T.J. McLean Writes

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X-Men: Schism Takes the Low Road to Mediocrity

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On August 30, 2011

In Uncategorized

In Marvel and DC’s near-constant onslaught of mega-events to drive sales, the X-Men titles that popularized the gimmick have fallen victim to one of the most underwhelming and skeevy events in its history with the arrival of X-Men: Schism.

I have a lot to say about this one after reading the first three of five issues in the series, so consider yourself forewarned. I also think I need to explain why something like this is worth writing about in detail when it really would be easier to just roll my eyes, say “it stinks!” and move on to something worthwhile.

Comics are the only reason where I’ll bother being critical like this because the comics is so dominated by superheroes and franchises from Marvel and DC that the failure or success of any one such franchise has a much greater ripple effect than it would in any other medium. When something like X-Men (or Batman or Spider-Man, etc. — take your pick), which has so long been a dominant creative and commercial force does just about anything, you just can’t ignore it the same way critics can pass over, say, Sucker Punch, Glee or a new album from David Archuleta.

So here we have X-Men: Schism, a five-issue miniseries that sets the stage for the next relaunch of the entire line this fall. It’s written by Jason Aaron, with each issue drawn by a different artist. Carlos Pacheco and Cam Smith draw issue one, Frank Cho is on issue two and Daniel Acuña does it all on issue three. Alan Davis is slated for issue four, with Adam Kubert apparently on issue five. There also are no fewer than four editors credited on the book, which makes the errors in execution even more questionable. Plus, these books aren’t cheap, with the first costing $4.99 for 32 pages of story, and issues two and three cost $3.99 for 22 pages of story each.

If you’ve missed the premise for this series, it’s about a dispute between Cyclops and Wolverine that forces them to go their separate ways with each taking a number of fellow X-Men to form two distinct factions. This will lead to several relaunched titles, including a new Uncanny X-Men #1.

So this series should be attempting to get fans excited for what’s promised to be a “new” era for X-Men comics. Unfortunately, “new” is the last thing that Marvel appears interested in delivering when it comes to the X-Men, and Schism is guilty of rehashing some very old and worn concepts at the very core of the story. None of this is new for Marvel, but the company has had some success in recent years by executing its rehashed material in an engaging way, and it’s the failure to execute well on pretty much any level in the first three issues of X-Men: Schism that truly sinks them.

So Marvel’s big idea for setting up the future of the X-Men starts by reviving two ancient concepts: The Sentinels, which first appeared in X-Men #14 (Nov. 1965), and the relatively youthful Hellfire Club, who first showed their faces in X-Men #129 (Jan. 1980). Both have been used in literally dozens of X-Men comic-book stories in the intervening years — some of them good, some not so good. To make an impact with either of those ideas requires a fresh new take on them and some exciting execution, neither of which is present in X-Men: Schism.

First, these are not some new, scary, super-advanced Sentinels that pose a serious threat to the mutants of the world. They are, instead, old Sentinels that have been in storage for decades and, in most cases, don’t even work. The only twist is the idea that every nation in the world has a secret stash of Sentinels on hand in case they have a “mutant problem.” The few working Sentinels are handily dispatched by the X-Men, with little dramatic payoff.

The real crux of the story so far is the new Hellfire Club, which is composed of a quartet of super-smart, rich, evil children. Yup, children. They’re lead by 12-year-old Kade Kilgore, who murders his father and claims his place running a legitimate arms-manufacturing company.

Any time the villain turns out to be a super-smart child, whether it’s in an episode of Star Trek or The Twilight Zone, or a comics character like Hit-Girl in Kick-Ass or Anarky from late-1980s issues of Detective Comics or even the X-Terminators that spun out of X-Factor in the late 1980s, it’s a device that’s rarely good for anything more than adding shock value. But the more realism you want in your comics — and with Marvel and DC both wanting every comic to be movie worthy, trying to appear realistic is paramount on every title they publish — the less you can take the idea of “evil” children seriously.

So Kilgore, the new Black King of the Hellfire Club, starts out as a cliche of fiction that is completely devoid of believability even on the level most superhero comics require. He murders, he plots, he doesn’t care about anything other than himself — and the reader has almost no reason to care or believe that he is anything other than a stereotypical character.

Still, it’s possible that even with two weak concepts that Marvel could still turn this into something interesting with some clever execution. And how far short this series falls on any such standard is the most disappointing element. It’s one thing to not come up with a brilliant premise for every single comics crossover, but a company like Marvel has the resources and the talent to avoid the kind of sloppiness found here.

This is “Switzerland,” and most definitely not the U.N. General Assembly in New York. No.

Swiss security guards prove
global stereotype! Film at 11!

X-Men: Schism #1 begins with four pages that poke fun at the idea Wolverine appears in so many comics that he’s exhausted. Cyclops, however, needs Wolverine to accompany him to an “international ams control conference in Switzerland.”

“Switzerland,” however, must be code in the Marvel Universe for the United Nations in New York City. Unless, of course, the economy in the Marvel Universe is so bad that the U.S. is exporting overweight tough-talking security guards to the land of chocolates, accurate clocks and secret banking. Speaking of security, this “arms control conference” appears less secure than a concert at Staples Center.

You can’t really see it, even in print, that there are supposed to be people at those desks. 

Cyclops and Wolverine have a long conversation that runs two whole pages and supposedly occurs as Cyclops walks toward the podium, meaning it happens in full view (and, I presume, earshot) of every delegate in the place. None of which you can see because they’re washed out in a mudslide of bad coloring.

The copy is full of little mistakes. I know there’s not 100 percent English-major agreement on this point, but the words “insure” and “ensure” are not interchangeable. Most dictionaries and style guides will tell you the former involves buying a policy and the latter means to make certain.

Then, Cyclops’ speech is interrupted by a world leader who looks a lot like Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. So much so, that the panel looks lifted from this particular image:

I want you … to take art lessons! 

This is a pretty blatant swipe, but what’s a shame it’s not even that effective. With no identification, this guy looks like some average joe who just walked into the international arms conference in Switzerland from the street. I know it’s got photo reference, but some kind of visual cue that this is a world leader (maybe a tie, or something?) would have helped. Even more embarrassing — the artists drew the world leader with six fingers. Count ’em.

This guy, who is not Iranian President Ahmadinejad, goes to 11.

