Now that The Amazing Spider-Man is out on DVD and Blu-Ray, there is now a short video, “Everything Wrong With The Amazing Spider-Man In 2 Minutes Or Less”, that gives us 53 different Movie Crimes crimes throughout the film, like Peter Parker’s Comics-Code safe usage of the phrase “Mother Hubbard” and his magic skateboard. (Warning: There are spoilers in this video.)
I do have to admit that we glossed over a lot of these in our review when the movie first came out in July. What about you? What do you think was missed?
No doubt those of you who troll the Internets or saw The Hobbit were privy to the new trailer for Zack Snyder’s Man Of Steel. My Facebook feed was deluged with tons of praise, mirth, and, most scary to me… hope. Maybe it’s being in the company (and five-a-day e-mail chains) of Mike Gold, but color me doubtful. Not that Mike isn’t anything short of a ray of sunshine mind you… but I digress; I’m none-to-impressed with the footage. That is to say, I didn’t see anything that makes me less uneasy about the future of the DCU on film.
Before I get into the nitty gritty, let me first state: the trailer looks good. Great even. There’s a metric ton of things to like about it. Much like it’s Darker-Knightier cousin, the film embraces a realism that the House of Mouse is way to scared (or smart, maybe… more on that later…) to attempt. The cast is absolutely top notch. Kevin Costner’s Pa Kent is one part Field of Dreams and zero part Water World. Amy Adams is both easy on the eyes and known to be more than being easy on the eyes. And supporting cast like Christopher Meloni, Russell Crowe, Diane Lane, and Laurence Fishburne? Well, it’s not a surprise that the hype machine is already on overdrive here. And what we do see when the tights are put on? A CG’ed Big Blue that feels weighty, and dare I say… awe-inspiring. Even if the suit looks like it’s been run roughshod through the ‘Texturizer’ filter in Photoshop.
The key though, to me, is the tone and direction of the film. I’m not saying Warner Bros. shouldn’t be trying to replicate the success of the Nolan-verse. What I am saying though is that it takes the one thing about Superman above all else, optimism, and smashes it to oblivion. From the waning palette Snyder and his cinematographer employ, to the numerous long-shots of angst, sadness, and emoting… it certainly feels like this film will take every last second of its running time to get us to a place of joy. And while I trust Nolan as a producer, and Goyer and Nolan to write the film wonderfully, I can’t help but be tepid to declare anything but skepticism until I see it. Not because I want to be an internet troll, hell-bent on hate. But because I’ve been burned before by the Brothers Warner. Fool me once, shame on me.
Imagine my glee when DC decided to launch big-budget-dollars into a GL picture. They snagged a director who handled action before. They landed a star who could fight Chris Evans for funniest-but-could-be-serious-and-is-good-looking-in-spandex with Ryan Reynolds. It was lauded by Geoff Johns as being everything he’d hoped for. And we went to the multiplex, oath memorized. And we left the multiplex, trying forever to forget it. While there will be debate amongst people which of the Marvel-Avengers-Verse was imperfect (perhaps the Hulk movie, or maybe Thor?)… Green Lantern couldn’t even lick the dirt of the bottom of Mickey’s yellow bootie in comparison. And this was supposed to be the first DC film to rival Marvel.
Let’s do the math. Let’s envision the best possible scenario from Man Of Steel. Say it’s everything we wanted and more. The story, in spite of any cues in the trailer, is full of joy, and more important… action. Good looking action. Empowered by a top notch script akin to The Dark Knight; heady, but satisfying. And better yet? It’s a box-office smash!
Now what?
This is where my real fear lay. Because, I truly want this film to succeed. I love DC in spite all the venom I’ve spit at it lately. If Man Of Steel is a rousing success, there’s no doubt in my mind that WB will dictate that the eventual Justice League movie will now need to match the Nolan-verse. And for those keeping score, a gazillion sites have posted rumors that Joseph Gordon-Leavitt will play Batman in that film. Movie-goers may be able to buy that Spider-Man and The Hulk can be rebooted every 3-4 years. But would they believe JGL as Bruce Wayne when the last time we saw him he was Robin-Cum-Batman? And if his newly-gifted Batsuit makes him the man behind the cowl, WB is essentially resting the weight of the world on Christopher Nolan’s shoulders. And who here could say that a movie with 7 super-heroes could still feel weighty and realistic? It may by the straw that breaks Nolan’s back (and interest). And then, the helm will be passed to someone (anyone) who wants to not make their version of the Justice League… but the Nolan-version so dictated by Brother Eye. You dig?
