T.J. McLean Writes

A longtime showbiz journalist and fan's thoughts on comic books, movies and other cool stuff.

DC’s Wednesday Comics a big, bold throwback to fun

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On July 18, 2009

In Uncategorized

My Siegel and Shuster posts last week turned into an interesting debate in the comments. After several days of deadlines, I finally was able to finish off my points and hopefully we can move on to more interesting stuff.

Like Wednesday Comics, DC Comics’ new weekly newspaper-style package of big, bold and very cool comics.

I have to say this is one of the coolest ideas I’ve seen in a while, though it’s not completely new as I recall some kind of similar Dark Horse publication (I think it was a promo thing given away in shops) back in the 1990s. But I digress …

This is a package that really plays to the strengths of comics. The big, broad canvas of a broadsheet gives everything a classic, larger than life quality. The art here has room to breathe, to be big and bold and give the reader a chance to really take it in. It’s impossible to not admire the art in this format.

Of course, when you have 15 strips, some will work better than others. So far, I find the new Kamandi by Dave Gibbons and Ryan Sook to be my favorite for the way it evokes strips like Prince Valiant in the writing, art and even the lettering. Paul Pope’s Strange Adventures is, as you’d expect from Pope, lush, beautiful and amazing to look at. The Flash strip, which is perfectly paired with an Iris West c0-feature, is also cool. And Kyle Baker’s send up of 300 — “We flap!” Brilliant! — in Hawkman is a riot.

The ones I don’t think work as well come down don’t work primarily because of the art style — Wonder Woman, Teen Titans and Superman. Each relies heavily on color and uses the kind of computer techniques old newspaper strips didn’t have access to. That’s only a problem because of the one serious technical misstep in this project, which is not printing it on better quality paper.

I totally get the idea behind printing it that way and replicating the feel as well as the look of the old newspaper strip. But deviating too much from the type of art that technically worked so well on newsprint — clearly inked art with simple flat coloring — ends up muddying the images and requiring a hard look to figure out what’s going on in some of those tiny little panels.

Not upgrading the paper has been, I think, a major mistake for most of America’s now troubled newspapers. To go off on a tangent here, newspapers have for decades now been trimming the width of their pages so they can save paper without sacrificing any of the column inches on a page that they sell to advertisers. That makes sense from a business standpoint, but we’ve ended up with newspapers that are long and narrow strips that eroded the widescreen visual impact broadsheets once had. Throw in the kind of formulaic designs conservative corporations prefer (rail down the left, five stories to a cover, and modular, modular, modular) and there’s almost nothing visually appealing left about newspapers.

This applies especially to newspapers’ comics sections, with strips running increasingly small and bland — mostly because editors don’t want to (or have) much time to spend on perennials like the comics page. I worked at many newspapers, and I don’t think the comics were read in advance by any editor in most instances — the strips were sent straight to the composing room and shot almost always without even a copy editor looking at them. This, more than anything, I think, accounts for the decline of the American newspaper comic strip.

I think now — too late, surely — that newspapers should have ditched the pulpy paper for something where the ink doesn’t rub off on your fingers, switch to a tabloid-style format, put color on EVERY page instead of just a handful, and charge more for it. Then you start specializing, turning your sports section into its own publication 3-4 days a week, same with your entertainment and business sections — make them vibrant, good looking publications of their own and compete with magazines and the net by at least producing an object that looks like it belongs in at least the latter half of the 21st century.

All of which is my way of saying that Wednesday Comics is really great and the only complaint I have is the paper quality — something I hope they can correct in the eventual collection.

Anti-Siegel Superman “fans'” arguments are inaccurate and lame

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On July 12, 2009

In Uncategorized

After my last post, I expected to get some comments. But I didn’t expect them to be quite as lame as this one I got from someone named “Media Monkey Ninja.”:

I agree, the heirs are going to be the “REAL” death of The Mam of Steel. I’m not a huge Superman fan (I’m more of a Batman kinda guy), but The Boyscout is an American icon. If there is no Superman, what character is going to uphold Truth, Justice, and the American way. I’d hate to see this happen to any copyrighted character that is this loved by millions. I say if you work for a company and you create copyrighted material while working at that company. The copyrighted material should be owned by the company. If someone whats to have complete copyright ownership, they should create the character solely by themselves while working solely for themselves. That way no company can lay claim to your copyrighted material.

And this is exactly what I was arguing against — fans whose instincts are completely counter-intuitive to the facts of the case (assuming they know the facts, which this poster does not).

So let’s start from the top and try to explain this to anyone who may be interested in actually understanding what’s going on and have some interest in actually learning something. It’s distressing to get such comments, because I generally think comics fans are smart people. And I’m not saying this because “Mr. Ninja” disagrees with me — but if there’s a good moral and legal case for Warner Bros. to not share proceeds from Superman with the Siegels under the current law, I have yet to hear it. And, “DC may stop publishing the Superman comics I so love” does not qualify because no one with any real knowledge of this case or authority at Warner Bros. or DC has even suggested that would happen.

But let’s get into the details of why this kind of this panicky, selfish, pro-corporate position put forth by “Mr. Ninja” is complete bullshit.

First, let’s review copyright law. The United States Constitution states in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8:

The Congress shall have Power [. . .] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

What’s key is the “limited Times” element, which has constantly been extended from the original 14-year term with a single 14-year renewal to the current law which establishes copyright for corporate works made for hire at 95 years and individual copyrights at 70 years after the life of the author.

All works eventually fall into the public domain. This is important to society and to education — the works of Shakespeare are public domain more than 400 years after his death. The benefit to society of his work being freely accessible outweighs the interest of whatever distant descendant (and he has none) may have in milking it for all its worth. Most works in the public domain are not well-known, and being free increases the likelihood that they will be used, republished and generally benefit our society.

At the time of the creation of Superman in the mid-1930s, the law stipulated a term of 28 years for copyright that could be renewed for an additional 28 years. Copyright was bestowed automatically upon the creators, which applies directly to Siegel and Shuster. As teens, they created the character of Superman and his world, and spent years trying to get it published before Detective Comics Inc. bought the material to appear in Action Comics #1. By paying Siegel and Shuster the grad total of $10 a page — $130 total for 13 pages of art and story — DC acquired all rights to the material therein. That was a transfer of copyright, from Siegel and Shuster, to Detective Comics Inc., which is distinct from a work made for hire, in which a company hires people to create material for it. Most Golden Age and Silver Age comics qualify as work made for hire. Stan Lee was employed as editor of Timely/Atlas/Marvel when he came up with the typed plot for Fantastic Four #1 and hired Jack Kirby on a freelance basis to draw it. That’s a quintessential example of work for hire.

