HEAT worked. It took ten years, but they finally got back their totally awesome better-than-everybody-else forever-and-ever-amen hero back.
All the others, though– Girl-Wonder (at least regarding Stephanie Brown), whoever it is that wants Ted Kord/The Question/Firestorm back, and various other comics movements– have any of those ever worked? I can’t think of one.
In a just world, Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka would be a game changer.
For the past twenty or thirty years, Marvel and DC have made a business out of telling mature stories with characters that were originally aimed at kids. While they have had some runaway successes, the majority of their output has been less than quality. The characters began growing older, going through increasingly extreme trials and tribulations, and rapidly speeding away from anything resembling “appropriate for all ages.”
In Pluto, Naoki Urasawa does it right. I recently finished the first three volumes He avoids the sensationalism and grime that tends to accumulate around stories that reinvent kiddie characters for an adult audience. I can’t judge its faithfulness to Osamu Tezuka’s “The Greatest Robot on Earth.” I’ve never read that story, and probably won’t until I finish Pluto. However, as a story in and of itself, Pluto is excellent.
Pluto is, essentially, a re-telling that shifts the focus of the original story. My understanding of the original work is that it was an Astro Boy story that featured several guest stars. As of volume 3 of Pluto, Urasawa has elevated Gesicht, a detective, to the same position as Astro Boy in the original work, while Atom and another character serve as something between supporting characters and lead protagonists.
You could say that the story is about Gesicht and his search for a serial killer, but that would be selling it short. It is about Gesicht, Atom, Atom’s sister Uran, and various other characters. The serial killer, whose identity isn’t truly revealed until the end of book three, simply serves as a convenient way to move these characters into situations where they have to interact with and bounce off each other.
I’m very fond of the relationship that Atom and Gesicht have. The inversion of the traditional “wise old man” works very well. Gesicht comes across as child-like next to the more technologically (and emotionally) advanced Atom. He’s full of questions and conjecture, and eager to pick Atom’s brain. He comes across almost rude in his probing, but he’s coming from a good place.
Atom, on the other hand, is impossibly self-assured and confident. He knows his abilities well, and is content with his life. His “real boy” demeanor never comes off as false or forced. When he sees a floating UFO and get distracted, or when he digs into a bowl of ice cream, he genuinely enjoys it. Boiling him down to something as simple as a robot is doing him an injustice, because he is clearly so much more. Just the fact that the first thing he orders is ice cream is telling.
One of the best scenes in the series so far, from an emotional and artistic perspective, involves two of the strongest robots in the world, Brando and Mont Blanc. Urasawa begins the scene with wide shots of bits of wreckage and Brando’s battle suit. Brando himself is a heavyset man who resembles his armor. Urasawa plays with angles and scale in the scene, causing Mont Blanc to seem enormous next to a man who can fairly be called “large.” Mont Blanc stays motionless while Brando approaches, and doesn’t speak when Brando greets him. When Brando asks him how many he killed, there’s a close-up panel of Mont Blanc’s emotionless face, which is followed by a panel that’s even closer while Mont Blanc simply says “A lot.” The next page is a two page spread of devastation. Robots lay dismembered and unrecognizable. No robot is whole in this scene except for Mont Blanc and Brando, and neither are scratched. It was clearly a slaughter.
The follow-up sequence to this examination of war features a televised broadcast of Atom and his role as a member of the peace-keeping forces in this war. The old warhorses (Mont Blanc, Brando, and a third named Hercules) talk about how easy he has it. He’s an “Emissary of Peace.” He isn’t stuck fighting for someone else’s hate, an emotion they don’t even understand. They came to fight for justice, but found something hate in its place. The kind of hate that forces three robots to destroy almost ten thousand of their kin in one day. After Hercules asks “What is this thing they call hate?” they look out over the battlefield and broken robot bodies and the answer is clear.
Even the scenes focused around the serial killing are more about the people involved than the murder. Atom’s encounter with a bigoted detective serves to tell us as much, if not more, about Atom’s character and depth of compassion as it does about the case itself.
It’s hammered home in scene after scene: the characters are what matter. It isn’t about the why, or the what. It’s about the who. The latter third or so of the first volume is dedicated to the story of North No. 2, his new master, and both of their attempts to regain, or attain, their humanity. It’s almost complete lacking in action until the last few pages, and even that action is kept mainly off-screen.