And what of the tone and realism? In a Batman movie, playing things close to reality isn’t so much a stretch. Batman is, for the most part, as believable as one would get when it comes to super-heroics. But Superman? Well, that’s the polar opposite. No matter how much super-science you throw at it, it’s still a guy defying every law, be it biological, chemical, or physical… in order to preserve the peace. By his very nature, Superman is the anti-thesis to the real world. And look if you will, to the competition. Marvel presented the world with Iron Man, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, and Thor. Each of these movies balances the surreal with the real, and when it came time for the big team up?
We got golden gliding mindless aliens to smash for the better part of an hour. And we ate it up to the tune of a billion or so dollars. Marvel aimed and fired into the heart of the 13+ demographic, and hit the bulls-eye a hundred times over. Batman Begins / The Dark Knight / The Dark Knight Rises did brilliantly too, of course, but as I’ve certainly argued… it wasn’t hard to do it. And let us all be honest again. Rises was good, but not great. Man Of Steel in its 150 second trailer, contained more angst in it per frame than every Marvel movie in the last decade combined. Will it be too much for the movie going public to spend 59 minutes in perplexed sorrow for the final action sequence when Kal-El excepts his destiny and power-punches Zod to oblivion? More importantly… how will we react to it, when the dust settles… and no one asks to get a schwarma?
It’s all speculation, I know. But I couldn’t help myself. When the social media boards light up with praise and joy, I second guess it. Man Of Steel has the potential to do the impossible. But I won’t believe the miracle until I see it with my own eyes. Up, up, and away.
We used to be the bastard child of our American culture.
We were embarrassed by our public image. As we aged, we demanded our pastime mature along with us. We started to infiltrate the means of production, bringing our all-important ideas and ideals along with us. After all, the comics field skipped a generation – few could enter a business that, in the 1950s, was rapidly shrinking. Besides, the Reader’s Digest and the Saturday Evening Post were painting comic book writers and artists as child pornographers. Better to write for the torrid magazines where buff, all-American manly men were saving all-American buxom brunettes from Uncle Joe Stalin and his legion of rodent-faced S & M fanatics, leaving the comics door open for those starry-eyed youngsters who knew no better.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and publishers facing diminished profits understood that our generation worked for a lot less money than the cranky old geezers who wanted to unionize. This same generation was also entering the rest of the public media. Together, we took pleasure in the modern media adaptations of our favorite characters because at least they took our childhoods seriously.
Then we got legitimate. It’s all Richard Donner’s fault. He made Superman – The Movie, the first massive attempt to portray the American comics medium as a serious, legitimate part of our cultural heritage. It was as successful as it was straight-forward, well-produced, well-acted, and well-written. Heroic fantasy took hold of a greater percentage our culture and hasn’t let go.
Comics were taken seriously. The stuff was taught in colleges and in art schools. A decade later Batman came out, upping the ante all the more. Then the Spider-Man movies, the X-Men, the Avengers Universe… Our pastime was generating more revenue in theaters and on television in two years than it had on the newsstands in the previous fifty combined.
And then the people who owned the movie studios that always offered style over substance – style über alles – began to understand there was money to be made in them thar hills. Talent was discounted as necessarily expensive bait. Warner Bros. realized they actually owned a major comic book company, a fact that was purposely kept mostly hidden from them for decades by that very comic book company. Disney understood that the House of Mouse lacked a relevance to the 21st Century audience and their subsequent creations, as popular as they were, weren’t the cultural icons that were found at the House of Ideas. So the Mouse bought them.
And now, more than ever, its employees are being treated as cogs in these massive corporate machines. They need to be oiled and dusted and maintained for a while, but you can replace any or all of the cogs without damaging the icons, without diminishing the shine on the family jewels.
And so we grieve and we fret each time another massively talented creator gets replaced. But that’s how it works in the legit world.
In last Monday’s New York Times Media Watch columns, they ran a list of the ten films released this year that had the highest box office ion their opening weekends. What’s amazing to me is that the top five (Marvel’s The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, Hunger Games, Amazing Spider-Man and Twilight: Breaking Dawn: Part 2) can all be classified in the fantasy genre, or, as I like to call it, nerd stuff.
Of the next five (Skyfall, Brave, Ted, Madagascar 3 and Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax), three are aimed primarily at children, and one is a James Bond film, which has its own separate but overlapping geek audience. Only Ted could be considered a movie aimed at what was once the wide, mainstream audience, and even then, because it is an R-rated comedy, that limits the wideness.
When did our beloved nerd culture become so dominant? I was certainly the only girl in my high school (which was all girls) who read superhero comics, and if anyone else read science fiction or fantasy, they were in the closet about it.
Even in the 1980s, when Frank Miller and Alan Moore and Art Spiegelman were publishing work that attracted mainstream media attention, there wasn’t much spillover to the medium of graphic storytelling.