The original deal between Siegel and Shuster was iron-clad and held up more than once in court — in DC’s favor. The pair tried to reclaim the copyright to the character in the 1940s and were rebuffed by the courts. They tried in the mid-1960s to argue that they had the first right of renewal of copyright, only to have the courts rule that that right had been sold along with all the others in the original transaction. Under that deal, the Superman material in Action Comics #1 would have entered the public domain in 1994 — more than 15 years ago, for the math impaired among you. Each subsequent issue of Action Comics and Superman would have lost its copyright over time and we’d now have all the Superman material from Action #1 through 1953 in the public domain.

But that deal — which I think is quite reasonable and should remain the standard term for copyright — was no good for the corporations that held copyrights to the likes of not just Superman, but Popeye, Mickey Mouse, Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes and countless others. So, enter the copyright act of 1976, which was the most significant revision to the copyright law in the nation’s history. It not only extended copyright terms, but in a rare show of justice adjusted the law to compensate folks who had sold copyrights that, due to the extension, were now more valuable than they were when originally sold. So to make up for the fact that companies like Disney and DC Comics now had decades more to exploit characters they had acquired, a complicated clause was put in that allowed for the original copyright owners to possibly benefit from the longer terms by terminating the transfer of copyright.

So now comes a common complaint from the anti-Siegelites: If they signed over the rights, they signed over the rights and have to live with that mistake no matter what. But this ignores not only what I stated above about the change in the copyright law, but also the entire area of contract law. No matter what kind of contract you sign, it’s subject to copyright law, i.e., you can’t make a contract that contradicts the law. So the revisions to the copyright law that allow that allowed DC to keep the Superman contract beyond the original term, also allow the Siegels to terminate the original transfer. Still, some seem to think that’s unfair — to DC. But anyone who’s ever signed a contract, be it a lease or rental agreement or deal to buy a house or whatever, will come across a clause that states, essentially, that should any clause in a contract be found illegal that the legal elements will still apply. That should indicate to the vast majority of people that contracts are subject to law. You can’t, for example, contract someone to commit an illegal act and then sue them for breach of contract. The contact, despite the fact that both sides agree to it, is not a legal contract.

So what does “Mr. Ninja” mean when he calls Superman an American icon, and says that he hates to see this happen to any copyrighted character beloved by millions? His position, whether he means it or not, is that the corporate right to copyright is absolute and should never be questioned. Which not only runs counter to the Constitution and copyright law, but also the very truth and justice he says the Superman character stands for. Justice, in essence, is another word for fairness — and who can say it’s fair for DC Comics to have exploited the character of Superman for immense profit for more than 70 years, 15 years beyond the original copyright terms, and then not have to honor a part of the law that says the Siegels as the heirs of the original creator deserve to share in those profits?

What’s missing, of course, is the American way, which apparently is to bow to corporate interests at every opportunity and to support DC’s decades-long piss poor treatment of the Siegels, which included all kinds of demeaning treatment, blacklisting and persistent efforts to deny any legal claim they have to the millions — if not billions — of dollars DC has earned from the character in the past seven decades.

The other point “Mr. Ninja” brings up is that if you want control of your copyright, you shouldn’t create it for a company. Ignoring the factual error — Siegel and Shuster created Superman long before they took it to DC and never created it “for” the company or at its behest — the technology of publishing and the business realities of distribution at the time made it near impossible for a pair of newcomers like Siegel and Shuster to publish their idea without going to a comic book publisher or comic strip syndicate. No comic book publisher of the era let any creator keep the rights. And only the most powerful or business-savvy of the comic-strip artists — like Milton Caniff in comic strips or Will Eisner, who kept the rights to The Spirit comic book inserted in newspapers at least in part because he was a good business man and wasn’t the first to demand and get it — were able to retain their copyrights. Siegel and Shuster, proposing an outlandish idea that was completely untested, had no such leverage.

Which brings us to another point, which is that you can’t determine the value of the copyright to an intellectual property before it hits the marketplace. Publishers have always liked to play the odds and use the failure of the bulk of their ideas to justify stealing the ones that do work. But that’s hardly fair and it’s even arguably bad business. Would the Harry Potter books have become the sensation they are now if the publisher had treated J.K. Rowling — now one of the richest women in the United Kingdom, if not the world — even half as badly as DC treated Siegel and Shuster? They certainly would not be as creatively rewarding for the millions of fans who believed in them to preorder and line up to buy each book in the series the moment it was released. But that’s not how corporations and the small minds that run them think.

At its core, what trolls like “Mr. Ninja” seem to be most afraid of is change. That the victory the Siegels have already won will somehow change or even end the parade of Superman material from DC Comics and Warner Bros. they have come to love in an almost fetishistic sort of way. Which is the most embarrassing part — because Superman remains a vital and extremely viable commercial property. That DC and Warner Bros. would balk so thoroughly at having to share their profits with the heirs of the creators after more than seven decades of exclusive and extremely profitable exploitation is the height of corporate greed. It’s also eminently excusable, justifiable and even admirable in most circles of American society and, apparently, even among fans for whom the worship of the character through the purchase of stuff is more important than the truth and justice they believe the object of their affection represents

Fans’ anti-Siegel position in Superman case is frustrating

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On July 10, 2009

In Uncategorized

I’ve had more than my share of frustrating moments this week — Why, yes! I have been dealing with the health care industry. How did you guess? — nothing upset me quite as much as getting a message from the DC Comics Movies Group on Facebook that included the following bit of blood-boiling idiocy:

In saddening news, if the heirs of Siegel and Shuster have their way Superman will die in 2013 and DC will cease publication of all related Superman comics. Talk about punch to the collective American nutsuck, right?

I instantly sent a message back to the moderator, Allynd Dudnikov, explaining his claim was factually challenged in the extreme and that I was leaving the group immediately because of it.

What he’s talking about is the most-recent development in the ongoing legal proceeding between the heirs of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel and DC Comics, which produced a minor victory for the publisher and its parent company the other day. But I continue to be amazed at the number of people who profess to be fans of Superman in particular and comic book superheroes in general who propagate this idiotic notion that Warner Bros. and DC Comics are somehow the injured party in this dispute and that the Siegels are opportunistic and greedy people out to deprive the fans of the character they’ve come to know and love.

