Quiz- Heavy Metal or Super-Hero?

Since Google hasn't yet decided to retire all the blogs on their platform to free up server space, I might as well make use of this forum. I had a fun idea recently that I thought could amuse the perverts and identity thieves of the Internet. It came to me as I was staring at the Marvel Comics trading cards I have posted on my walls. (That's right, baby, I'm living the dream!) I realized that something connects heavy metal and comic books, aside from obsessive fans with questionable social skills. Both bands that play variations on metal and characters from the comic books of my childhood tended to share similar naming conventions. They often incorporated weird portmanteaus, dark or violent imagery, references to mythology, and let's say "creative" spelling. They are so similar I think it might be hard to tell which is which.

With apologies to McSweeney's Internet Tendency I challenge the readers of this blog to take my quiz. From the following list, can you tell which names are of European black metal bands and which are characters immortalized in the 1993 Marvel Universe collection from SkyBox?

Quiz: European Black Metal Band or Marvel Comic Book Character?

(Answers below)

1- Grimfist
2- Black Axe
3- Arcturus
4- Moonblood
5- Motormouth
6- Bloodseed
7- Morg
8- Black Flame
9- Satyricon
10- Stryfe
11- Ragnarok
12- Die-Cut
13- Pantheon I
14- Infernum
15- Morbius
16- Tormentor
17- Venom
18- The Kovenant
19- Behemoth
20- Rage
21- Marduk
22- Slayback
23- Celestia
24- Night Thrasher
25- Drastique
26- Blackheart
27- Hellstorm
28- Demogoblin
29- Graveworm
30- Death's Head II
31- Hellhammer
32- Terror, Inc.
33- Forefather
34- Bloodaxe
35- Deathwatch
36- Nightfall
37- Heart Attack
38- Witchmaster
39- Darkhold Redeemers
40- Basilisk

*******************************************************************





ANSWERS:

Black Metal-1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 21, 23, 25, 29, 31, 33, 36, 38

Marvel- 2, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12, 15, 20, 22, 24, 26, 27, 28, 30, 32, 34, 35, 37, 39, 40

Both- 17  

Analyzing the Detective Genre: Part 3

Above: A stylized painting of The Joker and Batman created by Harold Smith, found on deviantART

The Natural Conflict Between Batman and The Joker-

As I continue my deconstruction of the detective story, I plan to go through a detailed and thorough study of the history of the genre. (Trust me it's going to be long and probably laborious to read. I'll try to spruce it up with some pictures just to give your eyes a rest.) Before I get to that, I would like to take a tangent into the underlying iconography of Batman. I feel this material is appropriate to raise here as Batman is almost certainly the most widely known detective character created in the 20th century, and this piece of symbolism directly pertains to his status as a detective. Further, my thoughts on this topic led me to some noteworthy conclusions that greatly influenced my perspective on the larger genre.

Since Bob Kane and Bill Finger created the character, Batman has evolved significantly. Starting out as a rogue vigilante of the pulp tradition, he eventually matured into a more conventional authority figure with a gift for deduction. Batman uses his limitless talents and resources to impose a structure and order onto Gotham. Though his goal may not always be to uphold something as politically variable as "the law", he does protect the basic tenets of the social contract that enjoy almost universal support. At the same time as creators toned down his agenda his methods also shifted. Instead of using firearms and violence to solve problems, the stories increasing featured Batman using his intellectual skills. Thus the "World's Greatest Detective" moniker became a vital component of his character. In fact even casual fans are aware of Batman's supposed strength as a detective, even though he hardly demonstrates it in most stories.

I submit that these two aspects of the Batman mythos, detective and authoritarian, are deeply linked and inseparable. In essence, deduction is the process of bringing order to knowledge. Through his sleuthing and analysis Batman solves crime by sorting through the facts, finding how the relate to each other, establishing the proper truth values for them, and determining where they belong in the larger structure of knowledge. As if in an unspoken allegory, whenever Batman is shown undertaking these microscopic acts of deduction he does so to serve the macroscopic purpose of bringing order to society. Thus his role as a superhero in which he maintains and improves the social structure is simply an extension of his identity as a detective. What he does defines who he is and vice versa.

From this conclusion we can also investigate a question about the Batman mythology that has defied explanation for generations: why is the Joker the archenemy of Batman? As Bruce Timm -who co-created and produced the iconic Batman: The Animated Series- noted, the Batman-Joker feud is a little confusing, because it's not as though you think of clowns and bats being natural adversaries.

Usually when we study comic book nemeses they display one of two obvious dichotomies. Either they are representatives of opposing ideologies/worldviews (Captain America vs. Red Skull, Superman vs. Lex Luthor), or they are characters with a common past drawn in separate directions by fate (Spider-Man vs. Green Goblin, Reed Richards vs. Victor Von Doom). On a surface level the Joker and Batman share neither of these relationships. Moreover the rouges gallery in the Batcave contains an obvious candidate for each type of archvillain.

The Riddler seems like a natural antithesis to the Dark Detective, with his penchant for presenting information in misleading or confusing manners. However, his essential function -posing questions- is really very complimentary to Bats' fundamental nature- finding answers. I can see Batman actually preferring the Big Question Mark to his other foes, because he always makes the job of stopping his crimes so straightforward. The Riddler, with his habitual clue dropping, is a puzzle -an incomplete or disorganized set of information that begs for the application of order. The Joker, with his impenetrable insanity, is a mystery -a set of information that contradicts or confuses your prior knowledge and defies efforts to organize it.

