In this interview, Matt Brady asks Dan Didio about, among other things, Jason Todd’s recent killing spree.  Didio responds with this:

Let’s take this one from the very beginning. When a story is going to be told where we feel that a character crosses a moral line, we just don’t put that in arbitrarily. We think through how that affects everyone around him, and what the long-term ramifications of that action will be.

The perfect example of that was when Wonder Woman killed Max Lord. We thought that all the way through – we saw how that affected the relationship between Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. We saw what happens when that relationship breaks down, and how that affected the entire DC Universe, as well as how it was ultimately resolved. We saw those causes and effects all the way through. Or another case – Identity Crisis – we saw those events, the effects of those events, and how they played through the DC Universe. Every time that we try to do a major story where we feel a moral line has been crossed, there are always ramifications because of it. Things that you’re mentioning with Jason – of seeing him kill – are all potential stories for the future. Unless he doesn’t make it out of Battle for the Cowl, these are all story beats that we’d like to see play out throughout the DCU, and they’re all fodder for future storytelling.

Although I can see the point that he is trying to make, and although I recently wrote about this very issue as it pertains to Jason Todd, Didio’s response rings false to me.

In the first place, can’t any development become a set up for future stories?  If Jason Todd were to unexpectedly come into his own and become the hero of Gotham City, wouldn’t that be a good set-up for future stories?  It could be a call-back to the earliest version of Batman, a man who carried a gun and who regularly killed criminals while still being a respected hero.  If Jason Todd were, instead, to be captured, it would also be a set-up for future stories.  The Batfamily would have to band together to get him out.  If Jason Todd were turned into a frog, it would be a set-up for future stories.  (Best.  Zatanna story.  Ever.)  Since this justification can be given for any story at all, it becomes meaningless.  It doesn’t matter that an action can cause interesting events in the future if there is no reason for that action happening now.

Secondly, Gotham has been rather heavy on set-up lately, while being light on story.  Remember War Games?  It was a multi-title, multi-month event that set up Black Mask as the ruler of the city.  Then he didn’t do much.  Then he was killed.  Now he’s back.  And he’ll have, I suppose, a lot of competition for supremacy, since Face The Face was a long story that set up White Shark as the crime boss of Gotham City.  Where has he been lately?  Maybe he was bumped off by whoever it was who came out on top in Gotham Underground.  The name escapes me, since I’m pretty sure there have been no stories told about them, either.  Or maybe he’ll fight the Al Ghul family, headed by Ras, Nissa, Talia, Ras, Talia?  It’s not that DC hasn’t published some great ongoing stories.  It’s just that I’ve been hearing a lot about a set-up for future stories and comparatively little about the stories themselves.

Finally, there is Didio’s line, “Unless he doesn’t make it out of Battle for the Cowl, these are all story beats that we’d like to see play out throughout the DCU.”  Didio has a tongue-in-cheek interview style that doesn’t always come through in writing, so perhaps he’s making a joke.  If he isn’t, the entire paragraph falls down.

I don’t want to descend into angry fanism, but I’m growing a bit tired of hearing that no decision is arbitrary, that there haven’t been any mistakes in characterization, that there will be a justification for a certain character’s actions in a year, another book, an unannounced-and-unplanned-yet-possible storyline.  There should be a reason why a character acts a certain way.  That reason should have something to do with the character’s actions, attitudes, or immediate wants.  “We can write about it later,” is not that reason.

I got back in town today, after a short trip down south, and I picked up my comics, including Green Arrow and Black Canary in which our heroes are having marital trouble (more on that, later), Oracle: The Cure on the cover of which Barbara Gordon legally changes her name to Boobara Gordon (more on that, later), reviewed the posts for the last few days, including David’s entry about Frank Miller and his grim n’ gritty image (more on that, later) and read the latest Newsarama Interview with Dan Didio in which he explains Jason Todd’s latest killing spree (boy, have I got a lot to do), and then I read Superman/Batman.

In Nanopolis,Superman has been shrunk by the Prankster, and Batman shrinks himself to go after him.  As they navigate through a shrunken world, mysteriously able to breath, despite being small enough to not be able to inhale oxygen, both are picked up as the saviors of different groups of beings.  Batman is picked up by a nomadic tribe of micro-organisms who have been enslaved by nanites, which the Prankster scattered around his lab.  Superman is abducted by the nanites themselves, who wish to use his energy to grow larger and take over the world.

Meanwhile Robin and Steel stay in the lab, trying to maintain contact with Batman and Superman, while the Prankster keeps up a running commentary while tied to a chair.