I’ve written about this before and there are plenty of great sites on the web that recount the facts and provide the original documents (which are fascinating reading and highly recommended.)

I’m not an attorney, but what I undstand from following all is this is that the court decided so far is that his heirs have successfully terminated effective in spring 1999 the transfer of Jerry Siegel’s half of the copyright to the Superman story published in Action Comics #1. That means DC owes the Siegels a share to be determined at trial of the money the character earned in the time since the copyright transfer was reclaimed. Similarly, the estate of Joe Shuster has an opportunity to reclaim the other half of the Action #1 copyright in 2013. Should Shuster’s estate succeed, then DC will lose the complete copyright to that original story and will have to license the rights to it back from the creators to use the elements it introduced or to reprint that story.

This most recent ruling states that when the trial to determine the amount of money owed to the Siegels, it will include only the profits earned by DC Comics, and not of Warner Bros. as a whole. The Siegels had argued that the companies are one and the same — a claim the judge rejected. That means the Siegels’ share will come out of a smaller pie, but it’s still coming.

But it doesn’t mean the end of Superman as he exists today — or will exist tomorrow. While Action #1 introduces some of the most significant elements in the Superman mythos — the orphan sent to Earth from outer space, the alter ego of newspaper reporter Clark Kent, the love interest in Lois Lane, the basic costume and powers such as strength, invulnerability and leaping tall buildings — everything that came after Action #1 is solidly work-for-hire owned lock, stock and barrel by DC Comics for a full 95 years.

And I can’t see it making sense for DC or Warner Bros. to stop putting Superman content out there because they have to pay a percentage of the character’s profits to the Siegels. A percentage of the profits is better than no profits. And neither Warner Bros. nor DC is going to go out of business because the courts say they have to pony up to the Siegels. As Harlan Ellison, a wise and smart man — as well as a terrific writer — said about one time the studio asked him to work without pay: “What is Warner Brothers, out with an eye patch and a tin cup, begging for money?”

As I’ve said before, what’s really shameful in all of this is that this conflict was, in my opinion, unnecessary. Warner Bros. got off to a good start in the mid-1970s by restoring Siegel and Shuster’s credit and establishing an annual stipend. Had they gone a bit further and given them a sum that would have been small for so large a conglomerate but lavish for Siegel and Shuster’s final years. Even just making a big deal of the pair — sending them to festivals, comics shows, putting them on TV every now and again — I think would have done a lot more to put this dispute to rest than taking a hard position that may make good legal and business sense but is morally and ethically bankrupt.

Publishers’ shabby treatment of the folks who create and give life to the comic books we love is truly the great shame of the industry. And it’s not just folks from the past, like Siegel and Shuster, Jack Kirby or Alan Moore who are the sole victims. Ask Hero by Night creator DJ Coffman how work for hire worked out for him at Platinum Studios. And as it becomes harder and harder to make money solely by publishing comics, many of the gains made in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s by folks like Dave Sim, Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman, the Image boys and Neil Gaiman have been pushed back by publishers who need those licensing and movie option dollars to stay in business. A quick look at the indicias and copyright notices on publishers that once used their creator-friendly deals as a selling point with fans will reveal a lot of shared copyrights — and I’ll give you one guess which party has the majority share. I expect this to get worse as more and more people create content — comics and not — with no sense of the lessons learned by the likes of Siegel and Shuster and have to learn this unnecessary lesson all over again.

I have had creators tell me revised contract terms have prompted them to stop working with publishers they had long worked with and take their work to houses like Image, which along with Fantagraphics and one or two other independent publishers, are perhaps the last bastions of creator ownership in comics.

What amazes me is that so many people buy the line that Warner Bros. and DC are entitled to make as much as they can off of Superman without any kind of legal or moral obligation to the Siegels of the world. It’s some strange kind of American corporatist thinking that gives all the power and rewards to the corporate executives who exploit a work and cuts out completely the creative people elements that give a character and a story life in the first place. (Again, I’ve been dealing with the health-care industry in a relatively very minor way this past week. It’s clear and logical to me that if someone is in the position of benefiting themselves, the company they work for or their investors by denying care, then making such a decision even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary is inevitable. And there are such people making that very decision at every level of the American health care system. No wonder the industry has become a black hole for money and morals.)

Given the United States is a country that, particularly of late, has sadly been more pro-business than pro-people, I’m not surprised to see the attorneys and execs for Warner Bros. acting this way. But I wish the fans of Superman, who represents an ideal of fairness above all else, were better represented in the online chatter than by this kind of remark, which exudes above all else a selfishness and short-sightedness that the Man of Steel, were he real, would hardly approve of.

Wrath of Khan and X-Men Forever Make Me Unexplainably Happy

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On June 10, 2009

In Uncategorized

For the first time in a while, there were a couple of new comics out this week that I had to read as soon as soon as I got home. They’re both comics I had at one time really hoped would one day exist and now that they’re here on the same day, serve as bookends for a lot of my 1980s fan experiences.

Up first is Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan #1 (of 3) (IDW, $3.99), adapting at long last the best of the Trek movies into comic book format. It’s hardly the sort of thing you can explain as an adult, but it really used to bother me that this film hadn’t been turned into a comic that I could collect and hold on to way back in 1982. For those who don’t know, the first Star Trek comics were published by Gold Key starting in 1967 and running 61 issues through 1978. With the coming in 1979 of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Paramount did what George Lucas had done with Star Wars and Universal with the original Battlestar Galactica and went to Marvel for an adaptation and original series. Unlike with those other properties, Marvel’s Trek was a troubled mess and after a year was demoted from monthly to bimonthly publication and finally canceled in late 1981 after a mere 18 issues.

It took the success of the movie Khan to convince DC to give it a go starting in 1983, starting their stories in the post-Khan era and producing the first of several successful lines of Trek comics. I always liked the DC Trek comics best and have a complete collection of them bagged, boarded and long-boxed. DC adapted Star Trek III, IV, V and VI quite well, but it was always frustrating to have that one gap in there. And I know I wasn’t the only one frustrated by this, as the question came up more than once in the excellent letters columns editor Bob Greenberger used to prepare for the Trek comics. It was always held out as a possibility, but always a very unlikely one. And it became even less likely as the Trek franchise moved its focus to The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise.