In the other category, you have Two-Face. Since Harvey Dent has history as an ally of Batman, his later battles with the Dark Knight have added dramatic poignancy. Even better you could argue that Two-Face represents a strong philosophical opposition to Batman. Because Two-Face has an obsession with chance, he confronts Bats attempts to create an orderly city with evidence that the universe is arbitrary and chaotic. Sadly this aspect of the character doesn't come up very often, and when it does, it is downplayed as part of his gimmick.

I read a comics blog that noted that there are only two (ha!) Two-Face stories worth telling: his origin; and any variation on him being healed, but ultimately returning to his duality inspired madness. I feel the power and repeated revisitations to these stories actually weaken the character's symbolic heft, because the change the underlying narrative of who Two-Face is. Instead of making him a good man pushed to madness by the injustice of random fate (as symbolized by him flipping a coin to make decisions), it turns him into a intrinsically flawed man who inevitably breaks down (as symbolized by his scars). The message that some people are naturally inclined to evil fits right in with the binary and objectivist view Batman often espouses.

Which brings us to the Joker. So much of what makes the Joker an effective villain is what we don't know about him. Who did he used to be? What motivates his crimes? What defines his madness? What goes on in his head? He is a mystery, and if there's anything Batman can't stand it's a mystery.

Also, while clowns may not be natural enemies of bats, they are the constant opponent of logicians. As Jimmy Carr and Lucy Greeves argued in the book The Naked Jape, all jokes are the same. By this I mean, they all seem predicated upon establishing a given story, or order, to the world of the joke. Then with the punchline they undermine the order, betraying the rules the joke created and leaving us drifting in a world of nonsense. For a detective like Batman, everything must fit into a structure of reliable empirical truth, organized by certain absolute rules. For a clown like the Joker, no truth is reliable, no structure is sacrosanct, and no rules can be enforced.

I believe the Joker could be said to be the most powerful character in comicbooks, because no one can ever force their will on him. To Batman, who tries to control all of Gotham City, this is not just anathema but intolerable to the very essence of his crusade. Just as an irresistible force could never meet an immovable object -for the existence of one logically negates the possibility of the other- Batman can never succeed in his mission if the Joker is what he appears to be, a person beyond control. Conversely the Joker's fundamental philosophy -that nothing makes sense, and therefore nothing means anything- would be refuted if Batman is what he appears to be, a person in total control of himself. Both of these characters represent something that cuts to the core of the other. This is why they both detest each other so deeply and yet neither can ever bring themselves to end the other. It is not sufficient that the threat posed by the other is removed, they each have a vested need to see the other one cast aside his very nature.

I can think of few conflicts in modern fiction that have been as prolific and as evocative as what I just described. Which is why generations of fans and writers have kept coming back to the undeniable truth, that as long as Batman is a detective he and the Joker must be archenemies.

To be continued . . .

Comic Shop Musings 4/16/2006

*WARNING!* This entry largely plays off of an earlier post, if you haven’t read my essay on Barry Bonds, Spider-Man, and public perception yet. Check it out here. I hope you enjoy it.

Anyone who’s a fan of good blogging should love this post, because with this entry my newly repurposed blog gets a little more interesting. In my last column I had gone on and on about the comparisons between Barry Bonds and Spider-Man, trying to be as detailed as possible without letting my word count reach critical mass. Due to the constraints of editing I had to leave out some ideas. I realize some people might be interested in taking a little deeper look at some of the issues I raise in my columns. For them I will offer these follow up posts, while the general audience can read my columns in their entirety separately without having to suffer over exposure to the geek volcano that is my mind.

First, I’ll tackle the simpler suggestion I present which was how to get Spider-Man’s public image within his comic book world mirror Barry Bonds public image within the comic book world. The comic creators could accomplish this very simply with one issue of the comic book. Some reporters for The Daily Bugle publish a book filled with what appears to be some very damning evidence that Spider-Man gained his powers through an illegal procedure and was only fighting a crime for self-serving purposes, and then boom watch as Spider-Man becomes the most hated public figure in the Marvel Universe. This should sound familiar, and the fact that it has been empirically shown to work in the real world, lends all the more credence to my belief that it would work wonderfully in the comic book world.

Next, we have the much bigger issue which was how to keep the character of Spider-Man vital while not making him look like some stuffy, old married man. This seems to be the sticking point for Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada, that Spider-Man being married has robbed past, present, and future comic creators working on Spidey of certain potential stories while adding no new are to develop. I personally disagree vehemently with this. Speaking as someone who is no longer a teenager (much like Peter Parker, Spider-Man’s secret identity), and on the brink of marriage, I believe that marriage adds a myriad of interesting angles to the character. Since I will always fear that Quesada will go crazy one day and have Mary Jane retroactively written out of existence until he has satisfactory evidence that Peter being married is a good thing, I will take it upon myself to demonstrate that married Spidey has lost no stories of value and gained a great deal of potential material.

As far as I can tell, though there’s really only one story that a single Spidey has that a married Spidey doesn’t, and it’s a fairly pedestrian story too. Step 1) Peter works his away into a fairly stable and healthy relationship with one of his love interests. Step 2) Peter encounters another love interest who tempts Petey to stray Step 3) Peter tries to stay true to his current relationship but complications from the other love interests lead to the relationship falling apart Step 4) Peter then loses the other love interest for some contrived reason Step 5) Peter realizes he truly wants to be with one of his assorted love interests and sets off to build something good with her Step 6) Repeat Steps 1 through 5. I acknowledge that there is no way you could tell that story now that Spider-Man is married because no one wants to read a superhero comic that stars an adulterer. The problem is that is back in the day this story line was used ad infinitum, to the point that I believe many writers became over reliant on it. Now without that crutch, some feel that something substantial is missing from Spider-Man’s world. After all, Spider-Man was conceived as a single character and he’s been cut off from a story that was used to define him.

