Feb
2
“Fantastic Four” #587 lol wut??
Filed Under Comics | Leave a Comment
I bought two copies of “Fantastic Four” #587. The issue was polybagged, so I needed to have one I could open and one for future generations to not open. So, what’s the big deal with “FF” #587 anyway? Does somebody die in it or what? As a matter of fact, Johnny Storm (aka the Human Torch) bites it. I guess. I don’t know. The writing was so incomprehensible and the art so muddy, I gathered that he demise is part of the proceedings. To me, it looks more like he’s having group sex with insectoids.
I haven’t been following “Fantastic Four” since Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s run. The current creative team seems to be trying to ape that widescreen storytelling style. Unfortunately, the plot is so Byzantine, it’s completely impenetrable to casual readers or jokers like me who only buy comics because some major character dies. I had no idea what was going on.
First of all, the characters are scattered to the [fantastic] four winds. Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic) is on Nu-World, battling the planet-chomping big bad, Galactus; Sue Storm (the Invisible Woman) is at the bottom of the sea in Atlantis, where she’s made queen or something, much to the chagrin of Prince Namor, her sometimes-boyfriend; and Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm (the Thing) are facing down an army of insectoids led by Annihilius. For some reason, Ben Grimm has returned to his human form, so he resembles Holt McCallany from “Lights Out,” not a hulking rock monster.
I kept thinking that Johnny Storm was going to be talked to death by the other characters. Everyone speaks in massive reams of exposition. This worked in comics when someone like Stan Lee was writing the dialogue. Now it’s just nonsensical prattle. When it comes to talky scenes, less is more. I mean that seriously. Even worse, there was no character to be found in these endless passages, either. It was like reading a tech manual.
Perhaps the dumbest thing the book does is something I already touched upon: it breaks up the team before the big moment. Only Ben Grimm is on hand to react to Johnny’s apparent death. Wouldn’t the event have more gravity to it if Reed and Sue were also there to witness Johnny’s exit? Their finding out in a subsequent issue, long after the fact (and probably in two pages worth of monologuing), just seems undramatic to me.
The deaths of major characters in comics are always treated like a big, hairy deal, and yet they almost always return. Dying in a comic book is akin to getting a bout of the flu in real life. I’m sure that Johnny Storm will return at some point. The question is, Will I care enough to read the issue?
Welp, rest in peace, Johnny Storm. Flame on, brother. Flame on.
-Brad Lohan
Jan
20
“Spawn” #200 lolwut??
Filed Under Comics | Leave a Comment
The 200th issue of Todd McFarlane’s “Spawn” dropped last week. In keeping with Image Comics’ sad devotion to ’90s gimmickry, there were eleventeen variant covers, depicting the titular character in some sort of emotional distress as only cover artists who don’t pencil regular books can capture. Also, in keeping with my sad devotion to gimmicky ’90s comics, I bought a copy, one with a Todd McFarlane cover, ‘natch. Last night, I carved out a half an hour to devote to reading this long-anticipated double-sized issue.
What a laughably incomprehensible, talky mess.
I haven’t read “Spawn” regularly in two years. I tried getting back into the book again with #185, which was supposed to take the character in a bold new direction by killing him off and replacing him with someone else. But I didn’t cotton to it. Everything in the book is still mired in continuity that doesn’t make a lick of sense. It never did.
“Spawn” is about the world’s most unheroic superhero, caught up in a never-ending war between the forces of good and evil in which he takes neither side. He’s an adolescent power fantasy who actually behaves like a perpetual adolescent. When it comes to feats of superheroics, Spawn’s like, “Grr, leave me alone!” So what you have are 200 consecutive issues of melancholy, self-pitying teenage angst in a green-blooded necroflesh chassis with chains and spikes and shit.
I ate it up when I was 14, and to a lesser extent when I was 28. Now, I’m mildly embarrassed to admit ever having picked up an issue. Oh, well, I can’t un-ring that bell. Let’s get on with my snarky review.