Reading the book at long last is satisfying. It’s a different animal, being produced so long after the fact, when the writer and artist can check every scene and line with the DVD. But it still has its own flavor and a few tics to make it lovable. I even like the use of the Bob Peak poster art on the cover of the first issue, though getting Howard Chaykin to paint a cover to match the ones he did for DC’s version of Trek III and IV would truly be amazing. Maybe for the eventual trade paperback.

On the other end of things is X-Men Forever #1 (Marvel, $3.99), an ongoing biweekly series in which writer Chris Claremont and artist Tom Grummett go back to 1991 and basically pretend Claremont never left the series. Like Wrath of Khan, there’s no way to truly travel back to that point, but this does pick up the threads from that point and go forward with them in a way that satisfies the inner geek in me that always wanted to see what Chris would have done had he not left.

Somewhere on my hard drive, I have saved an interview Claremont did back around 1994 in which he described his plans for the series. They were fascinating, but apparently not going to be picked up in this series — which is just as well.

Part of me really hopes this revives the feeling of reading Claremont’s best work from the 1980s, and part of me hopes this series goes off on completely different tangents and creates a really cool alternate version of the X-Men that takes on a life all its own.

The big complaint (as always) is about Claremont’s style of writing. Yes, he goes overboard on the copy by today’s standards, but I also find a lot to appreciate in it reflecting a time when comics were a serialized medium of periodicals. When each issue had to stand in some way on its own and there was no “writing for the trade.” It always kind of made sense to me to try to pack each issue with ideas and as many bits of characterization would fit, if only to see what would stick. You always could — and Claremont often did — just ignore the stuff that didn’t work or hang on to it until he could work it in. I always thought the density of the X-Men was part of its appeal at the time — there was always something going on in the heads of each character, and Claremont put more thought and took more risks with that kind of stuff than most writers of that time did.

Coming as these events did — Khan in 1982, when I was still in junior high school, and the end of Claremont’s X-Men run in 1991, when I was graduating college — it’s impossible for my judgment on either to be anything less than nostalgic. But even looking beyond the nostalgia, some of the things that originally attracted me to these projects remains in these new comics, and I’m glad to see that sometimes these things remain the same no matter how many years pass.

Thoughts on E3, The 10-Cent Plague and Batman & Robin #1

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On June 5, 2009

In Uncategorized

I got to spend at day at E3 this week for Animation Magazine and walked away pretty impressed by the video game industry, which has changed a lot since the last big E3 I went to in 2006. Aside from toning down the noise, bright lights and over-the-top booth babe pandering, the games themselves were noticably brighter, less violent and more fun. I think a lot of this has to do with the success of casual games, the Nintendo Wii and the runaway success of things like Rock Band. (How cool-looking is that Beatles game? Yowza!)Yeah, there were still plenty of violent games as well, but even those were sharper looking and more stylish than the somewhat ugly and overbearingly geeky fare of just three years ago. Relating to comics, there were some very cool game on display, with Batman: Arkham Asylum looking like the best Batman game ever. There were batarangs to throw, an RPG element, “detective mode,” tons of comics-related cameos including Commissioner Gordon, Oracle, Zzasz and a few others, and some really great action sequences. It was especially cool to watch Batman glide down from the rafters to rescue a prison guard held hostage in one sequence. Next to this, the DC Universe Online MMORPG looked a little dull. I’ll admit I didn’t give it a spin and that the pleasures of that kind of game come from playing with others. But despite the long development, it just didn’t pop enough visually to stand out from some truly cool-looking stuff.Amond the cool-looking, I’ll count Marvel Alliance 2 from Activision. The trailer for this was running on huge screens at the Activision booth in between trailers for DJ Hero (which looks amazing, cool and super sexy) and Guitar Hero: Van Halen. It looks to take a cue from Civil War, with rival teams of Avengers lead by Captain America and Iron Man squaring off, with a third team of more villainous characters entering the fray. The HD visuals were truly stunning — you could see the cloth and chain mail in Cap’s costume, for example. And the lineup of characters itself was promising, including everyone from Luke Cage and Cable to 1980s faves Firestar and Cloak & Dagger. Here’s a look at the trailer:

It’s also clear that video games have a cultural cachet with both youths and adults that the comics industry hasn’t had since the 1960s and likely never will again. But comics do have one thing that video games, for all their immersiveness and entertainment value, still can’t quite match, and that’s in telling stories. Which is not to say that there aren’t good stories being told in games, but the interactivity of the experience scratches a different itch (I think) than the kind of straight storytelling you find in comics, novels, TV shows and movies. All of which leads into my second topic, which is David Hajdu’s book The Ten-Cent Plague (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $26), which came out last year and I finally got around to reading just now. For those who don’t know, this is a thoroughly researched account of the anti-comics crusade of the late 1940s and early 1950s. It makes for fascinating and entertaining reading for anyone who ever wanted to know more about this topic. What came through most vividly for me was the vehemence of the attacks on comics, and the accounts of the comic book bonfires are especially chilling. Hajdu does a great job digging into the reaction of the folks on the receiving end of this — the writers and artists who were vilified and deprived of not just their livlihoods but their outlets for creative expression. It also has interesting bits from the kids of the time, who, being kids, didn’t have the tools to really protest their parents’ and teachers’ attacks on the comic books they loved to read. The book is subtitled “The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America,” and that’s the one area I thought the book fell short — in putting these events into the context of censorship and ratings systems both before and after the Comics Code. It’s interesting to read at the end how the publishers installed Charles Murphy to head up the CMAA expecting him to be a figurehead of sorts. But Murphy turned out to be a hard-core believer in the code and enforced it far more vigorously than anyone expected. It would have been interesting to read more about how the anti-comics crusade compared to earlier American censorship efforts, talk about how the Code evolved and changed the comic book industry, and how these events influenced later attempts to either rate or regulate everything from movies to song lyrics, TV shows and most recently video games. I got a bunch of great previews this week that I hope to read this weekend and write about next week, but I did get around to reading the much-anticipated Batman & Robin #1 (DC, $2.99) by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely. I’m on record as very much having liked Grant Morrison’s first Batman arcs back in 2006 (I think). But I found later arcs to be more arcane and difficult to really get into and follow. (Batman R.I.P. and Final Crisis, I’m looking at you). This was much better and has some real promise, but I’m afraid I don’t see much reason to get really excited — yet. I think the problem is that Morrison isn’t the best fit with Batman. Morrison’s ability to get weird in interesting ways is a much better fit for the misfits of Doom Patrol (still my favorite long-running Morrison series), New X-Men, or the experimentation with new ideas like We3. None of which will stop this from being a huge commercial hit for DC, but I’ll be quite interested to see how far Morrison can go with Batman and how many folks will stick around for the ride once the novelty wears off.