For comparison’s sake, I would like to point out that Captain America was originally created with exactly one story in mind Step 1) Cap fights Nazis Step 2) Repeat Step 1. So far as I can tell no one is complaining that Captain America has been robbed of some important stories. I would further ponder whether recently Quesada believes he is limiting the stories of characters like Black Panther, Storm, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones, all of which have been married off under Quesada’s watch as editor-in-chief.

I would argue that, much like Al Pacino and Barry Bonds (see previous column for explanation of this theory), the only change here is one of perception. Just as many stories are possible with a married Spider-Man, the creators merely have to look past their perceptions to see them. My advice would be to identify those traits which you consider essential parts of Spider-Man’s character and build a marital conflict around that, just as you would any other storyline.

Some people (Quesada) are going to want to see some examples of how this works. Fine. I’ve got plenty of them. Say you consider Spider-Man’s relative youth and inexperience one of his key characteristics an essential part of his character. Use that by putting Spider-Man into a situation where it becomes apparent that he rushed into the marriage that he didn’t give himself enough time to settle his relationship with Mary Jane before marrying her, showing signs such as a poor understanding of Mary Jane’s deeper nature. You could focus on Spider-Man’s equation of power to responsibility and flip it on its head. Since Spider-Man has a great deal of responsibility to protect Mary Jane, he might try to claim a great deal of power over her life, especially if he believes it’s necessary for her safety. Use Peter’s staunch morality. He always does the right thing as Spider-Man and refuses to compromise his ethics. Peter may then have problems in a marriage where compromise is so critical. Spidey has to be secretive in his superhero life that could be bad in a marriage. If Spidey always feels guilty about every little mistake he makes, Mary Jane may become a constant source of crises for him. Lastly, Spider-Man has usually needed multiple tries to defeat his villains, when he makes a mistake in his marriage he will probably thin he’ll get a second chance to fix it. Of course as any married person can tell you, second chances aren’t always possible and the stakes can be higher than any battle with a costumed villain.

These are but a few of the many ways you could use Spider-Man’s marriage to make him a fuller and richer character without losing momentum to the dreaded possibility that he might be perceived as “old” (by which you apparently mean no longer a teenager). If enough of them seem worthy to you. I may even have the effrontery to recommend these ideas to those in a position to do something with them. For right now though I must keep reminding my self that I am just an angry guy with a blog.

On that note I will now show you that I can be a happy guy with blog, but throwing out some quick recommendations.

• I mentioned Marvel’s “Civil War” event which just recently began in the comics. It has impressed me so far, so much so that I am already growing ill at the thought of all the money I will spend to follow the event. I recommend any one who’s interested in the possible political ramifications of superheroes to give it a try. You are probably best served by reading the central title Civil War alone. I am also intrigued by a few of the tie-in titles Marvel will be publishing along side it, but since I am yet to read them I cannot officially recommend them yet.
• If we have any fans of old pulp-style sci-fi/fantasy action/adventure, then I highly recommend Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis. It plays like a combination of the old John Carter of Mars stories and classic Conan. In fact since writer Kurt Busiek went from scripting Conan to this, Aquaman has replaced Conan on my shopping list.
• Calling all Kyle Rayner fans. For anyone who thought he got the short end of the central power battery during his reign as Green Lantern, here’s your chance to put dollars behind your opinion. Now instead of simply boycotting the current Green Lantern monthly which has fallen back to using the outdated and obsolete Hal Jordan, you can follow Kyle in his own miniseries Ion. It’s written by Kyle’s guardian angel Ron Marz and will be coming out for twelve short months, before they toss Kyle back into obscurity to appease all those hyperactive, hypercritical Hal Jordan fans. (Boycotting seems like an odd strategy to me how does a producer know how many people refuse to buy an item, all they know are how many units they sold and how many units they didn’t sell, they don’t know who was going to by an item, but then decided to make some sort of point. Anyways …)
• Lastly for those of you interested in big superhero stories being unapologetically larger than life, I heartily recommend All-Star Superman written by Grant Morrison with art by Frank Quitely. Some have compared the story to the old Silver Age stories of the 1950’s, ‘60’s, and ‘70’s because it features a more powerful Superman, more archetypal characters, and grander storylines than DC comics can afford to try in a regular continuity monthly comic book. In reality it belongs in a whole other era, one where Grant Morrison sees the surreal with more clarity than some of us see the real. The rest of comics aren’t in whatever crazy Hyper Age Grant Morrison has been writing for yet, but until they get there you can preview the possibilities in All-Star Superman.

