This week Maddy gives a quick 3-min review of Underworld Blood Wars which is now available on Digital HD from Amazon Video and iTunes and will released on DVD and Blu-ray April 25, 2017.
With the war between lycans and vampires still chugging along, it’s up to death dealer Selene (Kate Beckinsale) to put an end to the conflict. Drawing on a small group of allies, Selene must also fight the lycans new leader, Marius, who wants Selene taken care of, but with the help of the hybrid blood strain, she hopes that she can at least bring peace.
I was in what must have been a vast desert. I pivoted in the sand and looked in every direction. Nothing but sand – sand and overhead a brutal, merciless sun. Was I lost or stranded? And how did I get here?
“Hi, handsome,” a throaty female voice said from behind my left shoulder, I turned and stared and… sand. An endless vista of shimmering yellow sand.
“You gonna stand there and stare all day?” the voice said, and now I recognized it.
“Aunt Scarlet?” I rasped.
“Bingo.”
“Granny told me that sometimes you turned invisible”
“Whenever I feel like it”
“You’ve come to rescue me?”
“Not really. But as long as I’m in the neighborhood… hop in.”
And here we take our leave of the story above, which shouldn’t disappoint you too much, since it doesn’t have an ending anyway. “Silly” is probably its last word, one you’ll have to admit is appropriate, unless someone decides to continue it. Ask me if I care.
Now ask me why I’m expending bandwidth on a comic strip character who first appeared in the nation’s newspapers in 1940 and ended her run in 1956. Is a last name that’s identical to mine enough? That’s for you guys to argue. We’ll offer a kinda-sorta answer soon. Meanwhile, let’s take a brief look at…invisibility. (Yeah, I did that deliberately. Sue me.)
Invisibility has been a trope in both mythology and fiction for a long time – at least since the Greeks. You doubt? Then Google the Grecian helm (or cap) of invisibility and the brothers Grimm’s tale “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.” In the market for something a bit fresher? Well, there’s H.G. Wells’s The Invisible Man and The Hollow Man, a movie starring Kevin Bacon. Then, in no particular order… a television series, comics’s Sue Storm, The Invisible Girl (later Woman) and… golly, what am I forgetting? Oh, sure. Harry Potter! You may recall that in one of the novels/movies, the boy wizard dons a cloak of invisibility and…I dunno – skulks?
There are more.
But for now, we come to the gent who is arguably the best known (and maybe just the best) invisibiler, The Shadow, of course. He began fighting crime on the radio in the mid-30’s and ended his broadcast career in 1954. While he was active he appeared in virtually every mass medium: radio, film, novels, newspaper strips. On the novels, films and comics, he wasn’t exactly invisible. He used a technique similar to that of Batman and your friendly neighborhood ninja, using dark clothing to blend into the – yes! – shadows.
In the early comic books and on the radio he was really, truly invisible.
He was an approximate contemporary of Scarlet O’Neil’s and if you’ve sampled any of the Shadow reprints, hey, maybe you’ d like to sample some of The Shadow’s comrade in invisibility.
So good news. Your comics retailer should be able to sell you a copy of Invisible Scarlet O’Neil: The Official History of America’s First Female Superheroine. And coming soon: Invisible Scarlet O’Neil Returns, an original graphic novel.
Hey girl we’ve got to get out of this place, there’s got to be something better than this
I need you, but I hate to see you this way. If I were Superman then we’d fly away.
I’d really like to change the world and save it from the mess it’s in,
I’m too weak, I’m so thin, I’d like to fly but I can’t even swim
Ray Davies, (Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman
Several years ago, I read a poll that asked if we could have any one superpower, which one would we have? Unsurprisingly, the ability to fly won hands down.
Never mind the “fact” that super-speed would be the most powerful super-power. Think about it. If we could travel as fast as The Flash, we could prevent a lot of bad stuff from happening, put out fires, save kittens from trees, and pretty much cover the entire second reel of Superman – The Movie. But, no, we want to fly!
Me, too.
In certain circles, such as ComicMix staff meetings, it is well-known that I do not like to fly in airplanes out of airports. It’s not that I don’t like to fly per se – I’ve jumped out of airplanes for sport until my daughter and my chiropractor and my surgeon told me to stop. I just don’t like being treated like shit, and I’ve already had my share of physical encounters with the Chicago police, thank you (there are better ways to fly united than on United). But the fantasy of flying sans aircraft remains compelling.
I don’t know if flying is the most popular ability given to superheroes. It appears it is, particularly if your character is only able to leap tall buildings in a single bound – like the Hulk does. Or have a strange hammer that, if you hold onto it really, really tight, will allow you to fly without wrenching your god-like arm out of your god-like shoulder socket.
