This isn’t quite DVD-style commentary, but Mike Grell talks a bit about Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters. He talks about the origin of the story, some of his ideas on how to do the solo series, and his stance on the scene with Dinah.

A paragraph back I used the phrase “could have been different”. Let me say, for the record, I never would have allowed such a thing. Dinah is one of my all-time favorite characters and she deserves better, but, frankly, she wasn’t the star of the show. Her motivations were never in question. So there was no need for a transforming incident in her life except as it related to her relationship with Ollie. I did what any decent soap opera writer would do — I started with a perfectly happy couple and then royally screwed up their lives.

The whole subject of Dinah losing her power came much later from another writer, because my mandate in the entire Green Arrow series was to place Ollie and Dinah firmly in the real world, where super powers do not exist. Someone felt it necessary to explain what I simply chose to ignore and things sort of went to hell in a handbasket from there.

There’s a copy of Longbow Hunters at my local shop. It’s a 13 dollar first edition TPB, I believe. I kind of want to buy it, as it’s been a good while since I first read the series.

He says that he’d write GA again in a minute. To that I say, bring it on. This may be damning with faint praise, but give me anyone but Winick.

Hey guys, quick note before I pop off to work.

I’ve mentioned that I do games journalism. The most regular work of mine appears monthly in Hardcore Gamer Magazine. It’s available at your local video game store, bookstore, and possibly even newstand. If not, ask for it by name. We offer subscriptions for 25 bucks a year, but you can also download each issue for free in PDF format from Luv2game’s download section. Give it a looksee, it’s a great mag. I’m pretty proud of it, at the very least. The new issue should go live on the site probably later this week. It’s already out on newstands. It’s got Disgaea 2 on the cover and the top-shelf previews and reviews you expect from us.

The name of the mag may or may not be ironic.

I’m going to be redoing my sidebar sometime soon (tonight, depending on how paying work goes) and I’ll be adding a gang of blogs and links to the site. I’d host the mag here, but that’d blow my bandwidth.

Speaking of bandwidth… since November 05, we’ve seen almost 11,500 people come through these doors. We’re averaging between 115-135 people a day now, which certainly sounds respectable to me. It’s enough to give me a happy feeling, anyway. Traffic has spiked over the last couple months, too.

So, guys, seriously. Thanks for coming to the site and keep coming back. I’ll try to keep feeding you content.We’ve got an RSS feed linked off the sidebar and a separate feed for comments as well. There’s also Livejournal syndication. There’s nowhere to go but up, hey? We can make 4l one of the big blogs if we keep at it.

Also, I’m always open to debate, comments, or even chatting. My AIM is ethiopiates, my e-mail is this website’s url (less the www and net) @gmail.com and it’s linked top right… if you don’t want to comment on the site, drop me a line. I’m very approachable and nice to a fault. Did I say something stupid/smart/awesome? Tell me!

That’s my bit of self-promotion for the day. Read 4l, read my mag, and keep on coming back. My promised posts are still in the works, though I may hit you with shorter ones (yeah, ’cause I totally write short posts…) in between.

Peace!

A small one for today. I recently bought the out-of-print Spider-Man: The Assassin Nation Plot tpb. It collects Amazing Spidey 321-326 or so, I don’t have the trade handy right now to check. Words by David Michelinie, art by Todd Mcfarlane on five out of the six issues. Erik Larsen pitch-hit on the odd issue out.

My first Spidey books were Amazing 316 and 317, a two-parter that brought Venom back into Spidey’s life. My second Spidey books, though I got them all at around the same time, were parts two and three of the Assassin Nation Plot. I still have the (well-read) originals of all of them, but I love the fact that I have them in trade form now.

I also bought the X-Men: Fatal Attractions trade. That’s right. Art by Joe Quesada, Adam Kubert, Andy Kubert, a cover by Bill Sienkiewicz, and words by Scott Lobdell and Fabian Nicieza? It is just like reliving my childhood!