Comic Shop Musing 12/17/2005

As the wheels continue to turn at the publishing houses of all those monthly titles I have recommended, I thought I would turn my attention elsewhere for just a little while. (By the way, how's everyone enjoying all those comics I sent you out to buy. They are good stuff aren't they. Well except for the fact that it's been forever since a new issue of Planetary came out, but you can't do much about that. Oh, who am I kidding? I know no one who visits this blog would think enough of me to spend money on comic books just because I say so. I suppose I'll just have to live with the fact that I seem to be the only blog on the entire inter-web not yet featured on CNN. Anyways . . .) I thought what with it being the season of crass commericalism and gift exchanges, that maybe I could do my part to send some of those dollars the way of the comic vendor. Now obvioulsy unless you're involved in a three-dollar limit Secret Santa, then you probably don't have much reason to buy anyone an issue of a monthly title as a gift. And take it from a guy who's in the process of hunting down some issues of Sea of Red he missed, finding several issues of a particular title and buying them in a group can be hard to do , and it doesn't always work out all that well. Thankfully you have other options. The publishers of the various comicbooks go to the courtesy of collecting their tittles into convenient trade paperback form, whenever they complete a major storyline or just when they find they have a large number of issues that could be bulked together for some good reading. I have always enjoyed trade paperbacks and I own a sizeable collection of them. Still I, and all the other comic book fans on your gift list, would always enjoy having some more. So I have decided to share with you a review of some trades I recently acquired, as well as suggestions for a whole slew of poosible gift ideas. Most of these trad can be had for $25 or less, so they'll fit in your budget. Plus, the recipient of any of these gifts is likely to start reading them as soon as he opens the package, so that means they'll be out of your way as you put the finishing touches on the roast beast.

The Cap'n Recommends:

Walking Dead Vol.1 Days Gone Bye- The basic premise of this series is the same as every zombie movie you've ever seen. Some mysterious condition arrises which first kills people then turns their corpses into animated, flesh eating scavengers. Meanwhile an intrepid band of dissimilar humans finds themselves having to cooperate to survive. The story appeared so cookie-cuttter common that I passed it over when it first came out. It wasn't until I had heard the glowing and repeated praise of the series by my local comic vendor that I decided to buy a trade and give it a try. Walking Dead stands apart from other tales of the undead, because it recasts the story in two important ways.
First writer Robert Kirkman, an avid zombie fan himself, has made an open decleration of his intent to make this an ongoing story for as long as possible. That means that that unlike so many movies, real time and attention is devoted to the characters and their problems. We begin to see the possibilities of living in a zombie filled world for the complex and intriguing possibility it is. The horror of this series doens't come from gruesome scenes of mayhem and gore, although artist Tony Moore is an expert and that very thing. The terror comes from watching the slow but steady erosion of the world we know and love. Now we are left with a world of pure necessity where people have to do all they can just to get by.
The other key feature is the degree to which this is a story about the characters more than the world they live in. For the most part, zombies stories have been more intersted in the dead than the living. Kirkman and Moore reverse that by giving us a family as the central characters. They are so identifiable and so likeable that we come to care about them deeply and personally. Just as the horror comes from waching the slow and agonizing death of our modern world, the drama comes from watching the slow corrosion of the morals and values of these characters. We watch as their plight becomes more desperate and their behavior becomes more ativistic. I have only just begun to follow the story, but I am sure we will witness a point where it becomes hard to tell the foul, loathsome scavengers who savage our concept of humanity, and the zombies apart.
I gladly recommend this volume, which I already own, and any of the subsequent volumes I plan to purchase soon.

The Goon: Fancy Pants Edition- This tale also features plenty of zombie fighting but this is of a different variety. The Goon is a creation of pure pulp joy. He's the archtypal 1930's roughneck, who splits time between secretely running a criminal empire and using his sizable brawn to protect his city from the mechinations of the evil Zombie Priest. The series' talented writer/artist/creator Eric Powell easily leaps between genres combining elements of horror comedy, western, and crime into his stories. It's a real fun romp to read his stories.
This particular volume is a hardcover collection of stories from various parts of the series two incarnations as both an independent publication and from Dark Horse publishing. They put the stories into a chronological order though they weren't originally released that. That makes this particular tome a great buy for someone interested in a fun and original story, but not interested in piecing a story together one month at a time.

The Cap'n Suggest:
While I have read some of these stories I currently own none of them (something I hope to correct in the near future). I believe they all provide qualiy entertainment, and any or all of them would be a fine gift.

• Bill Waterson's The Complete Calvin and Hobbes- We all loved this strip back when it came out in daily form. Waterson achieved some of the highest levels of achievement in the comic art form ever seen in a newspaper since Will Eisner's immortal work on The Spirit. The three volume hardcover collection comes with a steep $150 pricetag. So you ma want to reserve this for someone extra-special or maybe a gift to a family of comic lovers (is there such a thing?).
• Any of Alan Moore's classics from Watchmen to From Hell to V for Vendetta . Moore is a grand master of comics storytelling and any comic fan you know would love to own any of these works.
• The entire Crossgen library can be found pretty cheap these days. The publisher was forced to close its doors too soon do to poor management, but the creators who worked their created some very memorable tales. Thankfully, the company was very efficient at collecting their series into trade paperback form. Another bonus, is that the Crossgen covered just about everything genre except superheroes, so they are good for non-traditional comic fans too.
• Brian K. Vaughan's Ex Machina: The First Hundred Days explores the potential convergance of super-heroes an politics through stories that reflect the world we live in through a very different lens.
• Charles Burns' Black Hole is a series that defies description, but it's been widely praised in the mainstream media as well. If the person on your list ever loved the dark underbelly of anything, then Black Hole is for them.

What's that? You want to know, what are these graphic novels you keep hearing about? That is a whole different blog entry people, and there's only so much time in the day.

Comics and Education Converge!

Lynn Johnston may have just become my hero. She writes and draws the popular daily comic strip For Better or Worse about the various highlights and misadventures of the Patterson family. Like G.B. Trudeau Johnston has used her daily platform in hundreds of newspapers to raise awareness of various issues. She will writes comics about solemn and important topics like the death of a parent with grace and candor. Her willingness to raise these issues has long drawn attention, and her deft skill at dealing with them with sensitivity and insight have long earned her admiration well beyond the comic community. Recently she turned the gaze of her strip on the difficulties disabled children face in education. She even mentioned some of the technology they use to help them handel daily tasks. Hopefully this widespread exposure will help raise awareness of just how many challenges with which the disabled must contend. I always have believed that comics have a special power to get into our minds through their combined visual and lingual presence. When both the words and pictures team up to bounce around your head, it boosts the chances of your subconcious mind remembering and your concious mind being forced to digest it. In my current projects I am trying to do as much as I can to accomodate students with disabilities, but true change won't occur until more people realize just how much we take for granted. If you want to check out the strip go here.

