Sometimes you don’t realize how much you miss something until it comes back.

One of the best parts of Spider-Man’s supporting cast are the female characters he meets, befriends, and sometimes dates. Glory Grant, Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane, Betty Brant, Liz Allan, and probably a dozen others. They ran the gamut from weepy and hot-for-teenager Lee/Ditko-era Betty Brant to determined Gwen Stacy to party girl with a heart of gold MJ.

While Aunt May and MJ’s Aunt Anna were both pretty much cut from the same cloth, with Aunt May being a little more frail on occasion, the rest of the women came from all walks of life, and the series benefitted from it. One woman who is absolutely in my top three, though, is Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat.

Felicia brought a more realistic version of the Clark/Lois/Superman love triangle to comics. In a world where you honestly have a choice between the heroic hot dude and the shlub who just kinda stutters a little, who in the world would choose the shlub? Felicia is an attractive cat burglar and lives the high life. When Spider-Man reveals his identity, all she can say is, “Put your mask back on!” It’s Spider-Man she loves, fabulous man of mystery and amazing hero, not Peter Parker, Dude Who Worries About His Rent.

Felicia brings something to the Spider-books that MJ or Gwen never could. She’s got abilities that raise her above the level of “normal comic book girl.” Her bad luck powers are only icing on the cake for her agility, general physical fitness, and ability to plan a crime. She knows the risks and enters into them of her own free will. Her fun-loving nature, too, provides a wonderful contrast to Peter Parker’s constant gnashing of teeth.

She was actually in my first comic, though she jobbed to Venom there. Amazing Spider-Man #316, the beginning of Venom’s big comeback tour. She comes looking for Spider-Man, not knowing that 1) he’s married and 2) moved out. Venom catches her while she’s in Spider’s old apartment, beats the snot out of her, and leaves her in tears. Great going, guys.

Amazing Spidey #606 brought the Black Cat back into the Spider-Man family proper, with her first appearance in the flagship book since Maximum Carnage. Do the math: that’s 16 years. She showed up in various miniseries and probably Spectacular or Web Of, but Amazing is the Spidey book. Seems like a long time, doesn’t it? Luckily, her return to Amazing Spider-Man is also a return to form, as she reminds me of the character that I loved back in the day.

From Amazing Spidey 606, words by Joe Kelly, pictures by Mike McKone, with Chris Chuckry on colors:

Welcome back, Felicia Hardy.

Superhero comics encourage obsessiveness. I know you know it. Don’t pretend that it doesn’t. Paying attention to continuity, untangling the quagmire of a character’s past, and following all of the news and trivia of a company is something we’ve gotten pretty good mileage of here on 4l!, even.

And I mean, I make fun of it all the time, but it’s also pretty interesting. It’s kind of like solving a puzzle. A puzzle with several dozen pieces that all have the same shape, so putting it together is an event. The companies even encourage this with their crossovers and events.

Rizzoli USA, the folks who published Louise Simonson’s DC Comics Covergirls (a book I’ve wanted to read forever but haven’t gotten my hands on) sent over something pretty interesting last week. Marvel: The Expanding Universe Wall Chart is pretty much the perfect thing for a new reader or an old reader looking to pick up some new tricks. First, check out the size of the thing:

That’s twelve feet long by three feet tall. It’s enormous. Essentially, the Marvel Wall Chart is an expanding poster book, accordian style. As you pull it open, and it keeps opening and opening, it reveals more and more Marvel characters, all of which are sorted into “families.” The design emulates an atom, the thing that is at the heart of so many Marvel origins, and each atom features one major character as its nucleus. The Torch anchors the Golden Age and pre-Marvel characters, Spider-Man is at the center of his family, the FF take care of many other heroes and cosmic Marvel, the X-Men revolve around Professor X, and Dr Strange takes care of the magical characters.

Now, that’s all well and good, but images only go so far, right? On the flipside of the chart is a continuity wonk’s dream: pages and pages of info on your favorite characters. They’re sorted by theme, rather than character, so you can see things about teams, kid heroes, origins, names, and so on. There’s even a bit on marriages. I uploaded a flickr set with a few G1 shots of them so that you can see what I mean.

It’s all pretty neat, to be honest. It’s a little tongue in cheek (Hellcat and Hellstorm’s marriage contains the blurb “presumably this ceremony was not held in a church”), and Patsy Walker gets a lot of love, surprisingly. I like it.