New Comic-Con pictorial history is an absolute must have!

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On May 28, 2009

In Uncategorized

Attending Comic-Con is a unique experience — there’s nothing else like it on earth and the experience is different for each person, each year they attend. And as the show has grown exponentially, it’s become almost impossible to experience more than a fraction of it. Admittedly, it can at times be as frustrating an event to attend as it much more often is exhilarating and exciting.

So I was thrilled to find a review copy of what is sure to be one of the hottest items at this year’s convention: A big pictorial history book of the show, titled “Comic-Con: 40 Years of Artists, Writers, Fans and Friends.”

I guarantee: This will be the hottest item at this year’s show.

What’s in it? Well, there’s a good overall history of the show, from its earliest days through to today’s pop culture phenomenon, but even better the book is absolutely packed with photographs, artwork, profiles, vintage articles and lists of the show’s many guests and awards. All this is wrapped up in a fantastic cover by Comic-Con mainstay, Mad-man Sergio Aragones.

Among the amazing tidbits and sights I learned from devouring every page of this book are:

  • In 1975, Alan Light (founder of what became the Comics Buyers Guide) and his Dyna Pubs produced an LP record featuring programs from the Comic-Con. I instantly hit Google to search for more info on this, as I would love to listen to this, and came up empty. Anyone know anything about this? Has it ever/could it be re-issued? I love that this simply exists somewhere.
  • Vintage photographs of Chuck Norris shaking hands with Stan Lee at the 1975 show and Alan Moore with Jack Kirby at Moore’s only U.S. con appearance ever in 1985. Also pics of folks like Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Harvey Kurtzman, Harlan Ellison … and it just goes on and on. This book is a treasure trove of photos of comics creators and Con attendees past and present.
  • Images of program covers, promotional fliers and ads, badges, limited-edition prints, all the official Con T-shirts, and even the covers of the updates and magazines.
  • Profiles of Con mainstays, illustrated of course, such as Forrest J Ackerman, Will Eisner, Jack Kirby, Ray Bradbury (who also writes the intro), Will Eisner, Dave Stevens, Mark Evanier, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller and Jim Lee.

I have to say I’m thrilled to see all this history out there, because it’s not been something terribly easy to come by in years past. I recall editing the first Comic-Con special for Variety five years ago and finding little published material out there on the Con’s past. I was therefore thrilled when Evanier, one of the few folks who has been to every San Diego Con, agreed to write a piece for the special. (You can read that piece here.)

Flipping through this book evoked for me much the same thrill I get from attending the show. There’s something amazing to look at with each turn of the page. This book instantly made the two-month wait for this year’s convention seem unbearably long.

The book, which was written by Comic-Con mainstays Gary Sassaman and Jackie Estrada (with lots of help), is designed and published by Chronicle Books — so I’m sure that it will be made available through normal book publishing outlets at some point.

But I’m also convinced this will be one of the hottest items at this year’s Comic-Con. The current issue of Comic-Con magazine offers a preview of the book and says the first print run will be limited and a special preordering system will be set up for folks to pay their $40 in advance and pick up at the show. Details will be forthcoming at comic-con.org.

Don’t miss out. This one is worth it.

Reading a Big Stack of Comics, Part 2

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On May 27, 2009

In Uncategorized

Let’s get right to it, shall we?

Ignition City #1-2 (Avatar Press, $3.99 each) was exactly the kind of thing I think to myself that I want to read. So I should really have liked this, but instead I found it annoyingly unsurprising. Maybe I should take a break from reading just about everything Warren Ellis writes, because Ignition City felt too much like Ellis-by-numbers: Tough, smart, hot chick protagonist? Check. Lots of swearing, drinking and talking about swearing and drinking? Check. Making a fetish of air travel, space travel and or British exceptionalism? Check. I still liked it, though I wish artist Gianluca Pagliarani didn’t try so hard to get me to look at Mary Raven’s ass.

Soul Kiss #1-2 (Image Comics, $3.50 each) puts a fun twist on the deal-with-the-devil idea as a struggling young production assistant gains the power to kill with a kiss. Man of Action Steven T. Seagle delivers a peppy script, well matched by some bold and vibrant from the artist, Marco Cinello. This feels like the indie comics of decades past and I’m on board for the rest of this one.

Seaguy: Slaves of Mickey Eye #1 (Vertigo, $3.99) is something I bought mostly because anything Grant Morrison does is almost always worth a look. But this is a reminder that not everything he does pans out. My first clue should have been that I remembered the art from reading the first Seaguy series but nothing about the story. This sequel made an equally lax impression on me as Seaguy mopes his way through a story that’s strange but as lifeless and pointless as the first series was (now that I remember it).

Elephantmen #15-18 (Active Images/Image Comics, $2.99 each) has turned into a real favorite, largely because each issue actually adds to the story. The pace isn’t exactly a rip-roaring roller coaster, but unlike too many other series when something happens in Elephantmen it happens for a reason. It also looks fantastic, with great artwork, lovely coloring and effective (though occasionally over-busy) designs and top-notch lettering. It also is one of the few comics that actually feels like a periodical publication, its pages filled with bonus features, articles about British comics and even backup features. I particularly liked issue #18, which featured some lovely artwork from comics newcomer Marian Churchland.

Astro Boy: The Movie #1 (IDW, $3.99) debuts a four-part prequel to the upcoming CG-animated movie. The comic has an appealing, simple style, courtesy of writer Scott Tipton and artist Diego Jourdan, that is ideal for a kids audience (which is what I assume they’re going for). Fans of Osamu Tezuka or the old anime Astro Boy cartoons are probably going to find this a little shallow, but this is pretty good for a kids-movie tie-in.

From the Ashes #1 (IDW, $3.99) is a strange and fun “speculative memoir” by misanthropic cartoonist Bob Fingerman in which he and his wife, Michele, appear to be the sole survivors of a mysterious apocalyptic event. It’s surprisingly funny to watch them take relief in the idea of not having to go to work or that all the annoying people they hate aren’t around — until, of course, the cannibals show up. The almost blasé reactions are a nice counterpoint to the hysteria of, say, Cloverfield.