Anyway, Spawn (aka Al Simmons) killed himself fifteen issue back, but he didn’t die. In fact, he was already dead, thereby defeating the purpose of killing himself; but he blew his head off anyway just to see what would happen, I suppose. At any rate, Spawn’s botched suicide transformed him into…Omega Spawn, the most powerful Spawn of all! And because Spawn was dead (but not really), some dude named Jim was chosen to be the new Spawn.
Omega Spawn killed all the other Spawns in hell because of course he did. Then he came to Earth with designs on killing Jim/Spawn because of course he would. Meanwhile, Spawn’s mentor Clown — a demonic carny who can turn into a horned beastie called Violator — chats up a fanged freak named Freak and learns in one of the endless passages of pace-killing dialogue that Freak is really Maleboglia, the devil who’d made a pact with Al Simmons and was believed to have been vanquished way, way back in issue #100.
Oh, and Omega Spawn and Spawn punch each other every few pages. Then we keep cutting to some sort of empty void where Al and Jim are getting lost up their own asses in some sort of existential debate about their places in the world.
Sooo…in summary, I have no idea what went on in issue #200. Suffice it to say, stuff happened.
-Brad Lohan
Nov
23
“Batman: Prey” Review
Filed Under Comics | Leave a Comment
Last week, I read the delicious rumor that “The Dark Knight Rises” will be based, however loosely, on the five-part “Batman: Prey” storyline from the “Legends of the Dark Knight” comic book series. I’d never read that arc, so I bought the individual issues on eBay and they came in the mail yesterday.
Written by Doug Moench and drawn by Paul Gulacy, “Batman: Prey” is set in the wake of “Batman: Year One” — Frank Miller and Dave Mazzuchelli’s retelling of Batman’s origin and required reading for fans of the Caped Crusader. Batman has forged a shaky alliance with Captain Gordon of the GCPD, but is still largely viewed as a menace. And so, the mayor nominates Gordon to head up a task force to apprehend Batman with the help of the aloof criminal psychologist, Dr. Hugo Strange. Gordon asks the incorruptible Sgt. Cort to be his second-in-command on the task force, as Strange tries to work up a profile on Batman. Strange’s methods for psychoanalyzing the Dark Knight include dressing up in his own homemade Batman costume and spending a lot of alone time in his penthouse apartment with a mannequin wearing lingerie. Strange later kidnaps Sgt. Cort, drugs him with a hallucinogen and sends him out to stalk the city streets as the bone-crunching vigilante, Night Scourge. All the while, Batman tries to cope with being the crosshairs of both cops and criminals alike.
Oh, and Catwoman’s in there, too.
I can see how “Batman: Prey” could work as the next film in the series. It has that gritty realism that Nolan’s going for (i.e. Robin ain’t in it). Dr. Hugo Strange is one helluva nutjob that a solid character actor can really sink his teeth into. Beefing up the subplot with Catwoman would give Batman an interesting love story subplot to further complicate matters. If anything, Catwoman feels a little shoehorned in on the page. Sgt. Cort/Night Scourge is an interesting addition to the mythos. Rumor is that Tom Hardy’s been cast as a cop in the new film, so instead of Strange, he might be Cort or some sort of Cort-like surrogate. Either way, pitting him against Christian Bale’s Batman is an inspired casting choice.
What’ll likely happen is that Nolan will borrow elements of “Batman: Prey” rather than doing a straight adaptation. “The Dark Knight” owes some plot elements to “The Long Halloween” but is largely its own story. This is definitely one of the stronger runs I’ve read in the Batman mythos. I find Grant Morrison’s current runs on “Batman and Robin” and “Batman Inc” to be infuriatingly inaccessible to casual readers. I picked up “Batman: Prey,” which was published 20 years ago, and was drawn in immediately. It’s definitely something to tide Batman fans over until the next film.