When I first went to work for DC, the most common reaction I encountered when people learned what I did was, “Do they still publish those?”
For that matter, even today, the success of the movies listed above doesn’t do much for comics. There’s a history of tie-in films boosting the sale of books (for example, Gone With the Wind), but that doesn’t always overlap to your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, or comic book store.
Still, I don’t think fans like us can claim to be outsiders anymore. We might not be the cool kids, but we aren’t unwanted loners, either. What are today’s nerds about?
Is it Steampunk? Is it libertarian politics? Are there still obscure rock bands to follow, or has everything been American Idol’d to a bland pap. What distinguishes the kids getting beat up and/or ostracized today?
DC and Marvel revamp their characters a lot. A lot. They’ll give suits and names to new people, give them back to the originals again, come up with interpretations so far afield of the original that there’s nothing left but the name. And they all fail or succeed at varying degrees. While it may not actually be the case, Aquaman is generally considered to be the most-rebooted character in DC Comics. There were so many versions of him that he was declared “radioactive”, and left to lay fallow for many years until Geoff Johns had the time to come back to him and start him anew, largely by going back to basics. Not exactly ignoring everything that’s come before, but by creating a good enough current version that people were willing to forgive and forget the past.
After a bit of thought, I came to the conclusion that the most rebooted character in Marvel Comics is The Hulk. Not in the sense of a new origin or person in the suit, so to speak, but in the vibe between the character and his alter-ego. The battle for control between Bruce Banner and The Hulk has been there since day one. But the winner in the game, and the playing field on which the battle has taken place, has changed more often than Katy Perry after her third encore. The Hulk has been made intelligent, made less intelligent, been shot off into space, made MORE intelligent, been separated from Bruce Banner, been re-integrated, and any number of permutations of those scenarios in between. Some have lasted years, like Peter David’s awesome run, and some, like John Byrne’s, barely got out of the gate. Most recently, we’re gained three more Hulks of varying genders, hues and textures, the original Green guy has been separated from Banner (again, see above list), and Banner was some sort of Dr. Moreauesque madman that The Hulk was out to kill. In honesty, it’s gotten so incomprehensible that I had to walk away from it all and just wait for the inevitable turn of the wheel.
And turn it has.
DC took the plunge a year ago and rebooted everything, giving them a chance to wipe the slate clean for any character that wasn’t working at what they thought at their full ability, and subtly leave alone the stuff that was (i.e., Batman and Green Lantern). And largely, it’s been a success. Marvel, all the while swearing it isn’t a knee-jerk reaction to DC’s relative win, has chosen to drink from the same hole. They’re restarting their books, with new titles, numbering and creative teams (save for Dan Slott remaining on Spider-Man, for which we are all rightly thankful). The new books do not reboot the characters in the brute-force way that DC has, but with each new creative team comes the opportunity to take the characters in A Bold New Direction.
Mark Waid, who has recently shown great style and grace on Daredevil, has been handed the reins to The Hulk in his new title, The Indestructible Hulk. Like all the new titles, it features a new hook to hang the character on. Banner and Hulk are one again, And Banner has taken a new tack in the battle – management, as opposed to containment or cure. So he resolves to do as much as he can to make amends for The Hulk’s actions while he’s in charge, and when he’s not, places himself in trust of people who can point The Hulk in the right direction so he can at least smash things that need smashing. Both of these strategies are achieved by both turning himself in to, and applying for a job with, SHIELD. He makes the case for both by presenting an invention that can purify the atmosphere and eliminate airborne diseases, and by taking out The Mad Thinker virtually single-handed – I’ll leave it to you to determine which alter-ego does which.
It’s a neat idea that goes in new directions. Like Hank Pym and Peter Parker, most writers forget that Bruce Banner is a top-level scientist, one of the greatest minds in the world. But, as he says in the book, he’s largely courted not for his brains but his body. In the past, Banner’s role has largely been that of plot-device. When he’s not his own hapless sidekick that gets in trouble at the worst moments, he’s the guy who creates a device at the last moment to control The Hulk, or at least try to. Both Pym and Parker have gotten more of a chance to let their genius shine brighter, and so far it’s stuck. Giving Banner a chance to do the same is a good idea.
I have worries, or more correctly, facets of the same worry. Namely, the book is eternally named after the muscular side of the pairing, and I’ll be curious to see how long readers will read about a scientist before they demand they Get To The Fucking Monkey. Waid has done an astounding job at character work in his career, and it’s that talent that will be needed to make the readers care as much about the brains as they do about the brawn. The first issue goes a long way towards that goal – Hulk appears less than Banner does, and Banner’s scenes in a small town diner do more to drive the plot than the Hulk pager do. Banner talks a good game, but his words could just as easily be interpreted as those of an addict trying to explain how he’s got it all figured out, this time it’ll work, he can cope with his issues.
