Kate Dacey, formerly of PopCultureShock, has launched a new blog called The Manga Critic with two things: an adorable avatar and a name so obvious and well chosen that I can’t believe no one beat her to it. It’s subtitled “Reviews for the discerning manga fan,” and a very good read so far. I added the RSS to Google Reader. You should, too.

Funnily enough, or maybe not, she’s already reviewed a book I was thinking of checking out. Samurai 7 is a retelling of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, and Kate tackles it with gusto.

It’s been an interesting week for Dr. Doom. Wait, let me rephrase that: Dr. Doom has been a total jerk this week! Yes, I know being a jerk is his thing, but he’s gone the extra mile lately. In Dark Avengers, he’s rude to Osborn and his henchmen for saving his life. In Dr. Doom and the Masters of Evil, not only does he double-cross Magneto, but the entire miniseries is reasoning to make Doom even more of an asshole. Then you have Dark Reign: The Cabal. In one segment, he burns alive two of his servants just to make sure Loki is who she says she is.

Plus there’s the first segment, written by Jonathan Hickman and Adi Granov. I thought it was a cool segment (I love Granov-drawn Venom), but… I just didn’t think they went far enough. So I went back and fixed it up. The first page is untouched, but I’d like to think that the rest of it is an improvement.

Interesting that Doom thinks that Noh-Varr and Ares won’t stand for Osborn’s shit for too long. Plus I guess we’re getting the Spider-Man movie Goblin armor in comic form once Osborn gets tired of being Iron Patriot.

I know that I’m Mister Push Comics Forward Break Them Characters Give Us The New-new, but I do have one continuity-based pet peeve. I really dislike it when creators take established characters and regress them, or just change them entirely, in order to fit them into the story they want to tell.

There are plenty of examples out there. The most egregious are probably Bobby Drake, Iceman, and Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, with Sam Guthrie, Cannonball, bringing up the rear. Bobby and Johnny were the hot-headed youngsters of the X-Men and Fantastic Four, respectively, and Sam is pretty much the poster-child for the second generation of X-Men. All three have gone from immature, mistake-making, and newbie heroes into grown-up, mature, and seasoned adults.

Bobby is an Omega-level mutant with an insane amount of control over ice, and therefore water, and has come to terms with that. Johnny has wielded the Power Cosmic a couple of times, saved the world several dozen times, and seen planets, dimensions, and time periods other people don’t even dream about. Sam was trained by the son of the X-Men’s best strategist, who was himself a child of war. He also had the benefit of being trained by two generations of X-Men, and when he struck out on his own, he found success.

The problem is that when a writer has a story that needs an impetuous kind of fella, or a newbie to make a dumb decision, or someone to show just how mature or smart another character is… guess which dudes are the fall guys.

Reed Richards has gone through the “ignoring his family for the benefit of science by the way he is a jerk” cycle a fistful of times now, most recently in Mark Millar’s Civil War. You’d think that Cyclops’s turn as the depressed and distant loner would be over after New X-Men, a story designed to push him past that, would never happen again. Or that Beast Boy, who is like thirty years old and should get a new name, would be written as something other than a horny teenager. Nah.

This is something that’s been bugging me more than usual lately, since the three biggest guys in comics have all been doing it. Mark Millar, Brian Bendis, and Geoff Johns have all taken characters who had established personalities or gimmicks, tossed it out, and slotted something new in because they needed X so that they could write Y. Rather than creating X, they just took Z and turned it into X. And that’s lame.

I brought visual aids. Read the rest of this entry �

Barry’s back, Bart’s back, Ice is back, and now, in the Legion of 3 WorldsConner Kent is back.  I am just waiting for Thomas and Martha Wayne to pop back to life.  (Ever notice there seems to be a theme to which of the Wayne’s appears?  Martha always seems to show up in fever dreams and near-death states, and Thomas always seems to appear in flashbacks doing things that influence the physical present.  He’s hung out with Jor-El, joined a Secret Society that, against his wishes, drugged the Gotham water supply, and healed the hell out of tons of mobsters.)  And we haven’t even gotten to Blackest Night with the Black Lanterns yet.

The reaction to all of these resurrections has been mixed, but I am all for it.  Bring them all back, I say.  Why?  Because I like characters to be alive, that’s why.  A dead character makes for some pretty angst from the survivors, and a few Kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahn!-type moments whenever the survivors meet up with the person who killed off their loved ones.  Other than that, they’ve been neutralized.  All the potential for more stories and unique character moments is lost for one big, dramatic moment, and a few echoes down the line. 

