miscellany
-You know what’s weird? I’m actually kinda curious about X-23 this week. I like Marjorie Liu, so, y’know, maybe? But four bucks… ehhhh.

–Prison Pit: Book Two is this week. It opens with a dude pooping. The cover is blood-soaked. There’s a strap-on at some point in the book. I’m new to Johnny Ryan, but this book is repulsive and attractive and awful and fascinating all at once. It’s vile, man, and I’m ready to read some more.

-This week in Brightest Day, we find out what the deal is with Aqualad. I kind of feel like everyone who popped up with “Oh, so the black character can’t swim, huh? Way to be racist, DC Comics!” is feeling pretty dumb right about now, yeah? The presence of a stereotype is not necessarily an indicator of racism or stereotyping. It’s cool to throw a jaundiced eye at cape comics, but c’mon. Context and understanding is just as important as playing watchdog. I mean, his name is Aqualad, he lives in one of the driest places in the country, and has a mysterious past. C’mon, son. Y’all got to do better, this is basic.

-I bought Black Milk’s Album Of The Year and Rah Digga’s Classic today. Digga is one of my favorite rappers (Dirty Harriet is dope, miss me if you disagree) and This Ain’t No Lil Kid Rap is dope. The remix with Redman is hard, too. Black Milk is a dope producer out of Detroit, and his last joint was heat rocks, so Album of the Year was definitely getting purchased.

-The cover to Classic instantly shot up to my top five favorite album covers, too. It’s on par with Illmatic.

-I love how iTunes likes to just wipe my iPod without even asking me. I had it on manually manage for a couple weeks (which sucks) and flicked it back over to auto since iTunes 10 is New and Improved. Mistake, ’cause the first thing the all-new iTunes did was wipe my whole iPod right before I left for work. Thanks for that.

–Machete was dope.

---

elsewhere
–I talk about how much of a piece of crap OMIT was and some crazies come calling, post a sneak preview of Darwyn Cooke’s The Outfit, and talk about Butch Guice paying homage to Kirby and Steranko in Captain America.

-Over Moviefone way, I talk Marvel and Pixar.
comics are for children
Black King David: Amazing Spider-Man 643, Hellblazer 271, Joe the Barbarian 7, New Mutants 17, Thunderbolts 148
Esther Waller: Tiny Titans 32, Birds of Prey 5
White King Gavin: Azrael 12, Joe The Barbarian 7, Astonishing Spider-Man Wolverine 3, Avengers And The Infinity Gauntlet 2, Deadpool 27, Incredible Hulks 613, Marvel Universe vs The Punisher 4, Shadowland Power Man 2, Steve Rogers Super-Soldier 3, Thunderbolts 148

The solicit for this:

Comics superstar David Finch takes full creative control (both writing and illustrating!) on this brand-new Batman monthly series! Joined by the best of the best – Scott Williams – on inks, this new series is sure to be on everyone’s must-read pile! Delving into the more supernatural and esoteric areas of Gotham City, the 6-part storyline explores the horrific murder of one of Bruce Wayne’s childhood friends…and the terrible ramifications the brutal crime has on Batman’s life!

I have only three reactions to this.

1.  How do they keep finding new iterations of ‘Batman,’ ‘Dark,’ and ‘Knight,’ to use for comic book titles?

2.  PleasenoHush.  Please, oh please, no Hush.  Let this childhood friend stay dead.

3.  Great art, though.

(Gavok note: On the heels of Marvel announcing What If #200, it’s fitting to take on the topic of alternate reality stories. Truth be told, the idea of doing an Elseworlds list much like how I did one with What If has been a looming menace hanging over my head and for years I’ve been afraid of forcing the other shoe to drop. Thankfully, Fletcher “Syrg” Arnett was inspired enough to fight the dragon in my stead and has offered to do a series of guest articles on the subject. You might remember Syrg from his fantastic take on the comic disaster Marville last year. If you don’t, go read it anyway. He’s good people. I plan to throw my hat into his series here at least twice before he’s finished, since there are a couple Elseworlds that I feel the need to talk about. This includes one that I’ve considered to be the worst comic I’ve ever read that I’ve been putting off writing on for years. But enough about me. It’s Syrg’s show. Enjoy.)

