A total of $53,455 has been raised by the Siegel and Shuster Society’s fund raising efforts after just two weeks. The $50,000 goal for exterior repairs to Jerry Siegel’s’ boyhood home was exceeded after week two’s auction haul of $18,996. Two more weeks of auction will proceed while t-shirt sales will continue. Once the auction ends, work will begin on both the exterior and interior of the home.
Our best wishes go out to all our readers in Texas and other states affected by Hurricake Ike, and we encourage folks who can afford it to help relief efforts (like this one) to help our fellow Americans. Meanwhile, we at ComicMix continue to provide our own brand of relief in the form of cultural commentary in columns and features like these from this past week:
For more comic relief, check out Tina Fey’s appearance opening Saturday Night Live‘s new season last night:
Love those Tina Fey glasses!
The major event in DC Comics in 2008 is Final Crisis, written by Grant Morrison. Unlike many summer crossovers, Final Crisis is not its own event so much as the third story of a trilogy (the first two stories being the crossovers The Crisis On Infinite Earths and Infinite Crisis).
The opening premise is that all of the New Gods (celestial beings who inhabit a higher dimension) recently seemed to die, except for Darkseid, leader of the evil New Gods. Darkseid has found a way to survive through human hosts, his power fueled by the faith of his new followers under the prophet Libra. Determined to become ruler of reality, he has been resurrecting his sinister forces (an ability Kirby established decades ago) by placing their life-forces in new bodies as well. And since he has now learned the powerful "Anti-Life Equation", a prize he has sought for centuries, he is able to destroy free will in any who hear the equation, thus creating a new army of slaves.
So evil god-like forces have been freely walking among us and because the super-heroes didn’t realize it, they’ve been vulnerable to sneak attacks and manipulations. In short order, John Stewart, Hal Jordan, Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman were all removed from the game board in one way or another.
But this is a Morrison story so that means there are usually layers to be peeled away. There are other things going on as a result of Darkseid now attempting to break the universe down to serve his will. There is, of course, the matter of the Multiversal Monitors, beings charged with maintaining the structure of the multiverse, one of whom is also living among us as a mortal man, unaware of his true nature. And there is the return of Barry Allen, the second Flash, a hero who became energy and merged with the universe even while saving it during the first Crisis over twenty years ago. Barry’s sacrifice saved the universe during that story and in DC Universe #0, it’s implied that the universe itself has brought him back so that he can save it again. It’s also possible he is here as a reactionary force to Libra, who is his opposite number in the sense that this a villain who also seemingly died years while merging with the cosmos.
And Libra and Barry are not the only dead men to show up in this story.
In this space on Friday and Saturday, my esteemed colleagues Mr. Davis and Ms. Thomases waxed on about the political situation of the day. Whereas there is no more important issue facing us as Americans in this moment in time (and it has considerable impact on non-Americans as well), I will not follow in their wake this week. I’m sure I will in the future.
Instead, I’m going to take a point central to their themes, and those expressed to a somewhat lesser extent by Ms. Riggs last week, and talk about comic books. Specifically, about Wonder Woman.
Since I’m in a name-dropping kind of mood, I should point out that my comments have been heavily influenced by recent conversations with Ms. Adriane Nash, a frequent commenter here at ComicMix, as well as our new editorial proofreader (for those items that come in early enough to be proofread…). And, oh yeah, she’s my savvy and opinionated daughter.
So what’s wrong with Wonder Woman? Positioning. Not unlike what many people think the McCain campaign did by selecting a fundamentalist book burner as their vice presidential candidate, under the theory that women are so stupid they’ll simply vote for one of their own no matter what her position is on the issues. You know, just like the conservatives.
Back in the 1940s, Wonder Woman was fabulously successful. She had as much exposure as any DC/AA hero (but not as much as, say, the real Captain Marvel). She had her own title, she starred in a monthly anthology book, she starred in a regularly published giant-sized star-studded superhero thing, and she briefly had her own newspaper strip. All she was lacking was a cheap movie serial.
By the time the 70s rolled around, DC had a hard time giving Wonder Woman away. As of this date, she’s undergone more revisions, reboots (one, quite literally, brought her original boots back), reinterpretations, and make-overs than Madonna. What happened?
Several additional DVDs have been announced of late and here are some of the highlights we suspect you’ll appreciate:
In time for the holidays, Warner Home Video will offer Superman: Doomsday as a special 2-disc edition on November 25, 2008. Offered in standard and Blu-ray editions, the set will include the original animated adaptation of the first Doomsday comic story plus bonus features including four episodes from Superman: The Animated Series personally selected by producer Bruce Timm. The Blu-ray version will also offer new featurettes: "Clash of the Juggernauts", and "When Heroes Die: The Making of Superman: Doomsday". Both discs will have a new look at 2009’s forthcoming Wonder Woman animated feature.
Family Guy: The Total World Domination Collection, coming October 21 exclusively from Amazon, will contain 22 discs featuring every Family Guy DVD released, including Family Guy Presents: Stewie Griffin – The Untold Story and the Star Wars spoof Blue Harvest. As a bonus, American Dad volume one will be included. The entire collection will be in a box shaped like Stewie’s head so good luck finding shelf space for it. Family Guy: Volume 6 and the Family Guy – Freakin’ Sweet Party Pack will be released everywhere the same date.
