Category: Columns

Joe Corallo: Moving… Pictures

Suicide Squad movie

First column of the new year. We’re already over 1% through the year. How’s it treating you so far?

Switching gears from last week where I was reflecting on 2015, I’ve been thinking about what we have in store for us in the year to come. Upon pondering what’s awaiting us over the course of the next twelve months, I realized that we may not be moving forward as fast as I was hoping. Particularly when it comes to the movies.

I’m starting with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, as it’s still making money and hasn’t even opened in China yet. This may be considered a minor spoiler, so if you haven’t seen the movie yet and any plot detail revealed may cause you to succumb to an unimaginable rage, then I suggest you skip to the next paragraph. Anyway, the opening scroll of the movie reveals that the major plot point is that our heroes need to find a straight cis white guy, Luke Skywalker, to save them all. Sound familiar? And while the new main characters are a more diverse crew, they’re still not only serving to find previously stated straight cis white guy, but the movie gets hijacked by another straight cis white guy, Han Solo, the moment he comes on screen. Not quite the kind of progress you’d hope to see in a movie that was billed as being diverse.

How about the superhero/geeky movies coming up? Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice is about a couple of straight cis white guys who are up against a straight cis white genius with a straight cis white woman tacked on as an afterthought. That’s not to say it won’t be a good movie or we shouldn’t give it a chance, but that doesn’t change those facts.

DC may be offering us more diversity with Suicide Squad. Will Smith as Deadshot, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Killer Croc, and Viola Davis as Amanda Waller do give me hope that we will be seeing a more diverse cast in a superhero movie, possibly the most diverse yet in the Marvel and DC universes big budget films. However, this could just as easily end up being primarily about The Joker and Harley Quinn. Will Smith did indicate that Deadshot and Joker would both be pursuing Harley Quinn, so Deadshot may have a significant role in the film. However, this may also indicate that we’ll have a straight Harley Quinn as opposed to her bi comic counterpart. Not to mention the heteronormative nature of a love triangle involving two men going after one woman who is only allowed to enjoy one of them intimately.

As for Marvel’s offerings, we’re looking at Captain America: Civil War and Doctor Strange from Disney and Deadpool and X-Men: Apocalypse from Fox. Starting with Captain America, we do have the introduction of Black Panther into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Falcon and War Machine will also have roles in the film, in addition to Black Widow and Scarlet Witch. That being said, the movie is being carried by Captain America, a straight cis white guy, protecting his friend Bucky, a straight cis white guy, primarily from Iron Man, a straight cis white guy. Noticing a pattern?

The Doctor Strange movie, from what we know of the casting and plot synopsis so far, is that it will be about a magical straight cis white guy that needs to stop another magical straight cis white guy.

Deadpool is about a cis white guy, but this one is supposedly pansexual. We’ll see what this ends up meaning. It could be an actual representation of a pansexual character. It could also easily be used to have Deadpool jokingly hit on guys while only having a more realistic interest in women. I’m hopeful, but I’ll believe he’s pansexual in the film when I see it.

X-Men: Apocalypse, while having some diversity in its cast, doesn’t mean it’ll be about diversity. These movies tend to revolve around Xavier and Magneto, two straight cis white guys. Cyclops and Jean have been recast and brought back into the fold of the X-Men movie franchise. A straight cis white heteronormative relationship is just what the X-Men franchise needs! It’s not like Storm could have ever had an interesting relationship in the comics that could translate to film. To be clear, she has, and I was being sarcastic. Also, casting Oscar Isaac, a Hispanic actor, to play the Egyptian villain Apocalypse is a bit troubling too.

As I was saying earlier, none of this means that these movies will be bad. This may very well be the best slew of superhero movies yet. However, they are lacking quite a bit in the diversity department. Having slightly more diversity in the cast of a movie while still having straight cis white guys moving the plot forward and taking up the majority of the screen time is really missing the point.

The point being that we need to be exposing ourselves to people of different backgrounds, points of views, and people who have had radically different life experiences than we commonly see depicted in media. We don’t get that by having them walk on screen or onto the pages of a comic. We get that by having them be an integral part of the plot, or better yet, the focus of the plot. A radical concept, I know.