It’s always silly to compare superhero comics to “real” life, even if there truly was such a thing. Besides, superheroes are escapist fantasy, so no matter how often Spider-Man punches out Doctor Octopus while enduring a very bad cold, let’s not confuse the two… except, of course, for the purposes of the remainder of this column.
Flying would be a hazard to air traffic. If everybody could fly – and this also applies to those flying cars Julius Schwartz promised us 60 years ago – rush hour would be indistinguishable from a total eclipse of the sun. I don’t think we’d be able to breathe while flying. I know this wouldn’t bother Clark Kent, but the rest of us weren’t born on a doomed planet only to come to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men… well, Clark… and Kara and Krypto and Beppo the Super-Monkey and the infinite number of Phantom Zone denizens, extant and yet to come.
I have a hard time with the floating-in-the-air thing. Sure, it’s cool and it allows for remarkably dramatic poses in all relevant media, but if it’s part of the ability to fly, I don’t understand how that can be so. Well, except for the “because the writer says so” axiom, which always trumps logic in both storytelling and in mathematics. Our pal, fellow ComicMix columnist and genuine comics legend Denny O’Neil, in his guise as a comics editor, used to advise writers “it might be phony science, but it’s our phony science.”
And what happens if said flying superhero (or dog, or monkey, or villain) gets the poo beaten out of him (or her, or it) while airborne? This happens all the time, at least in comics. Said flying being instantly becomes a meteor ready to create a crater the size of Nebraska or open a fault line or a tsunami that likely will be a hazard to nuclear power plants and fish.
Burbank, CA, April 11, 2017 – Bring home the year’s funniest family adventure when The LEGO® Batman Movie” arrives onto Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo Pack, Blu-ray 3D Combo Pack, Blu-ray Combo Pack, DVD and Digital HD. The film features Will Arnett who reprises his starring role from The LEGO Movie, as the voice of LEGO Batman, aka Bruce Wayne.
The film also features Zach Galifianakis (the Hangover films, Muppets Most Wanted) starring as The Joker; Michael Cera (Arrested Development) as the orphan Dick Grayson; Rosario Dawson (Daredevil) as Barbara Gordon; and Ralph Fiennes (the Harry Potter films) as Alfred.
The LEGO® Batman Movie is directed by Chris McKay, and produced by Dan Lin, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and Roy Lee, who worked together on The LEGO Movie. Jill Wilfert, Matthew Ashton, Will Allegra and Brad Lewis serve as executive producers. The story by Seth Grahame-Smith is based on LEGO Construction Toys characters from DC and the screenplay is written by Seth Grahame-Smith, Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Jared Stern and John Whittington.
The LEGO® Batman Movie will be available on Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo Pack for $44.95, Blu-ray 3D Combo Pack for $44.95, Blu-ray Combo Pack for $35.99 and 2-disc DVD Special Edition for $28.98. The Ultra HD Blu-ray features an Ultra HD Blu-ray disc with the film in 4K with HDR, a Blu-ray disc of the film in high definition, and a digital version of the film in Digital HD with UltraViolet*.The Blu-ray 3D Combo Pack features the theatrical version of the film in 3D hi-definition, hi-definition and standard definition; the Blu-ray Combo Pack features the theatrical version of the film in hi-definition on Blu-ray; and the DVD features the theatrical version in standard definition. All versions include a digital version of the movie in Digital HD with UltraViolet.* Fans can also own “The LEGO Batman Movie” via purchase from digital retailers beginning May 19.
Additionally, all of the special features, including interviews with filmmakers, new original shorts, featurettes, deleted scenes and 360° videos, can be experienced in an entirely new, dynamic and immersive manner on tablets and mobile phones using the Warner Bros. Movies All Access App, available for both iOS and Android devices. When purchased digitally and redeemed on UltraViolet, the Warner Bros. Movies All Access App allows users to watch the movie and simultaneously experience synchronized content related to any scene, simply by rotating their device. Synchronized content is presented on the same screen while the movie is playing, thus enabling users to quickly learn more about any scene, such as actor biographies, scene locations, fun trivia, or image galleries. Also, users can share movie clips with friends on social media and experience other immersive content. The Movies All Access app is available for download on the iTunes App Store and Google Play Store.
The Blu-ray discs of The LEGO® Batman Movie will feature a Dolby Atmos® soundtrack remixed specifically for the home theater environment to place and move audio anywhere in the room, including overhead. To experience Dolby Atmos at home, a Dolby Atmos enabled AV receiver and additional speakers are required, or a Dolby Atmos enabled sound bar; however, Dolby Atmos soundtracks are also fully backward compatible with traditional audio configurations and legacy home entertainment equipment.