Now, here’s the thing that should interest you. I’ve got an extra one of these, new in box/mint condition/still in the wrapper, which means that it’s contest slash giveaway time. Here’s the details:

1. Share your favorite bit of Marvel or DC trivia or continuity porn down in the comments
2. Leave a valid email address in the email box
3. In the name box, put your real name. First name, last name, both names, whichever you prefer. Just no pseudonyms.
4. You have until midnight, this Friday, to enter. I’ll put a reminder post up on Thursday in case you forget to enter.
5. Also, this is open only to US residents. If you want to share trivia, and you’re from Uzbekistan or somewhere, you can, but please mark that down in your comment.
5. Wait until Monday, when I announce the winner and ship them a big fat chunk of Marvel history.

Sound good? Let’s get it in. Show me what you got.

What time is it? Time for another Bat-cast? You know it!

We open on me eating a rice krispie treat (thanks Esther!), move to the Disney/Marvel lawsuits, hop over to Batgirl, and then talk over Batman & Robin! Who’s trying to block the Disney and Marvel merger? What’s up with the possible love interest in Batgirl? Why did David drop Batman & Robin?

We ran a little over time (by half an hour, dang) so look for a Continuity Off-specific episode in a couple weeks!

The status quo for Venom had been changed, perhaps forever. The Venom symbiote had moved away from Eddie Brock, leaving a cancer-filled husk of a human being. While Mac Gargan found success as the new Venom, Eddie would be nearly forgotten about, suffering in a hospital bed. Eddie Brock himself was never a match for Spider-Man from the start. What hope would he have as an antagonist when he’s weakened by a disease?

Around that time, directly after Civil War, Marvel was making a big deal out of Spider-Man’s new look. Or old look. Whatever. The third Spider-Man movie – which featured the black costume – was on its way to theaters and Marvel chose to capitalize it in a way that really didn’t work. Spider-Man would start wearing a black costume again. The whole thing was a list of letdowns.

Was it the Venom symbiote? No. It was just a spandex costume he wore because he wanted to kill the Kingpin. Wearing black means he’s totally hardcore now.

So he’s going to kill the Kingpin? Ha! Come on, this is Spider-Man. The only people he’s killed are Gwen Stacy and Wolverine’s spy girlfriend, both unintentional. Spider-Man’s too much of a pussy to even kill Darkseid with a god-killing gun if he had the chance.

Okay, but the black costume will have some kind of storyline blow-off, right? No, not really. He wears it for an arc or so of his different comics, confusing people who will pick up and read World War Hulk for years to come. Then he simply stops wearing it. Like, at the beginning of One More Day, where it would make sense for him to still have it on, he’s back to his regular tights. Everyone was too distracted by the, “Jesus Christ! Really?!” aspect of that story to give a damn.

But what does that have to do with Eddie Brock outside of cosmetics? The reason Spider-Man was so cheesed off at the Kingpin in the first place was because a hitman accidentally shot Aunt May when going for Peter. Now she’s in the hospital in critical condition.

Aunt May in a hospital bed? Huh. I guess that’s one thing cancer-ridden Eddie Brock could take in a fight.

It’s a nice reference to the famous Kraven’s Last Hunt cover of black costume Spider-Man rising from beneath the earth in front of his own tombstone.

The Last Temptation of Eddie Brock takes place in Sensational Spider-Man #38-39. It’s written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and drawn by Lee Weeks.

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Pull quote link-blogging! I read some good things this past week, and I am here, sharing them, because I love you.

Here’s how it works. Sarting on the 16th, there will be a form field on this site where you can enter your name, address and age. Choose what general type of manga you want (shojo, shonen, seinen, yaoi, etc.), submit the form, and you’ll be entered for a random drawing. Each day, one person will receive 5 graphic novels. A winner is only allowed to win once… BUT! Post a photo of yourself with your manga, and send me the link at “jason@sonic.net”, and we will cross-post it on this blog and send you 5 more graphic novels.

Jason Thompson, author of Manga: The Complete Guide, is giving away a gang of manga. That’s all there is to it, really.

Gonzo’s “There’s not a word yet, for old friends who just met” is an absolutely gnostic maxim. You are old friends because the spark of god comes from the same ancient source, but you have not yet met in the fallen world.

Geoff Klock examines gnosticism and The Muppets? I was skeptical when I saw the title, but dang if he doesn’t convince me over the course of the essay. It’s a fun read, and a nice way to look at a classic.

Third, there is no such thing as a “universal” canon. This is what I call the “Gershwin” rule. From the perspective of an American historian, George Gershwin is a canonic composer, profoundly influencing the development of American music with his distinctive marriage of black vernacular styles to European art forms. But from a Russian or Italian perspective, Gershwin is a local anomaly, a decent American composer who enjoys a far greater reputation among his fellow countrymen than in the international community. (Translation: he ain’t no Stravinsky or Verdi.)