Comic Shop Musings 10/30/2005

Once again the amazing comic books filling the racks demand my attention and my blog. Being a kind hearted sould, I hear their pleas and champion their cause.

Before Infinite Crisis makes your head explode, (and in case you didn't know- yes, it is that big a deal) I have to take care of some old business. Naturally it will have to do with the other major crossover taking on in the comic world. I have to say I am really impressed with the recent developments from House of M. The latest news from Marvel is huge. Apparently everything since Avengers: Disassembled has been derived from a plot Joe Quesada (Marvel's Editor-in-Chief) and Brian Michael Bendis (Marvel's Writer-of-Everything) stewed up to reduce the number of mutants in the Marvel Universe. Some are taking this news very badly as they had liked the seeds planted by early creative teams on the X-Men titles. The standing storyline had been that the mutants were the next step of evolution, and with evolution being inevitable and all, that means that the whole Marvel universe was supposed to be strapping down for the end of the species homo-sapien as we know it. That's kind of clever in a high-falootin', Isaac-Asimov-y, science-fiction sort of way, but ultimately it's 1) unsustainable and 2) a little off putting. Marvel's ultimate appeal since the 1960's has been that it is a more realistic comic book universe than DC. Do you really think they can maintain interest in a set of titles that eliminate most of their characters and create a world that looks nothing like our own? More importantly, do we really what to spend the next few years watching the hypothetical extinction of our own species in the comics.

On the creative level, I like how Bendis and the rest of Marvel are playing this out. They seem to have really thought out all the logical places this twist would take the Marvel Universe. I also like the implications of fewer mutants and more antagonism between humans and mutants. It gets back to the heart and soul of what the X-men are all about, the feeling of persecution and minority status we all go through at some point. Though I like the results, my criticism of the House of M event as a whole still holds. I didn't need a whole lot of diddling around in an alternative reality to get to this point. I certainly didn't need to be teased with a possible ressurection of Hawkeye and some of the other shenanigans, you get away with you don't have to live with the consequences of your story. Still, I wish Marvel luck with the future.

Next, we have Infinite Crisis. You know what? I am not going to say very much about this. It seems to me that we have enough people talking about it. I am a little surprised that DC has decided to officially declare this a sequel to Crisis on Infinite Earths. I do think it will be a huge event with some major consequences and a story well worth reading. However I want to hear someone put out an over-under on how many major DC character's will actually die in this one. Whatever it is, watch the under. Comic companies have got a lot more protective of their characters since 1986, DC especially. Back during Crisis on Infinite Earths DC was pretty much playing with house money. They were going to be scrapping their entire universe, and they were desperately trying to cut into Marvel's popularity at the time. Today they are competing toe-to-toe with Marvel and already riding a big wave of revitalization. They don't need a renovation just a good story and some well timed promotion. Plus, the creative minds behind IC aren't going to make their mark by rehashing the original. I fullly expect them to bust out a few more surprises than just "let's kill some characters whose titles aren't selling.

This does make me think about some of the great crossover events I have seen in my time. So I decided to punch out my All-Time Top Five list of intracompany crossovers. I decided to leave aside the intercompany crossovers mostly because the have always been at least one step below their intracompany peers, see the painfully contrived Amalgam lineup. Though some, like "Spider-Man vs. Superman" and "Batman vs. The Hulk" are genuine classics. and others like "The Punisher Meets Archie" and that Spawn issue with Cerberus are way underrated. While I'm vaguely on the topic, what's with Witchblade making her first appearance in some Shi/Cyblade crossover. I still can't believe you can legally do that to collectors. If the Comic Code Authority wasn't policing this stuff, then what good where they?

Anyways . . .

All-Time Top Five Comic Crossovers (within a company)

5. Spider-Clone Saga- I know, I know. It was awful. It was horrendous. It set the character back for years. But hear me out, this story was special in my development as a comic book fan for three reasons. 1) I was personally addicted to Spider-Man at the time, and it showed me that there comes a time when you have to abandon a character on account of the story no matter what your loyalty to the character is. That allowed me to understand how to jump from title to title to take full advantage of the shifting nature of today's comic market. 2) I think the whole comic community was fascinated with this whether you were reading it or not. It was the classic example of a slow-train wreck comic. 3) It was the signal to me and the comic community in general that the heady 90's and their bloated events were over. Frome there the slow rebuilding of the Marvel Universe could begin.

4.DC One Million- Since DC has had about one crossover event every year of at least minor importance these sort of things have been negligible since COIE. Somewhere in the crowd lies this true gem. I loved the concept of introducing a whole new element to the DC universe, the far flung future scape of the 853rd century. This story let Grant Morrison do exactly what he does best, create a huge outlandish idea and then play around with it. It didn't do much to further the universe's storylines, but it did create a bucketful of new ideas for later creators to toy around with. That's more than so many other crossovers.