Guys, seriously. I think I may have bad taste in comics! I need an intervention!

Anyway, here’s a page by Toddy Mac from the Assassin Nation Plot. It tripped me out as a kid and it trips me out to this day. Spidey in a suit with a mask? He beat Deadpool to it, baby!

What comics do you love?

New headers are up! I’m going to direct link them to save some time. If you made one of these, let me know! If you want to make one, just give me a 700×200 jpg of cool art with the word “4thletter!” somewhere on it. Make it cool, funny, whatever, but also pretty much worksafe, okay?

Man. I need to check and see my bandwidth usage just to be sure that I don’t go over.

This is from Big Ass Comics 01. This one is by Elfbot.
This is from a Madman comic, but I dunno which. Also by Elfbot.
Another by Elfbot, this time from Kill Your Boyfriend. Words by Grant Morrison, art by Philip Bond.
The rest of these are by me or Gavok as far as I know. A few of them have the fonts way too small, but oh well. The art is good. Enjoy!
Daughters of the Dragon Part 1
Daughters of the Dragon Part 2
Daughters of the Dragon Part 3
Daughters of the Dragon Part 4 (can you guess what I was reading when I was doing these new headers?)
99% sure that this is from a Justice League Unlimited Comic.
From the Waid/Kitson Legion of Super-Heroes comic.
Spaaaaace Ghooooost
Ultimate Extinction
Loveless, by Azzarello and Frusin, colors by Trish Mulvihill.
From an early issue of 52.
LoSH once again.
Brainy at work.
Ultimate Cap vs Ultimate Moondragon-clone.

This one isn’t new, but I love it anyway. Kara Zor-El laying down the law. More content later, kids!

I’m not dead!

I’ve basically been grinding for the last week on a game for work. Check out Games Radar this weekendish for my Dead Rising guide. I had one short short deadline, so I went Quick ‘n’ Dirty with it. It’ll get you through the game and show you the highlights. Getting 100% is up to you.

Now that I’ve got this bear off my back (though I have another arriving in the mail later today! hooray for getting paid to play games!) I can get back to my labor of love: comics!

What happened while I was busy? Looks like Marvel let Civil War slip hard, pushing the ending back to Feb 07 at the earliest. Mark Millar says it’s McNiven’s fault and that he only had a few weeks lead time.

“So, what?” say the fans. “Why didn’t you launch later?”

Tom Brevoort gives an interview about it and says this interesting piece:

The whole infrastructure of comic book retailing is changing, and I think what you’re starting to see is the beginning of the movement away from a monthly magazine publishing model over to something more akin to a book publishing model. This is very distressing to a lot of people who’ve grown up with the monthly model as a bedrock concept. But ever since we retreated almost wholly to the Direct Market in terms of the basic comic book product, there’s no compelling reason for the monthly release schedule outside of the need for retailers to have a predictable cash-flow that allows them to keep their doors open.

Insult or nugget of truth? Probably both! I’d have no problem with Marvel switching to trades only, with multiple teams releasing multiple books staggered so that you get a new 128-144 page story every couple of months. It’d effectively kill megacrossovers, but you could still do event comics.

Make the comics industry behave like a real publishing industry and we’ll be on better ground.

And what’s this? Mark Bagley is leaving Ultimate Spider-Man with #110? Bags is one of the top three Spidey artists, easy, so I’m sad to see him go. USM has always been a good looking book and he’s leaving behind some huge shoes to fill.

I’ve got two drafts in the works. First is an examination of Superboy #91 and the second is my list of Top 5 Black Women, to go along with my list of Top 5 Black Men. Also on the docket is my love of Jim Lee and the X-Men. Gavok’s off for a week, so I need to throw 4l on my back and keep up regular updates! His What If countdown, which you should be reading if you aren’t, will return when he does.