The comics and the TV series are doing a bit of a better job this year. Shows like Supergirl and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., comics like Midnighter, the new Black Panther series written by Ta-Nehisi Coates starting this year, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, and many other examples exist that show that we’re continuing to make some progress in both of those mediums. That said, out of the 11 oversized 50th issues DC has coming out in a couple of months, eight of them star straight cis white guys, two of them star straight cis white women, and one stars a bisexual white woman.

The movies really do need to step up their game in the diversity department. It may be too late for 2016 already. We do at least have the Wonder Woman movie coming out next year. Let’s hope for better luck in 2017.

Mindy Newell: Farewell, Downton?

Downton Abbey Finale

Sarah O’Brien, Lady’s Maid to the Countess of Grantham, talking about Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham (Siobhan Finneran): I’d like to giver her the old heave-ho – in a dark alley somewhere.”

Lady Sybil Crawley (Jessica Brown Findlay): No one ever learned anything from a governess except for French, and how to curtsy.

Charles Carlson, Butler (Jim Carter): We may have to have a maid in the dining room.

Robert Crawley, the Earl of Grantham (Hugh Bonneville): Cheer up, Carson. There are worse things happening in the world.

Carson: Not worse than a maid serving a duke.

Mary Crawley, eldest daughter (Michelle Dockery): Our dentist is horrid

Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham (Maggie Smith): What’s a weekend?

I’ve been binging on Downtown Abbey the past couple of weeks in preparation for the show’s sixth and final season, which premiered last night; it’s already ended over in the U.K.

I actually came “ratha” late to this period drama, picking it up somewhere in its fourth season. My daughter had been raving and recommending it for quite a while, but I had avoided it, thinking it a rip-off or tired replay of Upstairs Downstairs, the classic BBC series that had aired on PBS from 1971 to 1975. And in many, many ways, of course it is. However, the big difference, aside from the modern production values, including location shooting, is that is that Upstairs Downstairs concerned the lives of a family and their servants in London’s fashionable Belgravia neighborhood – “city dwellers” – while Downtown Abbey tells the story of a titled aristocratic family who are historic estate holders in the Yorkshire countryside.

The events of the early 20th century changed the British societal hierarchy, something that had held rigid and unbending for centuries. Social historians mark the sinking of the Titanic in April 1912 as the first crack in this structure, and Downton Abbey began with this, as Robert Crawley, the seventh Earl of Grantham, is told that his designated heir went down with the liner leaving only a distant cousin, a “middle-class” untitled lawyer, as his successor. His oldest daughter, Mary, cannot be considered to follow Robert because of the long-established and legal tradition of the “entail” which endows titles and estates exclusively on male heirs. (It was only in 2013, with the passing of the Succession to the Crown Act by Parliament, that the laws of succession were changed to allow the first-born, regardless of sex, to inherit the crown.)

The British political Marconi scandal of late 1912, World War I, the 1918 Spanish Influenza epidemic, the birth of jazz and the “Roaring Twenties,” the formation of the Irish Free state, the Teapot Dome Scandal, the first Labor government in British history, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in India – reference Richard Attenborough’s 1982 Ghandi – and the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 (in which Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party first failed to seize power in Munich) all figured predominantly as the series progressed, as these historical events shaped and shoved and remolded Downton Abbey and the real estates on which it is based into either something new and thriving, or destroyed them and the villages that had grown up around them.

It remains to be seen, at least here in the United States, if the fictional Downton will also die, or, like Highclere Castle, the 5,000 acre estate and filming location in Hampshire that stands in for the main “house” on the show, will adapt to the currents of history and thrive.

I hear there are already whispers of a movie.

Ed Catto: Share and Share Alike

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JSA ALL Star OrdwayRecently Paramount and Hasbro announced that they’d be creating a “shared cinematic universe” for several of their toy properties, including G.I. Joe, Micronauts, M.A.S.K., ROM and Visionaries. On one hand this is a reaction to the disappointing G.I. Joe movie franchise, but on the other hand it’s another example of the business world learning lessons from Geek Culture. Call it a shared universe, team-up or a crossover – passionate superfans know and understand the power of this narrative tool.