-Brad Lohan
Apr
19
William Shatner Charges $75 for an Autograph: Tales From the Anaheim Comic-Con
Filed Under Comics | 2 Comments
Last Saturday I attended the Anaheim Comic-Con. Wizard World unceremoniously canceled their L.A. event last spring, so I was pleased to see that they’d booked an event this year that’s only a pleasant 40-minute drive from my apartment. Unfortunately, heavy traffic and a confusing Google Map doubled the actual amount of time I’d estimated it would take me to get there. But I did take a delightful tour of East Los Angeles while looking for an on-ramp to get back on I-5.
Once I reached the event, I had to shell out a king’s ransom for parking ($12), then the attendant told me to park way out in Hell’s Half Acre, not in the parking structure adjacent to Hall D, where the actual event was being held. I hadn’t even bought a single comic book yet and already felt like I should bail on this whole thing.
A one-day ticket was $35 if you purchased it at the event. I couldn’t get a ticket for $5 cheaper online because my home computer has HIV-AIDS. So, I had to bite eat five bucks and pay a service charge for no discernible reason.
Are we having fun yet?
Actually, the event in and of itself wasn’t a complete wash. It felt a little crowded, though. Wizard World Los Angeles was held at the more spacious L.A. Convention Center, which doubles as the U.S. Capitol building in “X-Men” and a museum in “X2;” I guess Bryan Singer loves that place. Hall D at the Anaheim Convention Center, on the other hand, seemed cramped. I was constantly bumping into people or tripping over their carry-on bags. Seriously, attendees now wheel around carry-ons like the one George Clooney has in “Up in the Air.” They make for excellent stumbling blocks!
George Carlin has a joke where he talks about how he’s never been with a 10, but one night, he was with five 2’s. Typically, all five of those 2’s are at the Los Angeles Comic Book and Science Fiction Convention that’s held at the Shrine every so often. At the Anaheim Comic-Con, however, there were surprisingly quite a few attractive women. We’re talking 6’s and 7’s, baby. Gals who’d get with me. Maybe. The ones who’d poured themselves into Batgirl, Black Cat and Scarlet Witch costumes were especially easy on the eyes.
Boy, am I sick of fat people dressed up as Jedi. Man alive, you’d think that there hadn’t been three prequel movies which tried valiantly to convince socially maladroit men and women that “Star Wars” isn’t worth obsessing over anymore. I think the Browncoats who lovingly embrace “Firefly” are less pathetic than folks who still go gaga over lightsabers, Yoda, and all things OT.
Speaking of pathetic, I took a stroll down the Walk of Shame, where you can purchase autographs from some prehistoric z-lister. Now, as an aspiring writer, I think it would be fun to do events at specialty book stores or comic book shops or even a convention, and sign whatever it is I had a hand in writing. I own a pile of books that are autographed to me by filmmakers and celebrities, including the late David Carradine, FTW. But shelling out $20-$25 to some has-been for their autograph on a publicity photo has always seemed kind of lame to me. And I know from lame. I own a few autographed publicity photos. I always felt awkward paying someone for their autograph. Now if I’m buying their book, and they’re signing it, that makes more sense. I can glean entertainment and insight from a book; the personal touch of their signature and a few kind words to me is just a value-add. An autographed photo, however, is pretty damn boring and useless.
That being said, who in the hell would spend $75 on an autograph from William Shatner? That’s what he was charging deep-pocketed Trekkers. Jesus wept. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I love William Shatner. I was pretty starstruck just seeing him at the event. But I can’t imagine spending $75 on an autograph from anyone. That’s like three lapdances in the VIP room. Maybe lapdances are baked into the cost of the autograph, I dunno.
The Anaheim Comic-Con served as a reminder why I don’t bother going to the San Diego Comic-Con. The traffic, the admission fee, the fat people dressed as Jedi — it all takes the fun out of the experience.