Buck Rogers #0 (Dynamite, 25 cents) is a short preview of a new series resurrecting the classic sci-fi hero for the 21st century. Most of my knowledge of Buck Rogers comes from the 1970s TV show, which was decidedly cheesy, so this is a pleasant surprise. Scott Beatty sets things up with an action packed script and the art by Carlos Rafael has a terrific modern look.

American McGee’s Grimm #1 (IDW, $3.99) is a reasonably fun little lark in which the title character — who apparently stars in his own video game series — spoofs superhero comics by helping the supervillains actually win, for once. While superhero comics are a pretty easy target, this has a few clever moments and some interesting looking artwork, courtesy of writer Dwight MacPherson and artist Grant Bond.

Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jansen #4 (Oni Press, $3.99) continues the series spun off the Comedy Central faux news hosts’ fan fiction joke. The joke was funny when the first issue came out, some two years ago, but it’s wearing a little thin in this fourth issue.

Blue Monday: Thieves Like Us #1 (Oni Press, $3.99) brings back Chynna Clugston’s ode to ’80s high school highjinks and hasn’t lost a step. There is something odd about seeing these characters coming back after a pretty lengthy absence having aged not at all, but it’s made up for by Clugston’s overall sharp sense of humor and an art style that’s increasingly influenced by the work of Jaime Hernandez. Now, my sole complaint is that this series isn’t in color …

Spawn #188 (Image Comics, $2.95) is Part Four of the Endgame story that brings creator Todd McFarlane back into the creative process. Having read this book for the past few years, I find this title to be quite underrated. McFarlane co-writes the story with Brian Holguin and it’s got a good hook, a sufficiently creepy undertone and makes loads more sense than any of the issues McFarlane did back in the early 1990s. Artwork also is quite goood, with pencils from the always-interesting Whilce Portacio and “digital inks” from McFarlane himself. It may not necessarily look much like classic McFarlane, but at least a little of his iconic style sneaks through to nice effect.

Shrapnel: Aristeia Rising #2-3 (Radical Comics, $2.99 each) is military sci-fi in the mode of Heinlein’s Starship Troopers. While the machismo, even from the lead female character, is a little much for me, fans of this kind of thing will likely find this to be a superior comic. Created by Mark Long and Nick Sagan and scripted by M. Zachary Sherman, the details of the story get a bit lost in the dark but lovely painted artwork of Bagus Hutomo. I appreciate the look of the art, but some clarity in the images would help the storytelling.

Hotwire #1-2 (Radical Comics, $2.99) is another Warren Ellis comic starring a tough-as-nails hottie chick — this time she’s a exorcist detective in a world where ghosts are real. Scripted and painted by Steve Pugh, this is an imaginative world featuring a story that’s attractively told and could develop into something really interesting.

The Unwritten #1 (Vertigo, $1) is the discount-priced debut of the new series from writer Mike Carey and artist Peter Gross. This ongoing series kicks off with a guy named Tommy Taylor, whose father wrote a series of Harry Potter-style books starring his son — and suddenly disappeared. Tommy himself is the object of adoration at conventions, signings, etc. — until it’s revealed he may not be who he says (or thinks) he is. Written with Carey’s usual care and in a nice literary style, this book also looks terrific thanks to Gross’ excellent art and truly fine coloring from Chris Chuckry. This feels like the kind of hit Vertigo specializes in and should make fans of Fables, Sandman and Y: The Last Man happy.

BONUS BLAST FROM THE PAST #1: It doesn’t really matter that DC’s Heroes Against Hunger #1 (1986) is not a good comic, because it was a benefit book for African famine. It’s amazing to look back and see how many benefits of this type there were, from Band-Aid and Live-Aid to USA for Africa, Northern Lights and Marvel’s X-Men comic Heroes for Hope. This is very much like Heroes for Hope, in that it features a ton of great talent all contributing a few pages at a time. The story, such as it is, features Superman and Batman working on various hunger problems and needing the help of Lex Luthor. It’s got a cool cover by Neal Adams and art by just about every top artist of the era — Jack Kirby, Carmine Infantino, George Perez, John Byrne, Barry Windsor-Smith, Walt Simonson, Dave Gibbons, Denys Cowan and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez. It’s also got most of the DC writing stable of the era, but it’s lacking the star power evident in Heroes for Hope, which had pages by Alan Moore and Stephen King. Again, little of that matters, as this wasn’t really meant to work as a great piece of art as much as a good excuse for comics fans and DC to contribute to a good cause.

BONUS BLAST FROM THE PAST #2: Pacific Comics is no longer around, but Alien Worlds #2 (May 1983) proves it put out some good stuff. This particular issue offers fans of sci-fi art some terrific eye candy. Up first is a tale called “Aurora,” written and drawn by the late Dave Stevens in 1977. It’s a great reminder that he was a fantastic illustrator, and this sci-fi tale portrays a beautiful heroine in a lush, beautifully detailed and believable alien world. Each panel looks like it was labored over with love, and the result is really enchanting. Up next is a harder-edged story from Ken Steacy that again is beautifully illustrated with inky shadows and slick tech. Last is “A Mind of Her Own,” written and drawn by Bruce Jones and another tale where each panel encourages the reader’s eye to linger. Terrific, and well worth seeking out.