In the early days of comics, two separate (but related) comic companies, All-American Comics and National Comics joined forces in a sort of Nerd-Glasnost to combine several of their second tier characters into one big adventure. The publication All-Star Comics showcased a club of super-heroes called the Justice Society of America. The concept took hold and captured the imaginations of fans with a tenacity that resonates to this day.

world's_finest_1968_#179_27And a few years later National Comics, when faced with wartime paper allocations, decided that the anthology series World’s Finest Comics would combine the two of the strips in each issue. So for a while Batman and the Superman each had their own individual stories in this comic, but then they were combined into a single team-up story. This way, both heroes could adventure together in fewer pages.

The implication was clear: all these wonderful characters exist together in the same world. At first, they would seldom cross paths with one another. But then the Marvel Universe ushered in a new wave of team-ups and face-offs. In that mythology, heroes like Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and Thor were practically tripping over one another as they worked (primarily) in New York City to fight the latest threats to civilization as we know it.

Of course, there is historical precedent. The mythology we now routinely consider as the definitive King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table story is actually a patchwork quilt of various stories, legends and heroes. Like the Justice Society of America, they were incorporated into one grand narrative.

FF 73Likewise, Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe is notable for co-opting the Robin Hood legends. Robin of Locksley is a supporting character in this medieval “Knights in Shining Armor” saga. But like Fonzie in Happy Days, he would outshine and outlast the primary cast to become one of the most enduring characters of all time.

On the silver screen, Universal understood this concept, and routinely teamed up their big monsters, Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolf Man, in a series of movies. And they even crossed over with the long running Abbott and Costello series in the classics, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and Abbott And Costello Meet the Mummy.

The crossover mania continues. As recently as this fall, Fox crossed over characters from two dramas on the same night – Sleepy Hollow and Bones. The DC Universe is quite facile with their interlocking TV mythology, as the Flash, Green Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow and even Constantine seem to be comfortable dropping in for occasional visits.

Knights of the Round TableAnd in February, the Superbowl continues this tradition spotlighting a meeting of what used to be the best teams from the American Football League and the National Football League. Then they essentially merged into their own shared universe.

Finally, Hollywood is getting it. The overwhelming success of the interlocking adventures in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (The Avengers, Iron Man, etc.) led the way. It is augmented by ABC and Netflix TV properties like Agent Carter, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Daredevil and Jessica Jones. We’ll see a DC (movie) Universe that fits together with Batman V. Superman, a giant monster unified mythology with Godzilla vs. King Kong, all sorts of Star Wars movies telling tales from long long ago and far, far away and even a new Universal monster-verse.

Do viewers find it complicated or burdensome? Maybe some do. But so many hard-core and casual fans seem to prefer thoughtful world building. And when the Hollywood folks driving the narratives can remember two important core mandates – tell good stories and treat the audience with respect – it all works beautifully.

 

 

John Ostrander: Think Of The Children!

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Doctor Who, the long-running BBC TV series about a humanoid alien transversing through time and space with his companions, has wound up its current season, its tenth since it’s return following a long hiatus. The current actor playing the part, Peter Capaldi, is the fourth actor (or the fifth depending how you number it) since the show returned or the twelfth or thirteenth since the show’s inception. The numbering differential is a wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey thing.

The show has sparked a discussion among the fans lately because, well, that’s what fans do, especially of a cult science-fiction show such as this one. There’s great passion and great heat as usual with these things along with the absolute conviction of one side that they are right and that those on the other side are wrong. It doesn’t matter which side of a debate you’re on, the other guy is wrong. There’s a lot of passion and maybe some thought and that’s what happens with a fan disagreement.

The current issue under debate is that Doctor Who began as a children’s show back in 1963 and it should always be a children’s show. The position of some is that the current monsters are often too scary for children, the continuity has become too complex for children, the relationships are inappropriate for children.