Then, we get Quentin Quire. I must have missed his coming back from his death in Grant Morrison’s New X-Men as well as his physical transformation from a skinny teen to a big hulking adult. (No one tell Kitty that you don’t have to be stuck at age 14 for a couple of decades.)

“You’re double dead, dad!”

The rest of the issue concerns the return of various sentinels and the emergence of Kade Kilgore as the Black King of a new Hellfire Club. Kade is 12 years old and kills his father by kicking him out of a flying car — and then shooting him in mid-air. I still can’t figure out how that works.

I was very disappointed in the artwork of Carlos Pacheco. This generic kind of work is not what I think anyone who had read Avengers Forever or Pacheco’s previous late-1990s run on X-Men would expect from the artist. This is blocky, pedestrian and just plain dull, with none of Pacheco’s previous style to be seen. I would not have known Pacheco drew this book without looking at the credits. And the coloring, credited to Frank D’Armata, was a real detriment to the overall look of the comic.

Kitty kicks off the “ew” factor in this series. Nobody over age 14 should want to think about that.
Rogue busts out in X-Men: Schism #2

The Kade Kilgore story, which was already strange in the first issue, gets weirder in the second with the debut of his playmates. There’s three of them, and none of them are properly introduced. But apparently, they’re paying some space aliens what at first seemed like $4 billion in cash (what they would do with American currency is beyond me) and is later clarified to be $4 billion in “untraceable intergalactic credits.” It’s never explained where the Hellfire Club or Kilgore got any amount of space money, let along 4 billion quatloos’ worth of it. And that’s probably for the best, given that answering that question in any fashion would only compound the idiocy of the whole idea.

And you thought Anakin was annoying.

Oh, and the little girl villain has a lightsaber, which she uses to chop off alien limbs left and right. Again, explaining this would do more to expose how ludicrous it is, so maybe it’s best that it’s just kind of there.

So then, Quentin Quire just shows up on Utopia and Scott protects him. This was a scene that made me long for the days when superheroes used their powers instead of just talked at each other endlessly like they were stuck in an episode of The West Wing. Would it have killed this story, which is severely lacking in action, to have had an old-fashioned blow out when characters meet?

My satellite service doesn’t carry the Museum Opening Channel.  

The logic gets even stranger when Cyclops‘ reaction to all this is to pull a PR stunt and send some X-Men to the opening of a mutant museum in San Francisco. And of course, this event is being televised because in 21st century America there’s nothing TV audiences like more than to watch a museum reception live and as it happens. The only museum opening I recall making anything close to national news was the debut of the Getty Center in 1997, an event we spent weeks writing stories about at the L.A.-area newspaper I worked for at that time.

(I think the convention of using live news coverage on TV to narrate events without using captions or dialog between the characters involved is yet another instance of people simply copying Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns rather than write something original.)

But apparently, such coverage in the Marvel universe is so dependable and popular that Kilgore plans to use the high-profile event to debut the Hellfire Kids.

Perhaps Frank Cho’s greatest contribution to
this issue: Rogue unzipped!

The art on the second issue is by Frank Cho, best known for his comic book and strip Liberty Meadows and extensive good girl art in other places. As with Pacheco, you’d be hard pressed to guess from the printed comic that Cho had anything to do with the art, aside from the cover and a few interior panels featuring particularly busty portrayals of Rogue and Emma Frost. The stiff facial expressions and overly talky script, combined with more dank coloring, results in an unfortunate look that barely improves on the murkiness of the first issue.

Moving on to issue three, the art gets a huge boost from the arrival of Daniel Acuña, who delivers some stylish art. Since he does all the art, including colors, this issue is the first to not look like it was dragged through a mud pit. But there still are some issues with the art. A few panels have questionable perspective and anatomy — enough to pull me out of the comic and try to understand what I’m looking at. There’s also some questionable portrayals — Magneto in particular lacks the powerful build and sleek costume that have helped define the character’s look in recent comics.

Better art for X-Men: Schism #3

It’s too bad the story doesn’t improve. It starts with the Hellfire Kids disrupting the museum opening and Cyclops and Wolverine both heading off to help out. We finally get an introduction to the Hellfire Kids, who are given names and revealed to be the heirs to a family that has profited from slave trading relationships stretching from Earth’s own slave trade to the modern version of selling human slaves to aliens; a descendant of Frankenstein who’s so touchy about the family connection I can’t help but hear Gene Wilder saying, “It’s pronounced Fronk-en-steen!”; and a girl who shares with 37 cats inheritance of her deceased hotel entrepreneur mother’s estate.

Where are the X-Babies when you need them?

Cyclops uses a jetpack to get to San Francisco from Utopia. He apparently missed the memo from Batman that cool comics characters don’t wear jetpacks unless they’re drawn by Dave Stevens and called The Rocketeer. 

While Cyclops straps on a jetpack and imitates The Rocketeer on his way from Utopia and Wolverine fits San Francisco traffic, the Hellfire Kids start shooting weird alien weapons at the X-Men. It’s a confusing sequence. For example, we see Colossus with some kind of Alien-style face-hugger on his head, but we don’t see that it got there because the Hellfire Kids are firing these things from a gun of some kind until the next page. The Hellfire Kids take out all the X-Men at the event, which means they beat Emma, Colossus, Namor and Magneto.

This is the worst line in the series — so far. 

Only naive, innocent little Idie is left, and she causes some serious havoc, and how she responds unexpectedly becomes the crux of the whole issue. Wolverine wants her to wait for him to get there and handle the dirty work of taking out the Club and their guards; Cyclops gives her permission to do what she finds necessary. So when she torches the place and people die, it’s all on Cyclops. The issue is, however, tabled to next issue by the arrival of a big spidery Sentinel.

The next issue, which is due out Sept. 21, looks from the preview art to be (finally!) an issue with some action in it. It’s also drawn by Alan Davis, who I don’t think has ever drawn an ugly comic in his life (though I’m not sure Marvel’s colorists won’t find some way to muddy it up).

There’s lots of other very small things that cumulatively yank you out of the story and undermine the ability to take any of this seriously.