And that sort of leads into the other facet of my worry. Like Aquaman, Hulk has been re-imagined SO many times, it’s hard for me to imagine a take that will last. It seems almost as if Waid has taken that into consideration here. Anything, ANYTHING that Banner tries to do with The Hulk is one tantrum away from falling apart. This seems like a very good idea, and Waid’s writing makes me want it to last. But too often in comics is the desire, both by the readers and the company, for a character to return to first position. So as much as I like the new improved Hank Pym, I fear that another writer is going to revert him to the bitch-slapping paranoid. So too here – I dread the day that Banner’s best-laid plans go astray once again. This is a good enough take that I WANT it to succeed, though I know that it will be decided by a power over which Banner has no control: the readership.
While we’re all busy celebrating the 49th anniversary of Doctor Who and the 50th anniversary of both Spider-Man and the James Bond movies, the daddy of heroic fantasy characters quietly turned 76 way back in February. Or, depending upon how you look at it, he turned 476.
The Phantom was the very first masked, costumed hero in comics, debuting in the pages of the many Hearst papers February 17, 1936. He wore a dark outfit – when the feature added a Sunday page, an unthinking engraver made the costume purple for some unknown reason and the color stuck. He fought piracy and other crimes and handed down his clothes, his weapons, his Skull Cave, his fortune and, most important, his legacy to his son. The current guy – most have been named Kit Walker – is the 21st. This cool concept predated Doctor Who by a generation.
One would think the locals were pretty stupid to believe this dude has been the same guy all these many years. Indeed, given the fact that the base for the Phantom’s stories is in Africa (originally, it was sort of India-ish), one might even think this concept was kind of racist. Creator Lee Falk’s liberal street-cred was impeccable and he built the myth on local folk-lore and the unimpeachable fact that criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot.
As time progressed we saw African civilization modernize as we continued to see its treasures and its history plundered by contemporary pirates and opportunist Europeans. Nonetheless, about 30 years ago I was having a conversation with the features editor of the Chicago Tribune who expressed astonishment that The Phantom polled highest among its black male readership. I told him he wasn’t reading the strip very closely.
What’s remarkable – astonishing, really – is the fact that The Phantom remains in the newspapers to this very day. This is a feat unmatched by Terry and The Pirates, Little Orphan Annie, Li’l Abner, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, and just about every other continuity newspaper comic strip except Dick Tracy and Mandrake The Magician.
I should point out that Mandrake the Magician was created by Lee Falk as well… two years before The Phantom.
The original artist was Ray Moore; subsequent talent on the strip and on the comic books reads like a Who’s Who of comics: Carmine Infantino, Bill Lignante, Sy Barry, Joe Orlando, Luke McDonnell, Dave Gibbons, Dick Giordano, Don Newton, Jim Aparo, Alex Saviuk, Graham Nolan, Alex Ross, Paul Ryan, Eduardo Barreto, and Terry Beatty… to name but a few. Writers include Peter David, Mark Verheiden, Scott Beatty, Tom DeFalco, and Tony Bedard. Tony DePaul has been writing the strip for the past twelve years; he’s also written many of the comic book adventures as well. Nearly every major American comic book publisher had a turn in creating new adventures, and it remains a top-seller in Australia, Sweden, India and many other nations.
Currently, the dailies are being drawn by Paul Ryan and Terry Beatty – perhaps best known for his work on Ms. Tree – is the Sunday artist. Terry had the awesome responsibility of stepping into Eduardo Barreto’s shoes after Ed’s sudden death last year. He’s doing quite an admirable job.
I continue to be amazed by The Phantom’s enduring appeal. If your local paper isn’t carrying the feature (assuming you still have a local paper) you can read it at King Features’ excellent Daily Ink site, where they carry all of the current KFS strips, including Mandrake, as well as reprints of many of their classics, including The Phantom, Mandrake, Flash Gordon, Buz Sawyer, and about a zillion others. It costs $19.99 a year to subscribe to the whole thing, and I doubt you can spend the same amount on a better mix of comics material.
Every time we read a costumed hero comic of any sort, we owe a debt of gratitude to Lee Falk, an amazingly gifted and singularly interesting man.
“I can’t believe I agreed to this,” Bruce muttered, as he locked the front door of Wayne Manor.
“Hey, Bats!” a cheerful voice exclaimed from behind. Bruce turned.
“Peter,” he grumbled at the young man standing in the driveway. “I told you not to call me that when I’m out of the suit.”
“Sorry, Bats! Forgot,” Peter Parker replied merrily.
Bruce groaned inwardly. Here we go again, he thought. “Peter, what are you doing here?” he asked.