There’s some truth to all this, and there’s a lot of bullshit as well. The current show-runner, Stephen Moffat, also writes a number of the episodes and his fingerprints are usually all over the ones he doesn’t write. I started out as a big fan of Moffat, especially in the seasons before he became the show’s producer. At his best, Moffat writes very clever episodes with great heart. At his worst, Moffat is just being clever. I’m less impressed with those episodes than he seems to be.

Are the Doctor Who monsters too scary for children? The show has always scared children. Part of its initial burst of popularity, indeed its initial survival, rested on the Daleks, a group of alien cyborgs. They’ve been described as deranged pepper shakers, bent on conquest and the death of any species inferior to themselves which they consider all other races to be. They’re catch phrase is “Exterminate!” They scared the bejabbers out of British tykes since their first appearance. I’ve read reminiscences of Brits saying they watched the show from behind the couch or through their fingers. The world can be a scary place and all children know this. Being afraid and then seeing the monsters defeated is, I think, very healthy. Many of the classic fairy tales do this. Scaring the little bastards is a good idea. It’s part of growing up.

Should Doctor Who have remained a children’s show? I’ve worked for a long time in a medium (comics) that was considered the bastard child of children’s lit. It was off in a ghetto of its own despite the fact that elsewhere in the world, the comics medium wasn’t considered to be only for children. I’ve never considered my work to be primarily for children and, in fact, have several times steered a parent away from my work. We’ve since broken out of that artistic straightjacket with works of art such as Art Spiegelman’s Maus showing what the medium is capable of being.

That said – there haven’t been enough comics for children any more. The medium has catered to the fan and the cult without paying attention to where the next generation of readers are going to come from. That’s short-sighted. Given the multiple versions of the characters that exist, the two major publishers – DC and Marvel – should publish versions of their main characters to attract the young reader. As the kids grow into adults, you could introduce them to the more grown-up editions of the characters. That’s investing in their own characters and the future of the medium.

The question for the comics – and Doctor Who – is not just what they are but what they can be.

Marc Alan Fishman: No Star Wars for Old Men

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I know, I know, I know. Two Star Wars articles from ole’ Fish in the same number of weeks. He must be off his meds! Well, I was perfectly content to drone on this week about Jessica Jones, or really phone in my column with some generic platitudes of geekery for the new year ya’ll are celebrating here on this, the second day of 2016. But nay, I must dust off my hatespew bomber jacket and launch a complete snark to nerd strike like I haven’t had to do in the longest of times. Strap in – this is gonna be one Sith of a ride.

George Lucas came out to Charlie Rose’s Hulu series to declare that Disney – the “…white slavers that takes these things” – has shat the bed on his magnum opus, Star Wars. Yes, you read that clearly, Maz Kanata. Lucas believes that J.J. Abrams and Mickey are guilty of warping the intended vision of franchise with their “retro movie”. Per Georgie:

“They looked at the stories, and they said, ‘We want to make something for the fans’… They decided they didn’t want to use those stories, they decided they were going to do their own thing. They weren’t that keen to have me involved anyway.”

Let’s make it clear before I take my gloves off – Lucas is at peace with the sale of Star Wars. Per the interview (and others both at the original sale of the franchise and multiple since) he proclaimed his desire to move on. All he wanted to do then with Rose… was take a teeny tiny shit in the corner of the room before he left the house for good. Note that he has since redacted the “white slavers” phrase, so no hard feelings, right?

Well, maybe there weren’t any before. But now, I’m seeing red as well as Kylo Ren does in his daydreams.

It’s clear from the interview that Lucas is still very much in love with Episodes I, II, and III. His desire is still to stretch the boundaries of CGI in film. To explore new planets, new ships, and new aliens. This far surpasses any desire for good story, good performance, or good filmmaking. In his mind – per the childish retort – Abrams’ film is somehow pastiche or homage at best. That by starting from the perspective that the fans should be catered to, Episode VII is somehow a lesser product.

Of course, George Lucas is entitled to his opinion. Rare that I’d dare say this without jest behind it, but truly, his opinion is just wrong.