Among them:

In most states, saying this to a 12-year-old
boy would earn you prison time.
  • Kilgore’s father is beyond a caricature. Has any CEO of a weapons manufacturing firm ever bragged about their wares being half off? And even in the United States, I don’t think anyone can buy a weapon online the same way you would a book from Amazon.com.
  • There’s so many throwaway lines that are of questionable taste and offer no benefit to the story. Examples:
  • Kitty saying to Logan “Yeah, but you also showed me how to use a sword before I was old enough to wear a bra.”
  • A Hellfire Club member saying “Our previous plan was to simply exterminate the mutant race and perhaps throw an orgy every year on the anniversary.”
  • Blocked out swearing, such as this line from Kilgore: “Any of you morons #%$@ this up and I will hack your entire family tree into kindling and burn you atop the pile.”
  • A Hellfire Kid saying, “I farted.”
  • And Kilgore saying, “I haven’t had sex yet, so maybe I’m wrong … but I can’t imagine it feeling better than this.”

This is rated T+, but still. Ugh. This is really not a good series of comics, and I don’t think there’s much chance for rescuing it in the final two issues. Having read this, it’s no surprise that the reaction has been somewhat muted and the book failed to break the top 10 selling comics in the direct market for the month of June.

This kind of sloppy work is disheartening and indicates a rather steep drop in quality. Given the relaunch is coming up with the same creators, I can only hope that Marvel keep the reboot button handy and be ready to bring in some fresh talent and let them loose to try some new ideas.

I think you can blame the stink for this one on Marvel.

Good Nonfiction Books About Comics, Part 3

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On August 9, 2011

In Uncategorized

This time, I look at the how-to-make-comics books on my shelves.

Alan McKenzie’s How to Draw and Sell Comic Strips was the first book I ever saw that specifically devoted itself to this particular topic. I saw it in the bookstore at the University of Arizona when I was a freshman in 1987 and was particularly interested in seeing what comics scripts looked like and how pencils differed from inks — both topics that seem to always confuse fans when they first ask about them. McKenzie’s book featured some nice historical material on comics and some great tips on how to learn to draw everything you need to be able to draw to do comics. He creates a sample comic in the book, complete with a full script, pencils, inks and colors. The book also covers production issues as they were in the day, i.e., lettering pages before they were inked and how to hand separate color plates. It’s a great book, even though it did nothing to help me learn to draw. My efforts in basic drawing class earned me only one of only two C’s in my college career, convincing me that drawing was not where my talents lay. It looks like this has been revised and updated for a couple of new editions, and should be pretty easy to find if you are so inclined.

Will Eisner’s Comics and Sequential Art is a classic in the field and the first book to explore the specific qualities of comics as an artform. I enjoy this book more now that I’ve read a significant amount of Eisner’s work. The book appears to me to be more useful for artists who already know how to draw in applying their skills to comics. As I’ve discovered, it’s not easy to learn to make art (and, I imagine, to teach it) when so much of the experience is subjective and difficult to communicate through words.

I almost put Writers on Comics Scriptwriting in the interviews section, but decided that this book by Mark Salisbury (and its sequel volume) fits better in the how-to category. This is a very nice collection of lengthy Q-and-A interviews with top comics writers on the craft of creating comics. Among the folks in volume one are Peter David, Garth Ennis, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, Kurt Busiek, Grant Morrison, Mark Waid and Warren Ellis. Volume two (by Tom Root and Andrew Kardon) covers Brian Azzarello, Dave Sim, Brian K. Vaughan, Mark Millar, Geoff Johns, Mike Carey, Kevin Smith, Greg Rucka and Brian Michael Bendis. I believe both books are currently out of print, but they are worth tracking down if you’re interested in writing comics.

Along the same lines is Panel One: Comic Book Scripts by Top Writers and Panel Two: More Comic Book Scripts by Top Writers, both edited by Nat Gertler. Each volume includes a number of complete scripts by such talents as Busiek, Dwayne McDuffie, Jeff Smith, Neil Gaiman, etc. They’re fascinating for how different they all are, from formatting variations to overall tone. Most of the books whose scripts are published in these volumes are indie books that are easy to track down for comparison to the final product.

Another good overall primer on the thought that goes into comics is The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics, by Denny O’Neil. This was part of an entire series DC did a few years back on how to make comics. While it does less in terms of showing complete scripts, it does discuss what goes in to making a comic work in the DC Universe, up to and including examples of how to map out and execute mega-crossovers.

There is no equivalent book from Marvel, but I do want to point out that anyone interested in seeing how books are put together on that side of town to track down the Rough Cut editions of Avengers (Vol. 3) #1, Thor (Vol. 2) #1, Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty #1 and X-Force #102. These editions feature the complete plot and the pencils to those issues, giving a nice look at Marvel-style writing.

Few names are as well-regarded in the field as Alan Moore, so it’s a no-brainer that Alan Moore’s Writing for Comics from Avatar Press is well worth the read. This is a slim volume that collects a couple of essays Moore wrote on the topic, and they talk mainly about approach and execution with few examples. Moore’s scripts are legendary for being long and extremely detailed — try to read the full scripts in the supplementary volumes in the Absolute Editions of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen  and see how far you get before mental exhaustion sets in.

Lastly, there’s Comic Book Lettering: The Comic-Craft Way, by Richard Starkings and John “JG” Roshell. I include this because I used to do print design and production work and enjoyed this peek at how to put all the pieces together exactly into the final package. If you don’t want to know what point size and kerning settings to use on comics type, this may not be for you. But reading this would be essential for anyone looking to letter a comic.

Kirby Copyright Verdict Should Surprise No One

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On August 2, 2011

In Uncategorized

I wrote a lot about the copyright case between the family of Jerry Siegel and DC Comics over Superman, but I have a lot less to say about the recent ruling against Jack Kirby’s children. Read the ruling here.

From a legal perspective, nothing should have surprised anyone about either of these cases. The facts in the Siegel case make it an ideal candidate for copyright termination while the Kirby case always depended on making a convincing argument that Jack didn’t work under work for hire rules. The depositions posted at 20th Century Danny Boy a few months back were fascinating for the details they mined about how Marvel operated in the late 1950s and early 1960s. But nothing in that testimony did anything to refute the idea that Kirby was a freelancer doing work for hire.

I wish this had at least gone to trial, so that we could hear the arguments the Kirbys’ lawyer, Marc Toberoff, planned to make in this regard. But Kirby’s life and work have been pretty thoroughly documented by this point and there appears to be not even an inkling of a smoking gun document somewhere that would turn the tables.

