Tagged: Spider-Man

MARTHA THOMASES: Frank Miller Bounceback

There’s been a lot of noise on two areas of the blogosphere that I follow – comics and politics – because Frank Miller recently posted about the Occupy Wall Street movement on his blog. My favorite response, as usual, was on TBogg’s blog, because I love me some snark.

See that photo over there? It’s had an honorable position on my refrigerator since it was taken about 15 years ago at the San Diego Comic Convention. It’s me and Frank, back when he could still walk the floor.

I’ve known Frank since the late 1970s. I met him soon after I met Denny O’Neil, and we hung out a lot when he was drawing the Amazing Spider-Man Annual #14. My friend, Legs McNeil <http://www.amazon.com/Legs-McNeil/e/B000APOLAA>,  was (and is) a huge comic book fan. He managed a band, Shrapnel, that was essentially Sgt. Rock set to music. We conspired to put them into an issue of a comic book, a mission that required many trips to CBGBs.

I don’t remember talking politics with him, but its possible that I did. There are a lot of people in comics that I like, but with whom I disagree politically. Dan Jurgens, Larry Hama, Chuck Dixon – we don’t agree, and that’s fine. We also tend to like different kinds of music, movies and books. We have fun conversations.

Our disagreements never led me to boycott their work. And I’ll boycott quite easily. For example, I haven’t bought any Revlon cosmetics since Ron Perelman plundered Marvel.

But I won’t give up something that gives me joy. If my joy is ruined by my disagreement with the owner or creator, then I’ll give it up.

What amused me about this particular kerfuffle is that, once you got away from the comic book sites, the reactions were fairly hilarious. Most people seem to think that Frank Miller, not Zach Snyder, was responsible for the movie, 300. It’s true that Snyder spent a lot of time and energy trying to mimic specific pages of Frank’s work, but he also added a lot of other stuff to fill out the 117 minutes of playing time.

I disagree with Frank on this issue. I think he’s wrong, profoundly wrong. I think he’s far away from this issue, and getting his information from less than reliable sources.

But I don’t think he deserves to be called names. As grown-ups who defend the free exchange of ideas, we can disagree with each other. We should. But it’s bad for the country when we descend into name-calling.

In other words, this.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

MIKE GOLD: Disney Does Marvel

As is well-known, the Walt Disney Company purchased Marvel Comics a little over two years ago. Marvel joined the Muppets, Pixar, ABC and ESPN as tentacles of that great evil media empire that has done so much to homogenize the American culture. After all the jokes died down, some people wondered why the Mouse wanted the House that Jack Built in the first place.

Disney is a movie company, and Marvel’s shiniest family jewels – Spider-Man and The X-Men – were in the hands of competing studios (Columbia Pictures and 20th Century Fox, respectively) and aren’t likely to revert any time soon. The sundry Avengers characters were in the hands of Paramount Pictures, although Disney was able to purchase a nice reversion deal here. But, still, the motion picture revenue picture was severely compromised by the Spidey and X deals, and made all the more expensive by the Paramount buy-back. So, the question “why” certainly is valid.

Nobody that big buys a publishing venture – certainly not a comic book publishing venture – for the profits it will generate on its own. The phrase “fart in a blizzard” comes to mind. Merchandising and licensing revenues can be fairly attractive and Disney/Marvel/Muppets are a good fit. But… still… why?

I think we’re beginning to see the real reason. Disney owns ABC, which includes ABC Family, the Disney Channel, Disney XD (which already carries many of the Marvel animated shows), Playhouse Disney, Disney Cinemagic, Hungama, Jetix, Radio Disney, SoapNet, WABC-TV New York, KABC-TV Los Angeles, WLS-TV Chicago, WPVI-TV Philadelphia, KGO-TV San Francisco, KTRK-TV Houston, WTVD-TV Raleigh-Durham, and KFSN-TV Fresno, and as the various ESPN channels – possibly excluding “El Ocho.” Plus all kinda stuff overseas.

One can argue that teevee in general doesn’t have much of a future, and I might agree. But teevee programming has one hell of a great future no matter what platform we’ll be enjoying in the future: cable, satellite, computers, tablets, integrated teevee/computer systems, visors, brain implants, whatever. And that’s where the Mighty Marvel Money Machine will become the Mouse’s cash cow, true believer.