The Other Side of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek

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On May 7, 2009

In Uncategorized

I saw Star Trek the other night and feel the need to write down my reactions to it here, even though Trek is not a comic-book property. My love for Trek, however, does extend to comics and my collection includes all but a dozen or so issues of the Gold Key run, everything from DC and Malibu, and some of the Marvel stuff from the mid-1990s, which was the point at which my interest in Trek began to fade. And I’ve never made a secret of my skepticism for this reboot, as evidenced by the article I wrote for Mania.com titled “10 Reasons to be Worried About Star Trek.” That article was written well before I saw the film and is definitely an exercise in playing Devil’s advocate. I would have been happy to have been proven wrong about all of those points and happy to agree some of them didn’t pan out. There’s no way I can write objectively about this new Star Trek. I have been a fan since Grade 1, when every boy at my elementary school rushed home each afternoon to watch this coolest of cool shows in syndication. I was already a space fan, thanks to a book my parents gave me about the planets and the moon missions, and classic Trek was the first and, I think, still the best pure science fiction show ever made. And I think that’s a point worth remembering. Trek came along and did science fiction — traditional science fiction, not the space fantasy with sci-fi trappings of Star Wars — at a time when there was none on TV. And while there were a few imitators, Space: 1999 being the most obvious example, none was as good or successful or worthy of re-watching as Trek. In the 1980s, the Trek movies were dependable and successful productions and the series was second only to the runaway success of Star Wars in terms of sci-fi. By the time of The Next Generation, there was no other science fiction on TV, and even TNG’s success didn’t do much to change that for quite a while. I think this is important because Trek really was a pioneer that had precious little company for a very long time. Many of the hipper, more fashionable shows that have come since — everything from The X-Files to Lost to the revamped Battlestar Galactica — owes something to Trek. So does the convention scene, which borrows a lot from the heydays of Trek cons. (I’m pointing this out for the benefit of the many bloggers out there who are bashing Trek as dated and talky, implying that Trek is something most of them would never watch were it not for J.J. Abrams finally coming along to make it cool enough for them to admit they’re interested.) That’s a long intro, so let’s get to the movie itself. While most everyone considers Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan to be the best Trek movie so far (and I agree with that), this new Trek owes a lot more to 1996’s Star Trek: First Contact. That film had many of the same elements, including time travel, a nasty but attractive enemy in the Borg Queen, and some terrific action sequences that the TV version of TNG could have used a bit more of. Abrams and company take that example and amp the action way up, creating a wild, enjoyable and at times thrilling ride through the Trek universe. This is the most purely entertaining popcorn movie I’ve seen in a long time and most everyone I know who’s seen it was sucked in right away and stayed in love with it right through to the end. My take is a little more complicated. There’s plenty to like, but at the same time there’s a lot missing or glossed over that takes away from the qualities that used to define Star Trek. On the plus side, the film’s storytelling style is tight and economical. It even works well within the established parameters of the Trek universe. It also hits a lot of iconic moments from previous incarnations. Perhaps most amazingly, the time travel element manages to keep this new Trek in continuity with the old while explaining at the same time why a lot of things are different. That is a pretty impressive bit of storytelling right there, on top of the film having a nice, fast pace that never lets go of your attention. The next real plus is the cast, especially Chris Pine as a young James T. Kirk. I have been extremely skeptical from the start that anyone could step into this role and both convince you this was the same character and not do an impression or imitation of William Shatner’s performance. Somehow, Pine manages it far better than I would have expected, and with only a couple of exceptions I bought him as Kirk. He adopts a few mannerism Shatner used on the classic series, but they’re surprisingly subtle and pulled off well enough that they actually enhance rather than detract from the character. Zachary Quinto is a bit more of a mixed bag as Spock. His version of the half-Vulcan science officer is decidedly more human than Leonard Nimoy’s version. He’s more expressive and just seems softer in the role. I think fans will debate this one quite a bit, as the devotion to logic and amazingly relentless intelligence that came through from Nimoy’s version is missing and sorely missed in this film. The rest of the classic crew doesn’t get as much screen time as you may think. In fact, many of their best bits are already on display in the various trailers and clips. And it’s a real shame because the glimpses we do get of these characters, especially Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy and Simon Pegg as Scotty, are spot on. The script cleverly and seemingly effortlessly concocts moments for each to deliver a trademark line — “I’m a doctor, not a physicist,” “She cannae take any more!” etc. — but not a lot more. In the case of McCoy, I think it’s sorely missed, as his relationship with Kirk in the classic series was a grounding influence that would have helped make Kirk’s arc a little more convincing.
Zoe Saldana’s Uhura has a bigger role than Nichelle Nichols ever got on Trek, but it’s not necessarily an improvement as she’s unfortunately reduced to the role of hot chick where Nichols’ version had a competence and natural dignity that carried special significance in the mid 1960s but remain admirable qualities even today. Eric Bana does a good job as the villain of the piece, Romulan Captain Nero. But with so much ground for the film to cover he never gets the chance to make as much of an impression as Khan, the Borg Queen or even Christopher Lloyd’s Captain Kruge from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Also good but underused are Bruce Greenwood as Captain Pike and Winona Ryder as Spock’s mother, Amanda Grayson. And then there is Nimoy, returning for possibly the last time as Spock Prime (that’s how he’s listed in the credits). Nimoy’s presence is the only thing that lets the film slow down even a bit from its breakneck pace and allows some of that old-time Trek magic comes into play. It’s a welcome break from the explosions and monsters, and helps set up the rest of the movie. It’s amazing how much class his small role brings the film, bestowing on it through his generous act of continuity approval for this new direction. Definite negatives include the look of the film, which is all over the place. The bridge is a futuristic and modern set (which still looks to me like an Apple Store instead of a functioning command center), while on the lower decks of the Enterprise mundane industrial locations have replaced the Jeffries tubes and impressive warp core setup of previous Treks. The CG is top notch, but hampered by such short cuts that you rarely get more than a few moments to take in the new Enterprise in all its glory. There also was an annoying tendency to use lens flares wherever possible and some shots were out of focus. (I don’t know if that was just at the screening I saw, but it was distracting and pulled me out of the film.) The score also is a major misstep. The music was always top-notch on previous Trek outings, which featured sweeping and rousing classical themes. Here, it’s all percussion and unfortunately sounds like every other action film score of the past decade. There also are a few action sequences in the film that feel very unnecessary — such as one involving Scotty and a series of water pipes, and another in which a monster straight out of Cloverfield chases Kirk across an ice planet. They keep up the pace of he film, but don’t add much. I also don’t know how people who know nothing about Trek will deal with the film doing almost nothing to explain who anyone is. There’s a brief explanation of Starfleet early on, but the Federation, the Romulans, Vulcans are never explained and the standard tech — transporters, phasers and warp drive — are present but barely referenced let alone explained. So far, those are pretty minor complaints and most everyone I know who’s seen the film loves it unconditionally. But looking beyond the thrill ride, comparing the themes and drama to the humanity of previous Trek films, and Abrams Trek is as shallow as a theme park ride. It has great effects, amazing action sequences and appealing updated versions of its classic characters, but at the same time it has missed out almost entirely on the themes and ideas that made the original series so unique, enduring and popular. Star Trek was never just about fighting space battles. The Enterprise is not a warship but a vessel of exploration. The drama came from its crew facing the unknown with a courage that opened up the galaxy and lead to a better understanding of the universe and humanity’s ability to lead it to a better tomorrow. Very little of that is found amid the very appealing surface of this flashy and action-packed new Trek. To say as Abrams’ version does that Trek is mostly about cool space battles, hot chicks and quippy characters is like saying The Lord of the Rings is mostly about sword-fighting Hobbits, or Fahrenheit 451 is mostly about a fireman, or 1984 is about the crimes of a political traitor. The joy of spectacle is fleeting, and will be almost immediately challenged by such films as Terminator: Salvation or Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. (In the face of so much positive press, I’m actually somewhat relieved to see Roger Ebert and David Poland also raise some of these points in their reviews.) The ending of the film is predictable and lacking in logic, but at this point the film has done its job and left the potential for the franchise wide open. I think the sequel will be as much, if not more than, a challenge for Abrams and Co. to pull off, but potentially much more fulfilling. I hope they avoid the idea of trying to re-imagine old characters (everyone keeps bringing up the idea of a new Khan) and find a way to reboot the heart of this grand series rather than just giving it a facelift.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine lacks passion, vision

