Marvel Flipside

Remembering Septembers ~ 2010

A funny thing happened on the way to 2010. I moved to Tokyo. Sometimes I still can’t believe it, as I wander down narrow streets with strangely little Japanese cars rolling by and I duck into a neon-littered sidestreet and vendors bark out “irrashiamase!” to welcome me into their already-cramped pubs. Even writing a retrospective like this makes such a move seem unreal, like I jumped from A to B to Q. But sometimes if I look at it just right—it all falls into place and makes sense. After all, I merely found a way to combine my love for travel with my passion for helping young people, winding up a teacher for an international American school overseas.

But no matter how you look at it, I am hard-pressed to continue following my passion about pop cultural superheroics. I’m reduced to experiencing much of it entirely too late, if at all. One particularly gross example was the movie Iron Man, released in the US April 30, 2008, but not being released in Japan until the 27th of September that same year—three days before the DVD release in the States. (Incidentally, when researching this movie title on IMDB.com, the search results return “Aianman.” Another example of what this situation is like.)

I would have thought that this move would have meant the end of the hobby I have enjoyed for over 25 years. But in fact, to this day I still experience much of the drama and enjoyment from such stories (and often the more drama-filled entertainment of the behind-the-music kinds of stories) thanks to digital comics.

My first digital comics (or techincally, digitIZED comics) were the ones available on .pdf from Graphic Imaging Technology and their 40 Years of The Amazing Spider-Man DVD-ROM, as early as 2004. I quickly gobbled this one up as well as their X-Men, Fantastic Four, Hulk, and, yes, Ghost Rider offerings.  (All of which I still use and enjoy to this day.) While I am certain that GIT would be leaps and bounds ahead of what they were doing 8 years ago, Marvel Comics didn’t renew their licensing deal so as to focus on their own digitized version based on Marvel.com.

Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited (who didn’t roll their eyes at the petty “DC” rivalry there?) was the first serious push by Marvel into the digital world, and it thankfully happened just as I was transitioning to live overseas, about the end of 2007. At first, I wanted to jump off as quickly as I jumped on board, for the obvious criticisms about its interface, its lack of current releases, and its annoying habit of posting incomplete runs of back issue titles. Still, any port in a storm! In time, I grew to enjoy the experience, and I have to admit that lately the catalogue is much improved (despite some lingering critical issues.)

So I have access to some classic runs on DVD and MDCU and read “current” issues at my leisure, and I’ve been known to even get trade paperbacks of popular current-release titles. They are pretty easy to come by, both at the seemingly last surviving Tower Records (in Shibuya) or at Amazon.jp, although they are expensive. I also have been reading more and more webcomics, and my birthday care packages are always full of a trade paperback or two. You should see my Christmas wishlist! Whatever the case, I usually supplement my reading by following spoiler-ish reviews on various sites and on podcasts, and thus I am never far away from the pulse of the industry, despite my current geographic location.

In other words, it’s difficult for me to post a list of things I “picked up” to read in September, because in many ways I’m reading more Marvel comics than ever!

(Full disclosure time—I have been known to download a comic or two from a torrent site. 99% of the time, they are back issues of comics I had already purchased and have stored back in the States. It’s that 1% that I’m often shamed by. For an even fuller disclosure, I think I would download more indiscriminately if it were not for the fact that I was once an aspiring comics “professional” who knows first hand what it’s like surviving in this business.)   

At the risk of sounding like a commercial, here’s some of the titles I’ve been enjoying recently. And this is just a taste of all I’ve been sampling. It takes a lot of time to wade through everything, and more is always added.

Heroes for Hire (2006)
Annhiliation (2006)
Gorilla-Man (2010)
Galacta: Daughter of Galactus (2010)
Devil Dinosaur (1978)
Marvel Super-heroes Adventures (2008)
Warlock (2004)
Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four (2007)
Captain America & the Falcon (2004)

And at the risk of sounding pretentious, yes, I do have an iPad, but no, these comics are all MDCU and not anything I downloaded from the Marvel app. (I just think it looks cool on that background!) I have to pace out my purchases, and buying the entire iPad itself stretches my budget a bit. Maybe soon, though!

What will 2015 bring? Obviously, digital stuff is on the rise, and I for one couldn’t be happier. Certainly, it’s a bit selfish and “special case” to argue that my point of view should count for anything, but there is an international market for these things, too, and I hope that the Powers That Be can recognize that in their race for the digital grail.