Marvel has their What If…?s, and DC has their own brand of “But what happens if we take X and change Y?” tales, called, depending on when you ask, Elseworlds/”Tales of the Multiverse”. (Juuuuust kidding. I don’t think anyone aside from Dan DiDio has ever used that last one seriously.)

The thing is, though, Marvel’s usually (I added the qualifier for a reason, Gavok, I know about that Timequake crap) come from a formula of “take big event/origin of character, change outcome slightly, go from there”. DC runs a little looser with the format, like that one where Bruce Wayne is an amnesiac immortal and Alfred is actually Merlin. Or the time the Justice League had to mount an assault on the Planetary Organization to break their shadowy hold over the planet. Maybe you know the one where Lex Luthor, singer-turned-record executive, sold his media empire to Darkseid?

Elseworlds are almost always entertaining, intentionally or not, because before 2010 and a run of titles like Rise of Arsenal and that other trainwreck I forget the name of*, you never thought you’d be buying a DC book where Superman got turned into a gender-swapped nazi centaur. (We’ll get to that one. Later.) Point is, the fact that so many of these are out of print and forgotten is a damn shame, and so just like Gavok running through all the What If…?s in the world, I’ll hit every damn Elseworld I can get my hands on, and probably a few other eccentric DC projects that didn’t earn that banner, usually because they were written too early or too late.

There’s going to be a lot less order to this than Gavok’s project. For one thing, I don’t think there’s any way to come up with a coherent set of criteria/checklist to hit for all of these, and I’m unsure as to what the “Peter Parker Dies” of Elseworlds is. Probably “Martian Manhunter Out of Fucking Nowhere”, that dude shows up a lot in the otherwise-grounded stories (and it’s usually to inspire Superman to go use his goddamn powers, that guy takes pacifism way too seriously in these).

Also: no order, no rankings. Some of these are books I haven’t even looked through since I picked them up, and this project is good motivation to finish looking at the beaten-down copies of a couple. There’s no way I’ll be able to come up with a full scale to judge them on and pick a favorite. (Even if I did, people would bitch at me forever because technically, Kingdom Come is an Elseworld, and lord knows the kvetching if I put that below something like Speeding Bullets.) In fact, let’s just say it: I’m skipping a lot of the big ones. Kingdom Come/The Kingdom, Red Son, Destiny (since Gavok covered it a while back), Dark Knight Returns/Strikes Back. (I want to skip True Brit because it’s rather awful, but I suppose I’ll play canary in the coalmine for people who might go “John Cleese? Sold!”) I leave myself wiggle room on this as I go, but rest assured I’ll give you more than those and then some in extras by the time we’re done.

This is getting to be a bit text heavy. Let’s dive into the first book, Elseworlds: Superman’s Metropolis.

Superman’s Metropolis is an interesting book for a variety of reasons. It’s why I started off with it. But first, let’s look at the stats:

Superman’s Metropolis
Focuses on: Superman (for now)
Self-contained/Multiple books: Multiple (trilogy)
Published in: 1996
Central premise: Superman and cast as placed into Fritz Lang’s Metropolis
Martian Manhunter Out of Fucking Nowhere? No

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Cut for spoilers.

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-Good news!
-If you’ve ever wondered how often we can say “boobs” or “pornography” in sixty seconds, this is definitely the show for you.
-If you’ve ever wanted to hear David and Esther debate the use of exploitation in comics and media, this may be the show for you.
-I mean, what’s the difference between porn and exploitation cinema?
-(The answer is probably “narrative.”)
-Is exploitation ever okay?
-(Yes.)
-If you’ve ever wanted a show that has a debate that ends in consensus, or even a point, then you should probably listen to some other podcast.
-Fifty minutes, whoo.
-6th Sense’s 4a.m. Instrumental for the theme music.
-See you, space cowboy!

Subscribe to the Fourcast! via:
–Podcast Alley feed!
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It’s a nice mix this week from me, David and regular/guest contributor Was Taters. Almost an equal amount of panels all around. Naturally, I had to choose a New Avengers panel with Iron Fist’s flashy new duds on it. Note to Marvel: keep this a thing. Relaunch his book and make that his new status quo costume. Or just relaunch his book.

Taters and I disagreed on which Batgirl panel to go with, but I went with her idea. Can’t believe someone turns down the image of Bela Lugosi riding a segway.

