If you’re like me you’re a little perturbed by the sudden rash of cancellations of second-string Marvel titles.  Just this week alone I’ve heard that X-23, Ghost Rider, Black Panther, Punisher Max, and now Daken: Dark Wolverine are getting the axe.  Alpha Flight, which started as an eight-issue miniseries and then became an ongoing, has been re-designated a miniseries, so even though it’s a lateral move I count that among the body count.

Since I was curious, I checked the October 2011 sales figures to get a sense of what could be next on the chopping block.    The following are the core Marvel Universe ongoing series that sold fewer than 25,000 copies in October.  (I figured there was no point comparing the Ultimate books, creator-owned projects, licensed stuff, etc., since they’re often assessed by different standards.)  I’ve crossed out the books that are already dead:

• X-23 #15 – 24,043
• Thunderbolts #164 – 23,712
• X-Factor #226 – 23,569
• Avengers Academy #20 – 23,412
• S.H.I.E.L.D. #3 – 21,060
• Ghost Rider #4 – 21,012
• Alpha Flight #5 – 20,731
• Daken: Dark Wolverine #15 – 19,759
• Generation Hope #12 – 18,424
• Black Panther: The Most Dangerous Man Alive #524 – 18,248
• Punisher Max #18 – 17,541
• Deadpool Max II #1 – 15,865
• Herc #9 – 13,190

So yeah, if you’re a fan of Avengers Academy or Generation Hope, you’ve got good cause to be a little nervous.

It’s hard to imagine Thunderbolts or X-Factor ever going away, although even if they were axed I think they’d find their way back before too long.  Consider that the current version of T-bolts has lapped the 1997-2003 incarnation’s 81 issues, and the modern X-Factor is well on its way to overtaking the 1991-1998 era (#71-149).  Both of these properties have found their place in the Marvel pantheon–they’re now akin to titles like Defenders and New Mutants that never truly go away, as opposed to titles like Champions and Skrull Kill Krew that aren’t coming back.

From last week’s open requests post:

Pantsless Pete: An explanation of how Betty Brant doesn’t come off as creepy in early issues of Spider-man by being a woman in, using the bare minimum of her completing high school and secretarial school, her early twenties hitting on a weird looking seventeen year old.

You know that one episode of South Park where a schoolteacher falls in love with Ike, and whenever anybody describes their relationship to a guy, the guy’s inevitable answer is “…nice.” You know that? It’s like that.

Arthur Robinson: What are your thoughts on podcasting? Like what do you think of the medium? What are your favorite shows? And would you ever start your own?

I’ve guested on Squideye And The Bitter Guy once and guested on a couple of other podcasts, and in terms of the medium I think it’s radio gone indie. Which is fine and good, don’t get me wrong, but some people treat podcasting like it’s this transcendent thing, and really, it’s just radio when you get down to brass tacks.

As for doing my own, I find that unless you’re being paid, you generally either blog or podcast, not both. It’s a time thing.

RAC: Played any interesting new boardgames lately?

I recently got the chance to play Eclipse and was monumentally impressed with it. I think it’s that long-foretold board game: the playable and elegant 4X space game (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate, for those who don’t know what 4X is). The mechanics are streamlined enough that the game isn’t too hard to learn (although it’s still an advanced game, don’t get me wrong), but there’s an incredible amount of depth, theme and replayability to it. I mean, this is a Euro-styled game where you still get to design your own spaceships a la Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri, which is pretty great.

I also played a few games of Ankh-Morpork, which is a fun, fast and light game with a few major design flaws that desperately need to be addressed to make it playable (the most notable of which is that Vimes is simply much more powerful than the other personality-roles players can be).

Oh, and everybody around here is always up for a game of Blood Bowl: Team Manager or King of Tokyo. (Fun fact: any game with “Tokyo” in the title is either about World War II or giant monsters.) BBTM is a great little card game that really carries the theme of “seasons of Blood Bowl” quite well, and KoT is Yahtzee except with giant monsters instead of boring scorepads. Both are excellent.

I’ve got a few longer boardgame posts in draft form, currently. I’ll get back to them at some point.

Crazed Spruce: What fantasy books would you recommend for a person who likes fantasy movies and television, but never really got into fantasy novels?

Standalone fantasy novels tend to be relative rarities – the only author I can think of who does them regularly is Guy Gavriel Kay. Epic fantasy is epic for a reason: they tend to be book cycles rather than individual books. That having been said, The Belgariad by David Eddings is a very good “light” entry into fantasy epics. Even thou fantasy readers will mock the hell out of Eddings for reusing the same plot like six times, it’s like how every ZZ Top song is the same: you’re not there for the plot, you’re there for the dialogue and the eminent fun of the thing. And all those mockers read Eddings and loved him at one point.