Perhaps it’s another “fault or feature” type of question—I am an optimist and a visionary when it comes to these things, and I always think the best is yet to come. For comics, for pop culture, for digital distribution, heck—for my career and life in general. I’m anxious to get to the bold new future and to see such creatures that await us.

Remembering Septembers ~ 2005

One of the Marvel-y related things that was happening as early as 1999 was my own web presence—I had one of the earliest Marvel fansites out there, maintaining an Unofficial Handbook of the Marvel Universe site.

Back in those days, it was rare to have anything beyond just basic HTML script, and you’d be lucky to find anything that wasn’t Geocities or something. I was committed to doing things of quality, not merely because I was a fan, but also because it helped me with my own artistic skills. Often, I would take a Marvel comics scan and retouch it with the earliest of PhotoShop programs. Over time, I found that my images were used and re-used by other sites all over the place. Perhaps a victim of my early success, I bounced around from server to server but finally had to abandon it entirely. Still, I take a silent amount of pride anytime I see one of my many scans that even today keep cropping up here and there.

At the time I started the site, however, Marvel hadn’t put out an Official Handbook for several years. If you read this autobiographical retrospective from the beginning, you can probably guess how much I longed for one to return. Such a longing was, in part, why I felt the need to pour all my energy into maintaining my fansite. From about 1993 to 2004, we were Handbook-less. I will always wonder if one of my fan-colleagues, Jeff Christianson, had any inspiration from me when he created his Appendix to the Marvel Universe website, and later parlayed that into 2004’s relaunch of the Official books. Maybe I had some part in this legacy continuing? I have to admit, as unfortunate as it was, this was about the time I abandoned my half-a-decade commitment to the fansite. It didn't seem as important now that Marvel started publishing Handbooks again.   

The Official Handbook would have been among those comics that I purchased that September, 2005:

Defenders #1
Gravity #2
House of M #3
House of M #4
Livewires #6
New Avengers #9
New Thunderbolts #10
Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #17
Runaways #6
Young Avengers #6
New Warriors #2
Great Lakes Avengers #4
Fantastic Four #528
Fantastic Four #529

Marvel Comics, overall, had moved from the attempts to re-establish itself from financial (and arguably creative) bankruptcy in the early 2000s and was now solidly in control of itself and nearly the entire comics market. By this time, it had proven to be the “clearing house” of intellectual property that everyone always hoped it could be. The House of Ideas was attracting top talent in the industry, like J. Michael Straczynski, Brian K. Vaughan, and Allan Heinberg, all of whom had (or would go on to have) success in television and film writing, too. In the movie arena, this five-year period from 2000-2005 saw two Spider-Man films, more X-Men and Blade, and even a Hulk and a couple of Daredevil properties (Daredevil and Elektra.)  

The true rising star at this time was author Brian Michael Bendis, who came to Marvel in 2000 from the “indie” publishing scene and exploded into popularity with Ultimate Spider-Man. By 2005, he was driving force of the Avengers titles, which entailed a reboot of the entire franchise and launched several “tent-pole” events that drove nearly the entire line of Marvel comics, such as the House of M titles, above.

In other news, by 2005, my artistic career had been over. Yes, that’s true. In retrospect, perhaps I just didn’t stick too it as much as I should have. After all, in hindsight it all looks like an incredibly short amount of time to even call it a “career” at all. Mr. Bendis himself would admit that he spent over a decade as a “starving artist” before he could find any modicum of success. But, while I did hit a few personal milestones, I came to realize that freelancing is a hard lifestyle to maintain, and to do so in Hollywood is especially trying. Instead, by 2005 I turned to another passion of mine, one that hasn’t really show up in my autobiography thus far. Youth. In 2003, I was a full-time high school teacher.

Look at all those titles above—nearly every one of them is under 12 issues, meaning that, just as *I* was starting a new life, so were many of my fictional counterparts. But rather than being the end of any story, like all new beginnings, this story is… to be continued next time!

Remembering Septembers ~ 2000

There’s a lot to love about 2000 AD. And no, I’m not talking about the British comic anthology magazine. (You can’t really say that term casually in the comic book industry.) People had survived the Y2K scare, and the world had yet to experience 9-11. For myself in particular, I had been graduated from UCLA for some time, and had finally broken away from what was supposed to have been “just” a college career in order to finally fulfill my true calling—being a full-time freelance artist.