SYNOPSIS
In the irreverent spirit of fun that made The LEGO Movie a worldwide phenomenon, the self-described leading man of that ensemble—LEGO Batman—stars in his own big-screen adventure. But there are big changes brewing in Gotham City, and if he wants to save the city from The Joker’s hostile takeover, Batman may have to drop the lone vigilante thing, try to work with others and maybe, just maybe, learn to lighten up.
BLU-RAY AND DVD ELEMENTS
The LEGO® Batman Movie Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo Pack, 3D Blu-ray and Blu-ray Combo Pack contains the following special features:
Original Animation Shorts
Dark Hoser
Batman is Just Not That Into You
Cooking with Alfred
Movie Sound Effects: How Do They Do That?
The Master: A LEGO Ninjago Short
Deleted Scenes
Featurettes
One Brick at a Time: Making the Lego Batman Movie
Inside Wayne Manor
Brick by Brick: Making of the LEGO Batman
Behind the Brick
Me and My Mini Fig
Comic Con Panel
Rebrick Contest Winners
Film Trailers
Lego Life Trailer
Social Promos
Follow Me Online
Don’t Skip
Happy Holidays Jingle
Batsby New Year’s
Team Cutdown
Director and Crew Commentary
“The LEGO Batman Movie” Standard Definition DVD contains the following special features:
Burbank, CA, April 11, 2017 – Bring home the year’s funniest family adventure when The LEGO® Batman Movie” arrives onto Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo Pack, Blu-ray 3D Combo Pack, Blu-ray Combo Pack, DVD and Digital HD. The film features Will Arnett who reprises his starring role from The LEGO Movie, as the voice of LEGO Batman, aka Bruce Wayne.
The film also features Zach Galifianakis (the Hangover films, Muppets Most Wanted) starring as The Joker; Michael Cera (Arrested Development) as the orphan Dick Grayson; Rosario Dawson (Daredevil) as Barbara Gordon; and Ralph Fiennes (the Harry Potter films) as Alfred.
The LEGO® Batman Movie is directed by Chris McKay, and produced by Dan Lin, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and Roy Lee, who worked together on The LEGO Movie. Jill Wilfert, Matthew Ashton, Will Allegra and Brad Lewis serve as executive producers. The story by Seth Grahame-Smith is based on LEGO Construction Toys characters from DC and the screenplay is written by Seth Grahame-Smith, Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Jared Stern and John Whittington.
The LEGO® Batman Movie will be available on Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo Pack for $44.95, Blu-ray 3D Combo Pack for $44.95, Blu-ray Combo Pack for $35.99 and 2-disc DVD Special Edition for $28.98. The Ultra HD Blu-ray features an Ultra HD Blu-ray disc with the film in 4K with HDR, a Blu-ray disc of the film in high definition, and a digital version of the film in Digital HD with UltraViolet*.The Blu-ray 3D Combo Pack features the theatrical version of the film in 3D hi-definition, hi-definition and standard definition; the Blu-ray Combo Pack features the theatrical version of the film in hi-definition on Blu-ray; and the DVD features the theatrical version in standard definition. All versions include a digital version of the movie in Digital HD with UltraViolet.* Fans can also own “The LEGO Batman Movie” via purchase from digital retailers beginning May 19.
Additionally, all of the special features, including interviews with filmmakers, new original shorts, featurettes, deleted scenes and 360° videos, can be experienced in an entirely new, dynamic and immersive manner on tablets and mobile phones using the Warner Bros. Movies All Access App, available for both iOS and Android devices. When purchased digitally and redeemed on UltraViolet, the Warner Bros. Movies All Access App allows users to watch the movie and simultaneously experience synchronized content related to any scene, simply by rotating their device. Synchronized content is presented on the same screen while the movie is playing, thus enabling users to quickly learn more about any scene, such as actor biographies, scene locations, fun trivia, or image galleries. Also, users can share movie clips with friends on social media and experience other immersive content. The Movies All Access app is available for download on the iTunes App Store and Google Play Store.
The Blu-ray discs of The LEGO® Batman Movie will feature a Dolby Atmos® soundtrack remixed specifically for the home theater environment to place and move audio anywhere in the room, including overhead. To experience Dolby Atmos at home, a Dolby Atmos enabled AV receiver and additional speakers are required, or a Dolby Atmos enabled sound bar; however, Dolby Atmos soundtracks are also fully backward compatible with traditional audio configurations and legacy home entertainment equipment.
SYNOPSIS
In the irreverent spirit of fun that made The LEGO Movie a worldwide phenomenon, the self-described leading man of that ensemble—LEGO Batman—stars in his own big-screen adventure. But there are big changes brewing in Gotham City, and if he wants to save the city from The Joker’s hostile takeover, Batman may have to drop the lone vigilante thing, try to work with others and maybe, just maybe, learn to lighten up.