-Brad Lohan
Nov
30
“Image United” #1 Review
Filed Under Comics | Leave a Comment
It’s been a little over six months since I quit reading monthly comics. I still visit comic book stores every so often because I miss the smell. Occasionally I’ll pick up a trade paperback. It’s very rare that I’ll buy an individual issue. It does happen, though, like it did a few weeks ago with “Haunt.” If anything, buying a random issue will remind me why I finally gave up the hobby to begin with. I never cultivated any real taste in comics over the 18 years I was an avid reader. As such, I couldn’t resist the temptation to pick up “Image United” #1 yesterday at a comic book shop in Ventura.
Let’s see if I can do this without consulting Wikipedia. The seven founders of Image Comics were Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen, Jim Lee, Mark Silvestri, Jim Valentino and Whilce Portacio. Hot dog, I did it! Formerly artists for Marvel Comics, these gentlemen grew tired of not enjoying any creative control over the books they penciled, so they formed their own company and published titles that proved none of them really were all that creative to begin with.
Image came into being about six months after I started collecting comics. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t buy every issue with the Image logo for the first year or two they put out books. It didn’t get as expensive as it sounds. Since every Image artist was also his own editor, deadlines were frequently missed, and the issues shipped hella-late. “Wetworks” #1 came out like a year after it had been originally scheduled to. But, these were all new superheroes — who looked like Spider-Man or Wolverine for the most part — by the hottest working artists in the industry. It was a dream come true for an undiscriminating 13-year-old.
And as an undiscriminating 30-year-old, I couldn’t resist “Image United” #1, a new mini-series that re-teams the original Image artists in the ultimate collaborative effort. Each artist draws his own character(s) in the book. Youngblood is drawn by Rob Liefeld, Spawn is drawn by Todd McFarlane, the Savage Dragon is drawn by Erik Larsen and so on and so forth. Witchblade is in there too, although her book wasn’t one of Image’s inaugural titles. Mark Silvestri’s first Image comic was “Cyberforce” — basically X-Men with bionics — but he enjoyed much more success with his top-heavy Witchblade character. So there she is. Jim Valentino’s Shadowhawk is also sadly part of the series. I don’t think there’s a bigger mort in all of the Image Universe than that also-ran.
The experience of reading “Image United” #1 is not unlike revisiting an old cartoon show from your childhood that’s clearly not as flawless as you remember. Unfortunately, the book came out last Wednesday. That it reads just as shittily as Image titles from over a decade and a half ago is nothing short of remarkable. Series writer Robert Kirkman is no better at breathing life into these characters than their creators.
The plot, such as it is, should satisfy anyone who endlessly obsesses over the outcomes of superhero fisticuffs. The super-team Youngblood joins forces with the Savage Dragon to beat up on a Spawn villain, Overt-Kill; I’m embarrassed that I just typed that sentence. Because each artist handled the penciling chores on his own characters, the fight scenes look like Colorforms. Punches don’t connect. Characters may exist on the same page, but the stylistic flourishes of each artist work against any sense of cohesiveness.
Each artist only seems to know about three different character poses, too. The characters can run, jump or punch. Regardless of their body type or gender, they perform these actions all pretty much the same. Facial expressions are also about as varied. Everyone’s screaming, clenching their teeth or being all closed-mouthed and stoic. In almost two decades, these artists haven’t matured at all. They’re still sloppy and cutting corners.
In all, “Image United” #1 didn’t really compel me to get back into buying monthly comics again. It’s a gimmick, not a comic. Knowing these artists, I can’t imagine the mini-series will reach its conclusion before the year 3000. That said, instead of buying the individual issues, I think I’ll wait for the trade.