Disney already has The Hulk, Cloak and Dagger and Alias in development. Of course “Alias” has to be renamed – it’s working under the title “a.k.a. Jessica Jones” right now, and the show includes both Luke Cage and Carol Danvers. Mockingbird is also in development as a Miley Cyrus style kids show, possibly as fodder for the ABC Family network.

Step back a pace and take a look at what’s going on here.

Most of these shows are built around female superheroes. As headliners, such characters are anathema to motion picture studios. But Disney is betting heavy, heavy bucks that the distaff side will draw a sufficient audience to warrant the investment.

That’s pretty cool – and very risky. Women heroes haven’t fared much better on the small screen: Nikita was renewed by the skin of her teeth, The Bionic Woman revival flamed out, as did Charlie’s Angels redux. David E. Kelley’s Wonder Woman didn’t make it past the pilot stage. Yet Disney is developing no less than three Marvel shows built around women.

So no matter what I might feel about Disney’s predatory influence on our culture, they are showing a great deal of courage here – courage they developed by purchasing Marvel.

Interesting.

THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil

Monday Mix-Up: “The Amazing Spider-Man” and “The Brady Bunch”

Monday Mix-Up: “The Amazing Spider-Man” and “The Brady Bunch”

  • News
  • November 14, 2011
Spider-Man shooting his web from the web shooters.

In this rare, never before seen crossover between The Amazing Spider-Man (starring Nicholas Hammond) and The Brady Bunch, we see Peter Parker in a relationship with Marcia Brady. That is, until Peter’s Spider-Sense predicts a fatal accident for Marcia. Can Spidey save Marcia in time, or will the ringing words of “with great power, comes great responsibility” prevent Peter from pursuing his heart’s desire?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxPYlnG8NPw[/youtube]

MINDY NEWELL: To Love, Honor, And Cherish Until Death – Or Editorial Decision – Do Us Part

If you’re a regular reader of this column, you know that my daughter, Alixandra Gould – yes, she’s keeping her name – married the love of her life, Jeffrey Christopher Gonzalez, last week. (A big thank you! to Mike Gold for posting a beautiful column last week that I posted on Facebook, then e-mailed to every single person I’ve ever met just to make sure they read it, and which Alix and Jeff thought was terrifically cool.) So of course I decided to write about superhero marriages this week. Not a big leap, is it?

I just finished googling “superhero marriages.” There were “about” 7,750,000 hits in 0.23 seconds, the most recent being a slide show in the Huffington Post posted only four days ago – well, five days ago since this appears on Monday – on November 9, 2011 titled “Comic Book Weddings: 8 Of Our Favorite Superhero Weddings.” In order, they are (1) Spider-Man, a.k.a. Peter Parker, and Mary Jane Watson in 1987’s The Amazing Spider-Man Giant Annual; (2) 1962’s The Incredible Hulk #319 in which Bruce Banner and Betty Ross’ nuptials are interrupted by a “special guest”; (3) The X-Men’s Scott Summers (Cyclops) and Jean Grey (Phoenix) in 1994; (4) Wonder Woman in her eponymous title married Mr. Monster in 1965 – ‘nuff said!; (5) Aquaman and Mera in Aquaman #18, 1964; (6) “Death Waits to Kiss the Bride” screamed the cover of Lois Lane #128 in 1972 – featuring the now iconic picture of Superman holding somebody’s dead body; (7) The Flash races down the altar to stop Iris West from marrying the wrong Barry Allen in The Flash #165, 1966; and (8) Wonder Girl, a.k.a. Donna Troy, marries Terry Long in Tales Of The Teen Titans #50, 1985.)

How did they miss Reed Richards and Sue Storm Richards, a.k.a. Mr. Fantastic and The Invisible Woman? Im-not-so-ho, Reed and Sue are the most realistically portrayed marriage “pros” in the comics universe.