Beyond the overly syrupy glorification that was my column last week, I’m fairly certain most everyone has left the theater renewed in their love for that galaxy far, far away. And with a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so too, would the critics agree. It also doesn’t hurt that at the time of writing this article, the flick has grossed $1,200,000,000 – not counting any of the tie-in merchandising and futures to come. Are we all just blind? No, we’re not.

What grinds my gears to a screeching halt is the “have your cake and eat it too” attitude being presented. George Lucas walked away with four billion galactic credits with the sale of his epic franchise. And with it, should have gone his right to say anything short of a wookie moan of utter pleasure. Episode I, II, and III were a cacophony of wooden acting over thin plotting with a greasy sheen of CGI gloss so thick the 2-D prints came with a Z-axis. That here, in the wake of near global cheer over the apology that was The Force Awakens, we learn that deep down, George had his fingers crossed the whole time. Not that it matters. I think one of the better parts of this interview dropping has been my Facebook feed choked with support for the new film – and the expansion of the Star Wars brand now firmly in the hands of artisans who will bring back the spirit of collaboration that made the original trilogy the success it was in the first place.

This leads me down the path towards the bigger question of creator rights. Simply put: how well can we truly part with our creations? In the face of a big fat paycheck, can we look the other way as our brainchildren become the pawns of a new master? And regardless of whether our intellectual property is handled well, or becomes 2015’s Fantastic Four, are we allowed to publicly offer a cold shoulder and a smirk? If the blaster were held to my temple, I’d quickly say no. The check cleared, and with it any right to be involved in the conversation any longer. Especially if with that deal came the feeling that there were no “keen” feelings to share with one another once the ink was dry.

George Lucas now is akin to Anakin Skywalker. He is too worried about his own ego and power – sounding less like a Jedi master, and more like an immature child complaining about the feeling of sand in his shorts.

Martha Thomases: Listen!

Black Panther

Happy New Year! Or, if you were lucky enough to be invited to a wild New Year’s Eve party… happy Saturday!

We have 366 bright and shiny new days in which we can save the world, love our families, party with our friends, go to the movies and read comics. Time and space are great that way.

In the past year, despite Gamergate, there has been a trend towards including female characters and female perspectives in video games. In other words, the misogynist jerks who screamed about “journalistic integrity” made no difference at all in the gaming industry. In this case, I suspect the appropriate comment is, “Money talks / Bullshit walks.”

On the tale end of 2015, I read two things that really changed my worldview. The first was Between the World and Me by incoming Black Panther writer Ta-nehisi Coates. It’s a short book, but it took me a long time to get through it because it is painful to read. A letter to his son in the wake of Ferguson, Baltimore, Charleston, Cleveland (the list goes on and on and on), it is a window into the African-American experience that I had never seen.

In the middle, I read this essay on The New York Times website about, essentially, the same subject. The writer was trying to express the parts of black lives that white people don’t understand.

Naturally, he was trashed in the comments.

I don’t entirely understand this. In both of these examples, black men are writing about their personal experiences as Americans of color. They don’t say that they know every other African-American, nor do they claim to know every white person. They describe what happened to them, and what it felt like, and how it shapes their perceptions.

No one likes to be called a racist. No one likes to be called a bigot of any kind. And yet, we are all of us guilty of at least a few prejudices. There isn’t any way around it. We live in a society that was built on slavery, on sexism and homophobia and anti-Semitism and xenophobia. As a white person, I benefit from this, even though I never consciously made that choice.

A few decades ago I attended a weekend seminar on “Dismantling Racism.” I was surprised when the first day and a half was spent asking each of us to talk about ways we felt outside the norm. We might have been fat or non-white or non-Christian or disabled or foreign-born. Then, by Sunday afternoon, we were shown how to each use our differences to understand racism.

That’s a tremendous oversimplification. Nevertheless, it changed my life.

I often mention my Jewish upbringing. Being Jewish at an Episcopal boarding school was one of the defining experiences of my life. I was called names. I was required to sit through Sunday morning religious services during which they read passages from the New Testament that I knew had been used to justify the torture and murder of Jews through the centuries. When I would mention this, I would be told I was “too sensitive” and to get over it.