BLU-RAY AND DVD ELEMENTS
The LEGO® Batman Movie Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo Pack, 3D Blu-ray and Blu-ray Combo Pack contains the following special features:
Original Animation Shorts
Dark Hoser
Batman is Just Not That Into You
Cooking with Alfred
Movie Sound Effects: How Do They Do That?
The Master: A LEGO Ninjago Short
Deleted Scenes
Featurettes
One Brick at a Time: Making the Lego Batman Movie
Inside Wayne Manor
Brick by Brick: Making of the LEGO Batman
Behind the Brick
Me and My Mini Fig
Comic Con Panel
Rebrick Contest Winners
Film Trailers
Lego Life Trailer
Social Promos
Follow Me Online
Don’t Skip
Happy Holidays Jingle
Batsby New Year’s
Team Cutdown
Director and Crew Commentary
“The LEGO Batman Movie” Standard Definition DVD contains the following special features:
Last week I read X-Men Gold #1 and, controversy aside which I won’t be getting into as you have gone above and beyond to address the issue properly and professionally, it really invoked a lot of strong feelings in me. Because of that, I’d like to talk about the X-Men and what they mean to me.
I first discovered X-Men on television when I was in elementary school. I remember watching the first episode and immediately being sucked in. To this day, the Sentinels are still menacing to me and I’ll always have a fondness for Jubilee, Rogue and Storm. I remember the time between Saturday morning after the episode finished to the next Saturday felt like an eternity. I was a shy kid who knew he was queer, but I didn’t understand it. I didn’t have a lot of friends, didn’t enjoy sports and couldn’t really connect to other kids on a lot of things, but one thing I could talk to the other kids at lunch in the cafeteria was about cartoons like X-Men. That meant a lot to me.
I was lucky to have parents that did well enough to get a lot of those action figures. It was very confusing to me, and I’m sure my parents as well, how they had action figures based on the cartoon as well as ones based on the comics. Why did my Storm action figure have a black costume when it was white on the show? I remember some of the times very clearly of being at Toys R Us in Levittown, NY with my parents specifically wanting X-Men action figures. It’s a DSW Shoes now. I really pushing hard for the yellow and blue costume Wolverine and how exciting that was for me to get it. Or how it took my mom more than one attempt to get a Phoenix action figure for me.
My parents also got me the VHS of the pilot that never took off, Pryde of the X-Men. I watched it over and over again. I once used all my quarters allotted to me to beat the X-Men video game based on that unsold pilot at the arcade in Bayville, NY. I’d got to beat it again in Walt Disney World a decade before Disney bought Marvel;the only character that worked was Dazzler. I’ve been obsessed with Dazzler ever since. I also had played that Sega Genesis X-Men game where it almost all takes place in the Danger Room – it was definitely harder than it needed to be. I was even in an AOL chatroom X-Men role playing game for a bit. I played Cyclops.
The first X-Men movie came out while I was in high school and watched some of the resulting X-Men Evolution cartoon. I saw that first X-Men movie opening weekend, and have seen each X-Men movie opening weekend ever since. College brought about a lot of nostalgia for the 90s animated series. Covered in scorpions was a running gag. A guy I met while in college, Jake, was the first openly gay X-Men fan I befriended. It was when Astonishing X-Men by Joss Whedon and John Cassiday was coming out. I’d pick him up and we’d go to Fourth World Comics, our local comic shop. We’d go back, read it in silence, then discuss. We also went together to pick up X-Men Legends 2 the day it came out and played it as late as we could into the night.
Since then I’ve befriended people in comics, other LGBT fans of the X-Men, and have had all sorts of long philosophical and meaningful conversations about these comics. I’ve waited on long lines to get signatures at cons from people like Chris Claremont, Louise and Walter Simonson, Mike and Laura Allred, Peter David, John Cassiday, and Frank Quitely because of the work they did in the world of X-Men and have gotten original comic pages, con sketches and commissions of the X-Men.
I’m telling you all of this not to brag or claim that I’m a bigger fan than anyone else because it’s honestly no astonishing feat. I’m saying this to let you know how much the X-Men has meant to me over the years, how it’s impacted my life for the better, made me more social, and is one of the biggest reasons I’m writing about comics at all. I’m also telling you this because I read X-Men Gold #1 and it left me so frustrated I that I had to write this.
I think it’s fair to say that as an X-Men comics reader I’m within your target demographic and would take that one step further and say I’m likely be perceived as low hanging fruit. I have to be completely honest and say that there is something wrong here with this book. It’s not the writing, and controversy aside it’s not the artwork. It’s not even the editing. Marvel put together an impressive team to work on this book, and it shows. The problem I’m talking about runs deeper and doesn’t necessarily have an easy fix.
