RUMOUR – Ed Brubaker will soon be taking over UNCANNY X-MEN [Credit: LITG]
TIM “DR BUNSEN HONEYDEW” BYRNE: Two words – woo!! and hoo!!
“BEAKER” COREN: Oh dear god, please let Brubaker take over UNCANNY. I know we haven’t really seen what he can do because he hasn’t finished his HOUSE OF M fall-out mini yet, but I don’t care. As long as he doesn’t start writing UNCANNY X-MEN stories that only involve 2 Uncanny X-Men and a bunch of EXCALIBUR characters in alternate realities, it’s be great.
Also, from the same column..Byrne is a f*cking nutjob of the first order.
IAIN “FOZZIE BEAR” BURNSIDE: Brubaker’s handling DEADLY GENESIS, which is meant to be the starting point for the next major X-Men plot and tie into the Illuminati storyline Marvel’s got to peddle in 2006 so it makes sense to give him a regular gig on a high-profile X-book. That way the Claremontians can be shuffled off into the world of “Everything Old Is New Again” EXCALIBUR and the rest of us can check out a potentially interesting title. Well, the rest of you can. I’m probably not going to bother. For what it’s worth I would at least be mildly intrigued by a Brubaker UNCANNY in comparison to the Claremont version.
Coming in March – ALIAS the Omnibus Edition HC [Random: Link]
PAUL “COOKIE MONSTER” SEBERT: Eh, I’ve been meaning to catch up on ALIAS for years now, but well now that I’ve finally gotten time it’s past the point where the franchise has jumped the shark and Jennifer Garner’s character is slowly being fased out in favor of a younger hipper version of Sydney and… What? We’re talking about the Bendis book and not the ABC show? Uuuuh nevermind?
WILLIAM “MISS PIGGY” COOLING: The great thing about the ALIAS thing is that all the completionist suckers who are going to rush to buy this will be selling their TPBs on eBay! Hmm….wonder if I can get the whole set for £20?
DC solicitations for March are released, when One Year Later kicks off [Full: List]
KEVIN “KERMIT” MAHONEY: It almost looks like Nightwing is dressing up as Robin again in the cover art… interesting. And readers finally get the secret of the return of Jason Todd in the annual there.
TIM “GONZO” STEVENS: Wait…is that the Robin costume change Beechen has been toting. Really? That’s it? Wow…that was worth getting excited about.
No… no it wasn’t.
PAUL SEBERT: It’s Robin’s costume from the WB-era Batman TAS episodes.
IAIN BURNSIDE: Random theory time… The Outsiders are now a covert agency completely off-the-radar from everybody else in the DCU unless their case specifies otherwise. Dick Grayson is still with them but since nobody else knows what happened to him, Jason Todd takes over the role of Nightwing for a bit and buggers off to New York City to continue ‘punishing’ evil, so to speak. Robin is still Tim Drake and Batman is still Bruce Wayne and Hush is still… uh, I forget. I’m very confused as to how Catwoman is going to fit into all of this though. Maybe she’s the pregnant one after all.
And they made it a whole 15 issues before revamping the LSH title. Well done. I love everything that Waid/Kitson have done on the book so far but I really just can’t stand Supergirl, so if it is actually the same one that has been stropping around the DCU lately then they have precisely one issue to try and sell me on it.
COREN: Well, finally we find out how Todd came back other than some vague bit about things that should be dead aren’t staying that way.
I’m gonna agree with the Nightwing aint Dick Grayson thing, but I think Im gonna have to go with someone other than Todd. What about Cassie, now that her title is canceled? (Although BoP claims to have a “shocking” new lineup, so maybe she’s there. She better be somewhere)
Goddamnit, they didn’t cancel SUPERGIRL and now she’s tainting the Legion? Fucking DC. Torso Girl needs to just stay where she is and do the world tour of fighting every hero in sight.
BTW, weren’t we supposed to have fewer Bat titles now? I think we have more than before some were canceled.
IAIN BURNSIDE: Isn’t Nightwing holding a similar weapon on the cover to the March issue that Jason Todd has been cracking off of people’s heads lately? And it has blood on it, which could suggest that this particular Nightwing has a far more lax moral outlook on life…
And as for the Batbooks, there’s also BATMAN CONFIDENTIAL (or whatever it’s called) getting launched at some point next year. And rumours abound that some kind of GOTHAM CENTRAL knock-off will be launched too. It’s quite similar to the X-Men situation, where they may have killed/cured several million mutants but the number of X-books still rose.
PAUL SEBERT: ROBIN #148
Hey Tim Drake’s wearing his costume from the The New Batman/Superman Adventures! And he’s really been working out on the thigh-master.
BATMAN: DARK DETECTIVE TPB
I loved this mini-series well worth tracking down.