The couple married in 1965, making this year the 46th anniversary of their being a Mr. and Mrs. (They look pretty damn remarkable, don’t they? Must be all those visits to the Negative Zone.) Down through the years, Reed and Sue “have and held, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health,” and have loved and cherished each other through everything the Marvel Universe could and continues to throw at them, including “real life” curves like a miscarriage, potential affairs, political differences, and a brother’s death.

Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson came pretty close in matching the Richards’ record – not in years married, but in a realistic view of marriage – but then Marvel decided to “disappear” their relationship. Clark Kent and Lois Lane had a wonderful thing going, too, but DC recently terminated without prejudice that couple, too.

And what the hell happened to Scott and Jean?

Jean Loring, the wife of Ray Palmer (The Atom) has a “mental breakdown” and goes on a rampage, killing Sue Dibny, the wife of the Elongated Man (Ralph Dibny), in one of the most gruesome scenes I’ve ever seen in any comic.

Betty Banner, wife of Bruce Banner (The Hulk) was abused, suffered miscarriages, was turned into a harpy, and died. She got better and turned red.

Shayera Hall, Hawkwoman, dead.

I’m sure glad Jeff isn’t a superhero.

TUESDAY: Michael Davis

Interview: Will Meugniot on “N.E.D.O.R. Agents”

Interview: Will Meugniot on “N.E.D.O.R. Agents”

  • News
  • November 9, 2011

With a resume that could best be described as the very definition of awesometasticness, Will Meugniot is a working legend. Given the opportunity to sit down with him–if only through these odd and twisted halls of the interwebs and Skype–I was tempted to simply pelt him with geeky question after geeky question. Allow me a quick explantion: Reading through his resume, Will Meugniot has worked on an amazing array of projects anyone in Generation X or before would swoon over. As a storyboard artist, writer, producer, and director for (amongst other things) Captain Planet, EXOsquad (aka EXO-Force as you’ll see in our next installment), Jem, Slimer and the Real Ghostbusters, and comics like Tigra, The DNAgents, and Vanity… suffice to say I had a hard time not grilling the poor man for several days.

As we mentioned previously, Will is writing and drawing a brand new comic with an old school feel. The N.E.D.O.R. Agents will be hitting your local comic shop shelves, today (November 9th, 2011), and Will was nice enough to sit down with me to give all you ComicMixers the 411. And don’t worry, we totally dish on his work in animation, later this week. Read on!

COMICMIX: Before we get ahead of ourselves, could you tell me, and all of those butchering your name from above how we pronounce your last name?

WILL MEUGNIOT: It’s pronounced Min-Ee-Oh. I think many people have [butchered my name] in the past. Mark Evanier and I used to dub ourselves “The most unpronounceable team in comics!”

CMIX: First and foremost, let’s talk about what brings you here today… the N.E.D.O.R. Agents… Give the ComicMix readers the ‘elevator pitch’ of the project.

MEUGNIOT: First and foremost, it’s a piece I myself would want to be reading right now. N.E.D.O.R. Agents is a period piece; taking these characters from the 40s and reviving them into 1965. I’m treating them the same way other publishers treated revival characters like Captain America, Green Lantern, Flash, and characters of the period were. This is an update for the atomic age. It places these classic characters of the 1940’s in the world of 1965, and the race to space. Of course the race is interrupted by aliens who are already invading Earth!

CMIX: And are the characters being “retconned” here into starting their careers in 1965, or have they simply been elsewhere?

MEUGNIOT: Well, actually the reason these characters haven’t been seen since the 40’s (as you’ll find within the story) is because they have been secretly forming a covert team of superpowered individuals to fight an impending invasion. Now 20 years after the creation of that agency, we’re catching up with them and their super kids!

(more…)

Julie Taymor Suing ‘Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark’ Producers

Julie Taymor Suing ‘Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark’ Producers

  • News
  • November 8, 2011
Julie Taymor at the 2009 premiere of the Metro...

Meanwhile, Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko still doesn’t see a single dime from the show. Or the movies. Or the comics. Or any of a thousand different licenses of the character he co-created. So if we’re going to start talking about copyright infringement, let’s go back a bit, hmmm?

NEW YORK (AP) — Director Julie Taymor sued the producers of “Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark” Tuesday, saying they violated her creative rights and haven’t compensated her for the work she put into Broadway’s most expensive musical.

