Wolverine and the X-Men #1

This title got added to my pull list when Uncanny X-Men looked like it was no longer going to be published.  (Yeah, that lasted long.)  I decided to keep it on the pull list ... knowing nothing about it ... because I like Wolverine, and I like the X-Men.  Plus, it added to amount of comics I needed to get to the next discount tier.

When the first issue arrived I looked at the cover and immediately thought I had made a mistake.  Hideous.  Luckily there was truth in advertising, as the story was just as stupid.

The premise is that Wolverine has taken over the job of running Professor Xavier's school.  That is a good premise, which has promise.  That said, the crux of the issue involves an inspection to make sure the school is safe for young mutants ... and it's all handled with comedy -- mostly of the slapstick variety.

Wow.  That's all I can say.  Wow.

Wolverine heading the school actually makes sense for his character, and it shows some good growth.  Handling the situation as a comedy is a huge mistake.  It really doesn't even make sense, and I doubt it will last all that long.  I hope it won't last that long.

I may have issue two by now.  (I think it's in my stack.)  I'm in no rush to read it.  I will, however, stick with it a few issues until I make the final decision on it.  I think the premise has promise, so I'm willing to give it a chance.  All it needs to do to fix the problems is get a new artist and writer team ... and keep Frank Miller away from it.


Mandatory FTC Disclaimer: I paid for this garbage.

Cover Review: Doc Savage #7

I never read Marvel's Doc Savage series.  Covers like this one, to issue seven, is why.  It is bland, boring and bad.

The title logo is fine.  It reeks of savagery.  Everything else, though, just reeks. 

First there is the werewolf.  If it stood upright, it's head would be awfully tiny.  And why does it look like it should have four arms?  I do like the thick drool, however.  I am a big fan of thick drool.

Savage himself is ordinary.  If I knew nothing about the character or the title, I would know that Savage was oddly colored (bronze?), and liked to wear a vest, white pants, boots and little else.  He also had weird sideburns.  I would imagine he was some kind of werewolf hunter, based on what the werewolf is saying, and the fact that his name is Doc Savage. 

What is stranger than the werewolf or the odd coloring of the cover, is the werewolf's prints in the snow.  The footprints don't seem to resemble the werewolf's feet, they are drawn oddly, and it looks as if the werewolf was possibly hopping on one leg that those Oriental ghost vampire things.  Perhaps this was part of the story.  I have no idea.  I never read the issue, and with this cover I never would.

One last note: How the hell are the clouds behind the sun or moon?  (I can't really tell which it is.  It resembles the sun, but there is little reason why a werewolf would be out in the sun since they traditionally turn into their namesake during full moons.)  Has the moon/sun suddenly entered our atmosphere?  If so, this cover should look radically different.  Rick Butler, you've done better.  I'm not sure you've done worse.


Mandatory FTC Disclaimer: Clicking on a link may earn me some cash.  This issue was not sent to me to review.

Wish Fulfillment Personified -- The Punisher

Marvel's character, the Punisher, is about as basic a character you can get.  Overtly based on Mack Bolan in The Executioner series written by Don Pendleton, the Punisher, in the most basic of terms, is a man whose family is killed by bad guys and because of that he decides to kill all bad guys.

End of story.

The Punisher is a lone wolf.  He listens to no authority, lets no one stand in his way.  He rights the wrongs and does it with finality.  If you are engaged in a crime, he will kill you.  This is teenage male wish fulfillment at its finest.

The idea of doing harm to all the people who have done you wrong ... and then taking it further to make sure no wrong is ever done again is appealing.  The notion that authority, be it law enforcement, your parents or school, cannot contain you is a fantasy second only to sex in a teenage boy's mind.  When the Punisher steps into the fray he becomes symbolic of what every wronged teen boy has imagined at one time or another ... guilt-free, rampant vengeance.  It's part of why he's so popular, and since teen boys grow up to be teen men, he remains popular.