If you want to go heavier, in ascending order:

– The Magician/Riftwar cycle by Raymond E. Feist, which is basically the mostly thinly disgused D&D campaign in the history of fiction, but is quite good nonetheless;
– The Servant of the Empire trilogy by Feist and Janny Wurts, which expands off to the side of the Riftwar cycle as a set of standalone books set in a different world (explaining would take a while) and, while heavier than the Riftwar books, are also better;
– The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay is middle-weight and epic and lovely;
– and if you’re going to jump into the deep end right off the bat, just go with George R.R. Martin already and save yourself some time.

And Pratchett, of course, but if you’re going to start reading fantasy anyway, it might be better to save Pratchett until after you’ve read a bunch of the books he’s parodying.

protocoach: What are your thoughts on Aaron Diaz’s reboots of the DC Universe?

I think they’re an admirable creative effort, but are coming from a place that ignores the essential appeal behind the characters in the first place, which is important in any reboot because the point of a reboot is to remind audiences why the character is vital in the first place. Most of Diaz’s reboot ideas are neat and cool, but Superman as some weird energy matrix just isn’t Superman (as DC figured out soon enough). Diaz’s ideas are more akin to the Tangent Universe or “Stan Lee’s Just Imagine” and should be considered accordingly.

Cuitlamiztli Carter asks:

I suspect your answer to why you love the Legion of Superheroes so much may boil down to “Because it’s great fun” (which is a valid reason for comics). That said, I’m really curious if your affection for them is a “Rex the Wonder Dog” gimmick or a true appreciation of and support for the concept. In other words (or related words), what do you think of the assertion that the concept has reached a “must change or die” point?

So what is it about the Legion of Superheroes that makes the Internet’s best comic blogger such a devoted fan?

“It’s great fun” is really way down the line for me. Yes, the Legion can be fun, but their appeal for me has always laid in their ability to generate great drama – and, rare in superhero comics, tragedy. Members of the Legion can die – and do – in a way that most other superhero comic characters generally don’t, because the Legion is so isolated from the rest of DC continuity.

Think of a shared superhero universe as something that generates inertia. At the core of the universe, very little will ever change or even bother with the illusion of change: Superman will always be Big Blue, Batman will always mourn his parents, Wolverine will always have claws and be gruff. As you get further and further away from that core, though, you get more and more freedom to do whatever you want. A good example of this is the Planet Hulk storyline, where the only given was that the Hulk would be alive at the end of it and every other character’s fate was unknown, because they were the fringe of the Marvel Universe.

The Legion is only slightly less fringe, because they’re so far displaced from the rest of DC continuity due to the thousand-year-leap. To call what you can do with the franchise “permanent” is something of a misnomer – after all, there will always be the potential for a reboot. But for the purposes of storytelling, nobody in the Legion is safe.1 At various points Legion comics have killed off almost every primary member – or turned them into villains, or driven them insane. That makes the illusion of change in mainstream superhero comics less illusory.

As for the concept being dated, that is silly talk. The idea that anybody from somebody’s respective planet could duplicate their representative hero has been debunked numerous times. Legionnaires are either way above the average member of their race in power ability (Cosmic Boy, for example, is a star athlete in terms of his magnetic ability; Brainiac Five is smarter than every other Coluan by far), members of races that are paranoid, withdrawn or extinct (Element Lad, Chameleon, Mon-El) or actually unique in terms of their powers and are just straight-up traditional superheroes (Ultra Boy, Lightning Lad). Is the Legion at times startlingly over-white? Yes, but this is nothing that cannot be fixed. I personally take the position that any new Legion character should be alien, non-white or both.2

And it is a sci-fi book, or at least a space opera. That gives it a tone mostly unique among superhero comics.3 I think a Legion book done right offers a unique perspective on superheroing. And when it’s done right, it’s better than almost anything out there: the Legion does epic on a scale most comics can never touch. This is a comic book where Mon-El fights the end of time to the death, rewrites history, and then someone else risks their life to rewrite history back the other way, and it’s touching and awe-inspiring and it all happens in two issues.4 Legion was doing what Grant Morrison gets critical acclaim for doing years before Morrison ever did it. That’s why it’s a great book.