Charles Spada, an attorney who filed the suit on behalf of the Tony Award-winning director, said Tuesday in a statement that “the producers’ actions have left her no choice but to resort to legal recourse to protect her rights.”

Rick Miramontez, the show’s spokesman, was not immediately aware of the copyright infringement lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Taymor was not available to comment.

The lawsuit seeks half of all profits, gains and advantages derived from the sale, license, transfer or lease of any rights in the original Spiderman book along with a permanent ban of the use of Taymor’s name or likeness in connection with a promotional film without her written consent. It also seeks a jury trial to determine her share of profits from the unauthorized use of her book, which the lawsuit said was believed to be in excess of $1 million.

via Julie Taymor sues ‘Spider-Man’ producers – Yahoo! News.

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JOHN OSTRANDER: Comics Lied To Me!

I’ve had some medical tests recently. Seems I have heart palpitations; lordy me, Ah do seem to be a swoon and mint julep away from being a Southern belle. (Hm. Wonder if they make chocolate mint juleps?) It means that my heart skips a beat every so often.

So I went to a cardiologist and he set up a battery of tests to see what this all means. In the first one, they injected a radioactive tracer so they could then do X-rays of my heart from different angles and see what’s going on.

I was ready. I knew the score. If comic books have taught me anything, it’s that radioactivity triggers a DNA change and gives you super-powers. Prime example is Spider-Man – got his powers from a radioactive spider, right? The Hulk got his from gamma radiation, which is a type of nuclear radiation, right? And it was a stress test, okay? What happens when you combine radiation and stress? The Hulk.

So I figured the radioactive stuff would combine maybe with X-rays and I’d get X-ray vision whenever I stressed out. Or maybe a bug might creep into the machine and I’d get X-ray and bug like powers. Spider-Hulk.

All I got was a bill. Not a duck bill. Or a goose bill. I received a financial statement saying I owed them money. What a rip off!

They also did what is called an “Echo Test” a couple of days later. It’s like when they do a sonogram for pregnant women using ultrasound only they do it for the heart. Ultrasound, eh? Okay, that could become something. Something ultra. I know the Ultra line was a failed bunch of comics for Malibu that Marvel bought up and forgot they had until recently… but it could maybe work, right? Combine ultrasound with the radioactive particle and the stress test and maybe I wind up with ultra hearing and X-ray vision. Add in any Hulk-like side effects and now we’re getting somewhere!

Zap. Zilch. Nada. Nothing. That’s what I’ve gotten. So far.

When they did the second part of the stress test, I had a choice. I could climb on a treadmill and get my heart rate up to a certain point or they could do it via an injection of chemicals that would also make my heart beat faster. Of course, some of the shots of the naked Scarlett Johansson – soon to return as the Black Widow in The Avengers flick – that popped up on the web would also probably do the trick but I wasn’t offered that option.

It was a hard choice. We all know about the treadmill in The Flash and how he uses it combined with his superspeed for time travel. Maybe being on the treadmill would combine with an increased heartbeat and would trigger the change. Seemed reasonable.

I opted, however, for the chemical version for three reasons. One – that seemed more likely to interact with the other events and convert my DNA to complete the change. Two – if I got superspeed and went back in time, I might change a little something that would induce a reboot of reality and DC just did that and it resulted in a skinny Amanda Waller. Third – I could do the test lying down. At my age, if you can do something lying down, that’s the option you take.

So I got the chemicals injected, waited forty minutes for them to travel through my system, and went back for more x-rays. I had high hopes for this one. I’d seen Captain America – The First Avenger and that’s more or less what they did with Steve Rogers: injected him with chemicals and bathed him in rays. That turned out pretty spiffy, right? Not only did he get turned into Captain America but it was a pretty darn good superhero film to boot.

SPOILER WARNING: There are no spoilers. You already can guess the outcome. I just got test results is all. They said I was normal. Normal. Since when?

I go in to see the cardiologist next week to get the findings. Friends have suggested that all I’ll get told is that I have an overheated imagination.

If there’s a cure for that, I’m out of a job.

