina Murray, who just happens to be a character in the novel Dracula. Eva Green, who was the “Bond Girl” Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale, plays Vanessa Ives, a medium and possibly a witch. Among interest to we pop culture geeks would also be Doctor Who’s companion Billie Piper as a prostitute with a possibly very dark future.

The show also features Victor Frankenstein and his creature(s) as well as Dorian Gray and a werewolf. To say more would spoil the story for those who have not yet experienced it. The show is well acted, well directed, well written and with first class production values. First class altogether as well as being suspenseful, creepy, and shocking.

What I like most about the show is the complexity of the characters. No one is wholly admirable nor wholly despicable. One of my favorite characters is Frankenstein’s Creature, who sometimes goes by the name Caliban; he is tragic and sympathetic and dangerous all at the same time. You learn things about all the characters and you’re not sure you should root for them – but you do.

All of which really leads up to the true topic of this week’s column – creating complex characters. It is both easy and difficult. It falls back to one of my cardinal rules – we write what we know, especially about people and life as we have experienced them.

What defines a given character is what they want and what they are willing to do to get what they want. By want, I mean really want – not just sorta kinda want. What do they need, what do they desire, what do they lust for, what must they have? Something primal. The more intense the want (the motivation), the better it will drive the story. The reader must not only know what the character wants, they have to feel it. They must feel the desire behind it.

What prevents the character from getting what they want (at least initially) is what makes the story. That’s the conflict. How the character copes with that conflict reveals what their true character is. Same as in life. If the need were easy to satisfy, the story would be quickly over.

Sometimes the conflict is with a person (the antagonist), sometimes an object (a mountain), sometimes a situation (a hurricane, for example). Think of your own life. What is most likely to keep you from getting what you want? As often as not, the answer is you yourself. You have doubts or fears but what is most likely to get in your way is a competing need. You want A but you want B as well and they are mutually exclusive. However, your inner child wants both. That conflict has to be resolved for the story to reach its climax. What we choose, what the character chooses, tell us and tells the reader who the character truly is.

Character exists within opposites. Never try to explain them away. Make the reader feel both desires and identify with both. State them, dramatize them, play with them before you resolve them.

Keep in mind that there may be more than two conflicting wants; in life, we may have dozens. Not all of them have to be resolved; only the main ones. Also keep in mind that it is not only your protagonist that has these conflicting needs; all your characters should. It should be true in your stories because it is true in life; it’s never simple, it’s never easy, it’s never neat and that is what makes it fascinating. Conflict is not just external; it’s internal. Apply what you know to the characters you write.

That’s the job.

 

John Ostrander: We Eat Our Own

A recent Internet brouhaha occurred when some feminists attacked Joss Whedon after the opening of Avengers: Age of Ultron claiming he was a misogynist, etc, for his portrayal of Black Widow in the movie. I haven’t seen the movie yet – I may be one of a handful in the world who hasn’t – so I can’t comment on it although given Whedon’s track record, I am skeptical.

When Whedon closed his Twitter account, the Internet went crazy and charged he was chased off by “militant feminists.” Again, I was skeptical. Whedon himself later stated “I just thought, Wait a minute, if I’m going to start writing again, I have to go to the quiet place, and this is the least quiet place I’ve ever been in my life.” That’s true of the Internet in general, by the way. A great tool but also a great temptation for wasting time.

This practice of attacking our own is not new. Will Smith playing Deadshot in the upcoming Suicide Squad movie, has been attacked by some as being too lightweight for such a stoic badass character. This ignores the work he did in such films as The Pursuit of Happyness or the minor role he had playing the devil in Winter’s Tale. Serious characters, well played.

Ben Affleck as Batman/Bruce Wayne in the upcoming Superman vs. Batman: Dawn of Justice? According to sections of fandom, heresy! They said the same thing about Michael Keaton waaaay back before his first Batman film. When I was writing GrimJack at First Comics, we got a letter from someone who said I should leave the book and let other writers do the character because I wasn’t up to this letterhack’s standards. That may explain a certain lack of sympathy I have for these type of fans.