GOTHAM CENTRAL: UNRESOLVED TARGETS TPB
Two great story arcs… But why did issue #17-18 get skipped?
SHOWCASE PRESENTS THE SUPERMAN FAMILY VOL. 1 TPB
A must have for the Superdickery crowd.
HAWKGIRL #50
You can’t go wrong with Howard Chaykin… you just can’t.
SUPERGIRL AND THE LEGION OF THE SUPER-HEROES #16
Her ongoing book is one of the most scandalously bad books of 2005 alongside ALL-STAR BATMAN & ROBIN so why not throw her into an otherwise enjoyable Mark Waid book? *sighs*
COREN: Out of curiousity, what are all the *other* incarnations of Supergirl who aren’t dead doing right now? Is there the slimmest hope that this is actually Linda? Or someone other than the Incredible Torso Girl?
MATT “ANIMAL” MORRISON: Good news: The real Supergirl is alive and well and apparently fronting two titles.
Bad news: Judd Winick is still writing GREEN ARROW
Well, you can’t have everything…
PAUL SEBERT: You mean they brought back Peter David and appologized for replacing a three-dimensional character with an aneorexic character who was modeled after Paris Hilton and we’re supposed to like her because she gets in completely pointless fight scenes with other good guys?
Hallelujah!
COREN: Sadly, they didn’t. Instead? Supergirl and the Legion will feature Supergirl v a different Legion member each week. In 22 pages, you will feel the drama of Supergirl wanting to belong, witness her miraculous feats as she beats everyone to a pulp to accomplish it, and marvel at how incredibly long her torso truly is.
Terror Firma? Praetor Lemnos? United Planets? Plot? Characterization? Who needs that, when you have Supergirl just hitting stuff and fighting every hero possible!
And coming in March, the Outsiders/Supergirl beats up the Legion crossover, where Nightwing inexplicably falls in love with Supergirl and they beat up the Outsiders and the Legion together.
WILLIAM COOLING: I think we…well I don’t think anything to be honest. I mean, sorry, but Supergirl is the stupidest f*cking nonsensical thing ever!!! I mean, the whole point of Superman, is that he’s the last of his kind, the rest of the family’s gone, planet was destroyed, yadda, yadda. So what do they do? Oh I know let’s give him a niece or sister or whatever the f*ck she is this week. And as for the current incarnation; yes her body shape is f*cking stupid and dare I say it sexist. Comics will never be taking seriously when any 14 year-old girl featured must be wank-idol for teenage boys (and 40 year-old men) who wouldn’t know what a pussy was if it spat them in the face!!!
MATT MORRISON: No, Paul, I mean the Supergirl I can actually get people interested. The Supergirl that can actually be enjoyed by anyone. The Supergirl I can explain away by saying simply “it’s Superman’s cousin”. The Supergirl who has gotten a number of the manga girls at my store interested in mainstream American comics.
Not the one who required a flowchart to explain “Long ago in another universe, there was this thing called the Matrix…” Not the one whose book sold so horribly that the only thing that came close to saving the book from cancellation was the addition of the Supergirl you seem to profess to hate so much. Not, in short, the bloody earth-angel bonded to a punk grrrl bonded to the Matrix, shape-shifting, fire-winged what the hell does this have to do with Superman? Supergirl.
Look, you’re a Peter David fan. I get that. I get that you’re sad and bitter that DC realized that some of the stuff he did, while well written, was confusing as hell and inaccesable to everyone who wasn’t a devout David-fan. That despite David having the best take on Aquaman ever, most of us still think of the guy with short hair, two hands and an orange scalemale shirt.
Well, ya know what? SUPERGIRL is selling. Better than it did when David was writing it. Your opinion is your opinion but the fact is that screaming about “Torso Girl” belittles your point and nobody will take you seriously about the writing being sub-par if your complaints are about the character looking like Paris Hilton.
I happen to agree with you that the art has been sub-par and that Churchill needs to stop trying to imitate Michael Turner. But you look at some of the other books (the new JLA comes to mind) and Kara looks a lot better and realistically proportioned.
Again, I am assuming that you are a bitter Peter David fan. You could honestly be a rabid anti-Silver Age fan who is afraid that Barbara Gordon will walk again, Cassandra Cain will be pushing up daisies and soon enough we’ll have whole comics devoted to Kara and Babs hanging out together that get put on hold when Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn rob the day spa they are visiting.
Bruce Timm? You can have that one for free :)
Will, the fact that you think Supergirl is the most nonsensical thing to ever come out of the Superman comics tells me that you have not read nearly enough Superman comics.
Superman Red/Superman Blue. The original one. That’s all I’m saying.
What you just said… That’s John Byrne’s vision of Superman, Will. From MAN OF STEEL on, yeah… okay… that’s Superman.