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

DENNIS O’NEIL: Prematurely White

By now you know, unless you’re a fan who really reads nothing but comics and sees/hears nothing that’s not comics related: we had us a storm, we north easterners, and it was a humdinger. Lots of snow – lots! – before Halloween which royally screwed things up hereabouts and drove Mari and me onto the wet and gleaming roads looking for a motel with a vacancy because our house had neither heat nor light. Main problem seemed to be that the trees still bore leaves and their weight, added to the weight of the snow, caused the timber to fall, much of it across power lines. Cue music:

Away in a manger

No crib for a bed,

Poor little Denny

Lay down his bald head…

Okay, wrong holiday and we did a bit better than Joe the Carpenter and his family. We found a Holiday Inn near the Jersey border that had suffered a cancellation and so we didn’t have to spend the dark hours in a cold house, a car, or a manger.

And you know, I’m not complaining! I choose to live here, partly because I like the seasons and, as Diana Ross admonished, “take the bitter with the sweet.” Mari and I can consider the whole thing an unexpected little adventure, though if the power hadn’t returned this morning, I’d probably be calling it something else.

Of course, if I lived in Peter Parker’s New York I wouldn’t be bothered by meteorological matters. Same would be true if I lived in Metropolis, Star City, Gotham City…anywhere in comicbookland. There’s seldom snow there, or much rain, not a lot of wind or heat or humidity, and that’s a minor league shame.  Not that I’d want Pete’s Spidey suit sticking to his armpits, or Batman have to put on galoshes over his boots. But in a story, weather can be a tool. It can add texture and realism to the fictional settings, complications to the hero’s various quests (and without complications, those quests aren’t terribly involving). It can even be a major plot point, one that drives the action of the narrative. Or a source of humor. Or a reflection of the protagonist’s psyche. It can establish mood and it can help to establish locale. It could give a city character, as fog does for London and San Francisco or rain does for Seattle.

What is the weather like in Star City? Does the local television weather guy begin every report with, “It looks like another bland day here in our area…”

The exception, as is so often the case, is Central City, the New York doppelganger where Will Eisner’s Spirit fought whatever Eisner thought up to give him problems. It rains there. And snows. And gets warm. And the stuff is a joy to read, and if you’re looking for some recommended reading, well…most, if not all, of the Spirit stories have been reprinted. What I’m saying is, no excuses.

But for now…Hey look! A tree has fallen across my front yard. That hasn’t happened since…the damn hurricane a few months ago.

Maybe I should move to Metropolis.

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

Happy 84th Birthday, Steve Ditko!

And those are just the characters he created for DC. We won’t even mention Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, the Question, Mr. A…

But who, you may still ask, is Steve Ditko? By a handy coincidence, there was an hour-long documentary four years ago asking that very same query…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfxVO0fLHvA[/youtube]

Long may he wave.

Monday Mix-Up: “The Brave And The Bold: The Lost Issues”

  • Uncategorized
  • October 31, 2011

The patron comic book of Monday Mix-Up has always been The Brave And The Bold, a comic book that delighted in mashing up weird combinations of characters, usually Batman with characters that made almost no sense to combine with, like Deadman, Kamandi, Jonah Hex, Sgt. Rock, Adam Strange, Lois Lane, Scalphunter, the Legion of Super-Heroes, the Unknown Soldier, the Guardians of the Universe, the Joker, R’as al Ghul, and the House of Mystery. This tradition has been carried on in the TV series [[[Batman: The Brave And The Bold]]], which has included many of those combinations and added Space Ghost to boot.

But for some, those combinations just aren’t going far enough. For those, we present The Brave And The Bold: The Lost Issues. Now you can find the missing team-ups with Batman and Jack Bauer, Iron Man 2020, Spider-Man 2099, Harvey Birdman, Groo, Galactus, Dirty Harry, Darth Vader, and Adam West.

Not to be outdone, if you delve into the archives you can also find all the missing Marvel Two-In-One issues where the Thing meets Young Justice, Vampirella, Wallace & Gromit, Tintin, the Warlord, Snoopy, the Spirit, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Walking Dead, and Thing #2 and Thing #1.

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