Author: Ryan

So Chris Butcher pointed out the cover to the latest printing of Marvel Zombies, which is, admittedly, pretty gross:
I can see his point, of course: Not only is it a “sexy” female corpse, but it’s also tying into one of the few all-ages, female-friendly books Marvel publishes. But, you know, I don’t think it’s that bad. Mostly, I think it’s depressing that Arthur Suydam continues to beat the Classic Cover With Zombies motif into the ground; can he really not draw anything els?

But then, I remembered a few things:
Independently, I don’t think anything here is that bad. The MJ statue is ugly and a poor translation of Adam Hughes’ work; the Heroes for Hire cover is, I’m convinced, an attempt at parody gone horribly wrong; and Daredevil is by the excellent Michael Lark and the pretty good Ed Brubaker.

But put them together and you get an ugly trend.

As Chris so nicely titles his piece, No, Seriously, Why Do You Put Up With This Shit?

When I was a young lad, I loved New Warriors. It was a fun book; not a great one, but it was usually entertaining. Generally new characters (how Nova could be considered a New Anything escapes me now, but I suppose he hadn’t been used in around 15 years), lots of adventure, banter, bickering, and wackiness, the latter generally courtesy of Speedball.

There have been a couple attempts to resurrect the franchise since those early glory years; I haven’t read any of them. I gather they were a big deal in Civil War, but I didn’t read that book.

So, I admit, I picked up the new New Warriors largely out of nostalgia. As I said, I didn’t read Civil War, but I followed enough to get the general premise, from which springs this book: A group of young upstart superheroes take the name of a disgraced team to stick it to Tony Stark. I can get into that. The original book was about a bunch of young heroes who wanted to be Avengers; it seems fitting to reincarnate the concept with characters who are anti-establishment.

Alas. While it was nostalgia that led me to the book, it’s modern continuity that it’s tied to: Apparently all the New Warriors are former heroes in new identities, several of them tied to M-Day, the event that depowered a large portion of the mutant population. Sophia, who I gather used to be in New X-Men (the New Mutants version, not the Grant Morrison one), is the main character for the first issue, settling into life as a human but dreaming about flying. Then the Mystery Hunk at the restaurant where she works turns out to be Beak of New X-Men (The Grant Morrison version, not the New Mutants one). And there’s some covert superheroing going on which involves busting the Grey Gargoyle and Anaconda, but it’s a mystery to some cops.

I suppose this could be an entertaining read if you followed Sophia in New X-Men, but as it stands this is just another story of someone who gave up being a superhero but might want to come back to it. It’s generally based around recognizing a couple characters from some recent fringe books, along with (presumably) some Civil War fallout.

As much as they look pretty silly, this is actually a book that needs a few more colons in the title to explain just what the heck it’s about. You know, something like The Initiative: X-Men: M-Day: New Warriors. Or possibly New Ex-Mutant Warriors.

It’s ultimately just average. Not bad, but probably not good enough to merit a second issue. I’d probably be more convinced if it had some newer characters, but positioning itself as a sequel to New X-Men doesn’t do much for me. The art by Paco Medina is similarly average: It’s competent, nothing to complain about but not particularly impressive.

There might be some interesting ideas in here, but it doesn’t look like they’re going to be presented with much life. The original New Warriors book may have been somewhat generic, but at least it was fun and interesting.

Black Summer was announced a few months back, and is something of a rarity: A full-colour superhero book published by Avatar Press, home to Lady Death and the more eccentric projects from Ellis and Garth Ennis. The concept is pretty blockbuster: A superhero named John Horus unilaterally decides that the president of the United States has led the country into an illegal and unethical war, and he takes it into his own hands to execute the man and his advisors.

If you’ve been following the interviews Ellis has given, there’s not a lot of new information in this very affordable (99 cents) #0 issue. It does, however, convey the information much more effectively than an interview. The main character thus far appears not to be John Horus, but his former teammate Tom Noir, whose superhero career came to an end in a car bomb that killed his girlfriend. While Horus is meeting with the president and looking pretty darn spiffy in his shiny white costume, Tom is sitting in his dingy apartment with a bottle of whiskey and half a leg less than he used to.

Ellis gets things out of the way quickly: After a brief bit of background info regarding the history of superheroes – sort of a cross between science heroes and two-gun vigilantes – Horus interrupts what should be a routine press conference by walking into the White House press gallery, covered in blood, and announcing he’s just executed the President. Tom watches it happen on TV, and fields a phone call from another former teammate.

As I said, it’s a hell of a concept. And thank god Ellis did it on his own ground instead of slipping it into the Marvel Universe; while it’s not too hard to see this sort of thing working as another chapter of Civil War, there’s no way it would be as effective. If, say, Spider-Man killed the president, we’d more easily be able to narrow things down: Maybe the President is a Skrull, or Spider-Man was being mind-controlled by, oh, let’s say the Shadow King.

But in Black Summer, anything could happen. This series is going up to eight issues, not “forever.” No one has to appear on lunch boxes or appear in a motion picture next year. Anything can happen, anyone can die, anyone can be crazy or evil or right or wrong.

In John Horus’ case, there are obviously several options, but no sure thing:

• He’s crazy. If a man drenched in blood told you he’d just murdered the president because of a criminal conspiracy, you’d certainly consider the possibility he’s gone nuts.
• He’s wrong. What if a great hero committed an unspeakable act he thought was for the greater good, but screwed up?
• He’s being manipulated. Like the last point, but there’s some evil mastermind behind it.
• He’s right.