But there’s a lot of us who think the big thing about Superman is not that he’s the last of his kind. That he isn’t an outsider. It’s not that he is alone.
The big thing about Superman is that he is a good person. Even without the powers, Clark Kent would still be out there trying to make a difference somehow. That is what is inspiring about the character – not that he can move planets or cause amnesia with a kiss.
And what I said earlier about how all this “Torso Girl” nonsense just makes all of you Kara-haters you look foolish? The sailor talk makes you look doubly foolish.
PAUL SEBERT: I believe Fallen Angel was supposed to be Linda, but well since PAD left the company he’s completely reworking that character’s origin.
KEVIN MAHONEY: Well, hooking Supergirl to Nightwing and adding atrocious writing gets me one step closer to my insane dream of explicit Supergirl manga porn. Other than that, she should die in INFINITE CRISIS.
MATT MORRISON: *sighs* They are not hooking up. She’s crushing on him.
Your dreams disturb me.
And she’s not going to die. Sorry.
PAUL SEBERT: Yeah it’s selling…
And a few months ago the highest selling book was ALL-STAR BATMAN & ROBIN #2. Which some people might honestly enjoy, but from what I’ve seen in terms of fan response is essentially the year’s biggest punch line.
Because it sells doesn’t mean it’s good.
In addition to quality there are a number of other factors as to why some books sell and others don’t. Brand name familiarity, marketing hype, big-name creative teams, and for all I know the phasing of the moon. We live in an environment where positive word of mouth sometimes doesn’t help a book until long after it’s come out in trade, and where negative word of mouth sometimes won’t hurt a book for months. There are fans who will drop a book they actually enjoy like say GOTHAM CENTRAL so they can wait for the trade while still picking up all four main Batman titles even if they hate the direction of those books just because they’ve been buying all the Batbooks for years. Hell, I’m as guilty of this as anyone else. I kept reading the Dan Jurgens run of CAPTAIN AMERICA waiting for it to get better throughout such nonsense as Cache and Protocide.
I decided a long time ago to stop looking at sales charts because I just found them to be frustrating sometimes downright depressing experience and I don’t really care if a book like SENTINEL or PLASTIC MAN makes the Diamond Top 50 or show up on the Wizard Hot 10 list because I know they’re quality books. I mean, Marvel just released a trade of a book called OMEGA THE UNKNOWN, a title that was cancelled after less than a dozen issues back in 1976 due to miniscule sales. Apparently, the book was good enough to stick out in someone’s mind even until today. I wonder what was at the top of the sales charts in 1976?
But let’s talk about the character herself. You say she’s easier to explain to the casual reader and thus more accessible than the PAD version of the character. I agree to an extent, but for years we’ve all heard complaints that almost all of the major female superheroes are watered down versions of their original male counterparts. I find it troubling that DC seems to be caving in to this stereotype. As long as Supergirl has pretty much essentially the same origin, similar costume, and essentially the same powers Superman she’s going to appear to many a reader as a knock-off character. Loeb has apparently decided he can compensate for this by having her beat the living crap out of superhero after established superhero… only this doesn’t make her come across as particularly likeable. It feels like the opening pages of those old MARVEL TEAM-UP comics where Spidey gets in fights with other superheroes over the silliest of misunderstandings. Only from what we’ve seen thus far these misunderstandings are often the full issue.
And let’s talk about the art… Ok maybe it does undermine my argument to point out that when drawn by Michael Turner or Ian Churchill this character has a creepily long torso (which she does) and bears more than a passing resemblance to Paris Hilton (which she does.) Let me tell you why these bother me. First of all because there are some things that work in certain art styles that don’t work in other ones. The character’s unrealistic anatomy traits wouldn’t bother me if it was drawn in an unrealistic style like a manga book or a cartoonish style like that of Humberto Ramos… but the fact that Churchill and Turner give the character otherwise realistic features make the unrealistic ones look jarring. Her inhumanly skinny waist combined with her lack of muscle tone make her look anorexic.
Furthermore, let me talk about the costume. Turner could have easily updated the classic Curt Swan design, or used the Dini/Timm animated series version. Instead he just trimmed away fabric from it to the point it looks trashy, almost like something from an adult fetish site. To be honest I think in 10 years people are going to cringe when they see this costume the same way they cringe when they see the armored Daredevil or electric Blue Superman today.
This isn’t just because I’m a Peter David fan… this is because well, it’s just not good.
KEVIN MAHONEY: I didn’t mean hooking up in the sexual sense, just the cliched character bit sense. Nightwing meet a girl in trouble, odds are 3:1 they get romantically involved. Supergirl is tough to write a good story for? Dump her in the midst of other superheroes she either can learn from or admire (or pummel I guess).
