Prep for Dark Knight Rises: I May Love Batman, But It's a Complicated Thing

I love Batman.  I do.  Most importantly, Batman has always been with me, and Batman will be around in some form long after I'm worm food.  Whether the idea will endure like Arthurian legend or disappear like so many other pulp characters, I can't say.  I do occasionally imagine a future in which it's a bit of trivia where people find out that the stories of Batman and Superman originated in comic books, their roots in the pages of comics long since lost the way, say, Paul Bunyan's legend spread as part of an ad campaign.

But as I grow older, I move further and further from a place where the repetition of the stories in the comics has appeal and find myself in a place where the character works better for me in movies or in the occasional graphic novel or some such.  While the comics kind of make a joke about it and ask the reader to engage in willing suspension of disbelief, after reading Batman comics since the mid-80's, it's hard not to notice that whatever state Gotham is located in has done a simply terrible job of managing its prisons and mental health care, and that the people of the state seem to have an incredibly low bar for what they expect their politicians to do about the fact that a clown-faced killer routinely exits a supposedly high-security mental institution under his own recognizance.

somehow this movie did not feed my need for believability in my superhero franchise movie

There's the small matter of child endangerment that's hard enough to ignore on the first go-round, but by Robin #5 (2 of whom have been "killed"), one would expect Superman would take Batman aside and suggest he give the kid sidekick idea a rest for a while.

There's the whole "how has nobody figured out that Bruce Wayne is Batman" thing, especially once you add in the "youthful wards" that keep rotating through Wayne Manor, placing Man-Bat on the things that feel more likely to happen than Bruce to not be considered the Michael Jackson of the DC Universe.

Signal Re-Watch: Batman Begins (2005)

I do recall that when Batman Begins was released, it wasn't really an event.  I certainly didn't rush out to the theater to see it, and when I finally did catch it, the theater wasn't packed.  I believe the common mythology is that Batman Begins did fine at the box office, but nobody would mistake it for a spectacular game changer.  Then the movie hit home video and cable, and people sort of freaked out about the movie at that point.

Honestly, I remember a lot of people I worked with in Arizona asking me about the movie around Christmas when the DVD hit the market.

We're the franchise you need, not the franchise you deserve.  Or something.

In anticipation of Saturday's viewing of Dark Knight Rises, Jamie and I are re-watching the first two Chris Nolan helmed Bat-flicks.  If you'd like to join us Friday for Dark Knight, we'll be here with bells on.

The bottom line is that I think this movie is really a pretty darn good Batman movie, especially in 2005 when the last Bat-flick I had seen at the time was Batman and Robin.  However, I'd argue that once Nolan was able to cast off the shackles of WB studios and make a Batman movie without producer notes, their "help" casting the film, etc...  He made a movie that a whole lot of people liked better, and that stands up a bit more strongly upon review.

An Awkward Encounter with an Old Flame: Superman and a few other DC Comics Solicitations for October 2012

I've stopped trying to dwell on the end of my love affair with all things DC as nobody wants to hang out with the guy moping around after a break-up, but since DC Comics and I are still in the same neighborhood, I think we're feeling our way to try to be friends, even if we're not quite ready to spend a lot of time alone together right now as things would inevitably get awkward.  We're just a person and a comic company who have both grown, and that has meant we've grown apart.

Looking at DC's October solicitations does feel like the stormy part of the break-up is over with, and after all my pleading and their curt refusals to pay me heed, it's nice to see a few overtures of friendship in the making.  It'll never be what it was, but you have to learn to live with each other if you're going to see one another whether you like it or not.

We may disagree on Justice League, but I see things like the Joe Kubert Presents anthology on the list, and I can give a warm smile DC's direction.  Just out of nostalgia, they're playing our song.

And then, the announcements about trade collections almost feel like finding a sweater left behind that you hold for a second and wonder what you should so with it, even as you like the feel of it between your fingers.

Green Lantern: Sector 2814 by Len Wein?  Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth Volume 2 by Kirby?  The Wonder Woman Chronicles by Marston?  You can't just toss those memories out.

Reviewing the Super-Books is always where I hold my breath for an instant, watching to see what DC does, see how DC reacts as we bump into one another again on the street.

