There was an episode of The Twilight Zone entitled The Big Tall Wish. The episode – and recent graphic novel adaptation – is about an aging boxer named Bolie who is about to take part in a match against a young fighter who will no doubt beat him. Adding to that, he busts up his knuckles before the match. There’s a little boy named Henry who looks up to him and Henry makes a big, tall wish that Bolie would win the fight. Despite the beating Bolie takes in the first round, reality twists and he finds himself standing over a beaten opponent. He’s the winner.

Nobody notices any foul play. Everyone celebrates his miraculous victory. His fist isn’t even all that hurt anymore. He finds Henry and tells him that this isn’t right. Henry warns him about how disbelief can ruin the wish, but Bolie, as a hardened adult, can’t handle it. There are too many holes in the story. The reality is that he could never win that fight… and so he didn’t. Reality sets itself back to normal with Bolie on the mat getting counted out. With no memory of the alternate reality he created, Henry becomes disfranchised with the idea of wishes and loses a big piece of his childhood. The story has a great message to it, but it’s so damn depressing.

The existence of Axe Cop has that same moral as Big Tall Wish, but comes off as a celebration rather than a damning. If you haven’t heard of Axe Cop, it’s a young, but explosively popular webcomic series by the brother duo of Malachai Nicolle and Ethan Nicolle. It’s the adventures of a gruff, enigmatic and at times deranged police officer who goes around killing bad guys with a fireman’s axe. The big twist and selling point is that the artist Ethan is 30-years-old and his writer brother Malachai is only six. It’s such a brilliant little concept. It’s brilliant and I’m glad to see how successful it is.

The webcomic has been released in a volume recently, which has added commentary by Ethan about every little strip and how they came to be. A few weeks ago, the first issue of their Dark Horse miniseries Axe Cop: Bad Guy Earth was released. In it, Axe Cop and his partner Dinosaur Soldier (AKA Flute Cop, AKA Avocado Soldier, AKA Ghost Cop) go up against an incoming planet that they can sense is evil. They destroy it, but a couple survivors come to Earth and plan to turn it into a Bad Guy Earth by taking a device that turns bad people good and reprogramming it into a device that turns good people bad.

I’ve seen people hate on the comic and give it the damning of being all, “wacky ninja cheese random.” I can see where that argument is coming from, but I think Axe Cop deserves a pass. If it was an adult who wrote it, then yes, point at it for being stupid. Someone like that should know better, I suppose, but a child adds extra dimensions to it that raise it to something far more intriguing.

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I was re-listening to the fourcast from two weeks ago, marveling at my own brilliance as usual, and I heard something that brought me up short.  David was explaining the various titles that are going to be released as part of the Flashpoint storyline.  I, after being skeptical due to always hating big events, was drawn in to the idea of Flashpoint.  Not the idea itself; I still don’t know what it is and unless someone can explain it to me in one sentence I will continue to not know what it is, but to all the other titles. 

As much as I hate to admit it, seeing as I’m an angry soulless person who doesn’t want to be happy, DC was pretty much giving me exactly what I always said I wanted.  I always wanted more ‘What if’ or ‘Imaginary Tales’ or ‘Other World’ type stories.  That’s why I love Superman/Batman so much – it had license to jettison canon and just go crazy.  I like fun and funny stories.  I like brief one shots.  From the covers and the small accompanying blurbs, that’s what Flashpoint seems to consist of.  Bruce Wayne owns a casino!  Hal Jordan’s a fighter pilot!  Here!  Have a DCU Aerialists book!  Here’s Lois Lane leading some kind of resistance.

What can I say but “Awesome!” 

And what did I say but, “They’ll screw it up somehow.”  Okay, that was a sarcastic aside at the end of the podcast, just to throw in a sting, but isn’t that what most fans say?  Half the point of being a comics fan is being cynical.  And often those cynical predictions turn out to be correct.

Why?  Well, let’s start with the inherent problems of any major undertaking.  I know, it’s just a comic book, but with an integrated universe with sixty years of history and a multi-media concept that has different versions in movies, TV, dvd, online gaming, books and comics, there is no minor undertaking.  Add to that the basics of trying to juggle art, dialog, story, and the relationships of the characters in 20-22 pages, and it’s a tough struggle to make it all work.