Kate Dacey takes on the question of what belongs in the manga canon, to great effect. She approaches it from an angle I never would’ve expected, in depth, and wow– it’s totally worth the read. Also, she’s in it for the long haul down in her comments. Good golly. One of my favorite reads from last week.

The women on vintage and even contemporary mystery covers are, more often than not, busty blondes that generally fall into one or another simple category: Victim or Vixen. You’d think you’d be able to tell the V-Blondes apart by how scanitly dressed they are, but another pattern is that both types are often pretty disheveled in the clothing department. (Who knew ghosts and murderers loved fabric so much!) The true way to tell if they are a Victim or a Vixen is by their gaze. If they are looking directly at the reader they are a Vixen and are not to be trusted.

Colleen AF Venable at First Second goes in on one of my favorite things: book design. She discusses a few tropes of old school book covers, approaching the design for a new book, and has generally written a piece that’s absolutely worth reading if you care about things like “how books look.”

I’m just glad to find out that I’m not the only person who will spend an hour or two poring over old book covers.

The simple answer is that it is often necessary to emphasize immediate sales in an industry with tight profit margins, and that’s understandable. But if you have the financial backing to shift your priorities slightly — which is the question Quesada was asked — why wouldn’t you? If you could afford to invest in the best creators up front and give them the creative freedom that original graphic novels offer, or allow yourself gauge the success of more monthly comics as longer-term investments, why wouldn’t you?

Laura Hudson, czar of AOL’s Comics Alliance blog, digs right into Joe Quesada’s position on why Marvel doesn’t do OGNs. Another great read, and when I say “digs right into” what I really mean is that she “obliterates his wishy-washy answer.” C’mon Marvel, you got to do better.

It just makes it another crappy Big Two super-hero comic. It will sit on the shelf for awhile, eventually go out of print, and someday exist as little more than a reminder that yes, this is what they thought we’d want. A repellent, juvenile product–lazy in design, ignorant in preparation, and blind to the response it would create.

Tucker Stone looks at the online reaction to a certain comic book, and the comic book itself, and comes to a few conclusions. Which comic? JLA: Cry for Justice #3. He puts a few things into perspective, and wraps it up very well. Some whiny jerk shows up in the comments, too, having clearly missed the point of the editorial, but hey kids! Comics writing!

From Tom Brevoort’sBlah Blah Blog:

Q: Why do booked with international lead characters seem to struggle in the US market, like Captain Britain & MI:13 and Alpha Flight? yes, i know that Wolverine’s Canadian, but APART from him.

A: I don’t know that it’s any one thing, but if I had to hazard a guess, I would say that it’s all part of the same phenomenon that makes it more difficult to sell series with female leads, or African-American leads, or leads of any other particular cultural bent. Because we’re an American company whose primary distribution is centered around America, the great majority of our existing audience seems to be white American males. So while within that demographic you’ll find people who are interested in a wide assortment of characters of diverse ethnicities and backgrounds, whenever your leads are white American males, you’ve got a better chance of reaching more people overall. That’s something that continues to change as the audience for what we do gets larger and more diverse-but even within that diversity, it’s probably going to be easier to make a success of a book with a female or African-American lead before it is a British or Canadian-centric character.

He’s right.

I mean, I know what I want out of comics, but that’s often diametrically opposed to what Don DC or Maria Marvel wants. What I want? Young Liars, Unknown Soldier, all that stuff that’s great, that’s head and shoulders above the pablum? That doesn’t sell. It’ll move 20k out of the gate, then drop to below 10 and be cancelled within a year and a half. Young Liars is gone now, Unknown Soldier is probably on the way out, unless it’s trades do gangbusters.

In short, we, as in the comics reading community, get the comics industry that we deserve. Our buying habits decide the output of the companies. And if people only want stories starring classic characters, stories that “matter” and pay homage to the knotted and twisted chains of continuity… you’re only gonna get stories starring white dudes, with the occasional green chick or redhead playing the background.

Case in point: Hawkeye vs Luke Cage. One has been put into a leadership role on the team, gained the respect of Captain America, and been in New Avengers from the beginning. The other has returned to life after a controversial death, and enjoyed a new lease on life and the return of his long-dead wife.

The last Luke Cage miniseries, barring the recent release of Luke Cage Noir, was the Azzarello/Corben miniseries at the top of the decade. Hawkeye’s latest was New Avengers: Reunion, telling the story of his reconnection with Mockingbird. That was this year.

