I love Ed Brubaker and I love his work with Captain America. Believe me, I really do. But am I the only one who feels kind of disinterested in Captain America Reborn? Brubaker’s run with the character has shown that mysteries with obvious answers aren’t so bad when the storytelling is excellent.

It looked like they were bringing Bucky back and, lo and behold, they did. It looked like they were going to turn Bucky into Captain America and, low and behold, they did. The stories were obvious based on the hints and how natural they felt, but Marvel still acted like they were mysteries.

It’s not working this time, honestly. We knew from issue one that Cap would be coming back. The first issue was a basic explanation as to how he would be coming back. Everything else has felt like filler. Even worse, we’ve been given some scenes of Steve Rogers alive and well after this, so there’s no real drama to look at.

New Avengers Annual #3 shows Steve surprising everyone by showing up on the last page in his chainmail tights. The latest issue of Iron Man has both Caps there to share their shield. Before either of those is Dark Avengers Annual, ending with Steve in a more SHIELD-like outfit hanging out with Bucky Cap on their hunt for allies against Osborn.

Aha! The plot thickens. Since it was official that Steve was coming back, there had been lots of speculation that he was going to be taking over the Fury/Hill/Stark/Osborn spot as king of the superhero/government relations mountain. This would allow Bucky to remain as Captain America for at least a little while longer. This will probably be covered in part next week as Captain America: Who Will Wield the Shield? is released. This isn’t to be confused with Captain America: All Those Who Chose to Oppose his Shield Must Yield.

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“All right. It’s conceivable you could beat me, Avenger. But it would take you a very long time. Tell me this, though – do you want to?”

“No. You’re not the enemy. We’re all just pawns, in a larger scheme.”

“Then we might be better off letting the others play out the events according to the desires of whoever’s pulling the strings – while the two of us try to find some real answers.”

“You’re on. Let’s go.”

— Batman and Captain America from JLA/Avengers #2

I remember back when Marvel and DC had their Marvel vs. DC back in the mid-90’s, it was my first real introduction to Captain America. Sure, I had seen him pop up in Maximum Carnage (wow, I read some shitty stuff when I was that age), but I didn’t understand what a big deal he was supposed to be until they said that he’s supposed to be Batman’s counterpart.

It was weird, since they didn’t seem to have much in common. When they did that Amalgam event and they merged Batman and Wolverine, it seemed to make some sense more based on the two of them being scowling badasses with kid sidekicks and psycho killer (qu’est que c’est… fa-fa-fa-fa fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-far better) bad guys. Even the idea of Batman being the counterpart of Iron Man worked out better, since their secret identities were virtually the same guy.

Yet Marvel and DC, despite all their differences, has written in stone that these two are not only counterparts, but equals. They’ve gone far enough to show Superman beating up the Hulk and Thor, but even when the fans vote on it, they refuse to show an actual winner in Batman vs. Captain America. I always found that interesting.

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Honestly, if you aren’t reading Hellcat already, I can’t do anything for you. Why aren’t you reading this amazingly charming, funny, fun, interesting, and well done book? It’s really very great, to not put too fine a point on it. David LaFuente’s art is great and unlike 90% of comic art out there.

That said, go read Tom Spurgeon interviewing Kathryn Immonen, writer of Hellcat, at Comics Reporter.

Here’s hoping we see more work out of everyone involved.

I read some comics and I review them here. Just click “Read the rest of this entry” to see them. I know you’re all very excited. Happy Valentines Day!

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“There’s no such thing as bad characters, just bad writers.” – Unknown

It’s the truth. Especially in a medium where characters rarely have one set writer, sometimes not even one at a time, the quality of a character is largely decided by how they’re written. But sometimes a character needs a little more effort to work; characters with no set goal or motivation, a lack of personality or simply an outdated concept. Tigra is one of those characters. She never struck me as interesting in anything I’ve read featuring her; She was either just kind of a generic urban vigilante with a cat theme or caught up in the plights of some society of cat people with a convoluted history that I couldn’t care less about. But recently Marvel seems to have been making people more aware of the character, by making her the one who betrayed Captain America in Civil War, the person the Hood beat the crap out of to set an example in New Avengers and as one of the characters in the House of M: Avengers miniseries. So if you’re going to bring her to the readers’ attention, the least you can do is make her compelling. That scene in New Avengers was the first time I’d felt any sort of emotion towards the character, but it hasn’t been followed up on so far and it’s unclear if it will be (although I’m still holding out since Bendis tends to write stories with a slow burn). So here are some things I would like to see happening with the character to make me interested in reading about her:

– Politely ignore the cat people stuff. It’s unnecessary baggage and too goofy to take seriously in this day and age. There was a Tigra mini a couple of years back by Christina Z and Mike Deodato Jr. that did exactly this. It wasn’t very good because the writing was too cheesy, but at least it tried to do something new with the character and give her a place in the universe. Oh yeah, she became a cop at the end of that mini. That was sorta interesting. Whatever happened to that?

– Change the name while you’re at it. “Tigra” makes it sound like she should a member of the Thundercats. Either go for the Luke Cage angle and get rid of the name altogether (“Greer Grant” has a nice enough ring to it), or change it back to the more generic yet elegantly simple “The Cat”.

– Change the outfit. It makes her look silly. Yeah, I know, she’s confident about her sexuality, blablabla. Lots of people (real and fictional) are confident about their sexuality, yet they generally don’t walk around in a bikini all the time. Besides, we all know the real reason she’s dressed like that. It’s not even a practical outfit, since very rarely is it drawn as giving any sort of support. The only thing it’s good for is removing the impact from dramatic scenes. She doesn’t need a superhero outfit anyway, much in the same way Wolverine doesn’t need one. She has no secret identity anymore and her look is distinctive enough to not warrant a flashy costume. Like I mentioned, she’s supposed to be a police officer now, so put her in a police uniform.

– Yeah, she’s a police officer! That’s one of the things that always appealed to me about Savage Dragon, that he was a cop who got super powers but chose to stay a cop in favor of becoming a generic superhero. Focus on that idea and it’d both give her a unique role in the universe and be the perfect opportunity to show the Initiative in action; Superheroes actively working together with the police force. And, hey, holy crap, guess who’s the new top dog in Marvel’s criminal underworld? The Hood. The guy she’d have a very personal reason for going after. This stuff practically writes itself.

In fact, this can all be brought back to simply remembering that she’s a cop. That one story element from a five year old miniseries suddenly makes the character relevant again. This really isn’t that hard.

You ever get the feeling that the wool’s been pulled over your eyes, just a bit?

Garth Ennis is known for a few things. Blood, curse words, comedic facial deformities, sex jokes, a mild hatred of superheroes, and more blood and then a few more curse words. On the good side, he’s a pretty solid plotter, he knows his strengths, he does great dialog, and he’s the best war writer since Kanigher and Kubert.

Just in case you aren’t familiar, he’s written comics where a demon named Baytor becomes master of hell, Nick Fury strangles another dude with his own intestines, an alien sex pervert becomes a British diplomat and gets eaten by a tiger while dressed in a corset with an orange up his butt, a soldier constantly tries to trick his superior officer into kissing him by faking death, a guy gets his nose swapped with his penis and vice versa, an Australian pope has sex with nuns and curses, the Saint of Killers shoots God, a short man with glasses has sex with a giant statue made out of meat, superheroes are depicted as a bunch of people who are completely worthless human beings (and sex perverts), a dude has sex with himself and then shoots himself in the face in front of his son, and– actually, this is a pretty good sampling of the stuff he’s known for. Plus, this is going to completely ruin the search terms on this site.

Anyway, Ennis has got something of a rep. He’s done his fair share of gross-out comics, though it’s usually played for humor. But, I’ve been noticing something in his comics. He keeps sneaking in these little things that make a scary amount of sense. I don’t necessarily agree with Ennis on the religion front, but he makes good points about how to live life. Sexism, racism, whatever– it’s all stupid. It doesn’t matter. Leave it behind and just do right.

The quote up top is from The Boys #8, a series about some humans whose entire job consists of smearing and then beating the snot out of superhumans, who are all sex perverts and callous jerks. We’ve seen a bulldog have sex with another, smaller dog, and a Teen Titans-alike have a screwed up coke orgy. The book opens with a guy swinging around with his girlfriend like they were in a movie, only a superhuman comes crashing down and basically explodes her on impact, leaving the guy holding her severed arms. There’s also a dude who lives below a comic shop who basically calls Will Eisner a punk. And despite all this grisly stuff, you get little scenes like the one in that image up there.