The weight of the X-Men falls heavy on this book. Because of the decades and decades of continuity, this debut issue spends so much time trying to explain what happened before this started that it’s basically all we get. We get reference after reference, explanation after explanation, and we are left with little story. And despite all of the references and explanations we still get six full pages at the end of the comic to further explain everything leading up to this issue. If you need six pages at the end of your comic to explain your comic then we have a problem. A big problem.
Writer Marc Guggenheim talks in his letter at the end of the issue about how this is going to be more of a throwback to an older time in X-Men history when it was fresh and new. This is also a problem. Nostalgia has been driving these books for a long time and it has to stop. It needs to stop or you’re condemning the X brand to never grow its audience.
I’m 31 years old and the X-Men has been a part of my life for well over two decades. I for one am absolutely sick to death of nostalgia, and I’m not the only one. I fell in love with X-Men when I saw the animated episode Night of the Sentinels Part 1 because it was inviting, explained enough of what was happening so I could follow it, and told an engaging story. Had that cartoon been a bunch of characters making references to things they did 30 years previous and took so long to set everything up that the first episode ended a few seconds after something started to move the plot forward, I might not be the X-Men fan I am now. Nostalgia has its place, but it is not why we fall in love with stories and it is certainly not what will grow an audience.
I certainly do not mean to diminish the works of everyone at the company. Marc Guggenheim is a wonderful writer whom I’m embarrassingly not as familiar with as I should be and will be rectifying that in the coming weeks. Daniel Ketchum is a great editor who took the time to chat with me after a panel at NYCC a couple of years back encouraging me to keep giving the Iceman storyline a chance and it’s really paying off now as I’m most excited for Sina Grace’s Iceman #1. Jay Leisten is an incredible inker whose work I first got into with Peter David’s run on X-Factor that is one of my favorite chapters in mutant history. Cory Petit is great letterer and a friend. Axel Alonso with Peter Milligan and Mike Allred put together what is easily to me one of the best things that ever happened to the X franchise with their run on X-Force/X-Statix.
These are amazing people doing spectacular things, and I honestly believe they are doing the best they can with what they have to work with.
As a long time fan I want to tell you that I acknowledge that X-Men has become too old, too bloated, and is crippling itself under its own weight in continuity. As a long time fan I want to tell you that it’s okay to let it loose, cut it free from its continuity and start fresh. It’s unsustainable how it is right now. Let it have that new fresh start it needs to survive.
I felt a certain magic when I first picked up X-Force/X-Statix, Grant Morrison‘s New X-Men,Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men, Peter David’s X-Factor, and Rick Remender’s Uncanny X-Force. I want to feel that magic again in an X book, not because they’re going back to what works, but because they’re trying something new and daring and they aren’t getting caught in the current of continuity and dragged under. I didn’t feel that magic in X-Men Gold #1.
That’s not to say it won’t ever come. I’m picking up issue 2. I’m going to be picking up the rest of the X books coming out in this new wave and I’ll see what sticks. However, the flagship title of a franchise relaunch should be blowing a reader away, and that wasn’t the case here; at least for me. Maybe I’m wrong and I’m the odd man out in this situation. Maybe my love of the franchise has set the bar unreasonably high and that’s not fair of me.
I just want the X-Men to continue to succeed well into the future. I want the queer kids in school like me who maybe didn’t understand they are queer and what it is to have a team of heroes to look up to, because they need a team of them. They need to see a world where there are a lot of people like themselves and they can work together and be special no matter how the rest of the world perceives them. They need to see a world where these characters who sometimes have vastly different philosophies and strategies on how to keep themselves safe can come together to protect each other because taking care of each other is most important thing. They need Northstar, Iceman, Rictor, Shatterstar, Mystique, Destiny, Karma, and more.
I know this was long, yet I have so much more I could say. Please don’t let the X-Men crush themselves under their own weight. I’m still going to be a fan, and I’ll keep giving these books a shot over and over again, but I’d love to have some of that magic back.
James McAvoy showed news aspects of his talent in M. Night Shyamalan’s return to scary filmmaking with Split. The film, which took the box office crown in January, is coming to Blu-ray on April 18 and we have a copy to give away to a lucky reader. Courtesy of Universal Home Entertainment, we’ll give you an opportunity to experience the frightening thriller which delves into the mysterious depths of one man’s fractured mind as a terror unlike the world has seen prepares to be unleashed. Split offers viewers a closer look at the movie fans are raving about with a never-before-seen alternate ending, deleted scenes, character spotlight, and a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film.
All you need to do is tell us which your favorite Shyamalan film and why.