-Brad Lohan
Nov
9
I don’t often buy single issues of comics these days. I gave up collecting last summer, and now I’ll only pick up a title if it’s some sort of milestone. Well, Todd McFarlane’s new book, “Haunt,” seemed to fit that criteria. I’m mildly retarded for McFarlane’s work in spite of the fact that his output for more than a decade now has been goat shit. “Spawn” really isn’t a good comic by any stretch of the imagination. It’s something I have almost 200 issues of, but I couldn’t exactly tell you why. The character sucks. It’s almost an anti-comic, it’s such a joyless read. McFarlane abandoned the penciling duties on “Spawn” fairly early in the series’ run to focus more on writing, which has never been his strong suit. It’s sort of miraculous that the title hasn’t died out like so many other Image books.
All that being said, I picked up the first two issues of McFarlane’s new title, “Haunt,” yesterday. I’m not exactly sure what I expected. Maybe I thought that McFarlane had exhausted all his ideas with “Spawn” and wanted to try something different. Or maybe I’m just a damn fool. Or maybe it’s a little from column A and a little from column B. At any rate, the book is just as boring as “Spawn” and not all that different, either.
I went into the first issue thinking that McFarlane had penciled the thing. So I ended up being disappointed straightaway when I found out that he’d only handled the inking chores. McFarlane’s art was intially what put him on the map. His style evokes John Byrne and George Perez, but more wild, more cartoony. During his heyday at Marvel, he reinvigorated Hulk and Spider-Man and co-created the overused ’90s anti-hero Venom. Not everyone is a fan of McFarlane’s pencils. And I’m beginning to think McFarlane himself is in that camp. It’s extremely rare these days when McFarlane puts a pencil to paper. I think it’s a shame because he’s spent the past 15 years writing some of the worst comics on the racks. Penciling would at least keep him away from a word processor and writing books like, well, the one I’m about to review.
“Haunt” is about two brothers, a Catholic priest and a secret agent. The priest seems to grant himself some moral flexibility, as we first meet him moments after being with a prostitute. He doesn’t, however, like taking confession from his superspy bro, who kills people with extreme prejudice while on assignment. There’s also some bad blood between the brothers over the secret agent’s super-hot wife, suggesting a love triangle of some sort. At any rate, the spy goes on a mission where here’s tortured to death, and his ghost begins haunting the priest. When a couple of thugs come looking for the priest and the spy’s super-hot wife, the spy’s ghost possesses the priest and transforms him into Haunt, a noseless Venom-looking dude who slings a substance that looks like ejaculate but could be webs or ectoplasm or who-knows-what. Haunt tears the thugs apart effortlessly, and that’s how issue #1 ends. I have virtually no recollection of issue #2, and I read it last night as well.
“Haunt” is basically “Spawn” all over again. You have an elite black ops agent who’s killed and returns from the grave in the form of a gruesome looking Spider-Man clone. The love triangle is there; the absence of faith is there; the tired and cliched dialogue is there. It’s clear that McFarlane is a one-trick pony. He’s not bringing anything new to the table with this title. He’s biting his own style, and that’s hardly something worth aping in the first place. He co-created(?) the book with Robert Kirkman, another dull and limited scribe, but the storytelling is so creaky, it reads like an emo 13-year-old’s creative writing assignment.
I have no interest in seeing what happens next in “Haunt.” It’s a terribly unremarkable bit of mayhem. Even the graphic violence is meh-worthy. I’m not going to get suckered into more of McFarlane spinning his wheels. He’s been on autopilot since I began reading comics, and part of the reason I quit was because of listless creators like him doing the same thing they’ve always done.
-Brad Lohan
Oct
14
Supervillain Lairs
Filed Under Comics | Leave a Comment
Last week, we took an “MTV Cribs”-style tour of superhero secret lairs and learned that even characters with limited financial means can find a moderately rat-infested section of abanonded subway track to call home. But what about their foes? Where do they hang their hats at the end of a long day of supervillainy? As it turns out, supervillains have much swankier living arrangements than their mortal enemies.