Our first meeting with the killer of the book is played the opposite of the way these scenes usually are done. Rather than a scene which would normally begin with slam-bang action and end in pithy farewells and threats, Urasawa pens a meeting that is disconnected and more than a little sad. Urasawa’s choice for the character who meets the killer first is a keen one in light of that character’s special ability.
The killer, rather than being a thoroughbred monster, is more like a lost animal. He’s confused and detached, not entirely sure of who he is or what he can do. He’s at a different level of humanity than Atom or Gesicht. Gesicht is curious about being human, Atom accepts his humanity, and the killer has lost his, if he ever had it in the first place.
This is where Pluto shines. It’s more than just a murder mystery, and sometimes borders on a subtle meditation on the idea of humanity. Gesicht, Atom, Uran, Brando, Hercules, and the killer are all functioning as different aspects of humanity, and this makes their interactions all the more interesting.
Urasawa takes an idea that has been run into the ground and manages to pull it off. Every other mature book starring a kids’ character needs to sit up and take notice of how it is actually done. Urasawa doesn’t show us Atom waist-deep in the blood of the fallen to get a rise out of us. There’s no leering, drooling rapist of a villain lurking around in the background to raise the stakes. And despite that, the regret is clear as day on Atom’s face and in the awkward pause after he talks about his role in the 39th Central Asian war.
Where Marvel and DC failed in this is that they went for the cheap shock. A wife of a superhero was raped, a Robin beaten to death, another Robin grew up and became a victim of sexual assault, and if a hero doesn’t die in an event, that event is a failure. They went for the thing that would rile people up, rather than get them talking.
Urasawa gets me talking. I’d barely finished the scene of Atom and Gesicht in the diner before I got online to say something about it. Urasawa has a lot to say in Pluto, and he’s doing it in a way that draws you in without going for the cheap shock of Atom punching through a bad guy.
If you aren’t reading Pluto, you are missing out on some of the best comics around. Volumes 1
Buffy’s coming back to the big screen! And when I say, ‘Buffy’, I mean just her. Not Willow, or Angel, or Xander, or Giles, or Oz, or Dawn, or Joss Whedon.
Or any reference to the television series.
So, some girl who is blonde and stakes vampires. Or perhaps she stakes vampires. One of the people involved in re-making the series is Roy Lee, whose past films include The Strangers (People struggle helplessly against evil but evil wins.), The Grudge (People again struggle helplessly against evil but it still kind of wins.), and The Ring (Well. We’ll call this one a possible draw for evil. Nah. Screw that. It wins.). I hope at some point during the hiring process someone asked Mister Lee whether or not he could make a movie in which good triumphs.
So what do you think. Will this help you not look like a decaying dinosaur when you make Buffy references to today’s impressionable youth? Or is this basically a way of turning Buffy into a brand name?
As part of the ongoing Green Lantern: The Masquerade theme, I’ve been looking through the various Green Lantern Corps, wondering what Corps I’d be signing up for.
Green is traditional, and I look good in the color. But come on, willpower? Me? I’ve spent the last five years swearing that I’d get up early tomorrow and go jogging. Also I’d have to put up with Guy Gardner.
Red? I do like kitties, and they have one on staff. But rage is tiring and vomiting lava is hard on the throat.
Yellow is a terrible color for me, and I can’t see myself instilling fear in anyone.
Forget about the Pink Corps of Star Sapphires. Wearing that little clothing in the icy vacuum of space? Why don’t I just pour a tray of ice cubes down my pants?
I flat-out hate the Indigo Lanterns. Serene bastards. You’re supposed to be compassionate! Get off your lazy benevolent asses and get to work!
The Blue, the Lanterns of Hope, might get my vote, because hey, I’m hopeful. Didn’t I spend the last four months hoping that they wouldn’t cancel Dollhouse? And lo, they did not. Behold my power!
But then there’s the Orange Corps. Honestly, these are the ones I really want to be on. Imagine all the cool stuff you’d get if someone gave you an magic wishing ring powered by greed. That would rock. And hard.
Sadly, as far as I can see, the Orange Corps is headed by Larfleeze, who looks like a bug would if it had just flown up your nose during an otherwise lovely bike ride and forced you to sneeze it out into your hand again. And the only way you can join the Corps is to let Larfleeze kill you and steal your identity.