“I came to keep you company on the drive!” said Peter. “Plus, you know… Alfred thought if I didn’t, you might not come.”
“So… you came all the way out here just to turn around and go right back?” Bruce said wryly, walking to the car.
“Well, you know, it’s quick when you’re swinging through the air with the greatest of ease.” Peter grinned. “And Aunt May also thought it would be a good idea for me to get out of the house for a few. I think she’s kind of sweet on Alfred, actually.”
“What?”
“Oh, well, you know. I could be wrong,” Peter said mischievously. “But they were looking pretty cozy over the turkey earlier.”
“Yargh,” Bruce said in a strangled voice. “Uh… well… let’s get going, I guess.” He slung a bag into the back seat and slid into the driver’s side. Peter hopped into the passenger seat.
“How ‘bout some tunes?” Peter asked, pulling out his iPod as Bruce pulled out of the drive. He turned on the radio. “Gah!” he shouted as music blasted; then he laughed. “Wagner? Really, Bats?”
“It’s Bruce, remember?” said Bruce. “And I like Wagner.”
“Yeah, who doesn’t love Ride of the Valkyries? Nothing overdramatic about that.”
“Did you come just to make fun of my musical selections?” asked Bruce.
“Of course not! Alfred said you’ve been feeling kind of down about the whole superhero-ing thing. Like you thought maybe you’re not making much of a difference and nobody appreciates you. So… I dunno, I thought you could use some positive reinforcement. Nobody wants an emo Batman.”
“Emo… ?” Bruce spluttered.
“I’m just sayin’,” said Peter, holding up his hands in mock surrender. He plugged in his iPod. “Anyway, I asked Harry to put together a list of all the songs people have written about superheroes, so we could listen on the drive. You know, to show you how people really do look up to us and we do make a difference. Wanna hear?”
Bruce sighed in defeat against Peter’s incessant good spirits. “Sure, whatever.”
“O-kaaay! Let’s see what we’ve got,” Peter said, pressing play.
“This isn’t bad,” Bruce said after a few seconds. Then the lyrics continued. Peter glanced over at Bruce, who was now glowering at the wheel.
“Hmm… let’s try another one, maybe?” Peter said.
“Excellent plan,” Bruce replied dryly. “I have to admit I like the music, but I’m pretty glad it’s just a song. I really prefer not to think about Superman being dead.”
“Uh, yeah,” Peter said. “Let’s try again.”
“Eminem. Now that I wasn’t expecting,” said Bruce in surprise. “… Although the lyrics aren’t exactly heroic, are they?”
“True; but a) it is so cool that you recognized Eminem in two seconds flat, Bats; and b) he’s a total superhero fan. Or so I hear,” said Peter. “Oh, hey hey! This next one’s about you, I think.” They listened in silence for a minute.
Bruce winced. “Did you even listen to these when Harry gave them to you?”
“Well, okay, I didn’t have time, and I grant you it’s not the greatest song ever… but at least Gotham has its own theme song!” Peter chirped.
“Yeah, somehow I don’t think it goes with the actual ambience of the city,” Bruce deadpanned. “Next.”
A jaunty tune filled the car.
“‘So long, Superman’? Seriously? Catchy, but are you sure Harry isn’t on one of his Evil Goblin kicks again?”
Peter scrunched up his nose. “Well… I mean, he seemed really enthused about the playlist idea.”
“Yeaaaaah. I bet,” Bruce drawled. “Also, why are there so many songs about Superman? What about the other half of our sometimes-team-up. Namely, me? Why the inequality?”
“Dunno, Bats. ‘Once again it’s a mind bender.’“
“… Did you just vaguely mis-quote Method Man?”
“I can’t believe you got that reference. But it’s appropriate! The Wu-Tang Clan loves superheroes.” Peter scrolled down on the playlist. “Looks like Snoop Dogg does too.”
Bruce listened as they drove along. “Well, Peter, I like the rhythm… but I’m pretty sure I’ve never told Alfred to have ‘barbecued buffalo wings and a pitcher of Kool-Aid on chill.’“
“Okay, so maybe they put their own spin on things. But still! They loved you enough to make a whole song about you!”
“With sound effects and everything. I’m honored.” Bruce said, a bit sarcastically.
“Okay, okay, well hey, you know, here’s a different take,” Peter said, hurriedly pushing buttons. “I bet you love this one, huh?”
“… Is this… Prince? Prince did a Batman song? What’s this called?”
“Seriously? You’ve never seen the Batdance before? Bats, you need to get out more.”
“Clearly.”
“Oh-em-gee; I can’t wait to watch the video with you. YouTube, here we come!”