DC Comics got a lot of press last year when they signed up bestselling novelist Jodi Picoult to write their monthly [[[Wonder Woman]]] series – gallons of ink about her being the first female “regular writer” on the series, and about how this would finally catapult WW into the position DC keeps insisting she already has: a central, iconic figure whose comics people actually buy and read.
Well, more than a year has passed year later, and Picoult’s run turned out to be only five issues long – so much for “regular,” huh? – and also served primarily as set-up for one of the log-jammed line-wide crossovers, [[[Amazons Attack!]]] Picoult’s five issues were gathered into a classy hardcover, suitable for libraries (where I found it, actually) and real bookstores, with her name given huge prominence.
Assuming that the point of making Picoult’s name so large is to draw in the many readers of her novels, or other casual bookstore browsers, it’s fair to ask whether [[[Love and Murder]]] makes sense as a book in its own right, and provides anything like a satisfying experience to those new readers.
I haven’t read any of Picoult’s novels, unfortunately, but I also haven’t ever read Wonder Woman, and I haven’t read a mainstream DC book regularly in a few years – so, with my ignorance wrapped around me like a cloak, I dove in…
Wonder Woman: Love and Murder
Written by Jodi Picoult
Art by Drew Johnson & Ray Snider with Rodney Ramos, Terry Dodson & Rachel Dodson, and Paco Diaz
DC Comics, November 2007, $19.99
Well, the first thing a seasoned comics reader notices is that the art team changes entirely twice during five issues, which is usually a bad, bad sign. Readers coming from the world of prose probably won’t notice that – the three art styles are all minor variations on today’s version of superhero-standard, and the transitions aren’t particularly jarring – but it is a danger sign, implying that something was going on behind the scenes.
And then, before the story actually starts, we get a one-page “Previously in Wonder Woman,” explaining how she killed Maxwell Lord in some other cross-over that we didn’t read and don’t care about, and now she’s pretending to be “Diana Prince” again, working at the Department of Metahuman Affairs with her face-changing partner Tom “Nemesis” Tresser under the literally iron-fisted Sarge Steel. (I’m not sure if we believe that, since Diana has some much trouble with ordinary life later that we doubt she could convincingly fake a history or paper trail to get such an impressive job.) OK, fine, that’s backstory, and we’ll get into a brand new adventure now, right?
JK Parkin over at Blog@ reports that Midway Games has released the identities of two more characters in the upcoming Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe videogame: Wonder Woman and Deathstroke the Terminator. A preliminary rendering of Wonder Woman is available on the site, as well as a rendering of Green Lantern (seen here) and a series of screencaps from the game featuring Green Lantern in battle, as well as other DC characters (including Joker, Superman and Catwoman).
The announcement was made at the Leipzig Games Convention, and along with the DC characters, Midway also announced the return of Mortal Kombat characters Raiden and Kano in the new iteration. The game is scheduled for release this fall.
I may as well just get this out of the way up front: in my opinion, Final Crisis #3 is one of the worst comic books I’ve ever read.
Coming into this event season, I had high hopes for DC to regain some of the Infinite Crisis magic, but after three issues (sorry for the delay, but I was away from comic shops and the Internet) the latest and likely not last Crisis has clearly entered the realm of train wreck.
And yet many comics critics posted some largely favorable reviews. "I can’t wait to see what happens next!" said one not atypical reviewer.
Throughout many reviews, the critics looked at writer Grant Morrison’s approach of stringing together flashes of disparate stories into making a larger narrative and praised how new and challenging it is. There didn’t seem to be a single bizarre element he used that couldn’t elicit a glowing remark.
When reading those comments, I immediately recalled this quite-good essay by B.R. Myers on The Atlantic Monthly Web site. Writing about contemporary literary fiction, Myers complains that today’s writers have become obsessed with style at the expense of substance.
We are supposed to have entered a golden age for fiction, he writes, and yet readers don’t pick up literary fiction en masse, or much at all. Myers offers a simple explanation: the books are all self-absorbed fluff, and the nuts and bolts of telling a story have been left by the wayside.
Which brings us back to Final Crisis.
Over at The Beat, Heidi MacDonald ignited quite the debate (to the tune of more than 50 comments, last I checked) when she posted a cover image from the third issue of Final Crisis, featuring a midriff-and-miniskirt Supergirl looking very uncertain about something, and headlined "Math is hard."
The post has prompted readers to weigh in on everything from Barbie dolls and Olympic uniforms to what the popularity of the post might mean for the industry and its fans. In fact, there’s all sorts of meta-analysis going on over there, folks — so if that’s your thing, hop on over and check it out.
Here are some of my favorite comments from the thread, though:
stan p. Says:
hey Beat—do you really find this cover problematic as opposed to, say, the grotesquely ultra-violent KICK ASS, which you promote below with none of your snark? just curious how this works with you…
Kate Willaert Says:
“not half as hard as superheroing with an exposed midriff.”
I’d say, not half as hard as superheroing in a skirt, when one of your main powers is flight. ;-)
Lea Hernandez Says:
Will you guys be quiet? Can’t you see the nice girl is ordering pizza using Wonder Woman’s invisible phone? She’ll never decide on a crust with all the racket around here.
Head over to The Beat to add your own thoughts to the discussion… IF YOU DARE!
Imagine if comic books had trailers like movies and TV shows to build up buzz and get mainstream audiences excited. Now imagine no more! DC Comics released a movie-style trailer for the new weekly comic Trinity. Starring Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, the series is being written by Kurt Busiek and drawn by Mark Bagley. Check out the video for yourself below.
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