More important, though, I think, is the expectation of the fans.  When people get in to comics, they tend to like a lot.  Everything is new.  Everything is close enough to what they want that they can get something from it.  And if they don’t?  No big deal.  Drop the book.  I certainly wasn’t in a tizzy about Green Arrow continuity when I was first reading books.  I just thought he was a guy in a funny hat.

After a bit, that changes.  People fall in love with certain stories.  They fall in love with certain characters.  And when they fall in love, they do so with that character, and that story.  As far as they’re concerned – that is how the character is.  So if it’s just a momentary trend, or an extreme look at the character, either they are going to have to re-adjust their understanding of the character, or they are going to be chasing a dream forever.  Guess what most people will pick.  Guess how that makes them feel.

Still, though, I think the main problem with a lot of comics is people deceive themselves about how they’re going to feel.  I very much include myself in that statement.  I was talking to a friend who writes, the other day, as well as a friend who draws.  They both take requests.  They almost always regret taking requests.  I’m willing to bet the requester often regrets making the request.  Because no one ever gets what they want.  We can swear up, down, and sideways that we ‘just’ want something – Black Canary and Catman in a fight, Wonder Woman and Oracle going out on the town and having fun, Batman being a great, friendly guy.  We can get down on our knees and swear on our mother’s life that that’s all we want.  We’re lying. 

Most people even believe that one simple thing is ‘all’ they want.  I know I did when all I wanted was Birds of Prey to come back.  But that wasn’t all I wanted.  I wanted a different artist, and I didn’t want Hawk and Dove involved, and I wanted it to be a fun book with people having fun, and I wanted Oracle to get to talk to Zinda a lot because they never really connected.  I had a whole huge concept for the book in my mind without even knowing it.  Don’t get me wrong, I like that Creote and Savant are involved – love it.  And they’re getting a new artist.  And I’ve come around to Hawk and Dove.  I think they’re a good addition to the team.  But I said that “all” I wanted and when it came around I complained because I meant that I wanted the book and I also wanted some other things that seemed oh so obvious to me.

(Clearly the bat symbol should be more orange. Forget this.)

That’s what my friends get all the time.  They get requests, and they fulfill them, and then they get lukewarm thank yous because the character that lived in the person’s head was nothing like the character that these people wrote or drew.  They meant Black Canary in that blue and black swimsuit outfit she wore in the original Birds of Prey.  They meant black-haired Catman from the early Green Arrow series.  They meant Batman being friendly, but not that friendly with Catwoman, doesn’t everyone know that he’s actually all about Talia?  They meant this character with short hair or that character a little more aggressive, or sure they asked for this aspect but they would never have included that one. 

The more you know a character, and like a character, the more specific that character is in your head.  You know what they’d do, and how they’d do it, and how their stories go, and how they rate compared to other characters, and that they’d never do that.  I don’t feel sorry for comics creators.  (I’m too busy envying them.)  And I don’t think that fans should button their lips when they don’t like a story.  (I certainly don’t.)  But I can’t help feeling some sympathy with people who are trying to deliver exactly what the fans want – with characters they themselves love – but can never really do it.  Because everyone knows that Batman or Superman or Wonder Woman would never be in a story like that.

Ah, another month, another Batgirl book.  And, like, eighty Batman books.  We’ll focus on the Batgirl, though.

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Before I bring the whole Ultimate Edit Trilogy to rest, I just needed to write up the page-by-page details that explain all the endless references and dropped gags. Enjoy.

WEEK ONE

Cover

– References are made to Josie and the Pussycats, Squadron Supreme/Squadron Sinister where the original Nighthawk is from and, naturally, Heroes for Hire.

Page 1

– The line about Spider-Man looking like a toddler is commentary on David Lafuente’s weird proportions in his Ultimate Spider-Man work.

Page 2

– Spiders-Man is a character from Earth X who was given Inhuman powers and it turned him into a scaly-looking Spider-Man with the ability to create illusions. With Mark Millar’s return to writing Ultimate comics, he introduced a new Spider-Man to Ultimate Avengers. He’s a clone of Peter Parker, kept in a cell with a Hannibal Lecter personality and some kind of mind power. While I’m sure he isn’t based on Spiders-Man specifically, I’ve always just referred to him as Ultimate Spiders-Man. It fits.

Page 3

– During the production of Ultimates 3, there was a nixed cover by Frank Cho that showed Wolverine having sex with Magda, mother of Scarlet Witch. The final version would have had a blanket added on to cover her up, but the released sketch showed a giant bare ass.