The Kirby and Superman cases are similar in at least one way: Neither would have been necessary had the corporate owners of DC and Marvel simply stepped up to the plate and done the right thing by giving credit to and sharing even a sliver of the wealth these artists generated for them.

Comics artist Stephen Bissette has written a lengthy post at his blog urging comics fans to engage in a boycott and stop buying any Marvel products derived from Kirby’s work. He’s picked up this idea from the success of one DC fan’s efforts to ask DC creators and execs at Comic-Con why they haven’t hired more female creators or publish more female characters. It didn’t take much — she asked the questions at several panels and it got some buzz in the comics press — but it did result in a statement from Jim Lee and Dan DiDio saying they would hire more women creators. I don’t think most fans will stop buying FF, Thor, Hulk or X-Men comics on those grounds. But bad publicity helped put some pressure on Marvel during Kirby’s art return dispute with the company in the 1980s. It also helped Siegel and Shuster get a deal in the mid-1970s for an annual stipend and health benefits. Maybe it could work again.

It would be the right thing, the moral thing for Marvel to honor Kirby’s contributions with credit and a share of the immense profits it generated.

I’m also interested in this argument Bissette has linked to that questions the legal basis of corporate ownership of copyrights and the entire work for hire concept. The United States is a very friendly place for corporations, so I expect we’ll never see corporations lose their rights to own a copyright. In fact, the opposite is likely — that corporations will get more rights and extend copyrights even further beyond the limited terms called for by the Constitution.

The best lesson for comics creators to take away from all this is to create your own characters, your own comics and don’t sell them to the first publisher that offers to put out your book. Comics as an art form and as an industry needs new ideas and new books. Much of the malaise many fans feel comes from the fact that the market is so dominated by Marvel and DC characters that are, in most casts, between 50 and 75 years old. They’re great characters, but it might be time to make some new ones, or the industry and the art form risk dying off along with the audiences that are still hanging on to ideas that increasingly struggle to be relevant to the lives of readers living in the 21st century.

FF Re-read: The Fantastic Four #8 (Nov. 1962)

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On August 2, 2011

In Uncategorized

“Prisoners of the Puppet Master!”
Script by Stan Lee
Pencils by Jack Kirby
Inks by Dick Ayers
Letters by Art Simek

Some of the formula that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had figured out for the title was starting to settle in at this point, with the opening argument between the Thing and the Torch being both familiar and executed very well. The argument this time begins when Reed asks Johnny to keep Ben out of his lab. Ben throws a temper tantrum worthy of a 2-year-old and storms off, followed by Sue.

While they argue, they spot the first act of the mystifying Puppet Master, who uses his ability to make people do anything he wants by making little puppets of them from radioactive clay and then making them act out his wishes in miniature play sets. His first act is to make an apparently random man jump from a bridge to his death.

So, yes, the Puppet Master is one of the silliest villains in all of Marvel. Nothing about his power makes sense. Neither does his oddball physical appearance, or the fact that he was married at one point to the mother of beautiful blind sculptor Alicia Masters.

Alicia is the most significant new element introduced in this issue, and she takes on a fairly major role in the life of Ben Grimm and in the Fantastic Four comic book. In this issue, we really don’t learn too much about her, other than that she looks a lot like the Invisible Girl and is blind. And in Stan Lee’s typical melodramatic fashion, the blind girls sees the man behind the rocky visage of the Thing and falls in love with him — just as Reed has made progress on a way to reverse the Thing’s transformation.

This guy is a few years too early for the Gwen Stacy auditions.

The plot gets quite silly. In addition to creating puppets, the Puppet Master can create giant robots and a mechanical flying horse that can outrace the Human Torch. There’s also a prison riot before a simple matter, uh, trips up the Puppet Master, who falls to his death very much like his first victim. That leaves Alicia behind to be consoled by the Thing.

Excellent compostions, lettering —
and no background, but who cares

Reading this issue for the first time in ages, Kirby’s art makes it seems better than it really is. Kirby’s work is more confident on this issue. He has a better grip on who these characters are and what they look like. At the same time, he’s getting better at drawing them using their powers and putting them into action sequences. The Thing in particular gets some nice sequences in which he gets to tear a huge armored door out of the wall and builds a cage around rampaging inmates. Kirby’s chapter splash pages remain particularly compelling, and its worth noting how well he composes these panels.

You can see Kirby get a better grip on techniques like this in this issue.
These three panels sum up a lot of the appeal of early Marvel comics, and shows a lot of heart.

I have no idea what the reaction was to this issue when it came out, but I would think it would be somewhat reassuring to see the quality hold in most areas because so many comics that start out promising hit a wall about eight to 12 issues in and never recover from it.

Excellent storytelling in just three panels! This sequence would fill an annual these days.

The last thing I’ll say is that the cover to this issue is surprisingly weak. It’s very cluttered and uses an unusual shade of orange (at least it’s orange in the Marvel Masterworks version and looks like orange on comics.org). It also has some of that line-thickening that happens when the stats of the original art get a few generations too removed from the original. For example, the issue number and the white copy at the top of the page just turn into block shapes without good definition. That’s a shame considering how much Masterworks cost to buy, but I don’t know how much Marvel could do to fix it without access to the original art or hiring an artist to do some touchup or a re-creation.

Another great splash panel that delivers a sense of both power and scale. 

The Fascinating, Frustrating Enigma of Steve Ditko

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On July 11, 2011

In Uncategorized

I love books about comics, the comic-book industry and the people who make comics. I wish there were a lot of them, because I think it’s worthwhile to document these events and people while we still can.

Which brings me to Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko (Fantagraphics, $39.99), in which author Blake Bell examines the life and work of one of comics’ greatest enigmas.

Almost anyone interested in superhero comics knows Ditko was the artist who co-created The Amazing Spider-Man and Doctor Strange with Stan Lee. Those who go a bit deeper will know that Ditko also created some cool characters at DC Comics in the late 1960s and 1970s, including The Creeper, Hawk and Dove and Shade, The Changing Man. A few more willl remember him for doing layouts on the cult 1980s Marvel series Rom, and a dedicated few will have perused Ditko’s independent creations such as Mr. A. But given that Ditko has refused to be interviewed or appear in public for decades now, little else is really known about this artist, who created some of the most unnerving and interesting comics in the medium’s history.