So who has the most pimp lair of them all? I’d have to nominate Dr. Doom. He not only has a castle, but a friggin’ country. Victor Von Doom lords over Latveria, an Eastern European hellhole with a population that’s made up of primarily gypsies. They probably enjoy a better health care system than we do. What’s crazy about Doom having his own nation-state is that it gives him diplomatic immunity. Diplomatic immunity, like those d-bags in “Lethal Weapon 2!” Doom can get away with all sorts of illegal bullshit while he’s Stateside, things like double-parking and trying to destroy the Fantastic Four, because he’s a duly elected representative of Latveria!
Magneto has a pretty dope asteroid — Asteroid M! — that’s in a geosynchronous orbit around the planet Earth. Forget Superman’s Fortress of Solitude. An asteroid is definitely where you go when you want to get away from it all, including gravity. It’s not like the X-Men are just going to show up on his doorstep and launch a pre-emptive ass-kicking. Space rocks aren’t the easiest places to get to even if you’re a mutant. That said, Magneto probably doesn’t order pizza all that often.
Lex Luthor’s subterranean lair is much more down to Earth. The self-proclaimed “Greatest Criminal Mind of Our Time” lives in style 200 feet below Park Avenue in an abandoned train station with the super-hot Ms Teschmacher as well as his oafish sidekick Otis. Luthor’s lair also contains a large map of the United States, where he can outline his masterstroke using visual aids; big bads often believe it’s best to show, not tell. Even better, Luthor’s hideout is at the end of a network of tunnels that are equipped with all sorts of anti-personnel devices: machine guns, flamethrowers and industrial fans that can flash-freeze uninvited guests. There’s also an indoor pool.
Ozymandias — the David Bowie-lookalike in “Watchmen” — bites Superman’s style, owning a crystal palace somewhere in Antarctica. Karnak has the requisite wall o’ televisions that many ADD villains tend to favor. It’s also home to his genetically-engineered pet lynx, Bubastis. He even built an intrinsic field generator booby trap for Dr. Manhattan. But, like the Fortress of Solitude, it’s a little cold and uninviting.
Supervillain lairs tend to be in fairly remote locations, booby-trapped up the yin-yang, and expensive to maintain. Evil-doers are generally more narcissistic and self-aggrandizing, which is often reflected in their decor. They must drop piles of stolen cash on interior decorators to create living environments that only they would consider livable. But after having served lengthy stretches in a maximum security prison, they can hardly be blamed for wanting places that cater to their unique sensibilities.
-Brad Lohan
Oct
5
If I’ve learned one thing from watching movies like “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” or “The Punisher” or “Darkman,” it’s that I need to get out more. If I’ve learned anything else from those movies, it’s that there are hundreds of square miles of real estate beneath every major city where a superhero can live rent-free and still enjoy creature comforts like electricity, running water and cable TV. Claustrophobic superheroes, meanwhile, can hole up in one of the many abandoned warehouses on skid row and still not have to worry about utility bills piling up.
It makes me wonder why I shell out so much every month for a one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles, when I could be living like a king in a subway station that’s no longer in use or some boarded-up soap factory. The mind reels. But I digress.
A superhero’s lair says a lot about him. If you’re the Green Arrow, it says you wish you were Batman so very much. Yes, G.A. has about the least imaginative hideout of any super-type, the Arrowcave. Need I say more? At any rate, most superheroes like to bring their work home with them. So they usually retreat to an undisclosed location — often subterranean — to brood, to experiment, to watch “Stargate Universe” undisturbed. They also use this lair to store spare costumes, weapons, mementos and the like. It’s kind of romantic in a “Phantom of the Opera” sort of way.
Probably the most well known hideout is, of course, the Batcave. Batman has the best superhero feng shui in all of comics. His HQ is heavily inspired by not one, but two Phantoms — the aforementioned operatic one as well as the guy in the purple suit from the radio serials who hung out in a place called the Skull Cave. The Batcave also draws inspiration from Zorro’s cavernous Lair of the Fox. Batty, however, has state-of-the-art tech in his base of operations, not to mention the Batmobile, the late Robin’s costume encased in glass, and a giant dinosaur for some reason. I’m still unclear why he keeps a dinosaur in the Batcave. It’s not a real dinosaur but a full-scale model of one. I guess it’s to suggest that Batman is still an 8-year-old at heart.