Punisher: The Slavers dealt with white slavers. On the one hand, it’s a wish-fulfillment fantasy. We, the reader, get our revenge on the rapist and slavers of the world through Frank Castle’s actions. He kills quite a lot of them, and the series ends with him lighting a local boss on fire on video, looking into the camera, and saying “Don’t come back here.” He sends the video back to Eastern Europe with one of the allies of the slavers. On the other hand, though, I can’t remember the last time I saw the aftereffects of rape and kidnapping in a comic. One of the cops featured in the story actually quits the force, because she believes she can do more good helping track and assisting the girls who were kidnapped. The last two pages of The Slavers are heartbreaking. You don’t have the full context here, obviously, but I think the pages are worth sharing. Check out the softcover or the hardcover (B&N link) if it catches your interest. The softcover’s like ten bucks, it’s worth it. I cut out the pages where Cristu was burned alive because they aren’t 100% relevant here.

For reference: Viorica lost her daughter to the slavers.

(words by ennis, art by fernandez)

“All she can do is live with what life they left her.” Ouch.
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Dick Hates Your Blog: Focused on a single issue for a change

Dick Hyacinth is a man after my own heart.

So, because nobody demanded it, I’ve got a few suggestions for those of us who are concerned about the portrayal of women in Marvel/DC comics, yet equally concerned that the debate is getting unfocused, too shrill, or just somehow vaguely off:

1. Don’t treat those who disagree like children, no matter how much they might deserve it. I like a good put-down war as much as the next guy (yes, yes, probably more so), but I like my opponents to be fully-functioning adults. There’s no sport in matching wits with your average Blogorama troll (though there is some fun in mocking them from afar, say at your own blog). Be polite, keep the high ground, don’t make blanket generalizations that you can’t support (again, unless you’re doing it at your own blog).

1a. Maybe you should give the bingo thing a rest. Yes, we might find it funny, but I think it alienates people who might otherwise be sympathetic to complaints about sexism/misogyny. The post which explained the whole bingo concept (which I can’t find right now) does a fairly good job in explaining everything, but I still think this is a fairly exclusionary rhetorical device–you’re for us or against us! You get it or you don’t! In the present landscape, I don’t think this is a useful way to frame the argument. People are much more willing to consider your perspective if they think you’re inviting them to do so, rather than telling them they’re too stupid to understand.

2. Don’t be afraid to moderate comments. This is a tricky one–nobody wants to look like a censor. But some people aren’t interested in discussing issues in good faith; they’re either intellectually incapable (hopefully due to youth) or just not interested in real debate. I wish the powers that be at Blogorama were a little quicker in deleting these sorts of comments, though I kind of understand why they aren’t. For the rest of us, especially those whose blogs end up being the epicenter of a particular controversy: if the commenter feels slighted or oppressed, you might remind him or her that blogs are free. And if you have something interesting to say (or even if you don’t, sometimes), people will eventually notice you.

2a. Don’t feed trolls. I also wish that people who know better would just ignore the type of comment described above, especially those left on Blogorama. It’s good to engage with people who have opposing viewpoints, but only if they’re legitimately interested in honest intellectual debate. Arguing with trolls quickly turns into a screaming match. This might be somewhat amusing when discussing Civil War or something else that doesn’t fucking matter–hell, I think there’s some value to trolling in such a situation. But this is actually somewhat serious shit. Pick your words carefully; don’t let something that matters to you devolve into a cable news talk show.

There’s another couple rules in there, along with a lot more text, all of it worth reading.

He says there what I say here but in a much more concise and less-rambly manner.

For a blog based on hating other, lesser, blogs, Dick’s blog is top notch.

It’s time for another look at decent comic book scenes as having been skewed by horrible Photoshop skills. First, we have Civil War, where Reed Richards shuts down the cyborg Thor clone with his complicated voice-activated code.

Being in an Illuminati meeting was pretty fun stuff if it was a holiday.

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The last comic I read, there was a lot of rape and crying. Kinda harshed my boner for fun, you know?
–Casanova Quinn, Casanova #2

Casanova (words by Matt Fraction, art by Gabriel Ba) can be explained in two lines from a Wu-Tang song:
Yo, too many songs, weak rhymes that’s mad long
Make it brief son, half short and twice strong
–The GZA (Genius), “As High As Wu-Tang Get”

That’s on Wu-Tang Forever, by the way.