Bell does the best job of any attempt I’ve ever seen to bring together everything we know about Ditko’s life and work. The result is fascinating, frustrating and eventually presents a sad portrait of an immense talent that withdrew from the world and denied it of his work and himself of the audience, acclaim and success that was easily within his grasp.

Unlike Jack Kirby, Will Eisner and most of the artists that broke into comic books in the so-called Golden Age, Ditko always wanted to work in the field. He was part of the first generation of comic book fans, specifically seeking out work and a career drawing and writing stories like those they had admired as children and fans. Both the quantity and quality of Ditko’s early comic book work surprised me. The glimpses Bell offers of the 1950s stories for Charlton and the company that would become Marvel are fascinating and have a quality that makes the idea of tracking down the best of those tales very attractive.

Where the tale of Ditko’s career starts to go off the rails is in the early 1960s, when he starts subscribing to the philosophy of Objectivism as put forth by author Ayn Rand primarily in the novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. I got about as far into Rand  as I did with L. Ron Hubbard’s Mission Earth, and stopped reading the book before getting through even 100 pages of her preachy, boring and profoundly awful worship of fascist ideals.

The specifics of Rand’s philosophy aside, Ditko obviously found something in it that, at the very least, obsessed him. Obsession is a common theme with comics — fan is short for fanatic and everything about comics from the collecting to continuity to trivia to cosplay evokes some level of obsession. Whether there’s a direct connection, I doubt we’ll ever know because there are so few details about Ditko’s life, even in a book as relatively thorough as Bell’s.

To read about how Ditko’s strict adherence to Objectivism infected his work, of how he sought to inject Randian ideas into first Spider-Man and then series like Hawk and Dove, The Creeper, The Question, Blue Beetle and Shade and then walked away at the first sign of conflict is sad. It’s even sadder to see how much he pored into his Objectivist-inspired works like Mr. A while passing up repeated opportunities for commercial success at nearly every opportunity the moment they demanded even the slightest compromise of his ideals is even sadder.

It’s almost impossible to imagine, given what little we know, that Ditko hasn’t spent most of the last 40 or so years in the same studio with little to no contact with the outside world. No mention has ever been made of him having sustained a romantic relationship (though Will Eisner said in Eisner/Miller that Ditko has a son), or enjoying much of anything outside of ruminating over Rand or drawing comics. 

Could Ditko be a first-generation fanboy, an 83-year-old whose life was spent obsessing first over comics and later over a juvenile political philosophy that only makes sense within a self-imposed bubble? Is he that cut off from the world, that afraid of compromising even the slightest ideal that he’s completely shut himself off from the world around him? Is he happy with his life and his work? Or does he have regrets?

It’s not like Ditko has been completely silent, though he mostly has put his side of things out in letter and essays that disallow any kind of direct questioning. I was similarly annoyed and frustrated by Ditko’s lengthy essays in The Comics newsletters (passed on to me by Batton Lash shortly after I served as a judge for the Eisner Awards a few years back). He’s also written letters of protest to various magazines and writers, though he never makes himself available to answer questions. I found it odd that Ditko has no problem lambasting Stan Lee in writing but, according to an episode Bell recounts, got along famously with Lee at their last meeting to discuss a potential comics project sometime in the early 1990s. Does Ditko lack the courage to voice his convictions in a public forum, where he and his ideals can be tested and questioned?

I truly hope not, but it’s hard to argue that Ditko’s adherence to Objectivism hasn’t cost him dearly. He’s passed up chance after chance to continue to make comics with impact, that speak to and entertain a wide audience while bringing him more personal acclaim and financial success than he’s found doing his small-press rants.

Nothing would make me (and, I’m sure, Bell) happier than for Ditko to come forth and answer some of these questions. Unfortunately, that seems highly unlikely, leaving only the chance that some clues to his life and work will come to light only posthumously.

The Strange, Fleeting Fun of Jack Kirby’s ‘Devil Dinosaur’

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On July 8, 2011

In Uncategorized

Devil Dinosaur Omnibus

Jack Kirby was always a powerhouse comic book artist, but his work in the 1970s is among the most amazing of his career as well as the most divisive. I say divisive because Kirby’s work in that decade took some often strange turns — sometimes producing amazing classics and sometimes producing fascinating failures.

I have to place Devil Dinosaur in the latter category. This short-lived series only ran eight issues in 1978 and, according to Tom Brevoort’s introduction in the Devil Dinosaur Omnibus edition I just finished reading, it was an attempt by Kirby to capitalize for Marvel on some interest an animation studio had in the Kamandi series he created for DC.

Kamandi itself was an oddball series, reportedly inspired by the Planet of the Apes movies, the first issue of that series prominently featured a destroyed Statue of Liberty and was set in a post-apocalyptic future full of mutated half-animals and, of course, the titular last boy on Earth. Even though Kamandi borrows its premise at least partly from a popular movie series, that comic book’s storyline had somewhere to go.

Not so Devil Dinosaur, which flounders partly because it’s a pretty thin concept to begin with and partly because there’s not really any place to take the story. For those who’ve never read this series, Devil Dinosaur is a T-Rex style dinosaur living in prehistoric times who is burned by a mad mob of early human “small folk” and emerges bright red in color. He teams up with a young “Dawn-Man” named Moon-Boy, and together they defend their valley home from various threats.

A typical panel from Jack Kirby’s Devil Dinosaur.
The first problem is that Devil Dinosaur is not human and can’t speak. Kirby constantly attributes human emotions to Devil, both in the narration and through Moon-Boy’s dialogue, such as loyalty and a willingness to fight. But in the end,he’s still a dinosaur drawn so that even Kirby can’t get any kind of expressiveness into his fang-filled face. And Moon-Boy’s habit of shouting out plot points and talking to himself may be in the good tradition of comic book heroes, but it’s also very strange with a partner who can’t even add a “Great Scott!” to the discourse.

The first three issues concern threats from various beasts and tribes of ape-like men attacking Devil and Moon-Boy, and in each case Devil’s too strong and strong-willed for anyone to beat for more than a moment.

The next few issues concern aliens coming to prehistoric Earth, forcing Devil and Moon-Boy to evade alien weapons and such, followed by an attack from the “Dino-Riders” and a final issue in which Devil falls through a time portal to 1978 Nevada.