3. Secret Wars- Secret Wars proved that crossover events could work as a story telling device and a commercial success. Not only did this spawn some crazy sequels and the all-powerful cosmic entity who wore a jheri curl for no good reason, but it also started the sequence of events that led to Venom, Carnage, and pretty much every Spider-Man plotline from 1988 until 2001. Plus, have you ever actually read this series? It's pretty intense and a little crazed in it's own right. If you were reading this title as it came out, you would seriously worry if everyone would make it out alive.

2. Infinity Gauntlet- Again bonus points are awarded for sequels here, no matter how gimmicky. Second, this did have some pretty big ramifications. Third, the cosmic scope of the story and philosophical underpinnings were actually pretty interesting. Fourth, the moment between Captain America and Thanos is an all-time classic in comic book history. Fifth, I have to give credit to Marvel for letting Jim Starlin do what he does best. Sixth, I like numerical lists.

1. Crisis on Infinite Earths- The standard. 'Nuff said.

On one last note, I am pleased to let you know that I have found two other titles I would recommend for your reading enjoyment. Thankfully for all you non-traditional comic readers (read: non-fat white young single white males) and for my reputation as a hip comic fan, neither of them are super-hero titles.

Fell- This is yet another title by one of my favorite writers, Warren Ellis. It's a detective comic in the tradition of gritty crime-dramas like TV's Homocide or The Wire. Each story is an easy to read stand-alone story, with some supplemental material thrown in. This book is a breeze to pick up and enjoy. The hero Det. Richard Fell is a likeable and intriguing protagonist. Ellis has creating a truly fascinating setting the "feral city" of Snowtown. It's great stuff for people interest in some adult level mystery stories.

Sea of Red- Two words to excite just about anyone. Vampire. Pirates. That's a great concept on it's own, but this book, by Rick Remender and Kieron Dwyer, does some interesting things with it. It seems like each issue brings a truly unexpected twist. With the wild attitude of these creators and the fact that none of these are established franchise characters, I am certain this story will be a major thrill ride.

That's all for now, but I'm sure to have more to say soon. Until then watch this space for more on education and basketball.

Comic Shop Musings 7/30/2005

This post will rescue my blog. I have written a lot on this blog about education, my professional interest, which was bound to happen as that's where my head has been these last few weeks. I refuse to let my loyal blog audience (who do I think I am?) be victimized by my recent narrow mental focus though. I have diverse interests and I can expound on many of them for great length. Of course to bring you the many facets of my mind, I need to occasionally take a deliberate break and steak out a new topic. I have written a little about my personal interests on this blog before, and I have some more ideas to share. However it seems like I'm crowding the landscape with only stuff on professional basketball, so I will spend a some of my lovely webspace on one of my lifelong passions: comic books.

I have read comic books since I was a small child, and have always had a place in my heart for the cape and tights crowd. Superheroes are often criticized for being overly broad or simplistic. While at the same time many complain that it's hard to read comic books because there's too much history involved. I trace this apparent paradox back to the basic nature of the genre. Superheroes are in my mind the descendant of ancient mythologies. This naturally results in archetypical characters engaged in epic quests. Every culture at all points in history has had a use for this kind of story told through one kind of art form or another. Still, some detract from comic books in general because they feel the fail to achieve the greatness appropriate of Art. I take great offense at such judgments. We've created figures of unreal dimensions and characteristics not as a failure to achieve some higher art, but as an exact expression of certain needs the human mind and spirit can't find elsewhere.

I am obligated by my union rules (Comic Book Fans, Trekkies and Role Playing Gamers Amalgamated Local Chapter #513) to remind everyone that there is great diversity at the comic racks. Any decent comic book vendor will point you to any number of genres, art styles, and formats that might please your particular artistic aesthetics. As I have grown and matured as a reader my tastes and interests in comic books have also become more sophisticated and diversified -though I have been missing out on certain genres since, Crossgen Comics went under, but that's nothing you really care about. I urge everyone to buy some comic books RIGHT FREAKIN' NOW! All you have to do is think of your favorite movie of the last five years or so, and then go into a comic book shop and ask them to recommend something like that. I say all of this because I will now go on to discuss superhero comics at great length. If anyone wants to check out of this column now feel free to do so. I'll write something soon about drum and bugle corps, which come to think of it I'm pretty sure the general audience care slightly more about comic books than drum corps (or as my brothers call it dork corps) But I will be writing some more about basketball in a few days and that should appease you lot.

I've recently been forced to find a new comic shop. Not only has this made me reconsider my choices for what I purchase on a month to month basis, but has also introduced me to some new characters and got me started thinking about a few major events going on in comic books right now. I have begun to think about events in comic books less in terms of how the relate to the artists who work on the titles, or the characters, or even the plots, and much more about how they reflect corporate policy.

At this point you'll need a little information about the current state of the comic industry, so you can either skip ahead or be patient with me. To summarize recent history in comic books for the uninformed (or as you apparently prefer to be called "normal") in the early 1990's comic books became a hot speculative item for investors with more money then brains who were waiting for Reaganomics to finally start paying out (funny how they never did until there was a Democrat in office). This meant the market for comics jumped tremendously. The problem with that was that the market didn't really want good comic books. No, it wanted comics that had that sheen of being $HIGHLY COLLECTIBLE$. Naturally the capitalist system forced the comic companies to pursue these profits by doing things like launching "events" or redundant title just to produce more issues with that supposedly collectible #1 on their cover. They also tended to put more thought into creating new "special edition features" like foil-embossed covers, holograms, and other gimmicks than they did thinking about how to tell good stories and use the artform of comics effectively. Then tech stocks got hot, so everyone sold back their comic books and the industry went through its own private recession. Over several years the major comic companies started focusing on quality again, and there has been something of a creative renaissance across all comic books, thankfully including superhero titles. Now the major comics companies Marvel (think Spider-Man, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four) and DC (Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman) are finally healthy again, and they are both out to make some serious mullah as their readership begins to grow, which has them positioning to try duking it out.