That story is a giant loon, fed on nothing by nuts and crammed into a whack-a-mole machine.  I dare you to read that without feeling better about life in general and comics in particular.

It’s not that I don’t like Ollie and Dinah’s ongoing soapy drama, or the fact that Jason Todd is back and conflicted.  It’s just that this story, and this series, is the distilled essence of comics.  Imaginative, convoluted, ridiculous, and fun, it manages to take its readers to other worlds.  It’s equally generous to its characters dealing out very little death and limited angst while still giving them a wider range of emotions than they’re allowed to display in just about any other comic.

It warms my heart to know that any loonball story I might think up, and I’ve thought up a few, could be matched or topped by whatever the next story of Superman/Batman is.

(Also, two different birthday parties are mentioned in this particular arc.  If this story ends with cake in the next issue, I am seriously going to do a little dance in the comics shop.)

Previously in the Venom series, our anti-hero got in a dumb adventure with Wolverine that ended with Venom saving the life of a government guy by the name of Agent Daryll Smith. As you’re about to see, Smith would be a major part of Venom’s latter day good guy exploits.

There are only 11 months of his series left. The sad truth is, Venom has nothing to do as a character at this moment. He left San Francisco behind, his ex-wife has walked away from her supporting role and he doesn’t have any real long-standing villains to build up against. He’s just hanging out in New York City, dealing with whatever comes after him. Even the Hunger made a point of how monotonous it’s getting.

What Venom needs is direction.

On Trial (Venom #50-52) is again by Larry Hama, with Josh Hood doing art. It’s always interesting to see the change in the Marvel landscape through this series. If you look back, you see so much change in the previous four years. We saw Peter Parker’s fake parents, Scarlet Spider, Spider-Ben and now we’re back to a story with regular, old fashioned Spider-Man. Not only that, but we have several namedrops of the whole Heroes Reborn garbage.

Read the rest of this entry �

I had a weird realization at some point last week, I think it was. I started writing about comics a little over four years ago on livejournal, in January 2005, and moved to blogger and my own URL on March 25. I drafted Gav and another friend to help write and we puttered along until September ’05, where we petered out. In November, I moved the blog to WordPress, losing the blogger posts in the process, and relaunched. Check the rhyme. Once we got going, we kept going. I’m not even remotely happy with my old posts, but that’s just me. Four years later and a couple roster changes later and we’ve got a great crew, varied tastes, and writers I would read even if this weren’t my blog.

4l! has a new logo now, courtesy of my friend Adam Rosenlund. I asked, he delivered, and I left impressed. We’re reworking the headers to fit the new logo, too. Rather than doing a cool comics scene or something super dialogue heavy, we’re going to post ones that are just great examples of comics art. The four we have up for this week are pretty easy. There’s a cool Reed Richards panel, a Venom bit for Gav, a Batgirl for Esther, and a Peter Parker for me. We’ll keep it moving with these, so that there’s always something new for you to see up top.

I’m thinking of new things for 4l! for 2009. I already have some things in the works, but give me time. If you absolutely can’t get enough of us, you can follow me on Twitter for a daily dose of disrespect and music references.

At this point in this series of Venom articles, I think it’s right to note that whether you like the comics, hate the comics, like the character or hate the character, you have to admit that the whole symbiote idea is, deep down, really original and full of potential. Really, look past the bad stories and you’ll see a comic book concept that has so many places it can go. It’s like Kryptonian DNA or Multiple Man’s powers. Years later they’re still coming up with new tricks for them all. The sky’s the limit.

Yet, their ideas for characters outside of Venom were never all that creative. Carnage, blood stuff aside is just “Venom but pure evil.” Scream is little more than “Venom as a woman with Medusa hair.” Where are the ninja symbiote hosts? Where are the quadruple amputee symbiote hosts with spider legs sticking out of their torsos? The Siamese twins? At least our topic today, Hybrid, had enough creativity in his concept to be slightly more than “Venom but a black guy.”

I don’t blame you for not knowing who Hybrid is. He’s only had a very limited amount of appearances. While he isn’t the most exciting Marvel character to fall into obscurity, there are some interesting things that set him apart from his symbiote brethren. For one, human host Scott Washington is actually an established character. That’s a bit of a rarity, isn’t it? Eddie Brock showed up after Spider-Man got rid of the costume. Cletus Kasady appeared specifically to set Carnage’s origin in motion. Donna Diego was a complete afterthought to the extent that they didn’t even give her or her symbiote self a name until way after the fact. Even Pat Mulligan, who I’ll get to way down the line, was introduced in the same arc that made him Toxin.