And the Supergirl manga porn thing isn’t a real dream, but that would be a step up from what readers get now. Zing. And I’m really just trying to create a Roundtable running gag/repeat digression. Killjoy :p
And she might die in Crisis. Might. (Pretty please?)
COREN: The Supergirl who has an incredibly convoluted origin? Sure, she’s easy to explain right now, as in “she’s come to Earth to take care of her cousin, who got here years ahead of her and is now older”. That’s relatively easy. (Not any easier to explain than “artificial life bonded with a girl to give her super powers, not by much at least, which is all you need to get the basics of the David version). But if you want to cover any of her backstory like you’re implying one would have to do with David’s version, you’re talking about explaining Power Girl, bringing up Danvers/Matrix, explaining away Crisis… it gets just as difficult. Maybe even moreso. It took me a while, even with the help of Wikipedia and an insightful column by Mathan to sort even the basics of things out.
It’s not that I’m a PAD fan (Although I am. I loved his run on HULK and despised Marvel undoing so much of it. And X-FACTOR? Great stuff). It isn’t the character itself I despise (I liked it when Matrix met Superman’s cousin. But what we’re seeing now isn’t a reflection of that at all) It’s that what they’re doing now makes no sense. I wouldn’t mind it as much if they didn’t A) just ignore the character’s history (I love history, it makes characters so much more interesting) and B) Not even bother to have a real plot to the book. Selling isn’t everything. Britney Spears sells a lot of records. It isn’t because she sings meaningful things. It doesn’t make her a good musical artist.
And while you’re right in saying that I hate the art, I don’t think having a complaint about the art invalidates my complaint about the writing. No, I didn’t voice it in the most reasoned, eloquent way I could. And no, Torso Girl probably isn’t the best term I could use. But at the same time, it serves to illustrate exactly my problem with her accurately and succinctly. And as great as the art could be in other titles like JLA? It doesn’t matter because that’s not the art on her title, and that’s the one where I have a problem (well at least the problem we’re talking about now).
And yeah, I fear Cassandra vanishing. I wouldn’t mind Barbara walking, but I don’t like changes being undone. How do you get any progression that way? Retcons that totally ignore old history annoy the hell out of me (John Byrne, I’m looking at you in particular).
But really, here’s my problem with the title. In numbered list form for your benefit
1) The art. Like I’ve said numerous times – Torso Girl. Please, get at least somewhat realistic (even to the point of what you draw other characters in the same book).
2) Is a plot other than Supergirl not being trusted and having misunderstandings and fights with almost any hero she encounters too much to ask?
3) Is there any kind of explanation as to what’s going on with her backstory? I thought the Supergirl that they’re using now died in CRISIS. And then appeared in the future, and went back to die in CRISIS. Or do we have Supergirl from yet another Earth?
That said, I’m probably going to have a problem with her in LSH if she’s written how she is now. That title has been a great read, isn’t complicated or convoluted, respects the old history as much as it can. Now, if Waid keeps writing it, and it’s as good as it is, I won’t mind as much (just please, no more Paris Hilton, superhero)
IAIN BURNSIDE: Exactly, it makes no sense whatsoever that the entire DCU has some sort of collective memory loss regarding the previous Supergirl. Even if that one wasn’t really Superman’s cousin and this one really is and that’s her entire raison d’etre, the point is that there was still someone else called Supergirl and she still sported as Supergirl costume. Now this new version turns up and nobody even mentions the old version once? Batman is as paranoid about Kara’s arrival as ever but doesn’t actually say anything about her? What? Nonsense. That’s something they should have cleared up immediately. It would have been a far better use for the early issues of her solo book rather than “beat the crap out of random heroes”. If they’re planning on clearing this up in the IC then why the hell even introduce Supergirl before that event, when all this confusion could easily be explained away with one of those convenient cosmic flinches that they love so much? And just because some new DC readers in your store are checking out the title that doesn’t mean that’s what’s happening in general. Let’s be honest, most of the people that are buying the book will be dirty/horny male readers hooked on the hype and ‘pretty’ pictures of the torso in a tissue-sized skirt.
You know, all of this just makes me want to go and punch Paris Hilton on the back of the head. Who the f*ck is Paris Hilton anyway?
KEVIN MAHONEY: Good points Iain. And for the record, if I ever learn to play an instrument and get a blues/comics geeks band together… I’d have to call it Cosmic Flinches. That name is too good not to steal.
IAIN BURNSIDE: Okay, but I want royalties. Like a cheese sandwich, every night.
KEVIN MAHONEY: Fair enough.
After our gold single drops, I’ll put a rider in the band’s contract that every show venue has to FedEx Iain B. a sandwich before our band ever arrives! I’ll bury you in Gonganzola and Gouda, man!