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I wrote about Warren Ellis and Kaare Andrews’s Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis for ComicsAlliance, and how much I liked Andrews’s art. I think this is probably the best looking X-book in a good while, even above Ron Garney’s work with Jason Aaron on Wolverine: Weapon X: The Adamantium Men. Just ugly and grimey and awesome. Also notable: someone gets stabbed through the chest with no sound effect covering the exit wound (which is something Marvel has done something like 99% of the time since Elektra died) and Wolverine holds his own guts in his hands.

So this, then, is a sidebar to the CA post. This right here? Best Wolverine sequence in years. For real. Neat use of his powers, good way to sell the threat of the Furies, and good way to show that Wolverine is down, down… but not out, no… not out.

Pick that series up if you find the trade or back issues or whatever. It’s got Furies in it, and as a lapsed Ellis fan… best thing he’s done in years. Probably since Ultimate Fantastic Four.

It started over three years ago. Venom attacked the Ultimates for a reason that’s still ill-explained and it led to a story about Ultron murdering the Scarlet Witch and Tarzan knockoffs being taken apart by Magneto. Then, many delays later, we got a story about Magneto killing billions, including a bunch of mainstream characters. As bad as Ultimates 3 was, Ultimatum brought crap to a whole new level. But with every Empire Strikes Back, there needs to be a Return of the Jedi, for better or worse. New Ultimates has come and gone and now it’s time to lay it all to rest.

Yesterday showed the fates of Loki, the return of Captain America’s shield and Arcana’s posterior. Let’s finish it.

And there it is. Thank you so much for those of you who read this regularly enough and even stuck around for the end. Thank you for every, “This makes more sense than the actual story,” comment. Thanks to my partner in crime ManiacClown, who will no doubt go through the worst episode of withdrawal since the baby nightmare scene from Trainspotting. Thanks to Frank Cho, whose art has made this a more pleasurable experience. Hell, thanks to Jeph Loeb for keeping me off the streets.

New Ultimate Edit Annotations

Here’s some panels I liked from Jack Kirby’s Captain America 200:

No deep thoughts, no examinations… I just liked the way they looked and wanted to share them.

Related: here are some people at HiLoBrow talking about several more Kirby panels. It’s a fun read.

Yesterday gave us the brief reunion of Thor and his undead squeeze Valkyrie, whose wings will make putting on shirts a total chore. With everything taken care of, threat-wise, we still have the epilogue to work through. Shanna, Ka-Zar and Black Panther have moved on to greener pastures. They aren’t the only ones leaving.

ManiacClown insisted I namedrop “Twinkies” somewhere in there. The dude just can’t let it go, but whatever. I like the challenge. As for what Zarda’s talking about, the Supreme Power: Hyperion miniseries from a few years ago showed a dark future where Hyperion, Zarda and a lot of superheroes rule over the world with Nighthawk being the only remaining opposition. Like with the end of Howard Chaykin’s Squadron Supreme series, Loeb’s exit from Ultimate stuff calls for a moment of, “Crap, we have to force things back to the status quo so that future stuff can happen.”

Tomorrow is about putting an end to this for good and also tying up that one loose end that really should have had a bigger impact on the story.

Day Seven!

In our last installment, Iron Man was in the middle of talking down Thor when Loki made his final play. Yes, his end game was to smack Thor upside the head with a hammer. It didn’t work and he instead got a spear thrown through his neck. Now the twice-dead Valkyrie returns and hooks up with her badass boyfriend.

So that’s it, right? Me and ManiacClown can go home now? Bad guy’s dead and… oh, what’s that? Two days of wrap-up? Fine. But I swear, if we get a final page reveal of the next big threat, I’m burning this website to the ground. I’ll do it.

Day Six!
Day Seven!

Yesterday showed the two powerhouses of the Ultimates Thor and Zarda duke it out over the streets of New York City as the 9,281st lightning bolt goes off right behind them. I’m wondering how any of these superheroes even hear each other over all the deafening thunder that must be filling the area. As the two slug it out, Iron Man appears in his special Hulkbuster armor out of nowhere. It seems enough to take Thor down and he has been trying to talk some sense into him. That brings us to this.

Thanks to ManiacClown for the help. Tomorrow the not-quite-Christmas story continues.

Day Five!
Day Six!
Day Seven!