The first three options are somewhat cliché. Ellis could probably pull them off, but I have more faith in him than that; they’ve all been used to some extent. The final option recalls his work on Authority: What if superheroes, with all their power, really tried to change the world instead of just fucking about with petty crooks who also happen to be wearing spandex?

Ellis sets things out fairly clearly in Horus’ announcement to the press:

We’re supposed to fight evil.

You let us fight injustice. You don’t have to pay for us. We do this because we are driven to do it, and because we developed the skills to do it.

Your politicians don’t touch us because we’re dynamite: We save lives, and have caused not one collateral death in the last three years.

But we’re supposed to stand by while this administration commits crimes.

Ellis has a reputation, largely cultivated by himself, as a cynical curmudgeon who hates superheroes. But in Black Summer, he’s got right to the core of why we love them: They do the right thing. They try, at least. People with great powers, abilities, or technology who are trying to make the world a better place. It’s the sort of thing writers who are considered superhero traditionalists never seem to consider; changing the world always seems secondary to punching another guy in spandex.

Ellis is joined in this exploration of idealism and bloodshed by Juan Jose Ryp, who previously worked with him on Apparat: Angel Stomp Future. If you’ve seen his covers or read the Apparat book, you know he’s a madman: Detail crazy with an affinity for the gruesome; a poor man’s Geof Darrow, if you will. His interiors don’t quite live up to his gloriously excessive covers, but there’s no denying the guy’s got game: The reveal of John Horus walking into the press room is wonderful. There’s little question he’s not working with the ideal material here: There’s a lot more talking than carnage in this issue. He’s certainly good enough, though, and the previews and sketches suggest there’s lots of carnage to come.

Black Summer #0 is effectively a teaser for the rest of the series. Eight pages of story, a text piece by Ellis setting out his manifesto, and some sketches and previews from Ryp. For 99 cents, that’s a pretty good deal, and it accomplishes its goals: I want more. Right now.

This could be very, very good.

So Newsarama previews an issue of Daredevil. There’s a semi-naked woman, and a big guy terrorizing her.

I’m not going to make any real commentary on the content. I gave up on Daredevil 3/4 through Bendis’ run (I’ll probably finish it off one day, after I’ve bought the other 150 books on my wishlist). Brubaker’s a pretty decent writer, but his work doesn’t do anything for me.

However, there are those who comment and discuss the issue of whether it’s appropriate for a big guy with buzz saws on his wrists to be beating up a semi-naked blind woman. (It’s Newsarama, after all; I must say, though, that the debate is reasonably fair-minded for that site.)

Then Ed Brubaker shows up:

Why not wait to, you know, actually READ the comic before jumping to any conclusions? Or is that too logical for the internets?

As I said, I think Brubraker’s a decent writer, and he usually seems like a pretty smart guy. As such, it’s kind of bizarre that he so completely misses the point.

It’s a preview. Marvel sent it out to get people excited about the book. They want people talking about the book. Which is perfectly sensible, but they don’t get to decide what people say about it.

I’d kind of like to see this argument come up some time:

Internet Fan: This book looks awesome! Writer X rules!
Writer X: Why don’t you just shut up and read the book before leaping to conclusions?

Marvel released a five-page preview. Three of those pages show a supervillain menacing a scantily-clad woman, and the solicitation text calls up Daredevil’s history of dead girlfriends. And you’re somehow surprised that people leap to conclusions?

I’m not the sort to get offended by stuff Marvel puts in a superhero comic, but the reactions just end up making them look like either jerks or clueless nitwits. “Your opininon is wrong” and “We don’t know what you’re talking about” just aren’t very good PR.

Brubraker also says this:

Also, when I wrote the script, she was in a nightgown. But Michael thought, and rightly so, that being in her underwear was both more vulnerable, and reminisent of the scene where she first met Bullseye.

Ed, you do remember that she’s blind, right? And doesn’t have any sort of superpowers or special skills? So really, I think that covers off the “vulnerable” angle pretty well. But if that’s really the idea, then why not just go whole hog and make her naked?

Oh, right…

Today’s Dinosaur Comic may be the best ever.

I kid you not.

I’m a pretty big Sam Kieth fan. Not his biggest fan, or anything, but I generally like his stuff. He’s got a unique and distinctive style, and a bizarre sense of humour. If I was the sort of person who would buy a Batman/Lobo team-up book, I would definitely buy Kieth’s Batman/Lobo team-up book.

But I’m not. I’m sorry, Sam, but Batman vs. Lobo? Did I fall through a gap in the space-time continuum and end up in 1995? Why does this keep happening to me?

Which wouldn’t be so bad on its own, I suppose; if Sam Kieth wants to draw Batman fighting Lobo, and seemingly channel a bit of Simon Bisley, that’s his business.

However, I feel more than a little disappointed that Kieth is doing a project of this calibre while My Inner Bimbo continues to sit in limbo: The first issue came out almost a year ago and the second is nowhere to be seen. I’m not sure if Inner Bimbo made a whole lot of sense, but it’s a far, far, far more interesting project than yet another generic (even with Sam Kieth!) teamup book.

Booooo!