Devil visits modern Nevada in Devil Dinosaur #9 (Dec. 1978), written and drawn by Jack Kirby, inks by Mike Royer. 
Reading these stories, I can’t help but think there’s not too many more ideas that were going to really work with this series had it managed to continue beyond its meager nine-issue run. Unlike Kamandi, where all kinds of strange things could be invented and thrown into the plot, the prehistoric setting of Devil Dinosaur left the only believable opponents to be other beasts and cavemen.

Despite those limitations, Kirby’s scripting on the series is, I think, pretty good and on a par with a lot of the better-regarded series he did in this era.

It’s also interesting to note that there are no connections of any kind to the Marvel Universe — something that would just not happen anymore given the corporate demands for synergistic universes in comics.

An example of how Kirby could compose the hell out of any panel, courtesy of Devil Dinosaur #1 (April 1978).

The strongest element in the entire package is — no surprise, I’m sure — Kirby’s artwork. The early issues particularly have some fantastic compositions, designs and that distinctive Kirby design style. Every issue has a double-page spread right after the splash page, and each of the is worth soaking in and enjoying. Early issues also have some fantastic panels and sequences in which Kirby shows more command of composition and style than any dozen of today’s comics artists put together. The effort does seem to slack off a bit in the last couple of issues, however, perhaps because Kirby knew at that point that poor sales was about to claim yet another of his comic series.

In the end, these are some pretty-to-look-at comics that offer only a fleeting — if strangely satisfying — thrill.

Flashpoint vs. Fear Itself: A Much-Needed Win (So Far) for DC

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On May 20, 2011

In Uncategorized

Flashpoint #1

Like most comics readers, I’m getting weary of big events. And the promotional materials for Flashpoint did absolutely nothing to interest me in this series. I’ve never been a big fan of The Flash, the premise of the crossover was, at best, murky, and the sheer number of spinoff miniseries and specials was disheartening.

But I have to admit that when I sat down and read Flashpoint #1 (DC Comics, 40 pages, color, $3.99), I really enjoyed it. (Full disclosure: DC’s publicity folks sent me a copy.) And having found little to enjoy in the DC Universe of late, it was nice to find an enjoyable way back in.

I can’t deny that there’s a weird bit of nostalgia at work. This is an alternate universe crossover, with cool art by Andy Kubert and Bob Harras at the helm. It’s like a flashback to 1995 and the Age of Apocalypse, which was easily the most fun crossovers of this type and an archetype for Flashpoint. I doubt I’ll pick up many of the spinoffs, but I will definitely be back for Flashpoint #2.

Fear Itself #2

The other major summer event is Marvel’s Fear Itself. Again, thanks to event fatigue, I hadn’t paid much attention to the advance marketing on this book. This is a nice-looking book, with Fear Itself #1 and #2 (Marvel, color, $3.99 each) showing the Asgardians returning to Asgard, Odin being a jerk to Thor and a bunch of mystic hammers falling to Earth and empowering those who pick them up with the power to glow like Tron.

It’s OK, though my first thought was I’d already seen this kind of thing in Kurt Busiek and George Perez’s  JLA-Avengers crossover a few years back and even in last year’s Blackest Night. It also just feels more like a concept suited to a Marvel videogame than a major summer crossover, but that’s likely just me. This isn’t to say that Fear Itself is bad or that Flashpoint is good, but it is interesting how it’s the intangibles that make one stand out — even if just slightly and for a moment — over another.

Who Can Canada Blame for Alpha Flight #0.1?

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On May 20, 2011

In Uncategorized

Alpha Flight #0.1

The absence of posts on this blog has been exacerbated by the preparations for and the birth May 2 of my daughter, Kaya. All is fantastic here at Bags and Boards central as we’ve spent the last few weeks getting to know each other. I don’t know if she will like comics, but she’s going to have plenty of them around to pass the time with as she grows up.

One such comic is Alpha Flight #0.1, Marvel’s third attempt to relaunch the once-successful 1980s series about a group of Canadian superheroes. As a Canadian who first read the group during the John Byrne heyday of the early to mid-1980s, this issue is a distinct improvement on some of the previous attempts, most notably the humor-infused Scott Lobdell effort that ran a mere 12 issues starting in 2004.

This effort does its best to restore a “classic” lineup with Guardian, Vindicator, Snowbird, Shaman, Aurora, Northstar and Marrina, but fails to distinguish itself from the mainstream mass of superhero comics and fails to do right by the basic premise of the series and its characters.

Written by Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente, the story centers on a terrorist named Citadel who seeks to disrupt a federal election by taking out the power grid in Quebec. Alpha’s called in and finds Citadel’s got help from Kara Killgrave, who once was called Purple Girl and was a member of Alpha Flight in the late 1980s when scripter Bill Mantlo was slowly but surely doing his best to make Alpha Flight the worst title Marvel published. The election goes on as planned, with former Alpha liaison Gary Cody winning as the leader of the fictional Unity Party.

Art wise, this is a decent-looking comic but nothing special. The art is by Ben Oliver with Dan Green and colors by Frank Martin. It would be nice to see some zing in the layouts if they stick around for future issues. But without some better writing, the art’s not enough to justify buying or reading this comic book.

One of the long-term problems with Alpha Flight has been the way successions of writers have completely messed up the personal histories of the characters. Mantlo was the king of this, turning Puck from a dwarf who overcame the pain of his condition into a man possessed by some kind of black genie and making the twins Aurora and Northstar into the descendants of elves from Asgard. He also killed off Snowbird and had Marrina go so crazy after becoming pregnant with Namor’s child that the Avengers had to kill her. I’m not kidding — these are actual Alpha Flight stories, and they set a precedent for writers to crap all over these characters. Since then, Guardian’s returned from the dead multiple times in a new body and, according to this issue, has a child with Vindicator that has vanished.

I don’t know how you end up with everyone back in the places we find them in this issue, but Aurora and Sasquatch are still an item; Guardian and Vindicator are back together in Ottawa and more boring than they’ve ever been; Marrina is back from the dead but not quite looking like herself; Shaman is performing open-heart surgery on a First Nations reservation; and Snowbird is back under cover with the police writing traffic tickets in the streets of Montreal. Oh, and Northstar is back after multiple stints with the X-Men living in Montreal with a new boyfriend. (Did you know he’s gay? Well, he is!)