Now, I was talking to an employee at my new comic shop and he was pointing out that Crossgen Comics recent rise and fall was due to the company ownership's certainty that what they had to do to succeed was claim as much market share as possible. This lead to them releasing many, many titles in a brief span of time. They also tried to add a special incentive to readers to buy all their titles, by making them connected in a larger story. This story was so large that each title could effectively exist alone beneath it as a stand alone story in itself, but it was also so involved that after more than four years it only began to crack the surface when the whole company collapsed. Their idea was daring and it certainly shook up the landscape of comics, but it ultimately failed. Meanwhile DC and Marvel were fattening themselves back up by cutting down on the number of titles and focusing on self-contained stories under the eyes of focused artists. There was an undeniable nugget of truth in what he said with which I had to agree. Yet, something in the back of my mind bothered me about this. Then a few days ago it dawned on me. Marvel and DC have slipped back into the dangerous habit of title proliferation, big events, and intra-company crossovers.

At Marvel the story line is called "House of M" and it essentially transports the Marvel heroes to a world where Magneto, the X-Men villain, has risen to global domination. It has a lot of interesting takes on how the lives of our beloved heroes would be different. It is being overseen by a writer many argue is the best currently in the business, Brian Michael Bendis. Aside from a central mini-series the "House of M" story line is also being touched upon in some of the regular titles and covered to a larger degree in several special miniseries that relate the tales of this alternative reality. It's been selling great and it all seems interesting on the surface. Except for anyone who's been a fan of Marvel comics for more than ten years, this all seems oddly familiar. To paraphrase David Spade's Hollywood Minute, "I liked 'House of M'. I liked it even more when they called it 'Age of Apocalypse'." That's right. Marvel has traveled this road before. They got a major sales boost and a lot of buzz out of it, but this is still old hat. Repeating a tale of the universe being drastically altered because of some change in the timeline that brings a major X-Men villain to power wouldn't even be so bad, if Marvel weren't still CELEBRATING THE LAST TIME THEY DID IT! Because this year marks the tenth anniversary of the "Age of Apocalypse" event Marvel has been releasing ample amounts of comics that revisit the old territory. We might have forgotten the old story long enough to enjoy the new one if Marvel could have just let the past be the past instead of digging it up in the hopes of a little sales boost. Worse still the hype the company generated for this book is undermining their credibility. The publicity keeps saying this will "change the Marvel universe forever". How? The whole story takes place in some other reality, where everything is different anyway. So they can try any stunt they want to pull, and then just wipe the slate clean whenever they return the timeline to normal. I ask you, who cares? At least during "Age of Apocalypse" the company had the guts to replace the regular titles with new ones that only existed in the alternative world. With "House of M" all the regular titles still continue with the alternative world shunted into various mini-series. If the reader can choose to ignore an entire storyline, then how much impact can it really have on whichever series it is she's reading.

Let me tell you where this really hurts Marvel as a company. Let's say an uninitiated potential customer enters a comic book shop. She thinks "I liked that X-Men movie, maybe I'll try those comic books." She then finds the comic rack so stuffed with comics with X in the title that she begins to suspect, she may have mistakenly entered a porn store (while we're on that topic, I'm worried the number of comic shops that also vend pornography of some kind or another, is doing very little to help improve the image of the industry in the mind of the public). Looking over to the store's employee she see's an all too real example of that Comic Book Guy stereotype from the Simpsons, he's probably too involved in a conversation about the comparative merits of both the old and the new Battlestar Galactica shows to notice her, or just too nervous to talk to girls. Trust me if you were in the avergae comic book shop you would feel uncomfortable talking to the man behind the register too. She then does the only thing she can do, which is randomly select four comic books about the X-Men. If any thought goes into these selections it is limited to price, cover art, and how quickly she can grab them and run. When she gets home to read them she finds she's grabbed four books that occur in four different timelines (regular, Ultimate, "House of M", and "Age of Apocalypse" redux). She can't make sense of anything and decides to never try comic books again. Well done, Marvel. You've scared away another one due to a poor corporate policy of printing whatever seems most likely to sell to the same fans you've had for the last fifteen years.

DC on the other hand is taking the smart approach to their company's major event. They have been building up to it with a number of smaller events. There's a good reason for this. It's because the story they want to tell is so big it needs this kind of buildup. They can't just arbitrarily release a flashy mini-series over the summer to spike the sales. Instead they're trying something more natural. If you want to follow the story, there are many titles that are tied into it. If you don't want to get involved, you don't have to, there are many titles still telling stand alone stories. Of course DC plans for this event to be so grand and encompass so much, that you may well have to get involved at some point. They're just providing the oppurtunity for you to have as much lead in time as possible.

The major event from DC is called "Infinite Crisis" and it has been created by a company wide conference of writers, artists, and editors, who are all trying to tell one big story using all of the DC universe. It draws its name and at least some of its inspiration from the 1980's opus "Crisis on Infinite Earths", wherein DC spent twelve issues telling a story of the most epic scope to streamline and simplify a universe of stories and characters that had become overcrowded over the preceding 50 or so years. That series delivered action and drama on both the highest levels of operatic granduer and the most human stories of personal triumph and tragedy. I find the current effort by DC to recreate such a work totally engaging. They promise that the stakes will be as high as ever, and that the series will show "the worst day in the history of the DC Universe". I am in high anticipation of the event, and believe that so far DC has done a much better job of creating a readable story than Marvel has.