“Nice try, Peter, but I am not letting you suck me into the bottomless pit that is YouTube again.” Bruce grumped. “It’s almost as bad as TV Tropes.”
“We’ll see.” Peter hit the button again. Bruce listened in silence for awhile.
“Huh – I actually really like this one. What’s it called? Maybe I’ll have Alfred download it for me later.”
“That’s the spirit! It’s The Ballad of Barry Allen by Jim’s Big Ego.”
“That’s a ridiculous name for a band.” Bruce paused. “Good song though. Let it play.”
[3 minutes later]
“Okay, this one’s the whiniest thing I’ve ever heard. What’s it called?”
Peter squirmed a little. “Uh – Spidey’s Curse?”
Bruce laughed. “Talk about emo.” He laughed some more and Peter thought he heard a snort. “Your theme song is one long whiny drone!”
“It’s not my theme song, Bats! Anyway, I much prefer Dashboard Confessional’s take. If I had to pick, I’d go with Vindicated,” Peter said, skipping ahead again.
“Okay,” said Bruce. “I’ve actually heard that one and shockingly, I’d have to agree.”
“And you’d also have to agree that this is awesome,” Peter said, skipping to the next song.
“Well everybody likes this one. But I mean, Harry does realize it’s not actually about Tony Stark, right?”
“You know,” Peter said thoughtfully, “it’s not, but somehow it is.”
“Touché,” replied Bruce. At the beginning of the next song, he grunted. “Another Superman song? Really?”
“Yeah, but this one’s really good. I think Harry likes these next three as much as me – he put them all in a row.”
“So we could get sick of Superman getting all the good songs faster? Hey, did he put Jimmy Olsen’s Blues on there? Now there’s a song I can sympathize with.”
Peter looked over at Bruce. “Wow, Bats. Are you… are you jealous of Clark? I mean, suave billionaire that you are, I wouldn’t have thought it.”
“Of course not, Peter. You know Clark’s like a brother to me. He’s just… a little unreal sometimes, is all. I can sympathize with Jimmy. We’re only human.”
“Fair point. Ooh, here, I like this one,” Peter said, scrolling to Weezer. “Kinda makes me feel like I’m back in high school.”
“What, like yesterday?” Bruce snarked.
“Ha. Ha.” Peter replied.
Bruce swung the car into a familiar driveway to the end chords of In the Garage.
“Oh hey! We’re here. Aunt May’s going to be so happy to see you! Betchya ten bucks she tries to get you to eat something within the first three minutes.”
“No bet,” said Bruce, smiling as the door opened on Aunt May and Alfred.
“Happy Thanksgiving!” they both exclaimed, as Aunt May took the bottle of wine Bruce was holding out and gave him a big hug.
“Glad you could make it, Master Bruce,” said Alfred, as Aunt May said, “So good to see you again, Bruce. Come in, come in!”
Aunt May bustled away with the wine, calling over her shoulder, “I bet you’re hungry – but never fear! I have some mini quiches with your name on them!”
Peter and Bruce exchanged an amused look. “Thank you, Aunt May, that sounds delightful,” Bruce replied politely as they stepped inside.
“So, Bats,” Peter said quietly as they stood for a moment watching Aunt May and Alfred hurry around setting food on the table, “what did you think of the music? All those people inspired to write about us in their songs; wanting to be like us, or looking up to us, or even just thinking about what our lives are like?”
“It does lend a different perspective, I’ll admit,” Bruce replied. “Also I’ve now learned that rappers really love comics. Was that the whole playlist?”
“Nope! Guess we’ll just have to save the rest for the ride back to Wayne Manor.”
“Oh, joy,” Bruce said. But he was smiling when he said it.
“Happy Thanksgiving, Bruce.”
“Happy Thanksgiving, Peter.”
Spidey and Bats’ Infinite Playlist
Our Lady Peace – Superman’s Dead
Eminem – Superman
R. Kelly – Gotham City
Firewater – So Long, Superman
RBX, Snoop Dogg, & The Lady of Rage – Batman & Robin
Prince – Batdance
Jim’s Big Ego – The Ballad of Barry Allen
Black Lips — Spidey’s Curse
Dashboard Confessional – Vindicated
Black Sabbath – Iron Man
3 Doors Down – Kryptonite
Crash Test Dummies – Superman’s Song
Five for Fighting – Superman
Spin Doctors – Jimmy Olsen’s Blues
Weezer – In the Garage
Drowning Pool – The Man Without Fear
Method Man – The Riddler
Big Head Todd and the Monsters – Resignation Superman
Lemon Demon – The Ultimate Showdown for Ultimate Destiny
The Kinks – Catch Me Now I’m Falling
Me’shell Ndegeocell – Poison Ivy
Suicide – Ghost Rider
Saving Jane – Supergirl
Dangerdoom – Space Ho’s
moe. – Captain America
The Traits – Nobody Loves The Hulk
Sufjan Stevens – The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts
Rancid – Side Kick
Rush – Ghost Rider
Remy Zero – Save Me
Panic! at the Disco – Mercenary
Bow Wow – Batman
Anthrax – I Am the Law
Black Lab – Learn to Crawl
R.E.M. – Superman
The Brunettes – Hulk is Hulk
They Might Be Giants – Particle Man
Laverne Baker – Batman to the Rescue
The Ramones – Spider-Man
[Author’s note: Yes, yes, I crossed the streams. Sue me. But you know in a perfect world Spider-Man and Batman would be oddly fantastic friends. Anyway, Happy (slightly belated) Thanksgiving, everyone! And I hope I’ve maybe added a bit to your nerdy playlists this week. Servo Lectio!]