The big question I have is this: If the writers are looking to take this comic back to basics, why would they be so sloppy with the details that show they understand who these characters are and the most basic understanding of Canada and Canadians that really is the only reason for this title to exist? Specifically:

  • Why is Snowbird writing traffic tickets for the Montreal cops when her power symbolically comes from the arctic? Her previous cover was as Constable Anne MacKenzie of the RCMP stationed in the Northwest Territories. It makes no sense that she’s now a “commandant” — which is not a real rank with Montreal police or the RCMP and even if it was, a commandant would not be writing traffic tickets. 
  • The take on Canadian politics is pretty funny. I have a feeling the Unity Party is meant to be some kind of anti-Alpha or radical conservative party, which is just plain boring compared to the real-world insanity of the Republican Party here in the United States.  
  • When did Heather Hudson become a brunette? I guess it may have been previously established that she and James MacDonald Hudson got back together, but they’re in no way a convincing couple. 
  • Shaman was clearly established as being a member of the Sarcee tribe, which was primarily based in western Canada around southern Alberta. His medical practice was always a very basic, community clinic style of operation near Calgary. Here, he’s performing open-heart surgery at the Grand Lac Victoria reservation in Quebec. Neither part of that sentence makes sense with this character. 
  • Walter Langkowski and Aurora are barely introduced. All we know about them is they’re an item. No mention is made of her being Northstar’s twin sister. Also, which Aurora is this? She wears the original black and white costume with long hair, while on the cover she has the white and yellow costume with short hair she wore after Langkowski altered her powers slightly. Also, is she still a split personality?
  • As for Walter, no mention’s made of his code name or where his power comes from. I know the source and nature of his power changed a lot over the years, so an explanation would be nice. 
  • Marrina looks completely different. Makes me wonder if this is a new version of the character. The cover shows the classic version, so some explanation would have been nice.
  • Where’s Puck? I might have missed the reason for this in another book.
  • And boy, do Marvel writers love to write scenes of Northstar being a positive, modern example of the gay superhero. After his recent run in The Uncanny X-Men, can’t Marvel find something else interesting about him? Or is he doomed to be a one-note character? Here’s one idea: he used to be a member of the FLQ, a terrorist organization that sought the separation of Quebec from Canada. (That may have been the only good plot point Bill Mantlo ever introduced to Alpha Flight, so of course it happened in Marvel Fanfare #28 circa 1985.) 

The biggest failing about this comic is there is absolutely nothing Canadian about it. I know that may seem irrelevant to a lot of readers, but when you get right down to it, it really is the only reason I can think of for this comic to exist.

Ask a comic fan to explain what Alpha Flight is about and the answer will surely involve the phrase “Canadian superheroes.” Therefore, these character need to be in some way representative of Canada, how Canadians relate to each other and the role Canada plays in the world. I don’t know if Pak or Van Lente are Canadian, but given Marvel’s track record on this post-Byrne, it wouldn’t surprise me if Pak or Van Lente’s sole experience with Canada was crossing the bridge at Niagara Falls and commenting on how there’s a maple leaf added to the logo at McDonald’s. (Don’t laugh — I’ve had that tale told to me by more than one person.)

Again, I think it’s important for a comic about Canadian superheroes have some kind of Canadian quality to it and Canada is not an easy place to figure out, even if you have lived there. It’s in many ways a lot more regional than the United States and also a lot less known. I get that someone who’s never been to New York could write an OK story set in New York because everyone absorbs the imagery and the icons through the media. But the same is not true for even the best-known Canadian cities like Toronto or Vancouver — and it’s even less true for places like Ottawa, Nunavit, Victoria, Saskatoon, St. John, St. John’s, Moncton, Quebec City or Red Deer.

This comic’s failures would not be so obvious without the high bar set by Byrne in his 28 issues. Even though Byrne was not born in Canada and hasn’t lived there in decades, he understood enough when he did Alpha Flight to inject as a theme Canada’s struggle to define itself and maintain some control over its destiny and resources while dealing so closely with the incredibly rich, insatiable and friendly juggernaut that is the United States. Failing to inject something like this into the book leaves it no different from Avengers North, and not worth publishing or reading.

Comics I like: L&R, Zot!, Next Men, X-Men Index, New York Five, 27, Who is Jake Ellis?

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On February 3, 2011

In Uncategorized

I have several large stacks of comics on my desk right now, including a bunch of current superhero releases from Marvel and DC. Some of these are not recent releases, but most are, and indicate where my head is in terms of comics these days.

Love and Rockets: New Stories #3 (Fantagraphics, 104 pages, black and white, $14.99) contains one of the best comics stories I’ve read in a very long time: Jamie Hernandez’s “Browntown.” It fills in the history of Maggie’s family with a story that is realistic, honest and true in every way that matters. Throw in a tale of “current day” Maggie, and some fantastic sex weirdness from Gilbert, and this easily is the best $15 you can spend in a comics shop.

Zot!: The Complete Black and White Collection (Harper, 576 pages, black and white, $24.95) is really interesting to read for the first time so many years after having absorbed Scott McCloud’s most famous work, Understanding Comics. That’s because he obviously is experimenting with some of the ideas for comics storytelling he eventually put into Understanding Comics, and it’s interesting to see those ideas put into practice with a real story. What I didn’t expect from this book was how gentle and sweet it is, and how well McCloud’s art style fits with the story. It’s also a big, thick and satisfying read — complete with commentary by McCloud on each story. Another excellent read for a great price.




John Byrne’s Next Men #(3)1 and (3)2 (IDW, 28 pages each, color, $3.99 each) were a pleasant surprise. I have been a fan of Byrne’s work for many years and I thought his original run on Next Men was easily the best, most original thing he had ever done. I love a lot of the work he’s done for DC and Marvel superheroes, but Next Men really stood out to me as the kind of comic top creators should be free to do. Having just re-read the entire original Dark Horse run prior to digging into the new issues only reinforced this in my mind, and I really think that the series would have been a huge smash and run for years had Image Comics and the speculator phenomenon not come along at the same time. But I have to admit disappointment in Byrne’s recent work — especially such DC projects as the unreadable Lab Rats and underwhelming takes on Doom Patrol and The Demon. I haven’t read his previous IDW stuff. But the first two issues of the revived Next Men really popped — the story picked up seamlessly and with plenty of surprises, and the art recalls Byrne’s style from the time he did the original series and is more inviting and stylish than anything I’ve seen from him in years. I’m glad Byrne finally came back to this series and hope it’s successful enough to encourage him to try more creator-owned material in this vein.