I say so far, because I am now hearing of their plans for the follow up, and I'm a little concerned. Apparently after this one really,really, really, bad day for all the DC superheroes, the company plans to take every title and jump the story ahead one year into the future. I guess they kind of have to make up some ground for how much time they're devoting to this one event, so I could almost see this working. Then I heard about how they plan to recount that year, releasing a new comic title that will come out once a week for the 52 weeks of the following year. This is an ambitious idea sure, but no artist, and no writer currently in the biz could keep up that pace to any standard of quality. So you have to deal with a constantly shifting creative team, which is always a risky proposition. On top of that since this title will be released concurrently with stories coming one year after it's completion, you run into the problem of fan confusion. Which is to say nothing of the potential reader who walks into a comic shop, picks up an issue of Batman, asks the man behind the counter what's going on in Batman's world, hears "we don't know, they haven't explained that yet", puts the comic back down and walks out on the street, never to return again.

I just worry that the two major faces of the comic industry aren't doing the best job they can to expand the market. I'm part of the problem since I still buy the books, and what's worse, the superhero books. I know. I know. I'm hurting comics. But so are Marvel and DC. It's like the trench warfare of WWI, the two sides are dug into their little positions and trying so deseperately to knock out the other guy, that they don't realize the damage they are doing to the general landscape.

All righty then. Now that I have my bad mouthing of the industry I love so much out of the way. (I know. I am such a "blame America first" liberal, when it comes to stuff like this. Why can't I just shut my mouth and appreciate what I have? I don't know, but I can't.) I would now like to share what comic books I'm reading and why I would recommend them to others.

In alphabetical order:

Astonishing X-Men- Written by Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this title does a wonderful job of allowing the intimate soap opera of the X-Men to play on a huge action movie stage. This is the first X-Men title I have every bought on a serious month to month basis. Art chores are doen by the incomperable John Cassady

Astro City: The Dark Age (Book One)- The writer of this title, Kurt Busiek, has long been one of my favorites. The world of Astor City is his own private superhero universe, through which he retells stories we've seen before, but from new and intersting perspectives. He turns hokey old cliches and stereotypes into compelling human drama. This new saga tells how superheroes got to be so grim and gritty over the course of the 1970's and 80's.

Batman/Superman- this book combines the two best known superheroes in the world for a massive slam bang adventure that does everything you want the capes and tights crowd to do.

Conan- Another one written by Kurt Busiek. Since, most are familiar with this famous barbarian, I don't need to explain much. Really, I just had to show one example that I'm not all about superheroes.

Daredevil- The above mentioned Brian Michael Bendis has been writing this title for years now and I worry about what will happen when his run on this title is over. Forget everything you might have seen in that dumb Ben Afleck movie. Bendis reinvisions this character as a gritty and realistic street level crime drama. Mixing the rich background of New York City's Hell's Kitchen with a hard-knock hero who has recently had his secret identity revealed to the public. The costume appears so rarely and is of so little consequence, that I don't really think of this as a superhero comic book anymore. Think HBO's The Wire meets The Fugitive, with only occasional glimpes of red tights.

DC All-Stars: Batman & Robin- Written by comic legend Frank Miller, who may have done more for Batman than any other creator, I buy this book for the art. Jim Lee may be the best artist to hit comics in the last twenty years.

Fantastic Four- Again another title that while traditionally thought of as a superhero title it really isn't. The Fantastic Four are first and foremost a family trying to make a living in New York City, something we've all seen time and time before. The fantastic element comes from the fact that their day jobs center around exploring the wildest limits of their universe. Imagine a TV show that took the characters from Arrested Development and put them into Stargate's world. The stories by J. Michae Straczynski (Has it become obvious I pick my books, by the writers?) combine the two elements so well that this series is only limited by his imagination and his heart.

JLA:Classified- An ongoing series that features a rotating set of creative teams who each spend a few issues telling a stand alone story about the characters of the Justice League of America, DC's greatest heroes, including Superman, Batman, The Flash, and Green Latern. You can pick it up whenever a new story comes along and never feel left out. If you like traditional superheo fare this may be the pick of the litter.

Planetary- Written by Warren Ellis and drawn by the great John Cassady -how he carries the art chores for two titles and maintains his quality is completely beyond my ability to comprehend- this title is the flip side of Astro City. It takes a new look at the old superhero stories too, but from a different perspective. Told through the eyes of a team of mystery archaeologists, the series recasts classic comic standards in world of weird science fiction, that makes the stories seem simultaneously more bizzare than the original tales, and more realisticly conceivable to occur in our world. It's a great intellectual read for anyone who enjoys the heady buzz of reading science magazines that are way over your head. It seems that the novel The Historian tells a similar story about a horror classic, so I recommend any fan of one try the other.

The Ultimates 2- Don't let the number at the end worry you. It doesn't indicate that this title is a sequel as much as the second season, of the biggest, baddest, widescreen action on the planet. Every superhero movie should look like The Ultimates as rendered beautifully, by artist Bryan Hitch. (See I can follow artists too). Captain America, Iron Man, The Hulk, and many others are turned into the larger than life action stars you always knew they were. I don't even buy the DVD's of the latest comic book movies, because I have The Ultimates instead. It's an aderenaline rush every time I read it.

In case none of these titles suit your tastes, I recommend you be patient and keep looking around. I myself am far too fical to stay true to one title for to long, which is why I have never had a pull list with any comic shop. So I'm bound to have new recommendations in the near future. Until then I hope you are appeased with more of my ramblings about education and basketball.