Some people say that bringing all these characters back to life lessens the impact of a character’s death.  Although I can see their point, I disagree.  I think death itself lessens the impact of death.  Recently, every big event had to come complete with a dead character.  Some one’s head was on the block, or it couldn’t really be called an event.  Something had to ‘change forever.’  Not only was death a guarantee in event books, more often than not it was announced.  It was hinted at half-a-year before the issue came out, solicits for the months after were littered with references to some big loss.  We all saw it coming.  Death stopped being a shock, and because one more required dramatic beat. 

Not that most resurrections aren’t hinted at as well.  Perhaps I just welcome these hints because they mean new potential and not grim inevitability.  I like them.  I look forward to them.  Why?  More characters, more stories.  Less deaths, more happy stories.  The combination: a big universe overfilled with happy stories.  That’s my kind of place.

For fun:  Which comic-book character’s death would you reverse?  (For me it has to be The Question.)

Back in the day, hermanos used to have all those cool “4th Letter is for…” graphics. Hm… his name does start with D. Yeah, let’s do it.

Neat!

10) Separate Ways
Cable/Deadpool #42 (2007)
Writer: Fabian Nicieza

Cable’s “death” in the comics was oddly done. It took place in X-Men #200 with this Cable/Deadpool issue acting like deleted scenes. Deadpool doesn’t even get a cameo in the big X-Men issue. No respect.

Having just done away with Sabretooth and having smoothed over things with Deadpool for the umpteenth time in their relationship, Cable explains that he needs to destroy the island and destroy all the future-related information in his computers. Deadpool volunteers to find where Cable keeps the backup of that information so he can help take care of it. Right before Deadpool can take off, Cable stops him.

Cable walks through the wreckage of his island paradise and thinks, “Thank you. I’m proud of you. Goodbye.”

I couldn’t imagine a better final moment between the two.

With Cable fighting Gambit and Sunfire, Deadpool is off to find that computer backup while taking on the Acolyte Senyaka. Cable is on the losing end of his fight and thinks about the concepts of sacrifice. Before the island can explode, he makes sure to teleport Deadpool off the island and back to his apartment.

“You sacrifice yourself to keep your dream from being corrupted. But most of all… you do it for the people in your life who matter the most…”

Back in his apartment, the layout is similar to the opening scenes of Cable/Deadpool #1. Deadpool immediately destroys Cable’s computer backup, looks out the window and says, “I wasn’t worth it…”

He turns on the TV to see news of Providence exploding, validating that Cable’s out of the picture. Going from sad to serious, Deadpool ends the issue promising, “…and I won’t let you down…”

Read the rest of this entry �

The homey Julian Lytle has started up a webcomic called Ants, which stars, yeah, ants. They talk, they play games, and they’ve got flavor. Get up on it before it gets popular so you can shame the scrubs who discovered it late. He updates once a week right now.

You ever heard of that Mugen thing? It’s a program to make your own fighting game characters. While some people will just use it to make the usual Street Fighter vs. Mortal Kombat type of stuff using graphics and sprites that already exist, there are some people out there who go the extra mile and make an entire character from scratch. One such character is Deadpool, made to fit into the Marvel vs. Capcom style. Check out this video of him in use. Also, he has plenty of special intro animations.

The Bob/ninjas special move is inspired.

20) Telling off T-Ray
Deadpool #33 (1999)
Writer: Joe Kelly

With Joe Kelly’s run reaching the end, we’re given the big showdown between Deadpool and T-Ray. Using some magic mumbo jumbo, T-Ray is able to show his true past to Deadpool and Mercedes Wilson. T-Ray is the real Wade Wilson and made the mistake of saving the life of a no-good mercenary named Jack. Jack killed Wade in an attempt to take his identity and accidentally got Mercedes killed in the process. He went crazy and believed himself to be Wade Wilson.

T-Ray uses this revelation to show Deadpool how evil he truly is. He resurrected his wife as part of his plan to tear at Deadpool’s soul and make him suffer with guilt. Then he shows Deadpool all the people he’s ever killed. In one nice spread, we see a crowd of thousands, with many easy to recognize if you’ve been paying attention to his comic appearances. The absolute scale of what he’s done cripples Deadpool and causes him to question his own actions. T-Ray taunts Deadpool, asking him how it feels to see his whole attempt to redeem himself shattered by the knowledge that he never had any redeeming qualities in his past to begin with.

Deadpool then… starts laughing. He laughs hard. T-Ray is beside himself. How could he possibly react to his masterstroke with laughter? Wiping the tears from his eyes, Deadpool explains himself. Sure, T-Ray came close to breaking him, but then he had a moment of clarity about squirrels and coconuts.

Read the rest of this entry �