However, I recently got the final volume of Ed Brubaker’s Catwoman. It’s the last book to feature Cameron Stewart on art and it’s called Catwoman: Wild Ride. Give it a look, if only because it features this classic scene from Catwoman 22 reproduced below (and without permission, I’m sorry!) with Robert Mitchum Slam Bradley. I tell you what, man, it’s the cigarette throwing what does it. Slam has style. If you like this scene, do yourself a favor and check out the rest of the series. It’s beyond excellent.

In the meantime, check out Slam going toe-to-toe with Batman and I’ll probably see you tomorrow once I get some sleep!

(There’s a couple guys out there who’ve offered me guest articles… hop to it! I’d be glad to run them. Hoatzin/Rad, I’m calling you out, man. We need some Scrooge McDuck up in here! If anyone else wants to talk, the e-mail is at the top right!)

I think I’m out of intro fodder. Let’s just get to the meat, then.

85) WHAT IF THE VISION HAD DESTROYED THE AVENGERS?

Issue: Volume 2, #5
Writer: Jim Valentino
Artist: Jim Valentino
Spider-Man death: No
Background: When the Avengers first met Wonder Man, he was secretly dying of a rare radiation disease. Baron Zemo offered to cure him if he helped destroy the Avengers. Appearing as a friend, Wonder Man led the team into a trap. Soon he had a change of heart and sacrificed himself to save Thor. Giant Man recorded Wonder Man’s brain patterns in hopes that he could live on. He did, later on, in the form of the Vision. While an android, Vision’s personality was based on that of Wonder Man’s. Some time later, Wonder Man did return from the dead, but that’s beside the point. What if Wonder Man had his change of heart before luring the Avengers into a trap?

Wonder Man tells the Avengers that he’s supposed to trick them, but can’t due to how they’ve treated him with such dignity. Giant Man talks with Reed Richards about a possible cure for Wonder Man’s condition as Wonder Man fights alongside the Avengers. After the brawl with Zemo’s forces is over, Giant Man gives him the cure and saves his life. Wonder Man is granted membership into the Avengers.

Read the rest of this entry �

So remember when I said that Marvel would announce its upcoming What If issues long before I’d have this finished? Looks like I was right.

This year the five stories are all based on major events, most of them recent:

– Spider-Man: The Other. Here, Spider-Man’s spidery side takes over. Why he’s wearing the symbiote on the cover, I don’t know.
– Avengers Disassembled. So what would have happened had they not realized Scarlet Witch was behind it when they did?
– Wolverine: Enemy of the State. He’s still under Hydra’s conditioning and he needs to be stopped now more than ever.
– X-Men: Deadly Genesis. No explanation yet, but I haven’t even read Deadly Genesis in the first place.
– Age of Apocalypse. Oh man, I hope they mean the one from the 90’s and not the new one.

Speaking of What Ifs based on Marvel events…

Read the rest of this entry �

Man, that is a dated reference. How many of you remember “Gotta be da shoes?” Oh Spike Lee, what are you doing now? This is what Buffy and Matrix references are going to be like five years from now.

I honestly believe that if you were to put Gambit and Wolverine together as a duo, you’d have an unstoppable engine of destruction that would burn through everything in its way.

Add Jubilee and I would read this book. You could have Rogue and Yet Another of Wolverine’s Ex-girlfriends guest star every couple of issues for some good old fashioned soap opera drama.

I would call it “Gambit and Wolverine Make Fools of the Marvel Universe: Featuring Jubilee.” It will sell millions.

Speaking of selling, here’s what I’m picking up from the comic shop today, assuming that everything makes it in. My commentary is in paratheses.

52 WEEK #14 (I’m hooked, what can I say. They’re screwing with the heroes in a way that makes for good reading.)
ANNIHILATION #1 (the lead-in miniseries were quite good, so definitely getting this.)
BEYOND #2 (OF 6) (Sleeper hit, you mark my words. The first issue was excellent.)
FIRESTORM THE NUCLEAR MAN #28 (One of DC’s best titles, hands down.)
MAN CALLED KEV #2 (OF 5)
MARVEL ZOMBIES HC
WOLVERINE ORIGINS #5 (Pretty interesting story so far, and I hear Jubes is going to be in an upcoming issue!)
ULTIMATE GALACTUS BOOK 3 EXTINCTION TP (Gotta complete the set, and I loved the art.)