Superman’s Fortress of Solitude is also worth mentioning. It’s way the hell out in the middle of Antarctica in the comics and the Arctic Circle in the films. Wherever it is, it ain’t someplace that gets a lot of Jehovah’s Witnesses. And that’s sort of the point, as you may have guessed from its nomenclature. The Fortress is less of a crime lab than the Batcave and more like a living tribute to Superman’s home world, Krypton. Here, Superman goes by his Kryptonian name, Kal-El, while chatting up his dead parents via holographic images. Even Superman gets sick to death of helpless human folk always wanting him to solve dopey problems they should figure out on their own. As such, the Fortress is where he can get away from us.
The Batcave and the Fortress of Solitude are highly-sophisticated hideaways.But what about superheroes on a budget? Where can they sneak off to when they’re not busting heads? Well, characters like the Ninja Turtles, as you may already know, live in the sewer beneath New York City. It seems like a fairly icky place to spend one’s free time, but they’ve cleaned it up rather nicely. Their homestead is more like your parents’ basement than a vermin-infested network of tunnels filled with human excrement and dead goldfish.
Darkman has lived both above- and below-ground during his storied and mostly direct-to-video career as a superhero. He first chose a condemned warehouse in a sketchy part of town to set up shop, rebuilding his lab and befriending a feral cat. But he had to blow up that particular domicile — and maybe the cat as well — when the baddies discovered it. And so, he went underground, relocating to a section of subway track that had long since been forgotten about by city planners, maintenance workers, etc.
The Punisher is a character who seems to think even a superhero can never go home again. The most nomadic of costumed vigilantes, he’s lived all over the place — the sewers, the slums, the subway system. Wherever he’s located, it’s not particularly homey. Punny’s lair is mostly a weapons cache and where he performs DIY surgery, patching himself back together after a hard day’s work.
Spider-Man doesn’t have a spider-hole or anyplace like that. He simply operates out of his apartment, which has been problematic when he’s had a roommate or unexpected guests. When he began his superhero career, he was 15 and still living with his doting Aunt May, creating all sorts of issues with keeping his dual-identity a secret. A character as cash-strapped as Spider-Man would probably find squatting in some building that’s fallen into disrepair an easier way to make ends meet. But the whole Spider-Man mythos has been more about the burden of superheroing rather than the badassery.
A superhero’s chief concern, apart from keeping the villains from knowing who he is behind the mask, is making damn sure no one finds out the address to his lair. Ever the romantic, he’ll usually bring his love interest back to his place and try to impress her with all his cool superhero shit and home theater, but this can create blowback if the villains decide to put a tail on her. She’ll invariably lead them straight back to his hideout. Then he’s got to level the place and start afresh somewhere else. Moving sucks. Sifting through the rubble of your bombed-out HQ, looking for anything salvageable, must be even worse.
Superheroes may not generally have the most cozy lairs or lairs that are located in the nicer parts of town. Yet their man-caves aren’t necessarily designed for hosting dinner parties. A lair is basically an externalization of the superhero’s psyche, a window into what type of person he is beneath the spandex.
-Brad Lohan
Aug
25
“Archie” #600
Filed Under Comics | Leave a Comment
I stopped reading weekly comics earlier this summer, but I’ll still occasionally pick up a milestone issue, like “Archie” #600. Although I collected comics for 18 years, I think the only other Archie book I ever bought was “Archie Meets the Punisher” way back in ‘93. Archie comics simply never appealed to me. Had he been bitten by a radioactive spider or adopted by a billionaire crimefighter, I probably would’ve added his titles to my pull list. But a teenager who doesn’t sling webs or ride shotgun in the Batmobile is hardly a comic book character that warrants my interest.