If revenge were all the character had to offer, though, he would be soon relegated to second tier status, and that's being generous.  Through the hands of various writers, however, Punisher has taken on something that goes beyond mere violent masturbation material.  (Excluding, of course, those ill-conceived detours into the realm of angels and pseudo-Frankenstein monsters.)  He has become an almost tragic figure.  A twisted Christ.  He wipes evil from the Earth, but is destined to do so alone (or with the help of a few select friends) and be alone.  He has been resurrected (again, in those horrible storylines).  He has attracted the ire of self-appointed protectors who find his methods too extreme and have punished him for it.  Is he to be worshipped?  Only by the psychotic, but there are plenty of readers who can understand and even sympathize with is actions.

There is something cathartic about ridding your world of evil.  Not just locking it away with the hopes that he or she will be reformed.  Sometimes your problems can only be solved by defenestration or massive explosions.  Were you do to those things in real life, you would be hunted and most likely caught.  You would have to hope a jury of your "peers" would understand that sometimes rapists have to be shot in the face.  And you would hope they have pity on you.  The Punisher has these concerns, but they don't matter much in the grand scheme of things.  His titles sell well enough that readers know he will never truly be reformed or cancelled.  He will live to kill another day ... once again brought back from the dead to show the world the error of its ways.

Cover Review: Bachelor Father

Nothing screams fun to a young lad or lassy like a comic cover featuring John Forsythe.  If that poor misguided child remained unconvinced, this second issue of Bachelor Father, which is reminiscent of those Mother Boy dances on Arrested Development, worked in a little more sugar to lure young readers in.

First thing you may notice is the daring use of dynamic colors.  If that didn't make it jump of the rack, nothing would.  But let's say the child was color blind and not a huge fan of Forsythe, what could publisher Dell possibly put on the cover to pull this wayward reader in?  How about a creepy singing Asian man named Sammee Tong complete in some servant-type outfit?  What about the world's most exciting musical instrument, especially when on the cover of a comic book?  Done and done!  Toss in Noreen Corcoran tickling those ivories, and you have yourself a winner.  Combined, these images cause this cover to scream "fun!"

Or not ...

Photo covers using celebs is a risky gamble.  On one hand, you have a built-in sale if any reader happens to be a fan of the celeb.  On the other hand, anyone who isn't a fan isn't likely to buy the issue.  Fans of Bachelor Father, a comedy that ended up running on all three of the major networks, may have been thrilled there was a comic of their show, but I have serious doubts anyone else cared ... despite Sammee Tong (whose very name seems racist).

I've never seen the television show, and have never read the comic.  Covers like this don't make me want to experience them, either.  One thing does have me perplexed, however.  Is Tong singing ... or is he screaming for escape?  If it's the former, I'll definitely pass, but if it's the latter ... it could be an interesting issue.

Falling In Love All Over Again?

Marvel and DC have a problem.  This problem is the rebooting of entire lines.  A mulligan of titles, if you will.  Both comics have done it in the past, though if you read the news about DC (covered in the mainstream press) it sounded as if this was the first time any comic book company had done any such thing.  Granted, DC did it on a huge scale, as indicated by the cover on the left, but starting established titles over at number one is no rarer than changing the numbering system back to the old one later on.

When I first started reading comics, I liked the idea that I was reading #154 of a given issue.  It gave me a sense that there was some history behind the title.  There was a secret past that I could explore at some point.  It signified stability, as well.

Action Comics started in 1938.  1938!  How many other things have been around that long?  It was a comics institution.  Starting it over at issue one is desperate.  It reeks of a gimmick to lure in new readers.  Perhaps in our world, which has been molded by MTV and action movie edits, some people were afraid to read a title that had a history.  Perhaps it was too much to absorb.  I find that unlikely, though.  Going from my own personal tastes, and from what I saw when I managed a comic book store, if you give readers a good story, they will come to the title no matter what issue number it is on.