WILLIAM COOLING: I dunno, the whole concept of Supergirl just reeks of design by committee; you know someone looked at superman and thought “hey lets give him a hot female family sidekick”. There’s no inspiration or personality to the character; of course Superman is ridiclous but it has a charm and character that is borne from him being an icon, a part of 20th century mythology and imagination. The concept of Supergirl just leaves me stone cold.
And also, as for the “its selling line” but I’m sorry that means bugger all in the direct market. Unless you really, really think that Chuck Austen’s UNCANNY X-MEN has more artistic merit than (say) Brian Michael Bendis’ DAREDEVIL.
MATT MORRISON: Do I really have to choose between the artistic merit of Bendis and Austen? Why not ask me to chose between Millar and Winick?
Actually, that’s no choice. Millar, simply because as much as I despised his take on Spider-Man, RED SON was brilliant.
TIM STEVENS: Yes, you must choose. For if you do not… the world may never recover.
WILLIAM COOLING: Because I hate Winick cause he’s a pillock. I mean, how f*cking boring is GREEN LANTERN: HATE CRIME? If there’s one review I’d redo its that so I could just do it drunk and make numerous slanders against the gay rights movement (I hate the gay rights movement because its nothing more than an attempt to establish a left-liberal vanguard party over homosexual/bisexual people).
TIM STEVENS: Ahh, Will… where would we be without you angry wit and wisdom?
WILLIAM COOLING: You think that’s bad; let me tell you this joke:
Warning: This joke is very, very rude and offensive, you read it at your own risk. Its also very funny!
“Man walks into a brothel, he only has three pence. He asks the madame what he can get with three pence.
She tells him to go into the room in the corner. He opens the door and enters the dark room. There’s a woman on the bed with her legs spread open.
He f*cks her; she spits him in the eye. He f*cks her again; she spits him in the eye again.
He rushes out and complains to the madame that the whore keeps spitting him in the eye. She asks the man to wait a minute and she calls the manager Steve. She tells him
“Steve we have a problem…the corpse is full!!!”
Now that’s terrible.
MATT MORRISON: Meh. These kind of jokes are never funny in print.
Like how Helen Keller jokes are funnier in Braille.
PAUL SEBERT: Well to be fair the original Supergirl actually was more or less created when Mort Weisinger told Curt Swan “We Need a Mary Marvel.” Around the time that Mort took over the Superman titles was when the ’50s Superman TV was red hot stuff, and Weisinger who had a sound eye for business wanted to get as many Superman books on the shelf as possible. Of course this being the late ’50s/early ’60s you couldn’t really sell four or five different books with the same lead character, which is why Weisinger gave Jimmy Olson and Lois Lane their own spin-off titles, after repeated headbutts with DC management. As history would turn out he was right. Both of those books lasted well over a hundred issues.
Mort then copied the forumla that Fawcett comics used in the Golden Age to spread about it’s popular Captain Marvel family of books. What depresses me is that after all of these years no one’s really found a more successful formula for spin-off characters than the old give hero-X a cousin/sister/girlfriend daughter with a similar costume and powers formula that started in the Silver Age.
To be honest we’ve had a few spin-off characters that try so damn hard to be original you almost can’t tell what property they spun off of. I would put the original Spider-Woman on this list. The Linda Davers Supergirl too… and well I probably love Araña more than anyone on the net, she really is a good example of this. It really boggles my mind that her connection to Spidey is that she works for a company that was run by Ezeikel who only people who’ve read JMS’s Spidey know much less care about.
COREN: I don’t know, I like that they try and separate the two from each other. I understand that they have similar powers, or at least a similar power base, but there’s no need to tie them closely together
that way. Then you get “Oh, that’s just a female (insert hero)” or “Hey, look (insert hero) junior”. It’s all well and good to have that sometimes, but you don’t need different variations on the same theme to appeal to every demographic. New characters who appeal to those same demographics could be just as good, given the appropriate time to grow.
IAIN BURNSIDE: And how much time does Arana get? Those digests better be selling really well…
PAUL SEBERT: Eh… a dozen issues of her own series, an AMAZING FANTASY arc, a guest-spot in MTU, and a guest-spot in the SPIDER-MAN FAMILY one-shot. (Which must have caused the OMG They’re Trying to Kill Spider-Girl’s crowds heads to explode.) That’s pretty far from a saturation in the market. It’s nothing like how Marvel has essentially turned NEW X-MEN into “The Adventures of X-23 and Friends… Staring X-23.”
My guess is that the digest sales are important in not so much in quantity but as to who’s buying the books. If the coverage in publications like “Latina Magazine” and “La Voz Del Norte” have resulted in the title getting some book store demographics that normally don’t go into comic shops well… more power to it I say.