Signal Watch Watches: Superman vs. The Elite (2012)

The latest release from DC Animation's feature group is an adaptation of the Joe Kelly penned, Doug Mahnke penciled issue of Superman, #775, actually somewhat known by the issue's tile of "What's So Funny About Truth, Justice and the American Way".


For simplicity's sake, the movie has been retitled Superman vs. The Elite, more or less letting the casual observer that this was Superman in a super fight against a bunch of punky superheroes and that they're in for big Superman fights, if that's what they're looking for.  

Too much background

At the time of the release of the original story in the comics (a single, double-length issue), for a number of years Superman had been dwindling within the DC Universe as a featured player.  In an era of trying to make superheroes "realistic", the idea of a guy with incredible super powers, a flying dog and who disguised himself with a pair of glasses didn't fit with what the aging fans of comics, guys who were into Schwarzenegger movies, saw as the proper mode for an action hero.  The sort of Roy Rogers take on Superman that had been his primary mode of existence wasn't working very well for an audience that was turning to Reservoir Dogs as it's idea of an action film.

DC Comics Father's Day Ad (from Comixology)

Ha.

Well, I can't blame Comixology for trying, but...

This was the ad I received in my email today from Comixology.

1.  I find the idea that the target market for Comixology is really buying their dad $0.99 digital comics to be a bit disingenuous at best.  I mean, The Admiral owns an iPad and I do not (and he's doing very little to remedy my situation, because I think he likes to lord his superior technology over me), but he would probably just be confused with my generosity.  So, really, you're talking about DC hoping the guys who have kids old enough to buy things online will jump on Comixology and buy them comics.  But DC went way out of their way to alienate all those guys this year (the non 18-25 year old white males), so...

2.  Oh, right.  Remember when the Flash was Wally West and he had kids and was a father and existed?  Buy those, because that storyline really went somewhere.

3.  Batman.  Father...  why daddy?  WHY?  I WILL AVENGE YOUUUUUU????  (also, Happy Father's Day!)

4.  Wonder Woman, made of clay because no men to be daddy's on Paradise Island.  Oh, right.  The Azzarello stuff?  Well, sure.  Happy Deity Daddy Day!

5.  And Black Lightning.  Who somehow hid two teenage daughters from us until they suddenly existed.  So, Black Lightning is the late 40's superhero!  Man, he keeps in shape.

I kind of think Comixology just wants to move some $0.99 digital comics, but I also think just grabbing some images and overlaying them in Photoshop may not have been the way to go.

I will not buy Superman products featuring a Superman with a Preposterously Large Head

If you ask Jamie, she'll tell you that I will buy just any old thing with an "S" Shield on it.  Cups.  Underwear.  Towels.  Dog bowls.  And there's some truth to that.  But something I've always steered away from are Superman items that depict Superman, but with a weird-shaped head or a disproportionate head.

Take the upcoming Superman USB drive from Mimobot for example.

NOPE.  Not gonna do it.

I suppose that part of it is that Superman really is just a guy with blue eyes and dark hair.  Any time you mess with that look, now you're just distending some dude's head, and not in a particularly funny or fun way.

if I have to explain why this is right and the USB drive Superman is wrong, we may need to start over from scratch  with this whole blogging enterprise

Dan Didio, you mad, beautiful genius

Not that I'm paying much attention at the moment, but DC cancelled another handful of titles with plans to replace them with, in a Direct Market populated solely by comics readers from whom their is no alternative audience, ideas just about as promising as the books that they're cutting.

On the chopping block:
Captain Atom - a conspicuously Dr. Manhattanish take on Captain Atom, the character Alan Moore was riffing on when he created Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen.
Resurrection Man - a book that was never that popular back in the 90's, so why 2011 was the time to relaunch, what with nobody asking for it...
Voodoo - I forget the exact provenance of this book, but it was never DC and part of some other line at some point and was about a stripper alien?  Maybe?  I wasn't clear, but...  they fired the character's creator off the book and put on someone who actually understood the character or something... Nobody read this.  It's all moot now, I guess.
Justice League International - a book that was intended to build off the good will garnered over 5 years of great Justice League stories that don't exist...  Here's your whole problem with the "5 year leap" thing DC was trying to do with the New 52.  Dan Didio couldn't clap enough to make everyone believe that we weren't totally rebooting the DCU.