That being said, I was still had to check out the 600th issue of “Archie,” where he finally pops the question to Veronica and breaks poor Betty’s heart.
The issue — written by “Batman” film producer Michael Uslan! — begins with Archie and the gang as they graduate from high school. Not having applied for college yet, Archie’s feeling pressured to experience what we writers like to call “character development.” He goes for a walk to contemplate his future. The story then miraculously flashes forward four years after he finds a street called “Memory Lane,” which he chooses to walk up rather than down; no, it doesn’t make sense on the page, either. At any rate, Archie’s now a college grad, yet still uncertain about his what he should do with his life. So he does what any listless young person in his position would do: he decides to get married. In a colossally boneheaded move, he blows his graduation money on an engagement ring for Veronica, who accepts before going on a three-month cruise without him.
Betty, meanwhile, is shattered by the news that now Jughead’s the only eligible bachelor in Riverdale. The issue ends on a cliffhanger when Veronica calls Betty and asks her to be her maid of honor. “Gossip Girl” wishes it had this much drama!
“Archie” #600 is the first issue in a six-part storyarc. I don’t know if I’m curious enough to pick up the next chapter. Again, weekly comics have lost their appeal and very few multi-part comic book sagas ever stick the landing. However, marriages in comic books tend to last. Superman and Lois Lane are still married and so are Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman. But Spider-Man and MJ divorced in the most fantastical way I’ve ever seen by making a contract with the devil Mephisto who retconned their entire marriage. I guess that helped them avoid having to decide who gets the flatscreen.
Will Archie and Veronica live happily ever after? As long as the Punisher doesn’t crash the wedding, I think anything’s possible.
-Brad Lohan
Aug
14
A Neverending Legal Battle for Truth, Justice and the American Way!
Filed Under Comics | Leave a Comment
Copyright law is a funny thing. Long ago, a creative type held the copyright for his intellectual property for the rest of his natural life. When he died, said property became part of the public domain and someone — anyone! — else could have a crack at it. Talent skips a generation, so the law was changed. As such, once a creative type died, the copyright would extend for an additional 75 years. His uncreative children could then license the intellectual property for hefty sums of cash. Disney has been screwing with copyright law for some time now, trying to extend their rights to the stable of Disney characters indefinitely. Never mind that many of the animated films cranked out by the Mouse are based on intellectual properties that were out of copyright! Disney cannot sit idly by and allow Mickey and Donald and Goofy become part of the public domain. Then somebody else might be able to do something with the properties. Disney would rather the characters do a whole lot of nothing.
Speaking of a character who’s been spinning his wheels for ages now, Superman is at the center of a pitched copyright battle between DC/Warner Bros and Jerry Siegel’s estate, according to Variety. The Siegels have won back the rights to the early comic strips as well as Superman’s Kryptonian origins, his birth parents and other bits of minutae. DC retains the rights to Superman’s power of flight, his weakness to Kryptonite and Clark Kent’s co-workers at the Daily Planet.
What’s interesting about this is how it reminds me of that scene in “The Jerk” where Steve Martin leaves Bernadette Peters, and as he’s walking out on her, he starts taking random objects and insisting that they’re all he needs. It’s so petty and stupid. Thing is, Superman deserves a bit of a shakeup. Losing the rights to certain elements of Superman’s origin might simply allow for DC to reimagine the character to some extent. Believe it or not, he has evolved over the decades. Hell, when he first came onto the scene in ‘38, he couldn’t even fly.
Interestingly enough, Warner Bros. will lose the rights to “Action Comics #1″ — the first appearance of Superman — to the Siegels in 2013, giving them the freedom to shop the property around to other studios. I’m all in favor of that. Warner Bros. has squandered the rights to Superman for decades now. It’s high time someone else was given a shot at doing something with the character, which is sort of the point of allowing something to go into the public domain anyway.
-Brad Lohan