My experience is not the same as that of African-Americans. I can “pass” as Gentile, and I’m white. Still, my experience gives me a window through which to understand.

Black Panther is not a character I’ve ever followed. When Coates’ run starts, I’ll make sure to pick it up.

Let’s try to spend at least part of 2016 listening to each other.

Tweeks: Best Memes of 2015

In our last episode of 2015, we transform into the Meme Queens and bring you our ten favorite memes of the past year.  Which was our favorite?  John Cena? Pepe? Bread sticks? Poot? Waluigi? or Left Shark?  Watch to find out & maybe learn something so you won’t be left behind with all the moms on Facebook.

Dennis O’Neil: Time Out Time

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Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow…

Please?

The weather oracles out here say that we can expect some sleet mixed with tonight’s rain and if that happens, if we’re blessed with the “wintry mix,” we should cherish it because we may not see it again, not this year. Mighty hot winter. I would like to snort a little fire and and decry global warming, but I’m no meteorologist (and neither is your friendly neighborhood politician) and so I can’t say with any authority that global warming is the sole cause of the soaring temperatures we here in the northeast have been liking/hating. But surely the climate change is in the mix somewhere.

After tonight’s sleet, if it comes to pass, nothing more of its kind is in the forecast.

A month or two ago, we bought me some heated gloves. They’re still in the wrapping.

Meanwhile… what we have here is a bardo week – an interval. All our favorite television superheroes are having winter rests and the new entries are yet to debut. There isn’t much I can add to the dialogue. We’ve been pleasantly surprised with Supergirl; the maid of might seems to have found a comfortable niche between fantasy/melodrama and old fashioned charm and every week she gives us a pleasant hour. The other costumed heroes are holding their own and that’s righteous enough for me.

And on the cinematic front, the big movie, the one we have been anticipating as though it is the Second Coming, set box office records from the get-go and is still setting them. Looks certain to earn more than a billion dollars very early in its run. Yay, I guess. I almost wish I didn’t know that and I could look at the movie, when I get around to it, as just a movie. As disclosed in last week’s column – and admit it, you were thrilled – I saw the first Star Wars before it opened, knowing almost nothing about it, and that’s a good way to experience entertainment. Though its true that for most of mankind’s involvement with storytelling, the listeners knew the ending of the story being told before they heard it, so novelty isn’t a requirement, just something that’s occasionally nice.

Next up, and at last: Superman v Batman. That probably won’t shake the Earth, but who knows?

Later: lots and lots and lots of superhero flicks, including Suicide Squad, based on comics by our own John Ostrander.

And about those comics: Yahoo’s news column recently listed all the comics that would be available in the coming week which, once again, demonstrates that our oft-maligned medium has gained full parity with all the other media. It’s also given me a venue in which to be damn lucky and that’s no bad thing to be grateful for as one year folds into another.

Molly Jackson: Full Steam Ahead!

zik24xol_4q Full Steam Ahead

Here we are at the end of 2015. It is crazy and amazing that I have been writing at ComicMix for the past year. Personal tip: Always start things in January, it makes it easier to track time.  Right now, I’m not alone in reminiscing about the past year but frankly, I’m ready to start looking forward to all of the amazing things that 2016 will debut! Here are a few things I am getting excited about….

Next year is the arrival of famed writer Margaret Atwood’s first foray into comics with Angel Catbird from Dark Horse Comics. Atwood’s writing style never struck me as the superhero type, so it will be interesting to see how the story develops. Additionally, I am eager to see if or how the addition of a non-profit charity is integrated into the story.

The other comic I am (weirdly) excited to read is the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers comic from Boom! Studios. Yes, I have a soft spot for 90s nostalgia comics and this is no different. While I haven’t kept up with the newer series, I want to see what they do with the characters that I remember from my childhood.

Next year will also be the 50th anniversary of Star Trek. This means a year of celebrities doing fun things in memes, lots of tidbits from the new show arriving in 2017, and the new movie Star Trek: Beyond which will hopefully not suck. I also can’t wait to see what IDW Comics does to celebrate.

