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What if a week went by with almost no news? Wonder no more folks, because the industry is in a bit of a hibernation following Comic-Con and this week’s column is living proof of a no news week. Don’t worry though, I’ve got plenty of filler bonus content to round things out.

What If You Woke Up as Someone Who Didn’t Exist?

We find out what, aside from teen gross out movies, influenced Mike Carey when he was working on his upcoming horror filled six-part Vertigo series, Faker. Those of you in Minnesota might want to pay special attention ….

The Pulse makes like Jamie Hatton’s girlfriend (you’ll get it if you think about it)

That’s it…I’m sold. You got me, Mr. Carey. You got me, Jock. You got me, DC. I love the hook of the story; it’s ultra creepy and that one step away from reality where horror fiction is most effective. I was mildly intrigued with the little nugget of info dropped at Comic-Con, but with this interview, I’m fully aboard. It sounds excellent.

Plus, I love the “ad campaign” as demonstrated by the pics below.

I don’t even know what they are supposed to represent, but I love the minimalism.

It also doesn’t hurt that the book is set in Janelle’s homeland (well, teenage homeland) of Minnesota. I always knew that place was terrifying, I just never realized why…until now. Thank you Mr. Carey for helping me to come to grips with the reality behind my Minnesota fears.

Silly me.

COMING ATTRACTIONS


EX MACHINA 22

Last issue ended with a woman lighting herself on fire on the capital steps. What other reason, exactly, are you looking for to read the follow up?

Well presuming you need more persuading, there’s a mole in Hundred’s administration looking to destroy him. How and to what extent, however, remains a mystery. Also, there’s a villain dressed as a fireman busting heads and robbing people, for reasons still shrouded in mystery but seemingly hinged on a have/have-not situation. Finally, my interest in the book has been revitalized following the two issue special. You ask why you should be excited, I ask you how you can you not be?

DETECTIVE COMICS 822

Dini’s debut on the title impressed with introducing a new villain and actually, in my opinion, surpassing the debut of Morrison on ‘Tec’s sister title. Yes, I was pretty stunned too. But, then, we did know that Dini could bring it, so I’m not sure why the shock.

Besides the good will and momentum gathered by this first issue, this issue is a Riddler story. Riddler as a sort of good guy. Riddler and Batman working together. Riddler back in the hands of the man who ran the television show that delivered some of the best (if not the best with “If You’re So Smart Then Why Aren’t You Rich?”) Riddler stories in any medium.

Woooooooooo!

TIM’S TIRADES

The Fickle Nature of Popularity

In the comic community, it is a tale as old as time. It usually goes something like this, “Don’t get me wrong I love his [insert name of earlier much respected work here]. But now, he’s terrible.” Usually the language is a little more colorful than that and perhaps much less forgiving. Sometimes people even omit the first caveat of former goodness entirely. Chances are though that you, and I for the sake of honesty, have uttered some variation on that expression at some point. So what is it exactly that renders last year’s favorite this year’s punching bag? For hahas sake, I went ahead and put together a list of what I think the true reasons are why the “best” are shoved off their pedestals with such vim and vigor by the fans.

I. It’s True

This one is especially true for creators that have been kicking around the industry for awhile. I don’t think anyone would disagree that living legends like Chris Claremont, John Byrne or even Stan Lee just aren’t what they used to be. Claremont writes the same as he always did, but he’s not as good at it anymore and his very wordy style and language choices are often an ill fit for the expectations of many current comic fans. Byrne’s penciling is arguably as strong as ever, but his inking talent has dropped. (Then, there’s the whole issue of his attitude, but we’ll get to that later). Lee hasn’t really changed at all and that’s his problem. He writes just as well in “his” style as he always did, but, sadly, his style seems dated. Why it works while reading old issues of Spidey or Fantastic Four while it shipwrecks in his most recent work is a mystery to me. I just know that it is the case.

II. The “They Used to Be Good…Until Everyone Else Liked Them” Phenomenon

You see this a lot more with music fans than comics fans, but it still happens. For some reason, there are those of us who cannot bring ourselves to like what everyone else seems to, especially when we “discovered” them first. If you are the type of person who gets psyched when your favorite largely unknown writer, artist, musician, director, etc catches on with the masses, then this would be your polar opposite. Not only can they no longer like the now popular creator in question, but they are oddly motivated to put down the creator and/or anyone else who likes the creator now.