but now you can get:
Talon - well, I can't argue that a major event should generate a new character.  I haven't read one issue of Court of Owls, so this is lost on me.
Phantom Stranger - some characters just work better in the background as mysterious figures or in mini series.  Phantom Stranger and The Spectre are at the top of this list.
Sword of Sorcery - I predict a very small, very vocal group of fans who will complain about the right treatment of Amethyst, which is an hilarious thing to do.  This book will never see 2014.
Team Seven - it seems impossible to have cooked up a more generic idea, even in light of the failure of Blackhawks.  But somehow... a book featuring too many characters that nobody cares about wearing post John Byrne armor in gray and carrying silly looking weapons seems like the ur-New 52 book, so I think this may take off.

But that's not what made me slap my forehead.

TL; DR: Comics, Superheroes, Watchmen, and Authorship

Fine.  Let's talk about this.

This is going to be, I believe, my final word on the topic.  The topic of Before Watchmen.

I've raised my hand a few times over the last two or three years and tried to make various points about how I have felt that the current crop of 20-somethings approach comics fandom differently than how I came up as a reader and fan.  Most certainly, there's the internet and social media aspect that has become (I'd argue) more important than the comics themselves in many quarters.  And, of course, the level of fandom that seems to stem ultimately a whole lot more from being able to dress up as a character and wander around a Con for many of these "fans".  If I can be blunt, I can't shake the suspicion that they're not the same kind of fan that's sought out every appearance of a character.  And, given sales, I have to wonder if they're paying for comics at all.

There's also plenty of folks on Etsy making their own products featuring non-DC approved licensed characters, people making webcomics, etc...  In short, fan fiction is as much a part of the culture to the current target demo as the "legitimate" product.

In a way, that sort of sense of entitlement/ fan ownership could be seen as a mutant offshoot of the Big 2's insistence that the characters supersede the creators in importance.  If we aren't immediately associating Bill Finger with Batman, but some nebulous corporate entity that also owns TV, the news, the internet lines, AOL, Jerry Seinfeld, Bugs Bunny, and Six Flags...  it may be that Time Warner is simply big too see the contours.

Signal Watch Reads: Action Comics #9

Action Comics #9
The Curse of Superman
writer - Grant Morrison
artist - Gene Ha
colorist - Art Lyon
letterer - Patrick Brosseau
associate editor - Wil Moss
editor - Matt Idleson
Superman created by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster

And now for something completely different...

It's no secret that at this point, of the New 52 relaunch, I may actually be down to just Action Comics.  This week, more out of knee-jerk loyalty than anything, I also checked out Levitz and Perez on World's Finest, but I don't think that book is going to be my thing, either.

What I am interested in is what Grant Morrison is saying and doing with his run on Action, a book that by issue 9 has already suffered two fill-in issues.  If readers were having doubts, what with the broken momentum of the first 8 issues and the seeming "well, here's the set-up" vibe of the book, Action Comics #9 is a remarkable comic, and, it seems, possibly Grant Morrison's line in the sand to the overlords at DC, to the readers, and to maybe very specific people.

Morrison has long said he tries to manage reality by working his will through comics, and for anyone paying attention, the allegories and symbols are riding on the surface level.  Not the least of which is Morrison's decision to put an entirely reimagined, African-American Superman on the cover of his book (with the help of Gene Ha).

Avengers Assemble! Saluting Jack Kirby and dealing with the complications as a fan

Your Pal, Jack "King" Kirby!

It's hard to underestimate the cultural impact of comics creator Jack Kirby.  He may not carry the cultural cache of a JD Salinger, but he's probably as widely read, and inspired an army of imitators and worshippers.  And, hey, you can't find action figures nor bedsheets of Holden Caulfield.

still a little peeved the movie will have neither Giant Man nor Wasp (nor Subby)

Kirby didn't create Superman or Batman, but he was part of the creation of (an incomplete list to be sure):

• The Incredible Hulk
• Captain America
• The Mighty Thor
• The Avengers
• The X-Men
• The Fantastic Four
• The Silver Surfer
• Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos
• The Black Panther
• Devil Dinosaur and Moonboy
• Mr. Miracle & Big Barda andthe pantheon of The New Gods
• The Newsboy Legion
• Kamandi
• The Demon
• OMAC
• Challengers of the Unknown
• Silver Star
• Captain Victory

and there are some versions of Kirby's bio that suggest he was the guy who originally pitched a "Spider-Man" to Marvel and didn't do the series as he was too busy (not hard to believe).