There’s always a catch, isn’t there?
Title kind of says it all, doesn’t it? Check out this preview of The Essex County Complete, including an introduction by Darwyn Cooke, at Top Shelf’s page.
Rafael Grampa’s Batman & Robin, that is. I found this via Sean Witzke, who found it via Grampa’s flickr.
I dig it.
We all know the story. Fan meets comic. Fan loves comic. Fan loses comic.
Not through cancellation!
As Emerson said, “Of all the ways to lose a comic, cancellation is the kindest.”
Or something like that.
No. Sometimes you lose a comic because the artist changes, or the writer changes, or there is some editorial futzing with it.
Sometimes though, one just falls out of love. Sometimes a character that seemed fun or cool or exciting gets unbearable when the same flaws are brought to light again and again.
Sometimes I start out singing the praises of a certain writer, and then something happens. I have to say that they’re having a bad story arc. Or some evil editor forced them to write a certain thing. Then I say the book isn’t a good match. Sometimes I love a certain storyline, but then come to realize that that storyline, that ‘fresh, new take’, that idea, is all they are capable of. In the end, I have to admit that I’ve fallen out of love with the writing.
Or the artist. Oh boy, how many times have seen some new artist’s work and loved it, only to look at the issue six months later and scream, “WHY are you drawing a line there? There is no part of human anatomy that would make that line go there! You’re just doing it to be ‘artistic.'”
I think it’s this gradual disenchantment that makes for the bitterest of comics fans. If you think some idea is stupid, or have low expectations at the beginning, you develop a healthy detachment. But when you start out loving something and have high hopes for it, only to see it mutate into something you’re embarrassed to read – that’ll make you post some angry rants on message boards.
So. Post your tales of love and loss below. Come on. Get it all out. Just . . . clean up, after.
(Gavok note: This is an article I wrote for PopCultureShock a while back. Because I’m distracted by my inability to defeat Title Defense Piston Hondo at the moment, I figured now would be a good time to start posting some of these where they belong: at 4th Letter. I snipped the first few paragraphs, since it was more of an introduction and you already know me. Which reminds me, we need to hang like old times. Let’s hit the roller rink this Sunday. They have a Wrestlefest arcade machine there. It’ll be fun.)
Allow me to introduce you to what may be the first comic I’ve ever owned. I’m not certain if I owned this before or after I was given a copy of that Luke Cage anti-smoking comic in health class. In fact, I’m really not certain why or how I had this in the first place. All I recall is one day owning a copy of The Adventures of JELL-O Man and Wobbly.
Nobody else seems to remember JELL-O Man, I’m afraid. He was a brief JELL-O mascot during the introduction of their Jigglers. As you can see from that cover, JELL-O Man’s dog Wobbly was created by the J, as JELL-O Man himself was the E, L, L and O mixed together to create some kind of horrid demon freak never meant to walk God’s green Earth. I also notice that they each have a dash for a nose. Where’d that extra dash come from?! It’s questions like this that answer why there was never a second issue. Brevoort would’ve been all over that shit.
Other than a kid’s cookbook, JELL-O Man and Wobbly were featured in a couple animated commercials that I seem to recall as being pretty sweet. I can’t know for sure until somebody puts them on YouTube.
This comic has three stories, a rather huge insert that I’ll get to in a bit, a couple pages of games and seven different JELL-O advertisements. Our first story, The Outrageous Origin of JELL-O Man and Wobbly is written by Michael J. Pellowski, a regular on Archie Comics and its spin-offs. Richard Howell does all the art here, except for Ken Steacy, who does the cover and advertisements.
All right, I was the very last person in the world to read Blackest Night, but as I was going through the explanation of all the different Lantern Guilds at the end of the book I stumbled across this:
The blue ring charges a green ring and de-charges a yellow.
Is it just me, or does anyone else hear a pair of dice rolling when they read a phrase like that?
I think that the various Lantern Guilds at war with each other would make fantastic role-playing games.
Today is a very special day, as one of the all-time best videogames finally gets a modernized update. To celebrate, here is possibly my favorite YouTube video ever.
And while I’m at it…
The world needs more Von Kaiser.