Anyway I’m curious to see how Tania Del Rio’s take on the character is. While I don’t particularly care for her Ameri-Manga art style, her writing on Archie’s Sabrina has actually impressed me quite a bit.
IAIN BURNSIDE: I want to know how they actually come up with these magic demographic sales figures for comics. Do they actually carry out extensive market research or are they just deluding themselves into thinking that what they are doing really matters because some random Latina girl happened to glance at a Spider-Man comic in passing one day?
TIM STEVENS: I think it comes down to non-comic press for comics equals non-comic press for comics. It does not matter who’s covering it or how many people are moved by it. If it enters anything outside the trade mags, it is a victory. Besides, if even one non-comic reader picks up a book because of non-trade press and likes it, that’s a good thing, right? One more reader that was not there before.
PAUL SEBERT: I honestly don’t know. The thing that gets me the Diamond sales figures as valuable as they are only describe what’s selling in the direct market and not the book stores, nor do they tell who’s actually buying the books.
Back in 2003 the only books in the Tsunami line that were selling were MYSTIQUE, EMMA FROST, and VENOM. RUNAWAYS only barely made it to it’s third arc. SENTINEL never made it past 12 issues. Then along came the digests. (Which almost didn’t come out at all, but Marvel had a fair deal of success testing the waters with a digest based on the X-Men Evolution cartoon). Now both RUNAWAYS and SENTINEL are now back… so apparently the quality of those books eventually trumped the low direct market sales.
So I’m not saying this necessarily means we’ll be getting more ARANA, GRAVITY, or LIVEWIRES now that the Marvel Next line’s gone… just that the trade market is now has made things a tad healthier for hard-sell concepts.
COREN: On Supergirl:
Yknow, you’re right. Power Girl (or Mamary Lass, as we were calling her in the forums a while back with the Supergirl/Legion announcement) is a bit unrealistic too, but A) she’s written well (JSA CLASSIFIED’s first arc, for example) B) those are somewhat realistic proportions, as in, some women actually do look like that. Whereas, I have never seen someone with such an extended torso. Same could be said of other heroes proportions, especially if Liefeld is involved in the art. But at the same time, they’re heroes with incredible powers who are out fighting crime. It’s reasonable for them to be in shape. I haven’t seen any crime fighting that stretches the torso (the annorexic complaint is not one I happen to share. Super powers, constant exercise, young metabolism..her being thin is somewhat believable).
And all that would be forgivable if the writing was at least somewhat decent. It’s not. The stuff in JLA wasn’t great by any means, but it’s a hell of a lot better than what’s normally on her title.
On Arana (and X23 by association):
If the popularity were there, the saturation might be in order. It’s almost a Catch-22 that you’re dealing with… you can’t appear because you’re not popular and you’re not popular because you don’t appear. It’s frustrating for her fans, I’m sure.
And the reason X23 showed up, other than to probably get her off the main titles, is the team that wrote her mini is taking over Xavier’s School for the Half-Dozen, so of course they brought over their baby.
TIM STEVENS: Ahh, but did their baby get a place on the team because they got the job or did they get the job because they were bringing their baby?
PAUL SEBERT: Has there been a reason stated why Nunzio Defilippis and Christina Weir left the book? I was only following it off and on throught it’s run but I enjoyed their writing. I would think it would be a shame if they got dropped off the creative team to cram X-23 into the book.
TIM STEVENS: Re: Supergirl…
I go out of my way to pick on this book more often than not, but I also object to the “Torso” anorexic girl complaints so I feel the need to issue my opinions here. Because, I know, you all have waited with baited breath.
1.) Not all skinny girls are anorexics. Trust me on this. It is possible to be naturally thin (even ridiculously so) without starving one’s self. Probably not for life, but certainly at 16-17 years old. And certainly if you are a Kryptonian superhero. Sorry, pet peeve, but anorexia is too horrible a thing to randomly assing to every woman who is “too” thin. As for her torso, yeah, it’s long, but is it so wildly unrealistic when compared to Power Girl’s bosom or any hero’s muscles? Not saying that makes it “good” art, I’m just saying that suspended belief is part of the game here folks and that tends to mean anatomy too. And is her costume really all that…”slutty”?
2.) All of this having been said, she’s still a lousy character. A cypher without personality who was introduced because Loeb likes the Silver Age. Which is all well and good, but hardly reason enough to create her. But that seems to be all the thought that went into it.
3.) The fighting world tour is…odd. I don’t get it or its appeal. I know some do (peek the sales as mentioned), but I don’t.
4.) Youngblood, the Clone Saga, and Spawn used to sell like mad. I’m just saying.