Most importantly, I’m interested to see how the events of this year unfold into the next. 2015 was a year of turmoil in the world. In the geek community, diversity became a polarizing issue, whether in comics, TV, or movies. There were protests about female representation in toys, which echoed loud enough for companies to being listening. Enough people clamored about diversity in comics, either for characters or creators, that it became a standard must-have question/panel at most comics conventions this year. Each week the publishers seemed to have a different answer to the problem. In the greater world, the new civil rights movement has only just begun in the US, while other countries are still fighting wars. 2016 will be a defining year for us as the human race and just might be a year of peace and understanding.

So, onward to 2016! Have an amazing New Year!

 

Mike Gold: Looking Forward

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In these waning days of 2015, our media tends to look backward at all the great stuff that came down during the previous year. That’s because there’s damn little that happens between Christmas Eve and New Year’s morn and people like me are tasked with filling space. This plays nicely with my powerful sense of cynicism. Hey, it’s a living.

But what the hell. For all practical purposes 2015 is already history (and I hope that comment doesn’t come back to bite me in my ass). Instead, in a fit of optimism I’d rather talk about what I’m looking forward to in the new year.

When it comes to the mother medium, I eagerly await the return of Bitch Planet, easily my favorite new series of 2015. Actually, I have yet to stop being pissed at Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine De Landro for having the audacity to take a vacation.

The third and final volume of the graphic novel series March, Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell story of the struggle for civil rights, is due out this coming year. If you haven’t read the first two books, you’ve got time to catch-up. This series carries my highest recommendation. By far.

DC and Marvel have retconned and rebooted and reimag

Bitch Planet, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Valentine De Landro, March, John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell, Savage Dragon, Superman v Batman, Deadpool, Doctor Strange, Benedict Cumberbatch, Agent Carter, Hayley Atwell, Civil War, Skottie Young

ined their respective universes to death, so it’s hard for me to show any enthusiasm for their upcoming projects. Why bother? They’ll only be retconned and rebooted and reimagined still again. Give me the stability and pure fun of Savage Dragon any day.

We’ve got lots and lots of comic book based movies and television coming up because Hollywood lives to run stuff into the ground. I can’t say that Superman v Batman or Civil War makes my pulse race – we’ve seen it before, and besides I have no reason to be optimistic about any Warner Bros. superhero flick. While I hope for the best, the comics movies that are putting the salt on my popcorn are Deadpool and Doctor Strange – which are two different movies.

Our pal Emily Whitten talked about the Deadpool flick in this space yesterday afternoon and backed up her enthusiasm with 32 links, so I don’t have to be repetitious. I will say that from the trailers and the hype this appears to be a movie that will either be a lot of fowl-mouthed fun and a much needed satirical jab at the form… or a complete disaster. I like both the character and the lead actor, and the campaign has been very amusing so I have reason to be optimistic. We can always use a good laugh.

Doctor StrangeDoctor Strange has been one of my favorite characters since Lee and Ditko invented the psychedelic superhero way back when I was still (barely) a pre-teen. He’s never really been able to hold onto a title of his own, but he’s been a vital – even critical – part of the MCU for over a half-century. And casting Benedict Cumberbatch as the Sorcerer Supreme (which still sounds to me like a Baskin-Robbins flavor of the month) seems perfect.

As for comics-on-teevee, I’m looking forward to the return of Agent Carter because the first series was my favorite comics-based series on broadcast television. Hayley Atwell will also be reprising Peggy Carter in the Civil War movie, which is set in contemporary time. Peggy will be real old and nobody expects her to make it to the end-credits, but, of course, that doesn’t mean she won’t be in future flicks. It’s comics, folks.

What would I like to see in 2016? Hey, I’m glad you asked. I’d like to see a year of solid storytelling that does not reply upon overworked and overproduced “events” and variant covers (except those by Skottie Young) and phony deaths – in comics, that’s redundant – and astonishing resurrections. Honest, comic books are stories; let’s get back to good stories.

You know, the kind from which they make movies and teevee shows.

Have yourself a safe, productive and amazingly entertaining new year. You deserve it.

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