1. Except probably for Brainiac Five due to his popularity. I am fine with this. [↩]
2. The names are probably going to stick, but unless you think “CyberClawz” or the like are dramatically realistic, accept it as a genre convention and move on. [↩]
3. Guardians of the Galaxy is a great book, but tonally I think it’s got a lot more in common with Warhammer 40,000 than Legion, which is weird because Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning have written for all three properties. [↩]
4. Specifically LSH v4 #4-5. [↩]

When Crisis on Infinite Earths happened, one of its effects was that the Golden Age versions of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman were no longer available for membership in the All-Star Squadron, which was at the time still an important and going concern as a comics property. DC’s solution was to relaunch All-Star Squadron as The Young All-Stars, creating a subteam of youth characters within the All-Star Squadron which would feature their new replacements for the Golden Age trinity: Fury for Wonder Woman, Flying Fox for Batman and “Iron” Munro for Superman.

This didn’t work all that well. In retrospect, there was the problem that if these three characters were intended to replace Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, putting them on an 1940s version of the Teen Titans probably wasn’t the way to go about doing that. After all, several definitive All-Star Squadron stories – most importantly “The Ultra War,” which is probably the greatest of all Squadron stories and the one where the Golden Age Superman’s feud with the Ultra-Humanite is absolutely central to the plot – rely on the presence of the big three, so having a “new trinity” that doesn’t address the continuity problemss of removing the “old trinity” became a headache, not least because Roy Thomas was writing this and whenever Roy Thomas couldn’t address a continuity problem in a comic he was writing, he got cranky.

But it also didn’t work because the replacement characters were problematic. Flying Fox was not bad at all. Fury was kind of a mess. “Iron” Munro, meanwhile, fell in somewhere between the two. The character has a simple and appealing visual design to him – the superhero costume as stripped down to tight shirt and pair of pants, twenty years before anybody thought that Superboy should wear jeans, and in some ways a callback to Doc Savage. (e.g. this cover.) It’s pulpy, in the ways that pulp is good.

But he never really integrated within the fabric of the DCU WW2 setting in a way that felt organic, much in the way that the All-Star Squadron never really did post-Crisis. (Really, the franchise was dealt a serious blow by Crisis, forced to re-imagine itself somewhat, and never recovered from it. You will note that up until the nu52, references to the Golden Age since Crisis are almost always about the Justice Society rather than the Squadron, to the point that the Johnny Quicks and Robotmen of the world are often referred to as Society members.) This wasn’t for lack of trying: “Iron” Munro was revealed to be Damage’s father, was referenced by Superman as being Clark’s idol when he was a kid – but it always came across as minor elements of DC saying “hey, you should really care about this guy!” rather than making people really care about him.

Which is a bit of a shame, because I still think the character has a visual flair to him that could really work. But he doesn’t. Not yet.

Before I start, a quick plug: I am currently accepting sign-ups for BASH WARS SIX, a tournament I run in which people on LiveJournal choose fictional ass-kickers to fight to the death.  You may recall that last year my sovereign implored you to offer your support for unofficial MGK.com mascot Rex the Wonder Dog, which led to Rex’s BATTLE~! with unofficial MGK.com heartthrob Doctor Who.   I’m sure you just read that sentence and said “That’s stupid!  Jack Burton could kick both of their asses!”  Well, don’t sing it, bring it.

Moving on…today I went to the comics shop to buy Fear Itself: Captain America #7.1, which is trying my patience just from the issue number alone.  I was totally going to skip this because I was extrmely eager to put Fear Itself behind me (short review: “Meh”) and DC taught me a long time ago that these Giant Crossover Aftermath miniseries are completely skippable.  What changed, then, is that this morning I saw a major spoiler for the comic, revealing information that actually made me want to read it.  Without giving anything away, Marvel had recently solicited Untitled Brubaker Project #1, and basically Fear Itself #7.1 serves as a prologue to said project and reveals said title.

This got me to thinking.  Full spoilers behind the cut…

continue reading "Untitled Smith Project #1"

The Sanctum Sanctorum has, of late, become just another clubhouse for capes on Earth-616. The Defenders and Avengers hang out there every so often when they want to be somewhere a little less public than average. The Thing runs one of his three ongoing poker games there. The X-Men and Avengers run fieldtrips there for their students so Dr. Strange can teach them how to fight magical foes. (He doesn’t mind doing it, although he always takes care to make sure to inform each young hero’s subconsciousness that, although not falling apart in fear is an excellent thing to do with magical foes, that in reality they know next to nothing and therefore their confidence should not be unreasonable. This is about as much as he can realistically do. He has tried to make this work on Spider-Man approximately seven hundred times and it never takes.)

Now, the Sanctum Sanctorum is the headquarters of the Sorcerer Supreme. It is a fantastically important place. Doctor Strange allowing visitors to it is kind of like Nick Fury opening the doors of one of his forty-three hidden secret bases for an open house and bake sale: it’s honestly kind of a terrible idea, not least because someone – probably Hawkeye – will poke at something they shouldn’t poke at, and the next thing you know demons are invading Cleveland.