III. A Rising Ego/ An Attitude Problem

This one’s tough. It does happen, but I think we, as fans, attribute it to creators a lot more than it actually happens. Find any creator on the rise that falls out of favor and 9 times out of 10 (if not more) his or her recently developed superiority complex will be one of the reasons given, regardless of whether or not they are, in fact, arrogant For me, the classic example of this is Bendis. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen him declared a raving egomaniac on message boards by people who do not like his work. Yet in every interview and every time I’ve spoken to him in person (don’t get too excited…it’s like 3 times) he comes across as self-effacing and very aware of how lucky he is to be as successful as he is.

Another one famous for this is John Byrne. Byrne, if you didn’t know, loves to say outrageous things on his message board (does he believe them or is it for attention…you be the judge!) and does not suffer those who have the temerity to question him. The ego isn’t so much the issue here (although it could be argued to be the source of what he says) as is his (perceived) inflexibility. Byrne is someone people love to hate and he often makes it easy for them. The best insult to hurl at a creator whose attitude you don’t like: washed up. And there you have reason #3.

IV. What Was Once Fresh…

Oftentimes, the more often you encounter something or someone, the more comfortable you become with it or them. Sometimes though, especially if you are almost immediately infatuated by said person or object, your feelings toward them or it had cool or curdle.

Take an attractive member of the opposite sex in your office. You spot him and her one day and they look incredible. Great clothes, great walk, great teeth. Boom! Love at first sight, right? Now imagine you see them everyday for the next six months or, worse, you start to talk to them. Maybe you learn that they only seem to own six outfits and sure they look killer, but, come on! Or maybe they’re dull. Or maybe they’re laugh is awful. Or maybe… and so on. With more exposure, we notice flaws. We get used to things. What once seemed novel or perfect now feels well worn or slipshod. Sometimes, once the shock of the new wears off, you realize that maybe that style isn’t so incredible.

And since this is comics, we often feel the need to run in the opposite direction. Rather than say, “Vaughan’s approach to storytelling is getting a little predictable to me,” we instead say, “Oh wow! Another cliffhanger. Big surprise. Yawn!” or something similarly “astute”.

V. Exposure

And now, we reach what is, in my opinion, the crown jewel of all popularity twisters. It’s pretty logical. The more fans that are buying your work, the more offers you’ll get. The more offers you get, the more you’ll accept (most likely). The more you accept, the more work there is out there to judge you by. Also, the more work out there, the more chance you’ll mess up. This is sort of the perfect storm of knocking a creator off a pedestal.

Everything seems to converge here. Creators who’s popularity has risen “quickly” (they might have been slogging away for years in the trenches but since their name first become sort of known, they have become ultra-known very fast) can often accept more projects than they can handle. Then, they can fall behind (thus generating resent over late projects) or deliver but deliver in such a way that makes it clear they have overextended themselves. Johns and Bendis have often faced this charge. Bendis was golden while he was writing, let’s say, Ultimate Spider-Man, Powers, and Daredevil. However, he added Secret War, New Avengers, and House of M to the list and then people start to whisper out burn out. Similarly, Johns moved from Flash, JSA, and Teen Titans to also writing Green Lantern Rebirth, Green Lantern, Infinite Crisis, and helping with Green Lantern Corps. Now, he’s probably coming out the other end of the “stretched too thin” gossip.

Popularity also brings more readers, spurred on by the recommendations of others. The thing is that no two people are the same and thus their interests won’t be either. I have a friend with whom my interests generally align pretty damn close. Yet, I have very little interest in buying Legion and he can’t stand Manhunter. Now imagine that will very big titles. You end up with a bunch of people who have been persuaded to pick up a work that they don’t like, that they don’t see the value in. Yet, they are “surrounded” by people that love it. The response: to run, hard, in the opposite direction. Thus a work they were “eh” about becomes one they hate hate hate. That hate usually manages to make migrate to the creator as well.

So that’s that. Your handy guide to how a creator can become popular and then almost immediately booed.

OPINIONS ON THE WORK OF PEOPLE FAR MORE TALENTED THAN I

THE SPECTRE 3

Well…

Wait, first, let me just say that there will be spoiler. My apologies. I typically avoid them, but they are important to the discussion. So if you want to avoid them just use the “find” function and search for the phrase “END SPOILERS”. That’ll take you beyond the ruining stuff.

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Okay, for the rest of you, here we go.