I had bounced around from gig to gig in the intervening years, as freelancers do, mostly working with either in-house graphics departments or post-production facilities. (Sometimes I could even actually :use: my artistic ability!) What I really wanted to do, of course, was be involved in honest-to-gosh productions. Most of experiences, however, would end up being “near hits” (my self-esteem refuses to acknowledge even near “misses.”) These would include working as a Production Assistant here or a Lowly Intern there (yes, I think that was the actual job description,) including Warner Bros. Animation, Dark Horse and Bongo comics, and some indie movie producers. Honest-to-gosh stuff included being a published penciller for Arrow Comics, particularly their Wonderland miniseries. The biggest gig, both in scope and its impact on my future careers, was contracting with Universal Creative for their project Universal Studios Japan.

To give you a snapshot of how these things overlapped, I once found myself in the Hyatt hotel in Osaka, Japan, tyring to churn out a page for a Digimon comic that Dark Horse was licensing. I kept thinking the surrealness of the state would somehow cause me to explode—an American working in Japan drawing a Japanese property for an American company. And maybe it did explode—Dark Horse abandoned the project before I was done, and USJ wouldn’t have a place for me once the project was handed over.

All that freelancing was doing me some good while it lasted, I guess. Here’s what lightened my wallet from Marvel that September:     

Avengers Annual 2000
Avengers #32
Avengers Infinity #1
Before the Four: Ben Grimm and Logan
Before the Four: Reed Richards
Black Panther #22
Deadpool #44
Hellcat #1
Power Pack #2
Captain Marvel #9
Marvel: the Lost Generation #6
Fantastic Four #33
Thunderbolts #42

There were many Avengers-related miniseries about this time as well that aren't reflected in September, here. And I was completely taken by the non-Marvel company debuting in November of this year—Crossgen, who proceed to take even more of my money. Some other things, though, didn’t last, including my nearly-perfect run of New Warriors. Also, I pretty much abandoned all the X-Men properties. Hey, they made it easy. This year Marvel stopped the storylines on all ongoing X-Men titles and welcomed aboard the veteran fan-favorite author Chris Claremont by allowing the franchise to experience a fictional “six-year gap” in their respective stories. It may have allowed writers like Claremont and fellow fan-favorite Warren Ellis to revitalize their ideas with new directions, but it also afforded me to abandon them in order to focus my attention where I liked what was happening, creatively, with the direction of the Avengers titles.

For the dark days of the late 90s were gone, and the Avengers titles were re-launched with a renewed focus on the tried-and-true themes, coupled with stellar work from author Kurt Busiek and artist George Perez.

Indeed, the dark days of Marvel bankruptcy seemed gone as well. Committed stakeholders of Marvel ultimately forced the (shall we say for the sake of drama) “corrupt” businessmen from controlling the company. It took the heads of a former toy company purchased by Marvel to purchase Marvel themselves. I say for the sake of poetic justice.

More good things were happening, too. The X-Men movie was released to great critical and commercial success, so much so that it revitalized interest in superhero films in general and paved the way for X-Men movie sequels and spin-offs, not to mention a boost of popularity for Hugh “Wolverine” Jackman. Also, Joe Quesada was promoted to Editor-in-Chief this year, and he brought with him (or at least, he popularized and/or allowed for) many innovative (and usually controversial) directions for the company, including the start of an entirely new imprint this year, with Ultimate Spider-Man.

Life marches on, and quickly! It seems like only a click away, and it’s 2005…

Remembering Septembers ~ 1995

It was university in 1995— UCLA to be precise. I still had my plan to continue a career in film and/or animation, although a mix of factors meant that I took an English major. That’s a long story, but it wouldn’t stop me from taking as many film and art classes as I could, hanging out in Melnitz hall as much as possible, and generally experiencing the quirky arty side of Los Angeles.

And if you are thinking that this would lead to a lot of temptation, you are right! But not in the way you are thinking. This was an amazing time to be an amateur animator and/or generally be a pop culture geek. A scant few years ago, I had to scrimp and scrapbook any shred of animation news into archives of my own making. This year, in contrast, continued the Renaissance of American animation had been blossoming with blockbuster after blockbuster—The Lion King in 1994 grossed $783 million, which still keeps it as the 31st highest-grossing feature film of all time; Toy Story (1995) launched Pixar into the powerhouse company it would become with a gross $462 million. (Of course, 1995 also saw the release of Schumacher’s Batman Forever, perhaps heralding the downward spiral of DC’s comic properties in film.)