Those two lines describe Casanova perfectly. Casanova has, save for the first issue, 16 pages per issue. The average comic has 22 pages. The missing pages are given up to behind the scenes-type text pieces and art showcases. In addition, the series so far is seven issues long, and each issue is a complete story unto itself. One complete mission for Casanova Quinn. The seven issues connect in an overarching way to form the first arc, Luxuria.

Casanova is one of the greatest comics of all time.

I’m trying to review this without ruining it for you, but I think the first issue may end up being a casualty of war. You see, Casanova Quinn is a thief. He’s suave, sophisticated, he’s like Han Solo but more honest with himself. He’s having fun living the life, but everything goes wrong.

Cass has a sister, Zephyr. She dies on a mission, which causes Cass to reconnect with his father Cornelius, the head of EMPIRE. Zephyr was the good twin, so to speak, and the jewel in her father’s eye. Where Cass went left, she went right. Both Cass and his father loved her… because she was not Cass.

After that, Cass’s world goes upside down. He ends up in a parallel universe, one where he died on a mission and his sister, Zephyr, is still alive. Only– things are different. Here, Zephyr is the evil twin. She works for Newman Xeno, noted criminal and head of WASTE. Newman Xeno wants an inside man in EMPIRE, and who better than the evil alternate universe twin of the son of EMPIRE’s top dog?

That’s right. Evil Twin and Evil Twin versus Daddy. What’s the word for that? Ultraoedipal?

Casanova’s dialogue is sharp and pop culture infused, but not in that kind of annoying too cute for it’s own good way that Joss Whedon does it. The characters have real motivations, and these are motivations are ones we can relate to. Cass doesn’t want to save the world, he just wants to do right by someone important to him. Zephyr loves thrills. Cornelius? He gets a good moment where he reconnects with his son.

Casanova has assassin pop stars, hyper-advanced cultures, robots, sex, a dude who creates robots to have sex with, and tons of other mad ideas– but it’s all about the character moments. The ending is real- everything that’s been building up throughout the series comes to bear and zigzags at the last moment, but in a way that feels right. The relationship between Cass and Zephyr alone is a complicated one, and veers from simple sibling rivalry to outright malice, but in this weirdly familial way.

Gabriel Ba’s art works, too. There’s a few panels that are just pitch perfect. The scene where Cass attempts to kidnap a certain man who may or may not be a god is poetry in motion, from eye-opening to “I don’t believe in you.” There’s a panel of someone crying really late in the book that yanks your heartstrings something fierce.

This, along with David Aja’s work in Iron Fist, is some fine, fine work that really brings things to a newer or more experimental level. There are a lot of scenes that really could’ve come off like crap under a less skilled pen. The god scene, yeah, and there’s also a scene where Cass is pretty much reduced to a two-dimensional being and the art totally sells it. He turns into non-toned black lines with no shading at all, and you instantly get the point. Writing-wise, there’s an issue where each page is one of three moments in time and they cycle throughout the issue. Easily could’ve fallen flat– but it works. The art sells it and it ends up working.

Casanova is a brave comic, dense, and better for it. Matt Fraction and Gabriel Ba took a chance and poured distilled quality into sixteen pages. It never stops being interesting, because each issue is like an infodump of fictional and real information. The “savages” from one issue of Casanova are loosely based on a real people, the last living vestige of neolithic society in the modern day. An island of the past sitting in the present.

Casanova is half short, almost, and twice strong. It’s a strong work, and the recently released hardcover is definitely worth your purchase. It’s got more stuff in it than Marvel’s Civil War megahitblockbusterpieceofcrap. Even better– it’s fun.

edit, the next day: I screwed up and forgot to talk about the text pieces from Fraction and art showcase from Ba. Anyway, in exchange, Fraction love from back in the day: Perfection in Slices and A Few Good Comics, wherein I do talk about the backmatter a little.

Hi. I still exist. I’ve just not been comics-oriented for weeks on end.

In the meantime, my Internet buddy Christopher Bird, known far and wide for his rewritten Photoshops of Civil War, is trying a new campaign: “Christopher Bird Should Write Legion of Super-Heroes.”

I’m not a Legion fan, but those of you who are might get a kick out of this.