But, at the same time, the Sanctum Sanctorum is kind of expected as part of the whole “Stephen Strange experience” now. There’s nothing for it: the Defenders all talked to their friends about the place (and since one of them was Hank McCoy that meant a lot of talking) and now it has a reputation. People expect the Sanctum Sanctorum to be mystical and spooky and weird, but also welcoming and safe. It’s a precarious balance to strike, and honestly, maintaining it is a hassle.

Which is why there are actually two Sanctum Sanctorums. Not in the Nick Fury way where there are multiple secret bases, and not anything to do with parallel universes. (Reed Richards, one of the very few who knows Stephen’s little trick in this matter, always gets a little bit irritated when he proposes a new way to explain how the whole thing works, and Doc’s response is inevitably to shrug and say “not really, but if you like.”) The Sanctum Sanctorums are both at 177A Bleecker Street; they’re the same building and they occupy the same space. If you know how, transitioning from one to the other is really quite simple.

The two Sancta are distinct. One – call it Sanc – is what you would expect the Sanctum Sanctorum to be. There are dribbled candles, extremely moody and dramatic lighting, and shadows cloak everything (even at noon). There are dusty bookshelves with musty old tomes and the occasional skull. The other – call it Tum – is what the Sanctum Sanctorum actually needs to be in order for Doctor Strange to function on a daily basis. It’s clean, with comfortable couches and good lighting so he can actually read all of his books. (The bookshelves are all from IKEA. He got them on sale.) There is of course still the occasional skull, but all of the eldritch paraphernalia is neatly stored away for easy access. It is embarrassingly practical.

Of course, since this is magic, the two Sancta have each developed their own distinct personalities – not exactly sentient, of course, but certainly there’s something there that is more than nothing. Both are completely sane and willing servants to the Doctor: Sanc is concerned with performance and Tum with comfort. Sanc allows windows to open so that candles flicker at precisely the right moment and howling wind whistles as necessary. Tum makes sure the thermostat is always set at the optimum level and somehow manages to dust itself. They are invaluable assistants. They’re a little bit at odds and tend to squabble in ways non-bodied personality complexes can (Sanc leaves a petrified demon raccoon out when someone transitions to Tum, Tum leaves a Swiffer out when transitioning to Sanc), but those are just personality quirks.

Until, of course, something happens, and suddenly these two personalities aren’t quite as disembodied as they used to be…

Wolverine and the X-Men #1 is a good comic. It is in many ways close to the verge of being a great comic. But it isn’t great.

What works about the comic? The school as fantastical setting: the Jean Grey School For Higher Learning (a nice touch on the name, incidentally) is very plainly the Marvel Universe’ equivalent of Hogwarts in a way that the X-Men’s various schools have never really been: Jason Aaron really plays up the crazy nature of the place as he takes the Obsequious Norms (not their real name, but it might as well be) on a Logan-and-Kitty-guided-tour of the school grounds, and it is purely entertaining and light in a way that the X-books rarely are. In terms of voice, Aaron nails all of the X-characters (not unexpected). His new tweaks (like Kid Gladiator) are largely welcome.

What doesn’t work? Well, the Obsequious Norms, who are of course the human fuddy-duddies who are sort of bigoted towards mutants and all scowly and you know that after one or two issues of being frightened out of their wits that they’re just gonna come around or there will be some sort of plot twist. It’s like, after coming up with this fantastic setting, Aaron decided to go with something as conventional as was possible. Seriously, this was like something out of a bad sitcom. (“Starring Tim Allen as Wolverine!”)

What kind of works? Chris Bachalo’s art. Bachalo sells the fantastic setting and the fantastic characters, and his draftsmanship just keeps getting better (I swear I see more and more George Herriman in his pencils with each passing year). But he’s not good in this book at going small, at selling the small, conversational moments in the comic. (And he has done this well before, so it’s not something Bachalo can’t do.) Kitty Pryde – who spends the issue trying to convince the Obseqious Norms that really this is not a nuthouse on par with The Muppet Show – doesn’t look right at any point during the issue. Oya’s scene – which should be at least a little devastating, from the dialogue – comes across as purely comedic instead of dramedic because Oya spends the entire page with a Stepford grin on her face. And the final confrontation between Kade Kilgore and Wolverine loses much of its dramatic impact because Kilgore spends all of it striking silly, overdramatic facial expressions instead of just standing there and being a cool bastard like he’s been shown to be previously.

Don’t get me wrong: the good vastly outweighs the bad here, and the bad is mostly a matter of personal taste more than anything else. But it’s enough that I can’t say outright that it’s a great book. It’s good, and for now that’s enough.