Marvel Comics, for their part, was trying just as hard for blockbusters of their own. The speculator craze that drove much of comics popularity had given rise to sales gimmick after sales gimmick to attempt some kind of distinguishing “collectability” for countless titles, most of which didn’t really deserve it. (Two such gimmicks, a #1 issue and foil-embossed cover, show up in the picture below with Avengers: The Crossing.) I imagine that the drive to continue churning out a wide range of titles meant that cheap artists were both more profitable and more plentiful – remember, a few years back, most top talent broke with the major publishers to form their own Image Comics. At least it gave me hope that my burgeoning artistic talents might be worthy enough as well! After all, if such-and-such could do it, so could I!

My September would have looked something like this:

Avengers 390
Avengers: The Crossing 1
ClanDestine 12
Doom 2099 33
Fantastic Four 404
Fantastic Four Unplugged 1
Generation X 7
Spider-Man 2099 35
X-Men Archives Featuring Captain Britain 3
X-Factor 114
X-Man #7
X-Men #44

I should to point out, too, that the above list of comics is strictly Marvel. At this time, I was also dabbling with various other comics, including classic back issues, as my time, interest, and disposable income would allow. Malibu Comics, with its Ultraverse line, was an up-and-coming new kid on the block, and I was enamored with Jerry Ordway’s new relaunch of The Power of Shazam. (Hey, no one was more surprised than I about that last one!) 

Also, what this list fails to show is the overall picture of 1995. Earlier that year, the Marvel pulled a crazy move of suspending publication for nearly half-dozen of their most popular titles, the X-Men, and creating a short-term, sort-of-mini-imprint—the Age of Apocalypse. It was the kind of dystopian future and superheroics that I could just gobble up, and I did—the entire imprint! Even titles I wouldn’t have normally picked up! And I continued buying a few titles (X-Man, X-Factor) because of that, too. In other words, in case you can’t do the math, I was shelling out a lot of money to dabble in this little hobby.

Which is not to say that all was puppy dogs and rainbows for Marvel Comics. An illustration of this is in their more “traditional” heroes of The Avengers and the Fantastic Four. These titles were continually pushed in directions and infused with elements to better mimic the brand that the X-Men had become (and had proved profitable) even if it meant diluting what made them strong brands in the first place! But whether in spite of such mimicry or because of it, the writing was on the wall, so to speak, for these titles. In exactly one year from this point, The Avengers and Fantastic Four would be cancelled altogether and given over for reinvention by Image artists. Things weren’t that rosy for Spider-Man, either, who was still caught up in the controversial (and much-reviled) “Clone Saga” that had taken scores of months to resolve.

Such difficulties ran even deeper in the background. Marvel Comics as a business was ran to great heights by Ron Perelman, but only by using Wall Street tricks with junk bonds and children’s entertainment company stocks. Then the comic book speculator bubble popped, interest in collectibles such as trading cards and toys crashed, and 1995 was really a story of a bitter battle between the shareholders. Marvel was on the road to December 1996, when it would file for bankruptcy. 

Dun, dun, dun!
But don’t worry! Next up will be year 2000, and a lot can happen in those five years.

Remembering Septembers ~ 1990

1990 was well and truly high school, but not quite yet that year of driving with your first car. For me, this was also a time that I started to better define myself through my hobbies—which isn’t saying much. Even today, I am that “jack of all trades, master of none,” except the stakes back then didn’t seem as high as careers and locations make such stakes now. In other words, you have a bit more latitude in constantly redefining yourself in high school. But the one constant I seemed to enjoy was that of being “art guy.”

I loved sharing drawings, characters, and stories. Thankfully, one of the best things about comics is how inspirational they can be. My passing interest in doodles 4 or 5 years ago took such comics-born inspiration to become a passion and a calling. Taken together with my love for animation, comics were inspiritng me to pursue more and more artistic endeavors.