As I write this, my Bears are presently phoning in a performance so bad I’m opting to write my article instead. The game is on, yes. But, frankly, I’m not even paying attention. I guess I owe my bad-news-Bears a debt of gratitude, though. They are giving me the inspiration for a column this week.
Nothing grinds my gears more than a weak start. And this week past, a comic that should have been a touchdown upon reception was a weak three-and-out worthy of the finger wagging like no other. Matt Fraction and Mark Bagley’s relaunched Marvel Now Fantastic Four #1 was a let down of mammoth proportions. And it warrants a bit of a rant.
Generally speaking I like to keep my reviews (chock full of piss and vinegar) over at Michael Davis World. But I was too elated by Gail Simone’s Batgirl this week past to waste time setting fire the ‘Four. To be honest? I read the book, said “Meh,” and figured that I owed it to Fraction to give him some time to warm up. As I took a long and angry trip to my can in between botched Bear’s offensive drives, I flipped through the book once more. Maybe it’s the fact that my team is 20 points down and can’t move the ball more than my infant son. Maybe it’s the few pages I flipped to with glaringly awful moments that caused the rise in blood pressure. Either way, this book is bad.
Giving a favorite writer a pass because they’ve delivered solid performances in books prior is something I’ve done all the time. Hell, it’s the entire reason I still read Green Lantern. But it hit me; these are the pros. They are being given an opportunity I would literally kill for. Who or what would I kill? I dunno. An editor, probably. But I digress. Matt Fraction has written some amazing issue 1’s. His Invincible Iron Man, Defenders, and The Order all jump to mind. In each, Fraction is able to introduce his characters, set the tone of the book, and build a considerable world rich with continuity, but wholly original. In Fantastic Four #1, his dialogue is sloppy, his plotting predictable, and his tone is somewhere between “kiddie cocktail” and “phoning it in.”
For a man who likes the long game? Here he’s nearly parodying himself. Twenty pages of content, of which only two move the story in any direction forward. The rest? A wink, nod, and circle-jerk of continuity-heavy references and in-jokes. Number one indeed.
In The Order and The Defenders, Fraction proved to me he knew how to handle a team book. Moments are given to all the players, and in each tight scene he’s able to interject depth and clarity. He gave us a recovering alcoholic in Henry Hellrung. The other side of the coin to Tony Stark. He gave us a Steven Strange who was coherent of his foibles, but decidedly stubborn enough to ignore them. The key here was Fraction showing how he could take continuity and reshape it to match a new direction. That all being said… in a single issue of his Fantastic Four, he’s only able to deliver a single cliched plot direction, and a handful of watered down scenes built from scraps of Jonathan Hickman.
One of the few problems I had with Hickman’s run concerned the usage of ole’ blue eyes himself. The Thing was mainly sidelined due to the lack of punchable things in the very science-heavy arch. Given the pedigree of Red She-Hulk’s depiction in The Defenders gave me hope to see a Thing with a bit more depth, verve, and humor. Instead, Fraction warms up the tuba for a Yancy Street Gang joke on Ben Grimm. And when the Thing speaks? We get line after hackney’d line suitable only if he were being written for an SNL skit.
In other plot lines, we get yet-another scene of Johnny Storm showing that he’s the cocky brash ass we all know and love, and the totally mature death-defying wunderkind. He gives his cellphone number out to the gal he loves. Yippee. Sue gets to be the same invisible-to-the-fans mother role she was written to play. For a women I expect to be one of the smartest in the 616, she seems awfully daft here… not being able to read her rubber husband’s transparent motivations. And to round out the book? Franklin “Deus Ex Machina” Richards foretells of eeeeeevil afoot. It’s plot-by-the-numbers, and we deserve better.