No matter what you think, you are not ready for this comic

He also did books that he didn't create (Jimmy Olsen, his mind-bending 2001 work), created romance comics, westerns, and a hundred other things that are somewhat forgotten.

No Post Thursday: Hail to the King

This is from a Jimmy Olsen comic book from Kirby's run circa 1971.  Jimmy.  Olsen.

Take your "edgy" comics and stick 'em in your ear.

The State of DC, Their Business and the Public Adios from Chris Roberson to The Man

Not that long ago someone looked around my living room and, not without good reason, said, "Oh, so you're a DC guy?"

For a moment I hemmed and hawed, made some noises about how I didn't like being pigeonholed, that, yes, I had indeed dedicated two full rooms of my house to be shrines of sorts to DC Comics, but that...  ha, I read Marvel and other stuff, too.

What I didn't have the heart to say (nor did I think they really wanted the full explanation, they were seeking confirmation, like saying "the sky is really blue today, isn't it?") was that I am now buying exactly two DC Comics per month, Action Comics and Superman, and I'm enjoying one a great deal and am reading the other with a raised eyebrow and mixed feelings.  But, otherwise, I'm not buying DC Comics.*

The weird, ugly transformation of DC the past two years finally broke me.  I can't unsee the gears and mechanisms of DC Comics, Corporate Entity, sticking out like rebar through a construction site accident victim.  Its all so bare and obvious and exposed, and it dwarfs every half-assed line of dialog and every broke-back Harley Quinn pose on every page.  Even the inconsequential, predictable, half-baked writing is a function of "what's happening at DC".

The hi-res version of the new Man of Steel movie logo

Zack Snyder's vision of Krypton seems to be rooted somewhat in a sci-fi medieval look.  As long as he sells it, I'm fine with that.  The "S-Shield" is supposed to be the logo or emblem of Superman's family (the House of El), and this seems to fit Snyder's concept of Krypton I've read about online.

At this point, I don't really have a preference.  I was never 100% sold on the Brandon Routh-worn symbol with all the textures on the symbol, and while I grew up with Christopher Reeve's suit, technology in costuming is pretty far ahead today of where we were then.  Superman is a science-fiction character, and the suit can reflect trends in sci-fi, costuming, etc.. so long as it contains the basic design elements.  And while I am a huge fan of George Reeve's costume, you can't really go back, you know?

But this is just the logo for the movie, not the suit, exactly.  Its an interesting mix of the emblem as drawn years ago, I'd argue in the Wayne Boring model, and a sort of modern tattoo-artistry look.  And who knows?  maybe that's what this needs? I'm not against this at all, its just interesting to look at.

You can see a higher-res version of the image if you click on the picture.

Superman Custody Feud

The story surrounding the Superman legal custody battle is fairly complicated stuff, and there are actual legal minds out there in the blogosphere and in my own readership who can tackle the topic with better accuracy and understanding.

In case you don't know:  Two young men in 1938 signed away the rights to Superman to National Comics for under $200.  The idea was that they'd then work on this strip in this relatively new medium of comics.  Then it became a smash success, eventually bitter feelings grew between Siegel & Shuster and National Comics.  Since the 1950's, its been something of an ongoing legal feud, and its been in litigation again since, oh, I'd say 2005.  By this point Siegel & Shuster have died, only Siegel leaving any heirs.  National Comics became part of Time Warner in the 70's and its a big ol' mess.

The Siegel's likely now own "dude freaking out in left-hand corner"

It seems that Warner Bros., who owns my cable and phone line, Bugs Bunny, Time Magazine, CNN, Entertainment Weekly, The Wizard of Oz and small sections of our brains, presumably, has basically asked the courts to step up and resolve the issue of legal ownership of the Superman character once and for all.  I would guess that at some point the company looks at the ledgers and needs to ensure they don't spend more on lawyers' fees than they stand to make by owning the character.  I also don't blame them, nor would I blame the Seigels for wanting to get this settled.