It’s not everyone in fandom. They can, however, be a vocal segment of fandom. Often an angry and strident voice in fandom. They seem to have (or think they have) a Fan Early Warning system (or F.E.W.s), a sort of Spidey-Sense that starts tingling when they sense something wrong (especially in casting) in an upcoming project, especially film. There is a certainty that they are right, a vitriol that accompanies the attack, and an unwillingness to hear any other point of view. It isn’t what they wanted, it isn’t how they would do it, it’s not how they see it and so it is wrong. No debate, end of story.

Does it matter? It is a small minority, after all. A small, strident minority that can be heard over the din of the crowd. That’s part of the problem with this country today – minority voices stridently decrying what they think is wrong and refusing to listen to any other opinion because, you know, that would be compromising their principles. You can’t just agree with them; you have to agree wholeheartedly and for the right reasons. You have to share the same religion; you have to drink the same flavor of Kool-Aid.

Everyone has a right to their own opinion but it is often formed without actually seeing the work. The dissident fans haven’t seen any footage of Will Smith as Deadshot, yet they already know he is wrong. Their proof that Ben Affleck will suck as Batman? His performance in Daredevil. (He has also performed in other films since then, including a fine turn as George Reeve in Hollywoodland .)

Negative comments can create a negative image of a given work, especially movies, before it’s seen. The “buzz” can affect how a film is perceived and received. It can affect the box office. That, in Hollywood, is serious.

It’s not hard to be heard these days. Is it too much to ask to consider what is being said? To think before you speak?

What am I saying? This is the Internet. Of course it is.

IMO.

 

John Ostrander As Lamont Cranston

Well, our pal John is a bit under the weather. And, oddly, this weekend the weather is under John as well: he lives fairly close to the epicenter of yesterday’s earthquake in Michigan.

John assures us he’s okay, just tired and probably a bit cranky. As for the earthquake, well, whereas it was felt by people as far away as John’s native Chicago, thankfully there was no damage. Except for some very confused farm animals.

John will be back in this space – or, perhaps, merely “space” – next week.

John Ostrander on the Mighty Marvel Movie Monster

In a few days the new Avengers film, Age of Ultron, will be opening here in the States. It’s already opened in some overseas markets and, by all accounts, is doing very well. Seems like a good time to look back at the output in general of Marvel Studios.

Not all of Marvel’s characters’ appearances onscreen have come from Marvel Studios; stalwarts like the Fantastic Four, The X-Men, and Spider-Man have been made elsewhere (although Spidey’s next appearance will be coordinated with Marvel Studios and, in fact, will probably be in the next Captain America film). Those appearances have been, shall we say, a bit spotty in quality. The two FF films were anything but fantastic.

However, by and large, the output of Marvel Studios has been first-rate. There have been a few hiccups, such as the second Iron Man film and the second Thor film as well, but I’ve been dazzled by the rest. The studio has gone from strength to strength lately. They did it by staying true to the concepts and feel of the Marvel Universe.

When Marvel first emerged back in the Sixties, several things marked the upstart newcomer as different from its “Distinguished Competition” (as it referred to DC in those days). All its characters inhabited the same universe; events in one comic could influence events in another. The characters might pop up in each other’s comics at any time, even if just for a panel or two. The characters were not “squeaky clean” – they had hang-ups and foibles. The heroes and heroines often didn’t like one another and sometimes worked at cross-purposes; a hero was as likely to slug another hero as a bad guy.

While all this has become almost a cliché these days (i.e. the perennial existential question of “Who is stronger – the Hulk or the Thing?)” all this was very new and different when the whole magilla started. While the movies may have changed bits and pieces, they’ve stayed true to the overall concepts.

A good example of all this was the first Avengers movie. It brought together not only the main characters of the previous films, it also included many of the supporting characters. And they did not all like one another. Steve Rogers (Captain America) and Tony Stark (Iron Man) could barely stand each other. Thor and Iron Man come to blows early on and the Hulk and Thor had more than one dust-up in the course of the film. They all came together eventually to defeat Loki and his army and to trash much of New York. This is all very much the Marvel Universe as it was created. The film is true to its roots.

It was good enough to make me decide to see Guardians of the Galaxy which I wasn’t certain I was going to do. I think it’s now my favorite Marvel film and it too is cut from the same cloth; questionable beings who may be ethically challenged come together and, for most of the film, can barely stand one another. There is sacrifice and, by the end of the film, the team has come together to defeat the Big Bad. Classic Marvel.