We need your entries submitted before 11:59 p.m., Monday, April 17. The contest is open to readers only in the United States and Canada. The decision of ComicMix‘s judge will be final. The winner will receive a copy directly from Universal Home Entertainment.
Producer Marc Bienstock (Before I Fall) and executive producers Ashwin Rajan (Devil, The Visit) and Steven Schneider (Paranormal Activity series) who collaborated on The Visitreunite with SPLIT.Starring James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch), Betty Buckley (The Happening, Oz), Haley Lu Richardson (The Edge of Seventeen, Follow)and Jessica Sula (Recovery Road), critics hail SPLIT as “a nerve-shredding thriller” (Tim Grierson, Screen International).
BONUS FEATURES ON BLU-RAYTM AND DVD
Alternate Ending Deleted Scenes
The Making of Split–Filmmakers, cast, and crew discuss what attracted them to the project and how they were able to bring such a unique premise to life.
The Many Faces of James McAvoy-A look at how James McAvoy approached the challenge of playing so many different identities.
The Filmmaker’s Eye: M. Night Shyamalan- Director and writer M. Night Shyamalan has a singular, big-picture vision of his projects. Producers, cast, and crew discuss how Night’s process gives them the freedom to execute their roles to the fullest.
“This is my country, Land of my birth, This is my country, Grandest on Earth
“This is my country, Land of my choice, This is my country, Hear my proud voice.
“I pledge thee my allegiance, America the bold, For this is my country, To have and to hold”
This Is My Country (1940), Dan Raye – Lyrics, Al Jacobs – Music
Wow!
The sixth season of Homeland ended last night with an absolutely bang-up twisting cliffhanger and a final shot of Carrie staring at the Capitol building, mirroring the opening montage of earlier seasons that ended with Nicholas Brody staring at the White House.
Showtime did not give Homeland much publicity this year; the network instead focused on Billions – which stars Damien Lewis, who played the conflicted, and ultimately very lost, Sgt. Nicholas Brody. But after six years Homeland continues to stay relevant; this season it delivered hard punches to topical issues, with brilliant extrapolation of real world news stories and events by the producers and writers. I don’t want to spoil anything for you, so I won’t go into details except to say that this year’s story arc revolved around a President-Elect whose distrust of the nation’s intelligence services leads her to distrust the entire American political system – as Dar Adal tells Saul Berenson, “There’s something distinctly un-American about her” – and the manipulation of not just the public but the government itself through fake news, deep state conspiracy theorists, and paranoia.
There has been much ado about “diversity in comics” lately. Almost at the same time the Marvel Retailer Summit and Senior Vice-President David Gabriel made waves – tsunamis – over “female superheroes” (please read Mike Gold’s ComicMix column here), Rich Johnston over at Bleeding Cool posted this . I think the former is basically a tempest in a teapot and is really about Marvel sales – Saturday’s New York Times (April 7) had an article by George Gene Gustins in its business section – “Marvel Comics May Have Slumping Sales, But Don’t Blame Its Diverse Heroes” which takes a closer look at what’s going on in the Bullpen:
“While ‘Marvel Blames Diversity’ makes for a juicy headline, the issue is more nuanced.
“As Brian Hibbs, the owner of the two Comix Experience stores in San Francisco, said in an interview, Marvel has recently been experiencing a “massive sales slump” because of more basic factors: the frequent restarting of series with new No. 1 issues; fan fatigue over storylines that promise changes but fail to deliver; and the introduction of a deluge of new series. There is also the expense of comic collecting.
“This month, for instance, Marvel began rolling out a revamped lineup of X-Men titles, which will result in seven new series – two of which will publish twice a month, the other five monthly. That’s a lot of comic books, and they run an average of $3.99 each.
“The first issues will undoubtedly sell well thanks to the multiple covers and the collector’s tendency to buy them all. But subsequent issues are expected to follow the industry pattern of lower sales over time.
“’Marvel doesn’t have “more than one or two comics selling 60,000 or 70,000 copies,’ Mr. Hibbs said, adding that this trend has virtually nothing to do with ‘this diversity canard.’”
However, the later article is about anti-Semitism and anti-Christian (and by inference, anti-any religion except Islam) sentiments hidden as “Easter eggs” in the first issue of X-Men Gold by its artist, Ardian Syaf, Author G. Willow Gordon, (Marvel’s Ms. Marvel, Vertigo’s Cairo and Air, and the novel Alif the Unseen, along with other works) addressed Mr. Syaf and the controversy on her blog site (Here is What Quran 5:51 Actually Says).
All I can say is this:
If that’s truly how you feel, Mr. Syaf, then why do you work in an industry whose roots are firmly established in Judeo-Christian beliefs and mythology? Do you know that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were born Stanley Leiber and Jacob Kurtzberg? That Superman was created by two kids named Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster? That the very first “comic book” was the brainchild of two men named Max Gaines (nee Max Ginzberg) and Harry L. Wildenberg?