By this time, my habit of visiting Pee Wee Comics in Canoga Park, CA, was well and truly entrenched, as well, but comics were becoming more and more of a mainstream cultural experience. Another local comic shop opened closer to home—Brave New World Comcis in Chatsworth. At times, my loyalties were torn, but often BNW would have comics available that Pee Wee would not, and another great aspect of comic-hobbying could be enjoyed, that wonderful scavenger hunt of finding back issues and keeping track of the continuity of characters.

My circle of friends included many who shared the same hobbies, which allowed for great discussions, role playing games, and even conventions. I will always remember my friend’s brother getting a “table” at one local and regularly occuring conventions. I was able to dutifully label all of my comics collection in hopes of making some great sales. And in fact, I think I did okay! All of those mid-80s comics with the big names attached? Most were sold at fine prices.  (Foreshadowing! Years later, of course, I would kick myself to consider the prices they would LATER fetch—the true speculator craze was soon to fully bloom in an explosion of prices and popularity.)

Here’s the stack of books I picked up in September: 

Avengers Annual 19
Avengers 322
Avengers 323
Avengers West Coast Annual 5
Avengers West Coast 62
Excalibur 28
Guardians of the Galaxy 4
Iron Man Annual 11
Marvel Age 92
New Mutants 93
New Warriors 3
Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD 15
Quasar 14
She-Hulk
Silver Surfer 41
Uncanny X-Men 267
Uncanny X-Men 268
X-Factor 58

It may not be obvious to the casual observer, but hindsight will point out how times were a-changin’. The X-Men books were enjoying a rising popularity, especially as key artists were making their names known, and of those, namely Jim Lee (Uncanny X-Men) and Rob Liefeld (New Mutants.) The Guardians of the Galaxy was the hallmark of Jim Valentino, and Quasar was hosting artwork from up-and-coming Todd McFarlane. (McFarlane’s record-breaking Spider-Man #1 was published a month earlier in August, 1990, with eventual sales of 2.5 million copies total!) These names would become infamous as they would take the helm of high-profile books and then break away to form Image comics, shaking the walls of Marvel, not to mention the comics industry itself. 

Marvel was, as always, both expanding their brand and attempting to diversify their market. The Avengers books were consolodated under John Byrne, argualby the last of the old guard, and who would have guessed it would be a snapshot of a fading star. The line featured annual issues that tied-in to all “corners” of related imprints, explaining how an Iron Man issue fell into that stack. Other titles were being experimented with as well—new books like New Warriors, and the aforementioed Guardians. While not part of my regular habit, things like Ghost Rider and Deathlok were being offered, and Marvel created its own imprint of Marvel UK comics.

For now, however, comics collecting was in that sweet spot. All I had was lots of creativity and creative interest, lots of free time and disposable income, and few worries about capital-L Life. (Speaking of “sweet spots,” my other area of inspiration—animation—was also undergoing a creative and popular Renaissance as well. 1988 saw the release Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, which in my mind sparked a renewed interest in American animation, and 1990 sits nicely inbetween the beginning of Walt Disney’s meteoric rise with The Little Mermaid (1989) and Beatuy and the Beast (1991), with the birth of the Disney Afternoon this September, 1990, as well!)

Wow. And here I thought I hated high school!

Remembering Septembers ~ 1986

1986--
Homeroom? A new concept. In the band room? Something I never had before. The obscene gesture I saw a classmate give to a girl in those first few minutes of that very first day? A sure signal that sixth grade was a transition in many ways. Not only was it now Middle School, it also marked my transition into public school, having a new house, in a new county, and ultimately entering into as new of a world as you could get.

And yet this new world held remarkably old cliches. Science class, for example. The teacher was an aging old man whose ineffective teaching made it easy to not pay attention, whose face made it easy to chariacture when doodling in class, and whose textbooks were large enough to hide comics inside when you were supposed to be reading about stamens and pistols.

It was my classmates who noticed my interest and ability in drawing and gave me those comics to look at. Or rather, they weren’t really comics as much as mini-encyclopedias of the comics characters. I’m talking of course about the Official Handbook of the Marvel Unvierse Deluxe Edition #3, the first comic I really remember reading. No, not just reading, but really … devouring. The part that struck me the most was the character Cyclops:

    “Scott Summers was the older of the two sons of Major Christopher Summers, a test pilot in the U. S. Air Force. When Scott was a child, Major Summers flew himself, his wife Katherine, and his sons Scott and Alex back from a vacation in his vintage private plane. The plane was attacked and set ablaze by a scout ship from the alien Shi'ar Empire. Katherine pushed Scott and Alex out the plane door with the only available parachute. The parachute was unable to slow their fall sufficiently to prevent Scott from suffering a head injury on landing.”