I’m not judging here, this is value-neutral. But, if you’re going to go, “Our best-selling comics tend to be about our universe and continuity. We should do more of those so we can stay afloat,” you’re going to get comics starring people with several dozen years of Marvel history. All but two of those people are white, and the two are Black Panther and Falcon, who no one cares about anyway.

So if the audience wants stories that matter, you’re gonna get stories starring white dudes. It’s not even racism. It’s mathematics.

The only problem is that it’s also a self-defeating cycle. You aren’t going to bring in a larger audience by telling the same old stories about the same old people because, wait for it, they’ve been ignoring those stories forever. You’re gonna have to take risks, and telling stories about Barry Allen ain’t it. I applaud Marvel for being willing to stick with Black Panther long enough for it to find an audience for that very reason, and I recognize that companies have to make a profit. At the same time, though, I don’t have to read books starring boring characters.

Good on Brevoort, though. He’s a stand-up guy, and it’s nice to see a dose of realism in comics.

Venom was certainly making himself known in late 2004. Not only did he have his ongoing series and his role in Marvel Knights Spider-Man, but Marvel decided to give him top billing in yet another miniseries! This time, we got Venom/Carnage, or Venom vs. Carnage. At least, the latter is how it appeared in the solicits, but the former is how it shows up in the book. I mean, I guess the slashed one makes it easier to type, but adding “versus” makes anything sound cool. Would people be that interested in “Freddy/Jason” or “Aliens/Predator”? No. Not at all.

Venom/Carnage came out in September, 2004, only weeks before the Venomous storyline, which would seemingly kill off Eddie Brock and make Mac Gargan the new Venom. A couple months later, Carnage would be flown into space and torn in half by the Sentry in the pages of New Avengers. So why would they be making a miniseries about these two characters who are about to be changed so radically? Why, it would be for an introduction!

The series is written by Peter Milligan with the art by Clayton Crain. Crain’s style is very unique, looking like an ultra-glossy wax museum made of CGI. His human characters can look very off at times, but when someone’s face is covered and they’re in costume, they look pretty rocking. This goes double for the symbiote characters, such as Venom and Carnage on that above cover. The symbiotes get by on being made to look cool and this guy makes them look cooler, so give them a minseries, why not.

From writing up these articles and having to reread these stories, I think I’ve noticed a hiccup in the storytelling process. In the Spider-Man story The Hunger, it ends with the Venom symbiote saying that it’s pregnant. Daniel Way’s Venom series ends with Venom becoming a huge monster that’s meant to unleash some kind of world-ending output that can’t be described. My own educated guess would be that Toxin, the character this installment is about, was meant to be that offspring. Only, Peter Milligan was plotting Venom/Carnage and thought, “Eh… fuck it, we’ll make it Carnage’s kid.”

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Now it’s time to say hello to corporation say…

E-D-W…
(When there’s trouble you call DW!)

A-R-D…
(Brains are delicious!)

B-R-O-C-K…!

Ah, fun. Check in tonight for a new installment of We Care a Lot. Ha ha!

After sixteen issues, Luke Cage had come to realize that with a title like Hero for Hire, nobody would ever take him seriously. He was rarely mentioned in the press due to the feeling that he was just a mercenary. He took that to mean that he needed a new name and stat. He considered calling himself “Ace of Spades”, but decided it was too ethnic. During a team-up with Iron Man, a villain asked Cage, “But how? This ship’s construction makes what you’ve done impossible!”

“Just chalk it up to black power, man.”

Then he got distracted so much by how right on track he was with a new nickname that he got punched in the ribs by a villain in a robot suit.

As of that issue, the title changed to reflect his newfound name. It also led to a fantastic issue where the villain named Power Man (currently Atlas) took exception to this infringement and fought Cage in a movie theater. This ranks up there with #9, the Cage vs. Dr. Doom issue, as one of the best pieces of the series.

STEEPLEJACK

First Appearance: Luke Cage, Power Man #18
Threat Level: 2
Bizarreness: 4
Lasting Ability: 1

Jake Mallard and his two brothers were construction workers working for Maxwell Plumm. Plumm liked to cut corners whenever possible and the shoddy materials led to the deaths of Jake’s brothers. Jake swore vengeance and spent the next few years building some construction-based weaponry for his own construction-based villain gimmick of Steeplejack.

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Gonna keep this one short and sweet, like the podcast this time!

Music: 6th Sense’s 4a.m. Instrumental
Topic: What If We Ran Marvel and DC?
Find us: via RSS or iTunes
Catch us: next week!