TL; DR: On DC, Superman, Didio and Reboots

• Infinite Crisis
• One Year Later
• Bart Allen as The Flash
• Superman's Silver Age reboot
• Wally West as The Flash
• Final Crisis
• Barry Allen as The Flash
• Wonder Woman's soft reboot with pants
• Flashpoint
• New 52
• Five Years Later

I would love to have heard the conversations that occurred between Dan Didio and Paul Levitz in the years before Levitz was shown the door and Didio and Lee became co-publishers.

At some point, I have to think Levitz was beginning to detect a pattern in Didio's planning and plotting.

What I'm getting at is that beginning in 2005, Dan Didio has more or less been playing the same card, over and over and over.  The one trick he has had up his sleeve has been the reboot (and I've guessed he was going to "reboot" Watchmen as well with prequels for a couple of years before they actually went ahead and did it).

Under Didio's supervision, DC was never particularly tied to continuity.  That was when we saw the rise of editors like Eddie Berganza who weren't even trying to maintain continuity in the Superman line of books, and were, instead, focusing on 6 issue arcs with new creative teams brought on every few issues, many of whom seemed baffled by their assignment in Newsarama interviews.  The interviews always read basically the same:  I'm a semi-hot writer, DC is offering me money, I don't know anything about Superman, but I am told he's the first and greatest.  And:  For Tomorrow.

At one point around 2005, it seemed the Superman books suffered from a near constant state of soft reboot as each creative team came and left.  All of that left the Superman books a mess, with the number of Superman titles tumbling from 4 to 2 on the stands.  And so it was that Infinite Crisis felt very welcome as it came along beginning in 2005 and ending in 2006.

What's So Funny About Truth, Justice and the American Way?

DC released the trailer today for Superman Vs. The Elite, a feature length film based upon the famous-among-Superman-fans Action Comics #775.  The name of the story in the issue was "What's So Funny About Truth, Justice and the American Way?"

Get More: MTV Shows

It's an interesting time for DC Entertainment to be releasing the film.

The story pitted Superman against a rough analog for The Authority, a team book from DC's acquired Wildstorm line.  The Authority had become popular circa 1999 thanks to what some at the time called a "realistic" approach to superheroes - as in that fact that in the Wildstorm U, protagonists didn't catch bad buys and take them to jail or Arkham Asylum, they tended to deal with them with a tremendous bit of finality that became the hallmark of the line.

I read the first couple of trades of The Authority, and toward mid-2001, I recall losing my taste for the series.  The fascistic undertones of the book had always sat sort of oddly with me as a reader, but I assumed the writers were trying to make a point about power in a world where power was out of control.  However, after it became clear that... no...  the writers are just writing the most over-the-top stories they can think of, and are going to treat death tolls in the 10's of thousands casually, I simply lost interest.

2001 was, I might add, five years after Kingdom Come, the miniseries that, like Dark Knight Returns, seemed to have a serious impact on the DCU as a whole.  Waid and Ross's Kingdom Come was a brilliant collaboration, summing up the state of the superhero comics industry at the time, but also working as a larger commentary upon the endgame of extremism, that in the end you're left with madness, and sooner or later something will come along that nobody wants to see happen in an attempt to quell the day-to-day madness.

I still think Warren Ellis was trying to make a point with The Authority about how very human we are and that power doesn't change necessarily change that, even as we try to make decisions or use what we have to do good by others.  And on a planetary scale, the effects can be devastating.  I'm not sure the audience went along for that that particular ride, but they certainly seemed to like that "Apollo and The Midnighter" (a Superman and Batman analog) kicked ass!*

Signal Watch Watches: Justice League - Doom

A few items before we begin.

1.  This movie was based on Mark Waid's tremendous Tower of Babel storyline in JLA that was amazing enough that it was adapted for the movie.  The story was powerful enough that it crept into the entire DCU, and launched us into Infinite Crisis circa 2006.