A bit dry, sure, but even those simple words conjured amazing images to my head for this tragic character— your own father pushing you out of an airplane? Having to protect your little brother with a limited parachute? Being separated from your only family immediately after suffering brain damage? All these Marvel characters suffered some great tragedy but met it all with courage and dignity to become larger-than-life SUPERheroes… this was a mythology to capture my imagination!

This was early in the year 1986. Middle school was already turning from a strange new world into something familiar and (while often still very crummy) ws becoming at least surviveable. I continued to borrow my friends’ comics, mostly old Captain Americas, Transformers, and Secret Wars. Thankfully, there were even a bunch of old well-worn comics in the library. That’s how I got to read a scattering of Amazing Spider-Man, Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Mans, Incredible Hulks, and others.

Also during this time, another friend of mine was getting into comics, too, and he encouraged me to buy the same titles he was getting. I don’t recall exactly if he used the word “invest” or not, but I have to admit, that was his intention, and he took it seriously. He was a miniature entrepeneur, as his attitude towards most comics pre-dated the “speculation boom” that caused the comics industry to experience a economic bubble-and-bust of its own years later. But in the meantime, though, we picked up several things that are considered time-honored classics: Batman: The Dark Knight (Frank Miller), Superman: Man of Steel (John Byrne), and Superman #423 (Alan Moore). 

But aside from a few odd issues here and there, it was September 1986 when I started collecting series in earnest. And nothing seemed so exciting to me as the Marvel comics universe. This all becomes obvious when you look at the first issues that start very significant runs in my collection—they are all Marvel and they all are pubished September 1986. (Or actually July, as comics during this time were post-dated on the cover to indicate when they should be pulled from the shelf and returned to the publisher. But for sake of simplicity, I’ll just be saying September from here on out.

Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition #9
Classic X-Men #1
West Coast Avengers #12
Avengers #271
Peter Porker #10

Now that I look back on it, I must have borrowed far more comics than I ever purchased. I can recall many, many specific covers that are both immediately familiar but also know that they were never in my collection. There are even more that were picked up and sampled but never became a habit. As the years went on, however, I picked up more and more titles on an on-going basis, starting sometimes well into the series’ run--

1987 April = Alpha Flight #45
        X-Men vs the Avengers #1
        Mephisto vs. #1
1987 February     Marvel Age 47
1987 February     Avengers #276
        Fantastic Four vs the X-Men #1
1987 January    X-Men #213
1987 March     X-Factor #14
1987 April    Fallen Angels #1
1987 July     Silver Surfer #1

So, my inspiration for this reminiscence being a post from the blogs at Robot 6, I have to point out that I am diverging from his 5-year at-a-time retrospective. As you can see, I didn't even start collecting in 1985!  But I'll take this opportunity to just set the scene-- the titles above were the ones that solidified my basis of monthly collecting during this time, with the assorted mini-series or done-in-one stories here and there. Yes, even a couple of DC comics, too!

Tomorrow, let's jump fully into 1990 and start taking things in five-year snapshots.

Remembering Septembers ~ 1985

Fault or feature—I am a "here and now" kind of guy. I rarely reflect on my previoius life experiences, although I am proud of all my accomplishments and have few, if any, regrets. So, feature? I am simply happy with where I am and excited to be a part of what the world is doing around me. I eagerly await new life experiences and innovative technology and social change the way someone in a Friday night line anticipates the opening movie release. Also, I hate 80s music.

But then again, fault. I tend to not revere previous connections, even good friendships. I can often forget or gloss over memories, as they sort of blur together. I have to be reminded of the stories such memories can become, and sometimes get the details wrong. And like that 80s music thing I mention, anything that feels dated to me can be easily dismissable.

So it is somewhat funny that Robot 6, this comic blog, sparked an interest in me to do the same—to “try and remember a slew of Septembers”—but it turned out quite differently. I just wanted to do a bit of commentary on comic books and instead found myself intrigued by the context of my own biography. I had thought Pee Wee Comics in Canoga Park, CA, was just opening when I was buying my first comic books. But the dates say that Pee Wee opened in 1984 and the comics were published in 1986. I suppose the association of the two facts got mushed together, and my discovery of a comic book shop became equated with my experiencing the opening of a comic book shop. Weird.