Over in the art department, we get Mark Bagely. There was a time when I was truly enamored by his work. His work-horse attitude, and nuanced designs helped cement Ultimate Spider-Man’s first six arcs wonderfully. He was eventually poached by DC, where he was given Trinity – a series most of us would care to forget about, art included. Now back at the House of Mouse, he’s firing on all-cylanders… as a watered down John Romita Jr., delivering no memorable visual save for perhaps the last splash page.
Suffice to say, the Bears laid down and took it up the tail pipe tonight. After rereading Fantastic Four #1, I am clear in thinking Matt Fraction did much of the same. He came into the game with a crowd hungry for the next chapter. Instead, he spins his wheels, sputters trying to pick up pieces that were already left put back on the shelf neatly enough. This is not a new beginning. This is not Now. This is the a waste of my money and one I’m not likely to forget. I know the book will bounce back. But a loss is a loss. And this loss hurt something fierce.
I’m not going to allude to the events in the spoiler.
I’m going to discuss the REACTION people are having to the spoiler.
Now, Dan Slott has a Scorched Earth, Zero-Tolerance policy on spoilers for both this issue, and the two that follow, leading to the 700th (and LAST) issue of Amazing Spider-Man:
“Heads up: People are getting their hands on review/advance copies of ASM #698. I see anyone spoiling it ahead of time (before November 21st): I will BLOCK you for life on ALL social media. Very serious. We’ve worked VERY hard to keep this stuff under wraps and make this fun for people WHEN they read the book. We’ve done all we can on this end– now it’s up to you.”
He’s kept the pressure on by thanking the few people who have seen the page for keeping their mouths shut.
So as I say, I do not intend to discuss the spoiler itself, That is, other than to say it is as ground-shaking as he’s promised, or more precisely, threatened.
In honesty, it’s not technically a spoiler, in that it’s not the end of the story. It’s a single leaked page, upon which is a pretty cool plot twist. To say it’s a spoiler would be like saying the “spoiler” of Deathtrap (out today on Blu-Ray via the Warner Archives) is “And then they kiss!” That’s not the spoiler, it’s a major twist in the middle of the story, one that turns the tale on its ear. It does not tell you the ending, not even close.
The issue is expertly written. You read it through, and then this happens, and you immediately go back and re-read it, saying, “When did…” and you realize the answer is BEFORE THIS ISSUE EVEN STARTED. And you read it through again, and now every line means something WILDLY different. It’s a delightful twist, and if you went and looked at the page online yesterday, you did NOT get the full impact of the moment, and if you go and read the issue today, you will.
If you’re a Doctor Who fan, I can best compare this to the big WTF moment at the end of The Almost People. This is as good a conversation starter as that – when did it take place, how was it done, and most importantly, how will he get out of it?
People who have seen the page or read the issue seem to be making what is likely an incorrect assumption. They presume that the event in question is a harbinger of the status quo for the new series. They seem to forget that there’s two issues to go after this one. Dan Slott has started, whipped fans into a frenzy, and ended bigger storylines than this in less time. If this same exact,event occurred in, say, 648, people would be kicking up their heels and licking their lips and saying “THIS is gonna be fun!”
But the assumption is that the event will not change, not end, and represents what we will be reading in Superior Spider-Man in a few months. People who have been reading comics all their lives are suddenly convinced that this event is a fixed point in time.
And I have to wonder why.
If Superior Spider-Man was to be taken over by a new creative team, I’d be right there with you, convinced that we were in for months of A Bold New Direction, until cooler heads prevailed and we got back to reading about Spider-Man again.
This is DAN SLOTT. The man who successfully washed the taste of One More Day from our mouths with a narrative mix of peppermint schnapps and Sprite. The man who, when seeing that all the creative teams were being spun about like deck chairs in a storm on an ocean liner, lashed himself to the mast and nailed his feet to the deck.
You don’t know how it happened.
You don’t know what happens in the next one, two or three issues.
You can only look back at past performance, and extrapolate as to whether or not he’s going to write something you’ll enjoy. Not “agree with”, not “won’t get upset about”, but ENJOY.
The new world is coming — at the expense of our own. But when the blood-soaked birth of the new age begins eating up all of existence it’s up to the heroes of the Cerberus operation to hold back tomorrow and save the world they know.
This volume of the modern-day pulp sci-fi series is written by Rik Hoskin and opens a dangerous new chapter in the lives of the heroes.
About the author: Writing as “James Axler”, Rik Hoskin has been the primary author of the Outlanders series since 2008 as well as contributing several volumes to James Axler’s Deathlands. He is also a comic book author and has written Superman for DC Comics, helped develop a successful Spider-Man series for Marvel Comics’ European licensor, Panini, and currently writes for Star Wars: The Clone Wars Comic as well as several younger readers titles.