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On May 1, 2009

In Uncategorized

X-Men Origins: Wolverine can be taken in two completely different ways. Taken one way, it’s a decent little bit of B-movie action entertainment. Taken another, it’s a disappointing movie that unfortunately adds nothing essential or even interesting to the character and fails to have even a basic answer to the question of why anyone should care.

Those who know Logan only from the movies will like this survey of his life more than most. The film does a decent job of covering all the bases, from the days of young James Howlett, through his ongoing rivalry with Sabretooth, the Weapon X program and his eventual struggles with memory. That the movie manages to pack all that in, reinventing it as needed, shows an effort on the part of the filmmakers to digest and do something interesting with the source material. And the story does follow a sort of logic and makes sense all on its own if you’re not too picky about it.

But there’s no getting around that there are some major problems with this film, which is just not very well made. The biggest problems are in the script, which for all its efforts to incorporate comic book storylines fails to transfer the character of Logan or his motivation for doing what he does in any way.

Admittedly, this has always been the problem with Wolverine comic books. Yes, the original 1982 miniseries by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller is a classic and you have to wonder why they didn’t go that route for a Wolverine solo movie. But pretty much everything from the time Logan got his own solo comic in 1988 has felt in a lot of ways like a place holder. Wolverine comics have always sold well and the character remains popular, but few of the hundreds of Wolverine stories have made as much of an impact on him as anything that happened in one of the X-Men titles. What’s weird is there’s really no reason Wolverine comics couldn’t be better, aside from the fact that really sticking to the core elements of what makes this guy tick results in a character that’s too violent for Marvel to market to kids. So they always have to hold back and even create nice guy versions for the cartoons and so forth — leaving anyone older who might be interested in seeing this guy truly unleashed with not a lot to hold on to.

This movie doesn’t seem to really know who Wolverine is. The guy they’ve come up with is definitely not the cool guy fans first came to know and love in the early days of the new X-Men.

So, my take on the character has always been that he was a mutant with a healing factor and bone like claws (even though I hate that idea, added in during the early 1990s) who was experimented on against his will and given adamantium bones and claws that made him near indestructible. The event was so painful and traumatic that he suffered severe memory lapses and, more importantly, struggled to retain control of his sanity in the face of his tendency to fall into animalistic berserker rages. It was always his struggle to hold on to the little bits of humanity — his few friends in the X-Men, Mariko Yashida, the idea of one day having control of his dark side — that defined him. The ultimate Wolverine action sequence was one in which he faced alone a giant horde of enemies who couldn’t beat him no matter how much they shot, cut or punched him. Every blow hurt him and he’d walk out of it enraged and bloodied, waiting for his power to painfully knit him back together.

The movie Logan, however, is a real moper. Here he’s cast as a good kid who did something bad, became a soldier in a lot of wars and did a lot of nasty things alongside his brother, but really always wanted to live a peaceful life away from it all. But it turns out he can’t do that and when his past comes back to haunt him, he seeks revenge and willingly submits to the Weapon X procedure in order to get it. That’s what you’d call a major change in your character’s motivation, and you can argue based on it that the movie Wolverine is not Wolverine at all.

The procedure itself is described as terrible, and we have to take everyone’s word for it because it seems to give Logan little more discomfort than a root canal before he’s back out in the woods and using his newfound claws to chop up military vehicles. When he learns he was sort of tricked into getting the procedure, there’s a bit of teeth knashing and distant stares, but not much more. The memory loss comes much later via a deus ex machina that I’ll leave a surprise.

Along the way to that ending, there’s a lot of action sequences — some of them fairly cool, though nothing especially exciting or innovative — and a whole bunch of cameos from various mutants, some welcome (Gambit, John Wraith), some not (Blob, everyone else). There is a cool, Die Hard-esque final battle against an interesting version of a popular Marvel character that’s too little too late, and a terrible cameo from a CG Patrick Stewart as a walking Professor X.

In the end it’s hard to get too worked up about anything in this movie because nothing about it conveys any kind of emotion. Wolverine should be about rage unleasahed, but nothing here is really all that interesting enough to get even slightly mad at. It’s all very rote and routine, with no passion for the character or the story coming through in any of it.

On top of that, this movie is just not well made. This movie looks muddy, the editing does no favors for the action sequences or the performances, the score has no subtlety, and even though there’s a lot of good CG VFX there’s also some truly awful effects in there too.

In the end, I’m not sure the quality of this film matters much. Fox will keep making X-Men movies in order to hang on to the rights as long as possible. And their track record will likely continue to falter as long as they keep micromanaging the property instead of finding a filmmaker like Bryan Singer who can bring some passion and vision to the project and just let him do his job.

Wolverine Reactions Trickle In

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On April 30, 2009

In Uncategorized

I’m seeing X-Men Origins: Wolverine tonight, so I’ll post my thoughts tomorrow. I’d largely been avoiding watching clips or reading too much about the film in buildup to its release.

But I have read a few reviews as they’ve come out: Variety and The Hollywood Reporter have little love for Logan’s solo outing. David Poland at The Hot Blog says it’s not great, but not bad either. And L.A. Times critic Kenneth Turan, whose review last week of The Soloist I couldn’t have disagreed with more, likes the film.

I also think it’s interesting that there is no ad for the movie’s opening in today’s Calendar section of the L.A. Times. Perhaps Fox feels the shrinking number of newspaper readers are not the target audience for this movie, which will surely score a nice large take at the box office.

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