5.) Superman should be the last survivor. It may or may not be “Classic” Superman, but I know (or I think at least) that he’s more compelling alone in the world than having a cousin (and, ugh, a dog) to confide in.
6.) Can you believe how long we’ve been talking about Supergirl?
TIM “SWEDISH CHEF” SHERIDAN: That Supergirl movie rocked.
TIM STEVENS: It was the comic film of the millenium. Yes, even better than both Captain America films and all 3 Hulk Tele-movies. And they were AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWESOME!
PAUL SEBERT: What?! Ranking it above The Incredible Hulk Returns and Death of the Incredible Hulk I can understand… but over Trial of the Incredible Hulk? For Shame!
WILLIAM COOLING: “Power Girl’s bosom”
Mmm, now there’s body fascism that I can enjoy :)
TIM STEVENS: You are a terrible, terrible man.
IAIN BURNSIDE: You think Stephanie McMahon is hot, therefore your opinion on attractive women is redundant!
WILLIAM COOLING: Yes but you managed to put a picture of Randy Orton getting out of the shower in your column (than you!!!) without drooling/cumming immeditately; so your opinion on attractive men is utterly redundant… so there.
And Steph is hot, big tits and a juicy ass-what’s not to like?
KEVIN MAHONEY: I’d have to gowith her crazy in-laws and obvious surgical help. She’s as un-hot as any trampy celeb I can think of. Sort of an artificial moving mannequin, without the charm of never speaking.
SMALL GODS returns in March [No: Really]
COREN: Great, the return of SMALL GODS! This was another one of those awesome series that got ended far too soon.
More details on the NEW UNIVERSE creative teams [As: Before]
PAUL SEBERT: Having missed the somewhat ill-fated New Universe the first time around, I’m actually quite curious about how these titles might be revived. For the record I do believe STAR BRAND is the greatest 19-issue mini-series ever.
RUMOUR – Brian K. Vaughan and Eduardo Risso will collaborate on WOLVERINE [Credit: MW]
TIM BYRNE: As soon as I read Brian Vaughan, my favourite writer in comics, I’m in.
COREN: Vaughan on WOLVERINE would be fantastic. Anything he writes pretty much is though. After the way he wrote Wolverine in RUNAWAYS (however briefly) I’d be pretty interested to see his take on the only mutant who’s in more places at once than Multiple Man.
IAIN BURNSIDE: I think I’d be more interested to see Risso’s artwork for the character. Hopefully if it happens it will be in a standalone limited series and not a random arc in the ongoing. I would like to see it but I wouldn’t want to give anybody the wrong ideas.
Winnie the Pooh gets a girlfriend! [Poor: Christopher]
PAUL SEBERT: I love the fact that people are right now jumping up and down going “OMG WINNIE THE POOH JUMPED THE SHARK” when A.A. Milne’s estate has been unhappy with Disney’s treatment of the franchise for decades. I suspect this is mostly due to the fact they’re not getting a piece of that cash cow… or bear.
It might just be a generational thing… but when someone mentions the words “Winnie the Pooh” to me the first thing I think of is that “New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh” cartoon that was on when I was a kid, which featured some pretty far-out stuff on occasion. Remember the episode where there was a subterranean kingdom under Christopher Robin’s bread patrolled by Crayon Stormtroopers?
To be honest as long as the kids are happy Disney can do whatever they want with the franchise, though personally I’d prefer if Pooh isn’t flying around in space shooting lasers out of his eyes.
Will Marvel launch a webcomics format? [More: Here]
COREN: I think Marvel really ought to try a webcomics format. The audience for it exists, there are definitely people out there who read comics exclusively online, and would be willing to pay to do so. I think this would be especially big in foreign markets where they don’t get comics or they’re substantially delayed.
IAIN BURNSIDE: Considering the resources available to Marvel and DC there really isn’t any good reason to not launch some type of online service. Well, as long as they use a readable format unlike those Dotcomics things from a while back. If they’re that paranoid about piracy then they don’t even need to do it for new releases. There are literally millions of back issues that could be uploaded on the cheap and offer the fans a far easier way to read old stories than hunting through the dreaded long boxes in stores or at conventions. Let’s face it, 99% of the back issues are relatively worthless anyway so Marvel could at least make a profit off of them this way, while anybody who wants a hard copy still has the Essentials and Masterworks books available anyway. Then there are books like AMAZING FANTASY, the MARVEL ADVENTURES titles and all the various random minis whose sole purpose is to be sold as digests in bookstores. They sell practically bugger all in the direct market anyway so they may as well go online, exposing the new characters and creative teams to a far bigger audience and probably raising digest sales slightly by proxy. Also, as Coren says, the foreign markets would benefit tremendously and so would the American/Canadian/British/whatever-is-not-foreign market since online titles wouldn’t be forced to rely solely on Diamond distribution. I know that I would be far more (potentially) likely to buy something like an Ed Brubaker issue of UNCANNY X-MEN if it was online rather than if it was just in the shops, lost in the shuffle. I’d imagine that most comics fans would be more likely to make some random purchases of titles they wouldn’t otherwise get if they were online and reasonably priced. Hell, if they get this thing set up before Stephen King’s project turns up then they’d probably hook a load of his fans from outside the current fanbase and make a tidy sum along the way.