Any comic in which a hero, be he living, dead, or undead, has to kill his son is bound to make you a little uncomfortable. When the son’s sin is avenging that aforementioned hero’s death? Things go just a touch beyond uncomfortable.

I honestly do not know how to feel about Cris Allen’s son Malcolm’s end. I appreciate that Pfeifer placed one more twist in the story to start with. The surprise of having older son Jake, shown last issue being the one acquiring the gun, ultimately unable to do the deed and his younger brother surreptitiously snagging the firearm instead was certainly unexpected. I also like the denouement of the incident which over so slightly tweaks the Spectre’s purpose to fit him more in line with Allen’s previous life. It’s what happens in between Malcolm pulling the trigger and Spectre explaining his/their role in the cosmic balance that I’m having a hard time processing. I had to read the scene a few times to make sure that what I thought I was seeing really was what I was seeing. That Cris embraced his son and, in doing so, ended his life. It was and now I’m trying to wrap my mind around it.

Obviously, at its most basic, it is a metaphor for Cris letting go of his humanity to become the Spectre. However, what I liked about the idea of Cris as the Spectre was that he had a deep reservoir of humanity. A by the book cop brought back from the dead to be an avatar of supernatural justice whose only path is ironic death? That’s interesting to me, especially when that cop is trying to reconcile this path with the one who lived with he was alive. Remove his humanity and there is no need for reconciliation. Plus, isn’t there any other way of putting forth this metaphor without having this hero commit child murder?

Much like Cris, I’m having a hard time figuring out how Spectre chooses who should be punished next. There is a patten, a system the Spectre continues to emphasize, but what could it be? Did Cris and the Spectre really need to pass judgment on Malcolm? I have my doubts, especially in a city like Gotham, which leaves me with the impression that the Spectre “chose” this one (just as Cris earlier chose the ritualistic killer that he’s been following all series). And if the Spectre did that…brrrr.

I guess the book is a success on some level to unsettle me enough to have me still mulling over this turn of events almost a week later. However, does that success come at the cost of making the Spectre someone I’d like to continue to read? That’s harder for me to say right now.

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END SPOILERS

Beyond that spoiler, I liked this issue and the mini as a whole. Pfeifer does a nice job of showing how overwhelming the gig of Spirit of Vengeance can be and nicely explains why the Spectre does things in such a piecemeal manner. I appreciate that Allen’s first gig as the fully merged Spirit reconnects with his first gig as a police officer. It does not change the story much, but it is a nice touch.

Chiang continues to be DC’s best utility player and thus compounds the mystery of how this guy does not have a steady gig yet. Next up for him, Tales of the Unexpected, is also a mini. What’re you thinking DC?

Anyway, the grade I’m giving it is either a little bit too high (if I decide that that spoiler really does derail the story) or a little bit too low (if I learn to stop worrying and love the spoiler), so take it with a grain of salt.

BATMAN 655

Grant Morrison’s first issue of Batman… and somehow the entire world of comics, nay, the entire world, has not been irrevocably change.

I have to admit, I’m a touch disappointed.

That said, there’s a lot here to like. Batman’s sense of humor is, as reported, appropriately skewed. Gordon’s questioning of whether his sanity is actually improving or not when he and Bats find the same thing funny is a keeper. So is the later one liner, “There goes my vacation.”

Bruce relearning his playboy persona is also a treat. Not only does it means more Alfred/Bruce dialogue (something a lot of Batman comics up until lately had far too little of) but it makes sense. After all, when’s the last time (not counting the recent issue of ‘Tec) Bruce had to be “Bruce Wayne, Gotham’s Best Known Playboy”? I can’t be sure, but I think it goes all the way back to the soft relaunch of the titles following No Man’s Land. That’s just too damn long.

What I found a little underwhelming were the pacing and the art. For a guy who usually comes on like a bullet fired out of a gun, Morrison’s first issue is a bit languid. Clearly it is poised to explode more with installment two (what with all the ninja bats and such) but this first effort, the opening sequence notwithstanding, is light on movement. Then again, that fits in with the idea that Batman has been on a tear since coming back and that Gotham is relatively quiet as a result. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays when the storyline is taken as a whole.

On the art side, Kubert does great when the “camera” is in close, but a lot of his medium and long shots suffer from an unnatural smoothness. It’s not a slickness (like, say, a lot of Turner’s art), it’s more of an…emptiness, I guess. Check out Robin (especially his face) coming down the Batpole for the first time for one of the best examples of this. It becomes even more apparent when you compare that panel to the one two later.