The Official Marvel Index to The Uncanny X-Men (Marvel, color, $19.99). I have always liked these indexes because it’s a lot of fun to just flip through info on so many series in one convenient place. This is a complete revamp from the previous X-Men indices (published in 1987-89 and 1994), and while I like that things like variant covers and some behind-the-scenes creative notes are included, I do have a few complaints: Please, Marvel, number the pages — especially if you’re going to say in the text things like “This issue has a 2nd printing variant cover, which can be seen on p. 165.” Because I can’t find p. 165 with no page numbers short of flipping through the book until I spot what I’m looking for. Second, I know space is tight, but using abbreviations for every title is a bit annoying even as I like that you added a year to each issue cited in this way. And lastly, if you’re going to index the X-Men, it would be useful to treat the X-Men in the index the same way Marvel publishes the comics: As a line of comics. It’s especially annoying when you have so many crossovers between The Uncanny X-Men and X-Men, and the index only includes the Uncanny side. I would hope a second volume is on the way to fill in those gaps. Still, I’m glad to have this and pleased is goes all the way up through 2009’s Utopia crossover.

Back to singles: The New York Five #1 (DC/Vertigo, 32 pages, black and white, $2.99) surprised me by being a lot better than I remember The New York Four being. This sequel from writer Brian Wood and artist Ryan Kelly — about a group of young women finding their way through their freshman year at college in New York City — feels more appropriate to a college age than the younger first book. The full-size comic book format also lets Kelly’s artwork really shine — it looks fantastic in all its detailed, gritty, urban black and white glory.

I picked up 27 #1 (Image Comics, 24 pages, color, $3.99) as part of an effort on my part to find something — anything — new to get excited about. And it’s a good start. Scripted by Charles Soule with art by Renzo Podesta, this is a tale of a rock guitar god whose hand injury has put his career on the rocks. Until an unusual solution is offered that has its drawbacks. Printed in a slightly oversize “Golden Age” format, the art looks like it was actually drawn (instead of the heavily Photoshopped

 Lastly, I snagged a copy of Who is Jake Ellis? #1 (Image Comics, 28 pages, color, $2.99), which presents an unusual take on the well-worn spy drama. Written by Nathan Edmondson, our titular hero is a spy who has a sort of imaginary friend who warns and advises him on how to do his job and get out of the sticky situations it lands him in. It’s not clear either to Ellis or the reader exactly what this presence is, but it is nice (again) to read a first issue that presents enough of a new story to make me feel like I got my $3 worth. The art, by Tonci Zonjic, is clear, atmospheric and well-colored, making for a nicely designed package.

P.S.: I’m not dead, a.k.a., I’m back and have some stuff to say about comics

By

On February 1, 2011

In Uncategorized

As you can tell by the time stamps, I’ve been otherwise occupied for a while. I’ve been immersed in animation, writing news for Animation Magazine Online and long-features for The Hollywood Reporter on the making of some of the year’s biggest hits. I’ve also had some personal developments, namely preparing to become a father when my wife and I welcome our daughter later this spring.

And while I’ve been keeping up somewhat with today’s comics, the quality of what I’m reading has failed to inspire the kind of excitement that would compel me to rush to the keyboard.

But since comics have co-opted a large portion of my brain for most of my life, I just can’t give them up and find myself constantly drawn back to them.

These are interesting times for comics and 2011 promises to be one of the most volatile years for the business side since the not-so-fun days of the mid-1990s. This past week alone saw a few news events of note:

  1. The death rattle of the Comics Code Authority. The code has long been irrelevant to comics. The last time I recall it even being worth mentioning was in the early 1990s when Milestone Media announced it would submit all its books to the code but would publish them with or without approval. Once their books came out, the seal seemed to appear at random — one issue, gone the next, then back again — and proved its irrelevance. Marvel dropped it almost 10 years ago, with the rest of the publishers slowly dropping it until only DC and Archie were left — and they both dropped it last week. It seems DC stuck with the code for so long because Paul Levitz, now departed as publisher, wanted to keep it. Now, with a new cost-conscious regime in place at DC, the fees DC paid to keep the code are obviously better spent elsewhere. More on the new DC (and Marvel) later. 
  2. The end of Wizard Magazine’s print edition, to be replaced shortly by yet another online iteration. This should surprise no one, but I think a lot of people were shocked enough to lose Wizard as a punching bag for the ills of the industry to reflect on how influential this magazine once was and how few people seemed to be reading it at this point. In the 1990s, it was required reading, and it remained a good bathroom or airplane read for quite a while afterward. Wizard would have stood a better chance of survival had it treated its employees and relationships with the rest of the industry with a bit more respect. I find it kind of funny that the Comics Buyer’s Guide, which in the past 10 years adopted a cost-effective take on the Wizard format, is still standing. 
  3. The comic book movie train continues to roll along at full speed. Three Marvel films are on the way this summer: Thor, Captain America and X-Men: First Class. DC has Green Lantern, with a big 2012 in the works with Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises and Zack Snyder’s new Superman movie. How long this will continue, I don’t know, but that’s a lot of superhero movies and all show potential from what little we’ve seen so far. 
  4. There has been a lot of chairs and titles shifting hands. Former Marvel editor in chief Bob Harras takes over the same job at DC after more than a year working in other parts of the business. At Marvel, Joe Quesada rises to chief creative officer, holding the editor in chief’s chair out for Axel Alonso, who will be ably assisted by new VP of something or other Tom Brevoort. L.A.-based Top Cow reorganizes a bit, handing off some of its business operations to the central office at Image Comics. 

And yet none of these changes have been able to keep the major publishers’ superhero lines from getting noticeably more stale from month to month — with decreases in sales to match.

There are a few interesting signs of life out there, but it’s the need to put on my critical hat and chime in with my two cents here and there on the creative and commercial problems facing comics. To avoid boring people to death, I’ll space it out into multiple posts, hopefully bringing some life back to the blog once again.

I’m not sure if I’ll continue the Fantastic Four Re-Read Project. I’d like to, but accessing those books is a little tough right now and I would like to see if there’s another way to build some blogging momentum before I try to go back to that pool. I have one unfinished post that I’ll take a look and then we’ll see …

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