The moves Marvel and DC have done over the past few years indicate two companies afraid of going under and/or becoming obsolete.  They've sold the movie rights to characters, so now studios can make their own stories with them as they see fit.  The things the companies have done (massive storylines, reboots, etc.) are done with the hopes of attracting a new crowd while at the same time keeping the old.  What Marvel and DC should have learned from the times these things have been done in the past is that they don't work.  There may be brief spikes in sales and some media buzz, but it doesn't last.  Compelling stories last.  Respect to the medium gathers an audience.  Pandering to a non-existent crowd does nothing more than make one look like a huckster.  If Marvel and DC wanted to be "contemporary" they would drop numbering all together and probably go straight to trade paperbacks, but I highly doubt either company would last long if that's what they did.  Why?  Because the money these companies make comes from the core comics fan, and those fans want the same things I do.  Good stories and respect.

If Marvel and DC started treating their titles like art and less like commodities, the fan base would grow.  It would grow slowly, but it would grow.  It did so in the 1980s when magazines like Rolling Stone covered Frank Miller and Alan Moore's work.  These men were creating art, and the companies (DC in this case) let them.  The industry got respect.  New readers flocked to it.  The industry grew.  It's a very simple formula, but it is one steeped in long term thinking.  If the past few years have taught us anything, though, it is that the Marvel and DC are suffering from attention deficit disorder just as much as they believe their fans to be suffering from it.

The Walking Dead: Superheroes, Death and Culture

I recently read Secret Avengers number 15, which is part of the "Fear Itself" storyline.  It deals with the death of Captain America (again), and a tabloid that posts a story saying he is still alive.  It's actually a fairly decent (if somewhat unsatisfying) story that tackles the issue of the death and subsequent resurrection of superheroes and what it means to the people who populate that universe.  While it is a Marvel story, no comic book company that publishes superhero comics is immune to this scenario.  For all of you who don't know the superhero paradigm, it is this: Some die and come back.

Recently I have been engaged in a series of e-mails with a female friend about this very subject, so reading this issue coming off those e-mails made me think that this is a great time to write about it.  And in starting this post I remembered a conversation I had many years ago in Comic Castle (before it became a joke at the other end of town) in Eureka, California.

I was talking to a comic reader who was explaining why he stopped reading superhero comic books.  "The heroes don't stay dead," he said.  This is a serious complaint.

Comic books, like any artistic medium, are flawed.  You have the business aspect of them, which is often at odds with the artistic side of them.  Comic companies create these wonderful, endearing characters who become big money makers for them.  They reach icon status.  Sometimes they are killed in order to boost sales, but are brought back for the same reason.  It's the same thing that drives Coca Cola.  You can change the product, but you can't kill it off.  For the writers of these comic books, this corporate mindset creates a unique set of problems.  As a writer you typically don't own the characters you are writing.  You may want them to grow, but the comic company and a lot of the readers don't want to read that despite what they say.  If, as a writer, you take your story to its natural conclusion, it will often end in the death or retirement of a character.  The story will have finality, as is the case with most stories.  Again, this is at odds with what a comic company and its readership wants ... despite both of them saying they want progression and stories that keep up with the "times."  As a writer, it's a hard line to tow, but many do it.  Some better than others.  And any writer who kills off a character does so with the understanding that the character could be brought back at any time.

There is, however, one other aspect to consider -- cultural.  And this aspect is where the reader who stopped reading Batman and Captain America was caught.

I could understand him not wanting to continue reading the comics because characters he cared about didn't stay dead.  Their deaths meant something to him.  Bringing them back cheapened their deaths.  I think that is perfectly acceptable ... or at least it would've been if he really lived his life this way.

"Aren't you Christian?" I asked.  "Don't you believe in Jesus?  He died and came back."

"That," he explained, "is different.  Comics aren't real life."

No argument there.  I do, however, find it profoundly disturbing that one would apply rules to real life that they won't apply to fiction.  I can see someone taking the rules that apply to fiction and not applying them to real life.  That makes sense.  That's a sane and rational way to go through life.  I love the Star Wars franchise, but I don't think The Force has any bearing on real life.  If, however, I believed that people could move things with their minds but didn't like Star Wars because the concept of The Force seemed ridiculous, it would make me a hypocrite and irrational.  Yet people do this all the time and don't see an issue with it.