And I had thought that reading my first comics all happened at about the same time, including my less-than-enthusiastic first readings. After all, my very first comic book I can recall was an X-Men comic featuring the villainy of the sorcerer Kulan Gath. Looking up the cover, it turns out it was issue #190--

And who can forget such a disturbing cover? The withered forms in the foreground, the looming and ominous villain in the background. I was about 10 or 11 at the time, and the image was vivid and searing. The comic, however, was unfortunately incomprehensible; it was in the middle of a three-issue story arc, featuring characters who were transformed into alternate versions of themselves, and had everyone speaking in clipped but profound phrases (a hallmark of the author Chris Claremont.) I actually remember forgoing any comics after that. Who would want to enter a reading experience like that regularly, let alone become a fan of it?  

But 1986 was coming soon, and with it, sixth grade and a host of new experiences and changing tastes.

FF: Hard to Write?

Is the Fantastic Four hard to write?

Listening to the podcast extraordinarrie of Awesomed by Comics, and they mentioned that the Fantastic Four must be hard to write. (Uh, I think it was them. I also listen to House to Astonish and sometimes I get confused.) But I remember the point!  The point was that the Fantastic Four have so many expectations put on them by their readership and by the place it has carved out for itself in the Marvel universe-- they are science fictiony, super-heroey, and family while also being a cornerstone and tacitly involved in many if not all major crossover events… any one of these things go missing and people feel like it's not a "Fantastic Four" comic, but playing up any one of these things too much and people feel like it's not a "Fantastic Four" comic. They also feel like there have been definite movements during recent years that feature one FF cast member more than others, and often to the sidelining of the others. (All of this to point out that they are right-- recently the book has been overall more science-fictiony and more Reed-y.)

But here's where I think the Fantastic Four could be actually easy to write. (Well, admittedly that is a relative term!) What drives a plot of a FF story doesn't have to be what drives the FF book itself. That's your key. The FF book is all about the characters, and the plot comes in and shakes things up. These are comic books, and often times comic books are all about reacting to things, and in most cases, to villains. In other words, what drives an FF story is actually the villains!

Think about the awesome FF stories in the past-- they often center around the villains. And think about what an awesome rogues' gallery the FF has, as well! Galactus, Doctor Doom, Mole Man, Annhililus… etc. But where are the mighty rogues of the FF nowadays? They aren't driving any of the plots, making the characters kind of boring as they have little to react to but themselves or each other. (Small doses of that are fine, but come on! Bring on the bad guys!)

Hopefully, the very current FF stories are building to have some interesting villains-- something with this Immortus or Nathaniel Richards or an alternate Franklin/Valeria?  

And no, the daughter of Psycho-Man doesn't count.

Why I Hated HER-OES

Her-Oes #1, cover by Craig Rousseau

Well, not exactly *hate.* What I hate is seeing a lot of criticism thrown around on comic book fansites that pretty much boils down to nothing but hatred.

Some summary at first? HER-OES centers around a young girl who has been forced to hide her super powers for fear of being a freak. An outcast at school, she's forced to use her powers along with similarly-powered friends to save themselves from a conspiracy who would rather exploit such powered-people. Oh, and she learns a little something about herself. 

I mean, this comic book has a lot to like. It's exactly what I like to see in a new superhero book, and I'm a sucker for origin stories, the kind where everything about the hero changes and yet it sets up a nice status quo for ongoing stories. The characters are engaging and the world it creates has a nice balance between a real world with slightly magical elements (that whole "magical realism" genre that superheroes do so well.) I'd imagine that much of the criticism, if any, the book received was from being a bit *too* standard stock, and the characters/plot lines a little *too* boilerplate. (I'll come back to this in a second.)

What allows the book to have a bit of an edge to cause a double-take is the fact that it's an alternate take on established Marvel heroes, and exclusively female, at that. The three main characters are the Wasp, She-Hulk, and Namora (Namora? At once a cool vintage character and a new sensation) With other roles for characters like Moonstone and Miss America (Miss America? Something out of left field that's surprising and fun)

But after the fun is over, I end up hating that, too. I hate the fact that this takes established Marvel properties and makes them into things that are nothing like the established Marvel properties. She-Hulk and Namora are given completely different backgrounds and personalities, and Wasp, well, she's been dead for a few years now in the Marvel storyverse! Which is nothing to say for Miss America, who's been absent for decades. Let's see how this appeals to different kinds of readers:
Reader 1, established Marvel-phile: Oh look! A series featuring these great characters! Oh, wait. This has nothing to do with these great characters at all. Why should I bother?
Reader 2, brand new to Marvel and/or comics: Oh look! This story is fun and has some interesting characters! Well, that was entertaining. See ya later! 