There’s a common thread running through all these films and it’s not Sam Jackson as Nick Fury. It’s Kevin Feige, who has produced, co-produced or executive produced all of the Marvel films, including the ones I haven’t been so crazy about. He’s having a hell of a run right now and I’m thinking of him as the Stan Lee of the Marvel cinematic universe. (Stan Lee is also a part of the Marvel cinematic universe, but that’s not what I’m talking about.) I don’t know the guy but I get the sense that he really knows the Marvel comics universe and knows why it works. They’ve got me looking forward to Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Captain America: Civil War, and Black Widow, and Doctor Strange, and even Ant-Man.

Ant-Man. I can’t believe I’m writing that.

Enjoy it while it lasts, kiddies. Nothing lasts forever. At some point, Feige will get a better offer or move up at Disney (Marvel’s parent company) and someone else will take his place. The writers and directors and even the actors now playing the characters will move on or just get too old. Marvel Studios will put out a clunker. Things will change. Things always change.

But for right now, I’m strapping in and enjoying myself.

Excelsior, True Believers.

 

John Ostrander: Get Out of My Head (Over You)!

“Earworm – A catchy song or tune that runs continually through a person’s mind.” – Oxford Dictionaries

I am a child of pop culture. Phrases, jingles, songs, names and much much more pass through my brain and, on occasion, get stuck there. Sometimes it’s only for a few moments and sometimes it is for hours. I don’t mind it so much when it’s a song I like but often it’s one of which I’m not fond or actively hate. It’s like on vinyl LPs when the needle would get stuck on a record and you have to jar the needle to get it to move on (young’uns, have the oldsters explain that reference for you). Unfortunately, slapping myself upside the head doesn’t help with earworms. They’re there until they’re not.

Warning: I’m going to be listing some of these and they could get caught inside your skull. You may want to bail out now.

Sometimes it’s not musical. Sometimes it’s a phrase that catches my attention and settles in such as:

Ndamukong Suh Ndamukong Suh

Ndamukong Suh Ndamukong Suh

or

Atorvastatin Atorvastatin Atorvastatin

The first is a football player; the latter is a medication.

Sometimes it only repeats a few times and sometimes it repeats in an endless loop. Such as:

Come Saturday morning,

I’m going away with my friends.

We’ll Saturday spend

‘til the end

of the daaaaay.

I hate that song to begin with, and repeating it doesn’t make it better.

The theme to The Avengers movie. Or maybe The Guardians of the Galaxy movie. I get the two confused. Or one morphs into the other in a sort of mash up.

Speaking of mash-ups, this here is a recent one: “I’m Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover” but with the start of Blue Swedes “”Hooked on a Feeling.” So I get

Ooga chukka

Ooga Ooga

Ooga chukka

Ooga Ooga

I’m Looking Over

A Four Leaf Clover

That I Overlooked Before!

Ooga chukka

Ooga Ooga

(On a loop)

Hey kids, I just have them; I can’t explain them. Sometimes I think my brain has a mind of its own.

Some songs aren’t always the best known version. For example, I’ve had it “I Did It My Way” (one the most overblown songs I’ve ever heard) but not in the best known Frank Sinatra version. Oh no. My mind uses the John Cleese version from the end of the movie George of the Jungle which actually is more amusing and I don’t mind it as much.

Or how about Madeline Kahn singing “Battle Hymn of the Republic” from Young Frankenstein? That one was also on an endless loop. Amusing the first three or four times it ran through my head. Less so the fiftieth or so repetition. The more you hear something, the less funny it gets. Much like my jokes, I’ve been told.

I also was treated to an endless looped version “Going Out of My Head (Over You)” (hence the title of this column). That one runs from the Little Anthony and the Imperials version (which is great) to The Lettermen version (the sonic equivalent of Velveeta) that also includes “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” which morphs into the Frankie Valli version of the latter, with and without the Four Seasons.

And, yes, my brain does hurt sometimes.

I was told at one point that doing games or puzzles somehow stops earworms and usually writing does that for me as well. However, they always come back or a new one takes up residence.

Note that none of these earworms includes classical music even for a few bars or Shakespeare or anything like that. Nope. Pop culture all the way. You are what you consume.

That thumping sound you may be hearing is probably me banging my head on the desk trying to escape the earworms. Of course, another good way of losing them, or so I’m told, is to pass them on to someone else.

This has been a (mis)guided tour of my mind. Thank you and good afternoon.

 

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