Overall, it didn’t knock my socks off like I expected, but it’s a solid comic. Funny, interesting setups, and strong shorthand characterization fit together nicely to give this book a feeling of brimming potential. We’ll see if the next issue brings a payoff to that feeling.

ASTRO CITY SPECIAL

I typically buy Astro City in trades (none of the awkward waiting between issues and it looks oh so nice on the bookshelf), but I decided to pick up this one shot. I have no doubt it will be included in a later collection, but it had simply been too long since I had had a fix of Busiek’s beautifully constructed universe and I figured that this was a way to satisfy that itch without the worry of long waits between issues.

As one might guess, it’s a decision I’m glad I made.

Infidel, a character introduced years ago in an issue of Wizard without any story in mind, finally makes his comic book debut. A mystical time traveler, he has clashed with Samaritan many times over the years until, finally, the two have hit upon a sort of compromise. Once a year they get together, eat, drink, discuss the world, and see if one can convince the other to change their ways and join one another.

I’m a sucker for this sort of setup, where the hero and the villain face another for something “normal” like a meal, perhaps bond a bit, and then part, still knowing that, at some point, a confrontation between them is inevitable. The coffee shop scene in Heat, the chess match between Magneto and Professor X at the conclusion of the first X-Men film, even the round of Russian Roulette between Daredevil and a comatose Bullseye all echo with the same sort of feel. The dinner between Samaritan and Infidel is a worthy addition to that roster.

Anderson, after what I would characterize as a very disappointing turn on The Pulse, is back in fighting form, delivering equally on the quiet scenes of the now and the action sequences in flashback. The coloring and lettering on similarly on Astro City par.

All in all, a great reminder of why Astro City is worth the wait.

SHOOTING BACK AT THE GRIMACE

This first letter picks up on the topic that the writer and I were hashing out a few weeks back. The writer in question feels that Obsidian and his boyfriend have been reduced to little more than “gay” figures.

“Of those, only the “you’re so gay” one actually makes a point of saying that the characters are gay.”

MANHUNTER #20: After Obsidian says he’ll drop Punch & Jewelee off with the police, Manhunter remarks, “If you weren’t gay, I’d be stalking you.”

If I actually kept more of my MANHUNTER issues, I could cite more.

-Nathan Carson

Ahh, yes. I was actually referring to that incident in my response, but I couldn’t remember the true line for the life of me. I suspected there might have been a gay reference in there (I actually thought it was more to the effect of Kate wishing herself to be a gay man) but was not sure. Thanks for picking it up.

In any case, this line still strikes me as fairly innocuous and not an unnatural statement from one friend to another. It’s a variation on the “if you were single, I’d so be all over you,” and the like.

However, it does speak to the reduction that you were originally referring to. Again, it does not bother me and I think it makes sense given that Obsidian is really only seen in this book via his connection to his partner (in the love sense) who also happens to be Kate’s partner (in the lawyer sense). For me, thus, I don’t find it intrusive, annoying, or unfair. Again, though, I do understand where you are coming from.


A Nightmare on Elm Street has been released twice. One, as a single disc, and another as part of the Nightmare on Elm Street Collection. Neither were special editions and each was virtually the same in specs. The new “infinifilm” release comes with all new bonus features. Here’s a link.

It’s definitely worth a buy even for those like myself who already have the previous edition.

-Michael P.

If I’m honest, I’ve actually never given the Nightmare franchise the time of a day. Well, I did watch New Nightmare and actually quite liked it, but the “main” (i.e. not metafiction) portions of the franchise I have let slip by me unappreciated. Maybe it is about time to give them a fair swing. Any suggestions on what to embrace/avoid?


Re: That horned guy with Ambush Bug from the 52 preview page

I’m guessing a new Black Bison, since the original was killed in Day of Vengeance.

-Jeff Hawkins

You are not the first I have seen posit this theory, so you have good company. However, I’m not convinced. I’ll give you your props when the time comes if you are right (which you probably will be) but for now, I’m withholding agreement.

All right, that’s all for the letter bag this week. Please don’t hesitate to tell me how wrong I am on everything at parallax2@juno.com or swing by our message boards.

Well this encounter, however brief, has changed my life for the better. I thank you and I hope I’ll see you back here next week. Good day.

Un Gajje Heard That The Amount of Elephants in Africa Has Tripled in the Past Six Months