I believe that the upswing in overt and covert bigotry and intolerance in this country is directly related to the man who sits in the Oval Office at present. A man who cries about the women and babies killed in Syria, but won’t lift his ban on Syrian refugees. A man who decries the use of sarin gas – a weapon of mass destruction – but told Chris Matthews during the campaign, “Why do we have nukes if we’re not going to use them?”
I recently covered a mini-trend of fascinating and well-researched books lovingly that looked back at goofy super-heroes here. Now that we’re on the cusp of the debut of one of these books, Hero-A-Go-Go, it’s time to take a deeper dive. I cornered author Michael Eury and asked all those questions that I’ve been dying to ask him:
Ed Catto: You reminisce about Jill St. John’s role in the debut episode of the 60s Batman TV series. Isn’t this really the start of the Camp Age?
Michael Eury: Well, as I wrote in my introduction: “No, Batman did not create the camp movement of the Sixties. Yet Batman was its zenith, its very poster child. And from my perspective, it was a wonderful way to go-go.” I can’t pinpoint an exact beginning of the Sixties camp age (I doubt there was a single moment, but instead a growth, an evolution)… but as your question suggests, the premiere of Batman was its most visible moment.
EC: You’ve included some wonderful interviews in Hero-A-Go-Go. How did you decide whom to pursue?
ME: I wanted to add some celebrities to the mix for their behind-the-scenes insights, then targeted some folks whose work was fundamental to the Camp Age but whose stories are not as visible as, say, Adam West’s Batman anecdotes.
I loved the album Jan and Dean Meet Batman when I was a kid, and spoke with Dean Torrence for a couple of wonderful hours. Very nice guy and an incredibly frank interview.
I was also determined to give Bob Holiday, the Superman of Broadway, his due, and he was genuinely moved by my interest. Another great interview! Sadly, he passed away while the book was going to press, so he didn’t live to see this, his last interview, in print.
There are a lot of other interviews, including some comics artists, throughout the book. They add a valuable insider’s perspective to my essays.
EC: As a kid, I remember being so confused by Dell’s Dracula. Now, I love him and all the Dell monster heroes. What was the deal with these guys?
ME: Dell’s monster-heroes (Dracula, Frankenstein, and Werewolf) became my sleeper favorite from my Hero-A-Go-Go research (which consisted of roughly a year of reading campy comic books and watching tons of Sixties’ cartoons and TV shows – in other words, reliving my childhood).
They were, at heart, a great idea: merge two things kids love, monsters and superheroes, into one concept. Essentially, Dell’s Dracula was Batman-meets-Dracula, the other titles being Superman-meets-Frankenstein and James Bond-meets-the Wolf Man.
Unfortunately, the comics themselves were haphazardly produced at a breakneck pace, and even the writer and artist, D.J. Arneson and Tony Tallarico, shrug off the final results.
EC: Being a marketer, I was especially interested to reach about the licensing deal for Batman Milk. In my hometown (Auburn NY) we always asked mom to get the Hogan-Souhan All Star Milk cartons featuring Superman! Was there a lot Superman and Batman milk out there?
ME: Definitely a lot more Batman than Superman, but both were represented.
The Batman All Star Dairy essay is one of my favorites in the book, not simply because it’s a story from my childhood, but because it tells a tale of the universal small American town.
EC: Your section on super hero paperbacks was a lot of fun. Why do you think there were so many and which one is your favorite?
ME: Remembering that kids were only half of the camp movement – with adults being the other – these paperbacks were an effort to get superheroes into the hands of readers older than the standard comic-book demographic.
My favorite? It’s a tie between the first Signet Batman volume and Bill Adler’s Funniest Fan Letters to Batman.
EC: Archie Comics is experimenting with several reboots of their classic characters, in both comics and on TV. In Hero-A-Go-Go, you discuss some of the 60s Archie reboots. What were they like?
ME: As I note in the book, Archie Comics as a publisher has never been shy about capitalizing on current trends. During the Camp Age, there was an Archie for everyone – the standard teen fare, an Archie for superhero fans (Pureheart the Powerful), an Archie for spy fans (The Man from R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E.), and an Archie for Monkees fans (the Archies). Funny how a small community like Riverdale attracted so many supervillains back then…
EC: I recently picked up an old copy of Charlton’s Go-Go (complete with Miss Bikini Luv and some Jim Aparo artwork) and it was bats*t crazy fun. Can you tell us more about that series?
ME: It was a weird but wild book, editor Dick Giordano’s MAD-meets-Tiger Beat hybrid. Charlton was publishing music fan magazines back then and had access to teen heartthrob pinups and such, and those shared pages in Go-Go with parodies of TV shows, superheroes, and fairy tales, in comics form.