TIM STEVENS: I’ll throw my hat into the ring in favor of webcomics. Without them I would have never discovered RUNAWAYS. It was because of the online webcomic preview at Marvel.com that I discovered what is certainly now one of my favorite comics.
Marvel books for March solicited, including ANNIHILATION and ILLUMINATI stuff [More: Here]
PAUL SEBERT: ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #91 & #92
Hmmm Spidey, Kitty Pryde, and Deadpool. What’s not to like?
SPIDER-MAN & ARAÑA SPECIAL
Yay! More Anya! Hmmm looks like they’re teasing the possibility of a new Araña book written by Tania Del Rios, who’s work on Archie’s Sabrina is one of my favorite guilty pleasures. Don’t know how she’ll do on a superhero book, but I’m curious to see.
FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN #6
Spider-Man vs. La Parka! Luuuuuuuuuucccccchhhhhhha!
CAPTAIN AMERICA #16
Poor, Poor Crossbones. He makes his first cover apearance since the Gruenwald era the same month that Spidey is fighting La Parka.
I (HEART) MARVEL: MASKED INTENTIONS
Squirrel Girl & Speedball are sssssoooo my new OTP.
IRON MAN #6
Has issue #5 of this shipped yet? Has Warren Ellis been on a bender since June when issue #4 came out?
MARVEL TEAM-UP #18
A loser will die in this issue. Oh, and this is already my favorite MTU arc.
SENTINEL #5
Stealth Sentinel = Awesomeness
SENTINEL SQUAD O*N*E #3 (of 5)
Sentinel vs. Dinosaurs = Also Awesome…
Discuss: Why is SENTINEL SQUAD O*N*E placed with the X-titles while SENTINEL is placed with the Marvel Universe books?
WILLIAM COOLING: How lame is that solictations list? I’m buying one title and even if I had unlimited funds (which I do not, btw) I’d think it’d only add about three or four titles. No wonder I haven’t picked up my standing order in two months (better do that next week before they chuck it away).
Very, very lame. How the f*ck did Marvel fall away so fast? Like it is it really only two years ago when we had ALIAS, Morrison’s NEW X-MEN, Brian Michael Bendis before he became boring, etc, etc. Jesus Christ, this sucks.
Oh and what a suprise we get more crossovers! Because if there’s one thing we love its crossovers.
Firestorm gets a new costume [See: Here]
PAUL SEBERT: Finally he got rid of that darn pirate shirt.
Image books for March solicited, including a second INVINCIBLE HC [More: Here]
PAUL SEBERT: Whoo-hoo. LIONS, TIGERS & BEARS returns! Boo-Yah!
RETRO-ROCKET looks pretty neato as well. I’m a sucker for books with Mecha on the cover.
Dark Horse books for March solicited [More: Here]
PAUL SEBERT: Oh man, in USAGI YOJIMBO #92 Tomoe Ame and Kitsune are finally going to meet. This should be interesting…
And because we just can’t get enough of her…
Mark Waid talks about bringing Supergirl into the 31st century [No: Thanks]
PAUL SEBERT: Well at least she’s drawn in a somewhat more realistic fashion on the cover here…
IAIN BURNSIDE: Lies! She’s evil! Kill her! Kill the bitch!
MATT MORRISON: What did I just say about how this kind of thing makes you seem unreasonable?
TIM STEVENS: Really? “Kill the Bitch” seems unreasonable? Man, it is good Matt is hear to put these things out to us. We’d never know it otherwise.
IAIN BURNSIDE: Hey, I was just channelling the spirit of Lo Pan. And who can accuse him of being unreasonable?
KEVIN MAHONEY: Jack Dalton thought Lo Pan was unreasonable if memory serves…
IAIN BURNSIDE: Jack Burton, who was not brought upon this world to ‘get it’.
TIM STEVENS: A semi-serious question about Trial of the Incredible Hulk: do you think that Daredevil’s all black costume in that film inspired Frank Miller to use a similar look for Matt’s pre-costume in the DAREDEVIL: MAN WITHOUT FEAR miniseries? Or perhaps it inspired Romita Jr. to draw it that way? Or perhaps I am a little nutty?
PAUL SEBERT: My guess would be a little from column A and a little from column B. Though I doubt Miller would ever admit it.