Amazing Spider-Man #641
Joe Quesada, Paolo Rivera, Stan Lee and Marcos Martin

Amazing Spider-Man #642
Mark Waid, Paul Azaceta, Stan Lee and Marcos Martin

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I won’t pretend that anyone on this blog hasn’t read David’s post on Darwyn Cooke’s remarks about what it would take for him to jump back into mainstream comics.  The first sentence out of his mouth is this:

“I want them to stop catering to the perverted needs of forty-five year old men.”

He elaborates, citing the sex, violence, and general unwholesome behavior seen in mainstream comics continuity.  There are ninety-seven comments on the post, each with their take on how Mister Cooke’s words can be taken.  I think he expressed himself clearly and concisely, but I’m still not sure if I agree with him.

I don’t think I have any problem with people catering to the needs, perverted or not, of forty-five year old men.  In fact, I think some of the problem with comics is the fact that the big companies still cling to the notion that they don’t sell sex.  Through the nineties and the early two thousands we saw Wonder Woman’s costume creep up her butt cheeks until they were hanging out like Christmas ornaments with a ribbon between them, and why?  Because there was mainstream respectability to be maintained.  Evil Mary Marvel was the Woman of a Thousand Strategic Shadows for while, because DC comics doesn’t do porn.  Meanwhile Shield agents at Marvel are wandering around nude and painted blue, because if you have Victoria Hand and Maria Hill and Steve Rogers, you’re not going to waste them, but Marvel characters also don’t appear in porn.

In many ways, this seems like the worst of two worlds.  Mainstream continuity and art are hijacked by the need to make things as violent, suggestive, and sexually explicit as possible.  Meanwhile, those sexually explicit stories are constrained due to a need for the One Established Character not to push certain boundaries.  The result is a comic that seems to be walking an unpleasant line.  They put in as much as they can to serve those with, ah, less than literary needs, without alienating other fans.  Meanwhile they scale down as much of the sex and violence as they can without alienating the loyal pervs who make Rule 34 so well represented in comics.  It’s a stripper with pasties, a nude scene with a bad body double – it seems to satisfy no one.

Sometimes I wish that comics would finally take the plunge that they hint at with so many hardcore alternate universe versions of characters.  If there’s so much money in satisfying the perverted needs of forty-five year old men (and for that matter, forty-five year old women, and eighteen year old boys and teenage girls who would undoubtedly read about a teenage Batman who sparkles) then maybe it’s time to do it.  There isn’t any doubt that it would be lucrative, and taking away the constraints of the continuity and the increasingly nebulous age ratings system might give those artists who want to pursue a more violent, sexual, or obscenity-laden direction the freedom to write really good stories.  Meanwhile regular continuity can stop trying to split the difference between hardcore and all-ages stories. 

I realize that this won’t happen.  Big companies, owned by bigger companies, have images of these icons to maintain, and pornography, extreme violence, and obscenity don’t fit those images.  It may even be wrong-headed.  Movies have ratings for extreme violence, but that doesn’t mean that the violence level that’s considered appropriate for younger kids isn’t being pushed.  And it’s not like the availability of porn has meant that movies and books are more likely to showcase serious artistic endeavors.  At the same time, this system seems to be satisfying nobody.  Maybe it’s time for a change.

About The Losers DVD from Netflix.

Twenty minutes of previews that I can neither fast forward through nor skip and then the main menu doesn’t have any chapter selections?  When did that become a thing?  I noticed that on two separate Matt Damon movies.  When did people become too cheap to include even a chapter selection option on their DVDs?  This is a travesty!  What ever happened to standards.  We switched to DVDs so we didn’t have to watch all that crap to get to the part where they play “Don’t Stop Believing.”

I can’t believe I have to watch an entire episode of 30 Rock in order to wait through the previews on a DVD.  I hate the future.

So many times, when I read Secret Six, I wonder why on earth I’m reading that kind of book.  This is not a slam of Secret Six, which has a devoted following and has been a consistently good book.  It’s just that, from the start, it’s been the kind of book that just isn’t for me.  It’s got torture, murder, despair, tragedy, and a bunch of people being mean to each other for kicks.  Every single story arc has the Six turning on each other in some way or another.  It never, ever fails.  I should not be liking it.