There are plenty of people throughout the world who believe Jesus came back to life.  Not only do they believe it, they also live their lives according to it (granted, often only when it is convenient).  Many of those believers are also comic book readers.  (Read the letters pages in back issues of Preacher if you don't believe me.)  Some of those have turned away from comics because the idea of a hero's resurrection somehow offends their sensibilities.  I can't be the only one to see a problem with this.

The opposing forces of capitalism and art are understandable and in many cases excusable.  From acts of capitalism we sometimes get great art.  From works of art there is often money to be made.  The opposing forces of morality versus fiction should be less of a problem, and can be when handled properly.  When you think a concept in fiction is unbelievable but yet live your life and establish your values under that same concept you have a serious problem.  It means you aren't making decisions based on logic, rationality or any sense of seriously defined rules.  I have no issue with people leading a life based on the concepts of religion, but when that person won't accept fiction with the same concepts because it isn't realistic it signifies to me that the person hasn't really thought about what he or she believes.  They haven't examined it, and they surely haven't figured out how it really applies to them in real life.

The idea that superheroes can die and be resurrected will never go away.  Green Arrow.  Captain America.  Bucky.  Superman.  Spider-Man.  The list is endless.  It will never go away because it generates money for publishers and readers, despite what they say, like it.  It is part of the comic book culture.  The idea of Jesus and his story will never go away, either.  It will continue to influence people into the foreseeable future.  I don't expect all followers of Jesus to be fans of comic books.  There are plenty of other viable reasons for comics to lack appeal to them.  I do, however, expect fans of comics who also believe in Jesus to either accept the fact that heroes die and are resurrected or seriously question what they believe when it comes to religion.  If you are one of those people, how do you get through life with such directly opposing views?  You either go through life thoroughly confused, or you haven't given your beliefs more than a few moments of serious thought.  I must admit that the latter is far scarier to me than the former.  Me?  I don't believe in Jesus, but I do enjoy superhero comics.  I know people don't die and get resurrected in real life, but I thoroughly understand the workings of capitalism and the idea that it can make for an engaging story.  The fact that I may have given more thought to my genre fiction than some people have given to their own values and morals scares the crap out of me ... as it should you, too.  If, of course, you're one to think of such things.


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Bondage Masked Violence

I've written about Marshal Law before.  The violent, satrical, take-no-prisoners character is a favorite of mine.  He wears a bondage mask, has barbed wire wrapped around his arm and kills people for a living.  What's not to love?  The various series he's been a part of have all been over-the-top when it comes to violence (see the panel here for an example).  It's not meant to be real or even realistic.  It's a satire.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.

When the series came out in the late '80s a friend of mine thought it was pretty ghastly and had called it the "downfall of comics."  (I am reminded of this by him in a recent e-mail where he had read my original post online.)  This observation comes from a person who had recently got into the art form and had no real knowledge of comic books' history with violence (something well-documented by writers better than I), nor the shifting tastes of what a public wants in entertainment.  He made a casual observation based on his thoughts and feelings, and, as he is quick to admit, he made it without doing more than glancing at the first issue.

The world of Marshal Law is full of steroid-abusing men in tights who pummel each other until bones break from skin.  People are set on fire at random, and gun violence is as common as candy in the schoolyard.  Marshal Law is employed to take down wayward heroes, and he does it with all the violence one would expect.  The entire concept is taking the idea of superheroes to what is really the next level, as seen in books like The Authority, which came well after Law and company.  The only thing that makes Superman any different is the level of violence.  The Man of Steel punches a guy and he goes down.  His head doesn't go flying off into space.  Why wouldn't it, though?  Why wouldn't pumping an unstoppable behemoth full of bullets result in a wet mess of flesh still coming at you with a look of rage?  The creators of the Marshal Law character, Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neill, asked those questions and showed the results of their findings.  They did so in a way that was so outrageous, however, that you couldn't help but notice what they were trying to accomplish.  Heavy-handed?  Perhaps, but that was really a great way to tell the story.

The various titles starring Marshal Law didn't destroy comics, and nor did it have any real noticeable impact.  It may have inspired a few creators (I hope it has), but it didn't change the art form in any way that is lasting.  It didn't need to, however.  It came onto the scene and made its point.  That is far more than many comics do these days.