Read the rest of this entry �

Ultimatum #4 got delayed for a whole month (surprise) and my plans for doing another weekly set at the end of April have fallen apart. Instead, I got another idea and I need all your help.

With Deadpool making his movie debut, or whatever you would call it, on May 1st, I’m going to do a series on the Top 50 Deadpool Moments. I’m going to flip through his entire comic history and jog my memory.

What I need is suggestions. Don’t post them here in the comments. Email them to me. For those of you who actually like the character, what scenes in his 19 years of existence do it for you and why? An issue # is helpful, but I mainly want an explanation for why you enjoy the scene for the sake of quoting.

Funny stuff or serious stuff, whatever. It’s all good. Just try to think outside the box a bit. Yes, the “Shoryuken!” and “little yellow boxes” bits are classic, but try to think of something more on the obscure side. Like Bullseye showing up at Wade’s funeral or his final conversation with Cable or that time he heavily considered chopping his dick off because of his amped up healing factor making his replacement limbs stronger.

Also, expect a new We Care a Lot in a couple hours.

Yesterday I posted about how some characters zig-zag between their strengths and their flaws, and how that was surprisingly representative of real life.  We all struggle with certain things all our lives, and the way characters have to re-visit the same issues over and over is often quite realistic.

Then someone brought up Cassandra Cain in the comments. 

I haven’t made a secret of my dislike of her recent character change, and I think she represents a good example of the problem with this zig-zag method of character development.  I always felt that they got Cassandra Cain completely wrong since her series ended.  Suddenly she could read, write, and speak several languages instead of being able to barely sound out a few words.  For the entirety of her series she was shown as having a horror of killing anyone, after a traumatic incident in her childhood.  In One Year Later and in her mini-series she seriously considered killing her father.  It was just, in my view, all wrong.  All terribly, terribly wrong.  I considered her a completely new character who happened to have the same name as a previous character.

Continuity, however, doesn’t make the same exceptions I do.  According to comics, Cassandra Cain can be said to have the same back-and-forth relationship with casual murder that Jason Todd does.  Anyone writing her from now on can make a case for any story in which she considers killing someone, based on her time in Robin, Teen Titans, and the Batgirl mini-series.  Sure, if someone who feels the way I do about Cassandra Cain writes her in future, she’ll be a sweet kid with no social skills, the best fighter in the world, and an unbending morality.  But if the next writer goes by her mini-series, she’ll be a cranky teen fighter who is always one outrage away from beating someone to death.  And their work will make this new characterization more ingrained and defensible, and the cycle will continue.

This, I think, is why continuity and character geeks shout ‘out-of-character’ so loudly and so angrily.  Once upon a time Batman was a guy who snapped criminals necks and had a fiancee.  A little later he was an eccentric father figure who fought crime and goofed around with Robin and Superman in roughly equal proportion.  Then he was a detective.  Then an ultra-reclusive obsessive.  It only takes one really out-of-character story to change a character for the forseeable future.

I have no doubt the massive fan rampage begun by Stephanie Brown’s death was the thing that eventually brought her back.  Perhaps if a group of fans had yelled and screamed and written angry letter to DC comics, Cassandra Cain would still be a character I recognize.  Although I’ve grown out of the phase of fanhood in which I blame everything I hate on arrogant and heartless editors who labor all day to enrage and disappoint fans, I can see the use in kicking up a fuss every now and again in defense of a character you love.

And so it appears in the preview of Battle For The Cowl #2. . . oooops, spoilers already . . .

Read the rest of this entry �

This is something stupid I came up with months back that some people still seem to get a kick out of, so I figured I’d share it here. A while back, somebody posted this cover image at the Something Awful forum of one of Arthur “ZOMBIES!” Suydam’s covers for Wolverine.

The image is old news, but it’s still fun to laugh at now and again. I mean, look at his face! That smile! His lack of teeth! The way he’s just so jazzed about stabbing that guy with his claws!

I figured out a way to enhance that cover. I want you to click the above image into a new tab or window so you get the full-sized version. Did that? Good.

Now I want you to press play on the following YouTube clip from Strange Wilderness and keep it on while staring at the above Wolverine image.

Congratulations! I just wasted your time!

I mean, there’s Incredible Hercules and Agents of Atlas and all, but I hold a place in my heart for this recap page for Dr. Doom and the Masters of Evil #3.

Indeed.

It really is a fun miniseries and it’s kind of a bummer that it’s only four issues rather than six. Also fun? Marvel Assistant-Sized Spectacular #1. Not only do we get a story about D-Man as the Captain America of the Iraq War and Jason Aaron writing American Eagle, but a lengthy Mini-Marvels story starring Hawkeye. I love those.