And yet I do.  Part of it is the creative stories and the constant quips, courtesy of Gail Simone.  The book is also loaded with multi-dimensional, smart, fun, and different female characters.  Pretty much all of them manage the difficult trick, in fiction, of being female but acting human.  No dumb blondes, no mindless seductresses, no personality-less token tough girls, just a bunch of nutty characters, just like the men.

Most of all, though, I like Secret Six because it’s a team book in which the team very clearly cares about each other.  And I like it because it’s not a generic ‘caring’ the way most team books do it.  The Six don’t get along, they don’t understand each other, and they don’t understand reality outside of their insane world.  They do, however, want to make each other happy, and when they try, it leads to wonderful moments.  One of those moments is in Secret Six #25. 

Black Alice is a teenage girl who can steal anyone’s powers by looking into their eyes.  One day she used her powers on her father.  Shortly afterwards, her father got cancer.  She joins the Six to make money in order to treat him, even though she’s clearly out of her depth.

Floyd Lawton is Deadshot, a member of the Six, and a character who was obviously created back when Floyd was a common name.  He, along with the rest of the Six, hears about this in one of the issues.  Not much is made of this.  In issue #25, he goes to Alice’s father’s doctor, and threatens him with a gun until the man tells him all about the case.  When the doctor confirms that Alice was probably the cause of her father’s cancer, Floyd picks up the phone and tells the doctor that he will call Alice and tell her that he knows what caused the cancer and it definitely wasn’t her.  He will also tell her that everything is going to be okay.

There is at least on thing practically wrong with this plan.  Morally, there are many things wrong with it, depending on your particular moral compass.  The point, though, is that Deadshot sees the girl suffering, decides to help, and does it in a crazy way.  David and I have talked before about really good relationships between people who antagonize each other but also love each other – Cassandra and David Cain would be one of those.  The unimaginative writer writes them as at each other’s throats until such time as one of them is about to do something too brutal, at which point they suddenly stop because they care so much about each other.  Secret Six does it right.  It shows a bunch of relationships in which people who are imperfect, trying to help each other in imperfect ways.  It gives you both a warm feeling inside and a better understanding and appreciation for the characters.  I really wish there was more of it, but I love what I’ve got.

Khari Evans: I guess my man prefers to let his art speak for itself, because I can’t even find so much as a Deviant Art. If Evans happens to read this, though, email me, I want to interview you.
Books: Thor: Ages of Thunder, Daughters of the Dragon: Samurai Bullets, Shanna, the She-Devil: Survival of the Fittest, Immortal Iron Fist Vol. 3: The Book of Iron Fist
Why? Hmm… three reasons, no particular order.

1. He can draw believable black people. Not just default people colored brown, but like real deal, proper facial structure having, broad nosed, thick lipped colored folks. Some of the best artists in the industry can’t get that right, but Evans does it like it’s nothing.

2. There’s this word I heard used in various ways growing up. “Stank.” Sometimes it was “Put some stank on it,” like jazz it up. Sometimes it was my cousin calling some girl I like “stank.” (I eventually quit asking her opinion on girls I liked.) It’s one of those words with several uses that all derive from the same origin. “Stank” is, more or less, “attitude.” Not like a cheery attitude, or a negative attitude, but a “How about you stop giving me lip and having an attitude” attitude. Evans can draw some stank girls and he puts some stank on it when he draws them. My granddad might say that “He draws some mean girls, boy!”

Nobody in comics draws a sneer like Khari Evans, man. Nobody even comes close. That top panel in ke-theorder01.jpg is killer. Misty’s face in ke-daughters04.jpg and ke-daughters06.jpg is probably the meanest ice grill you’ll see. Evans gets the lip curl, the eyebrows, he gets the whole thing right.

But that just betrays a deeper understanding of facial expressions, doesn’t it? ’cause Colleen’s dumb “Ha ha I got a surprise for you girrrrrrrrl” face in ke-daughters02.jpg is dead on, too. Or the mix of giddiness and determination in the two in ke-daughters03.jpg. Body language, too. How often do you see crossed ankles in comics? And yet, in ke-daughters01.jpg, they’re right there. That slump into the couch–let me stop.

3. You can’t really see it here because I chose scenes from one book I really like a lot, but Evans is on point with fashion, too.

(4. Thighs.)