This is a pretty light week for me. Only six monthlies. I’m thinking of getting the X-Statix Presents: Dead Girl TP, if only for the awesome art. It had a good story, too, so it may be worth the 14 bones.

Next week is going to be serious business for me. I’m getting Batman Animated, Absolute Dark Knight, and Absolute Hush. I love behind the scenes stuff, so Batman Animated is a shoe-in. Frank Miller and Jim Lee are consistently in my personal top five artists list, so their work in Absolute format at 37% off is a steal. I didn’t much like the story in Hush, but I cannot argue with Lee’s artwork, as if my complete and utter infatuation with early ’90s X-Men didn’t tell you that. I even desperately want this book, X-Men/Ghost Rider: Brood Trouble in the Big Easy. I will eventually own every Jim Lee X-trade. I think I’m only short two right now.

(I think I need an intervention, but these books are such a simple pleasure. There’s a great bit where Gambit, Psylocke, and Jubes are tied up on Mojoworld. Mojo is blah blah blogging about how he wants to record X-Men fighting other X-Men. “As if ya don’t get enough footage o’ that?!” Jubilee responds. “Jubilation,” says Psylocke. Jubilee mutters, “why does everyone say my name like it means “shut up?”. How can you not love that? More later.)

I absolutely (see what I did there?) love Dark Knight Returns and Dark Knight Strikes Again (a better love letter to the silver age than anything alex ross has come up with), so Absolute Dark Knight is tops.

Also in that top 5 list are Quitely, Romita Jr, Bagley, Romita Sr, Sienkiewicz, David Mack, Tom Grummett, Mike Wieringo, and a bunch of others. As an English major, I am incapable of counting properly.

What’re you getting? This week’s list is located here.

When it comes to doing countdowns of the best What If issue, I’m not the first. A couple years ago, Wizard magazine had their own top ten list. Here is their version:

10) What If Captain America Were Revived Today? (volume 1)
9) What If the Beast Continued to Mutate?
8) What If the X-Men Lost Inferno?
7) What If the Fantastic Four Had Not Gained Their Superpowers?
6) What If Pheonix Had Not Died? (volume 1)
5) Humor issue (volume 1)
4) What If Daredevil Killed the Kingpin?
3) What If the Hulk Went Berserk?
2) What If Conan the Barbarian Were Stranded in the 20th Century?
1) What If the Alien Costume Had Possessed Spider-Man?

Does this list coincide with my list? Not very much. Only two of those issues make it into my top ten. Three of them aren’t even on my list in the first place (I already talked about why #7 sucked). One of them is in this article.

Back to the real list. Read the rest of this entry �

Man, I totally didn’t have time to whip up that post I promised you yesterday. It’ll probably come later Saturday. I’ve been busy busy with both welcoming back a friend who just came back into town and some super top secret writing projects that I will be sure to share when I’m sure that I’m able to. Non-Disclosure Agreements make for great teases, but poor fun!

Believe me, though. I will definitely explain to you guys why not only does Jim Lee draw the definitive X-Men (he is to X-Men what McGuinness is to Superman and Romita Sr/Jr is to Spider-Man), but why the early 90s X-Men are some of my favorite X-books. The accompanying image is yet another bit of evidence that Gambit is awesome. He caught a bullet and tossed it back! It’s from X-Men #1.

Want to know something super-nerdy? I bought the X-Men: Mutant Genesis trade (it collects X-Men 1-7), and I realized that I practically studied these books way back when. Some of the coloring errors, like where color leaked into dialogue balloons here in this excerpt were fixed, but Beast is still blue from his feet to his teeth in that first big spread of the X-Men, and there are really only a handful of skintones: White, Asian, Black, and Stubbled. The cover has been recolored or retouched, too. I knew this from memory.

I love the X-Men.