Contrary to some other fansites, I *like* seeing Marvel as a business. I want to see it establish a brand and leverage its properties. But there's no way that something like HER-OES can do that. It takes characters that should be developed in strategic ways and makes them interchangeable with "nothing." Here's where I return to that whole "boilerplate/"stock characters issue. By interchanging Wasp with some stock heroine for a done-in-one-shot miniseries, you are dangerously close to treating the iconic character in a disposable fashion. If there's no care (strategy) taken by the company, why should readers, or creators for that matter, take care to invest in the stories, either?
Creator: "I got this idea for a great new series for young readers-- a brother and sister discover they have powers and have to help each other survive the tragic comedy that is high school! It's perfect for Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch!"
Editor: "You can't use Scarlet Witch."
Creator: "Fine. Quicksilver and, oh, Rogue, then."  

And yet, if the HER-OES story was done *without* using heroes that were recognizable as the Wasp, She-Hulk, and et cetera, would it have been successful? This is harder to answer "yes" to. It is a serviceable plot, but the twist is that it could be a parallel Marvel universe. The plot is too serviceable to be distinguishable in and of itself.

I would imagine the solution would be somewhere in the middle. Finding some kind of recognizable property in place so the story can introduce new characters and concepts. Alternatively, it would have to only use permutation on characters that are already being leveraged with other titles. Hence, Black Widow and the Marvel Girls could be an alternate take on the Black Widow, but there are regular appearances of Black Widow elsewhere, in a different title and/or in guest appearances. Spider-Man and Ultimate Spider-Man are fine, because it allows the property to be always in the public eye while also maintaining distinguishable brand identities, including logos and art house styles.

All of that said, and I have to admit that I like shorelines set in parallel worlds, and I hope for the day we have an Invaders title that involves them hopping from dimension to dimension. And learning a little something about themselves.

Why do Comics Need to Be Real?

The 15 minutes of the world's attention has shifted, so people probably don't care about things like Wonder Woman's new costume. But I'm finding a recurring theme in comments both from the creators and the commenters-- it's also the same spirit of the age that brings about similar comments about costumes and designs that are appearing over the last five or even ten years. More recently, with media like Heroes or Kick-Ass, this is even more acute. What is this that I'm talking about? It's about realism and super-heroes.

But who says our superheroes need to be realistic? Why do costumes in a printed comic book have to be created with ideas of functionality in the real world and/or  being able to express these costumes in a movie later? Instead, I've always thought that the whole point of superheroes in comic books was that it was a "magical realism," a fantasy, a metaphorical expression of power and responsibility.

 In Renaissance art, you have symbolic expressions-- those round gold circles behind the heads of painted figures aren't REAL. People didn't walk around with gold circles glued behind their bald spots. Those halos are meant to be symbols that represent the saints' holiness. In comic book art, we've lost this symbolic element. Costumes used to be about larger than life men and women, with costumes and logos (which are literally symbols on the figures' chests!) Flashy powers, bright colored capes, simple alliterative names, and more, they were all metaphors for the experience of fighting for what:s right, striving against impossible odds, and overcoming villainous forces of nature.

What was so great about Marvel Comics' Silver Age was that this symbolic metaphor was mirrored to a reality of flawed and human characters. So the Marvel universe became a "magical realism" universe, where the world was "real" but there was always a bit of "magic" somewhere in there and could be experienced as a moment that disrupted the realism. Time passed, and it became even more explicit in things like Kurt Busiek's Marvels series, as the all-too-human Phil Sheldon was the narrator who could experience the magical realism of four-color heroes around him.

Nowadays, we've come so far to tie heroes to the "real world" that we are in danger of losing this magical reality. After all, these heroes were, in the full meaning of the term, exceptional. Iconic.

So don't worry if capes aren't practical, if a costume wouldn't translate to a movie, or if it would impede someone's moment.

Also, I don't like Wonder Woman's new jacket.