Oddly, this story is rarely discussed, and Mark Waid is featured not-at-all on the Blu-Ray, and in my viewing, I missed his name, and I was looking for it.

2.  This was also the final work by writer Dwayne McDuffie, who adapted Waid's story.  It shows his trademark ability to translate continuity-heavy DC work into much more workable stories for the 85 minute films.  It also demonstrates his ability to make the dialog sound plausible and build genuine character moments.  And I am going to miss the hell out of seeing his name on motion pictures, television and comics.

3.  On the heels of yesterday's post, I am reminded that there will be no shortage of DCE material for me to enjoy, and the small fee I paid for this Blu-Ray was less than what I'd pay for a tradepaperback.  I believe I paid about $15.


So, yesterday I purchased and read Justice League #6 by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee*, and I'd submit to them that they wrote just about the least interesting Justice League story I'd paged through since...  I dunno, maybe the 80's.  While I am torn regarding my loyalty to Mark Waid and my love of the original comics the movie Justice League: Doom was based upon, I can say - Johns and Lee did nothing over 6 issues but demonstrate that they don't know how to put together a compelling story with stakes, character or motivations, nor did they seem to understand that a hallmark of Justice League stories since Grant Morrison took the Pepsi Challenge circa 1997 was a constant ratcheting up of stakes and intensity.  I give you Morrison's insane epic, World War III or, for that matter, Final Crisis.

TL; DR: On Giving Up Superhero Comics

Over the past few months I've started and stopped writing the same post a dozen times, but as March arrives and marks the 7th month of DC's New 52 effort, I had always planned to talk a bit about where I landed vis-a-vis DC Comics after half a year, so I've just held on to the mega-post on the topic.

And then, today, I read this blogpost from Bags and Boards.  He's been a writer on superhero comics and other comics for years, including working for Variety.  But in the post, he states that he's given up on the habits of superhero comics reading, and tied to that, the weekly trip to the comic shop.

I don't know that I'm giving up superheroes altogether, but the tone of the article and the white flag raising certainly resonates.  Frankly, if you're reading the site regularly, or you don't find all of my comics posts "too long; didn't read", none of this should come as a huge shock.  But I'm also starting to drift away from habits so ingrained that I am sure that for many of you who know me primarily through this blog or social media, you'd begin to think something was wrong.  And in some ways, I have to do some self-evaluation to wonder:  superhero comics, is it you or is it me?  And like all great romances that fail, we're likely both to blame.

Signal Watch Reads: Superman #6

Superman #6
Measure of a Superman
script - George Pérez
pencils - Nicola Scott
inks - Trevor Scott
colors - Brett Smith (1-22) Tanya & Richard Horie (23)
dialogue/ story/ layouts - Keith Giffen & Dan Jurgens
finishes - Jesus Merino
letterer - Rob Leigh
associate editor - Wil Moss, editor - Matt Idleson

There's a lot to parse about this issue, and very little of it has to do with the story presented in the pages.

Our rogue Superman-clone, as revealed at the conclusion of the last issue, is now freaking out Metropolis and Supergirl has shown up not to see what's going on with Superman in Metropolis, but to discuss events that occurred in a pair of books I dropped a couple of months back.

Hey, let's talk about that whole Ghost Rider thing and how comics rely of the Gray Market

I've never understood exactly how the comics convention industry works.  But more than that, I haven't understood how, the past few years, its become increasingly popular for folks to take to Etsy or to some other place on the web and sell non-licensed images of licensed characters.  Heck, I'm not clear that some of the published material in a few artists' sketch books I've bought were reproduced and sold to me legally in the strictest sense.

What seems to have brought all of this to a head is that former comics artist Gary Friedrich, the man who (sort of, maybe not) invented the motorcycle-riding, flame-skulled character Ghost Rider for Marvel has sued Marvel (now owned by Disney) for one reason or another, and Disney counter-sued with a $17,000 lawsuit at Friedrich for the proceeds he's earned by attending cons and selling sketches of Ghost Rider.  (See the very clever Ty Templeton cartoon for a rebuttal).

I point you to this article, because it echoes a lot of what I'd always wondered about how the industry has been  more or less ignoring the very real problem at the center of the Con and Commission Sketch sub-industry in comics.