Jim Aparo was the break-out star from Go-Go – and who’d have thought he was such an amazing humor cartoonist? His Miss Bikini Luv work was fabulous!
EC: You know I’m a big Wally Wood fan, and in this book, you have fascinating sections on T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, Miracles, Inc. and more. What do you think of those properties and Wood’s 60s contributions?
ME: Well, if anyone could’ve elevated the so-called lowbrow camp movement to a highbrow art form, it was Wally Wood. He was just amazing.
I knew little of Miracles, Inc., Wood’s oddball superhero team spoof, before beginning my research. His first Miracles tale was short but sweet. Too bad he left the strip, as it floundered afterward.
EC: Your animated heroes section is very robust. Any surprises in your research?
ME: There was a lot of material in that section, wasn’t there? What a fantastic lineup of TV programming we had to choose from back then!
Most of the material I write about, I knew from my previous readings and studies, but I was surprised to discover from Ralph Bakshi the behind-the-scenes issues with Krantz Films’ Rocket Robin Hood. Also, before my research I didn’t know that the King Kong cartoon had two movie connections!
EC: Whose vinyl records are best to listen to when reading Hero-A-Go-Go: The Modniks or the Maniaks?
ME: Well, since they were both patterned after the Monkees, I’d say, listen to the source material! Actually, I did – through Hero-A-Go-Go, I developed a deeper appreciation for my two favorite bands from my childhood, the Cowsills and the Monkees. The Monkees, in particular, had a diverse range of music outside of the bubblegum pop hits that everyone remembers, and rediscovering them was a joy. Plus, I got their reunion CD, Good Times, and nearly played it to death!
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Hero-A-Go-Go will be released April 19th by Twomorrows Publishing – look for it at your local comic shop or neighborhood bookstore! And remember, they can always order it for you. My bookstore gets books in for me so quickly –oftentimes the next day!
Oh, and by the way, our good pals over at the 13th Dimension are exploring 13 different sections of this book each Saturday too.
My Mary will sometimes pop into the office to chat a bit. If I’m just goofing off (a lot of my work day consists of goofing off), that’s fine but if I’m actually working she has to leave. She understands and doesn’t take offense; she can get the same way when she’s creating.
I don’t want anyone looking over my shoulder when I’m working, especially with the initial draft. I get self-conscious and everything freezes up and goes away. Oddly enough, Kim didn’t always understand that. It bothered her that there was a private place inside me to which she was not invited. She felt a couple should share everything and, for the most part, I agree – except when I’m writing.
I suppose that, with most couples that’s also true to some degree. Perhaps it’s even desirable that the person with whom you’ve spent a good long time can still surprise you, hopefully in positive ways. I once wrote a Wasteland story in which the husband challenges his wife when she claims she knows him completely. He suggests that he could, in fact, be the serial killer they’ve heard about. The claim that he could be eats away at his wife and, by the end of the story, she’s ready to leave him because she realized that the doubt she is feeling indicates she doesn’t really know her husband at all.
It is a big question. How much do we really know another person – even someone that we know intimately? We start off the relationship by being attracted to someone which may lead to falling into what we think of as love. I would suggest that, in fact, what we’re really falling in love with is our construct of the person. Someone we’ve invented that’s based on the other person but is as much or more really based on us as it is them. Hopefully, as time goes by, our perception deepens as we see more of the actual person and, again hopefully, fall into more of a true love.
That gets chancy. As you wind up really seeing more of the other person, you have to let them see more of the real you. Brrr! Pretty scary, boys and girls! It does necessarily involve opening up.
However, when you’re doing something creative – writing or art or what have you – the process can be very private. It’s a mysterious business to begin with; you don’t always know where the initial impulse comes from and you may not want to know. For a long time, I resisted any idea of going to a therapist because I felt that, if I knew more about my creative instinct, it would vanish. In reality, therapy turned out helping quite a bit. I understood why I did or thought some things and that understanding actually helped me creatively.
Still, I don’t want someone watching me create. I may need to dig around in parts of my psyche that can get a bit dark. (Those of you familiar with my work can probably appreciate that.) Nietzche said in Beyond Good and Evil: “He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.” Kim and I used to describe the creative process as bungee jumping into the abyss and pulling out something. Usually it’s squirming.
I don’t need observers when I do that.
I do wind up revealing aspects of myself in my writing; you have to. Every character you write must in some way be you. However, you’re in disguise; you can always claim a given aspect of a given character is that character and not you. Keep in mind, as I’ve warned some people in the past, that I may appear to be a nice guy but GrimJack comes from somewhere in me.
