Sentinel was most likely the first Sean McKeever book I ever read. It hit in 2003, right about when I’d pretty much given up any hope of not getting back into comics. Marvel did me the favor of launching the Tsunami line around that time, with a bunch of new series built for the manga/teen reader. I picked it up, spurred on mostly by UDON’s art, and thought it was pretty good. A boy and his giant death robot out having adventures. Kinda simple, but it worked. Not great, but enjoyable. He later picked up Mystique from Brian K Vaughan and did a solid job there, too.

What really sold me on him was his writing on Mary Jane with Takeshi Miyazawa and Gravity with Mike Norton. Gravity is one of those books that played with the Marvel Universe in an interesting way. Greg Willis, a kid from the middle of nowhere, gained gravity-based powers. Now, he’s grown up in the Marvel U, where heroes have been active for about as long as he’s been alive. So, what does he do? He moves to New York City for college, with a side of superheroing. He sucks at it. And then he gets better.

Mary Jane, though, was excellent work. It was, boiled down, Spider-Man’s Girlfriend Mary Jane. McKeever scripted a high school drama from Mary Jane’s point of view that was part Saved by the Bell, part reinvention of the early era of the Spider-mythos, and part romance comic. Spider-Man figured large in the series, with Peter Parker firmly in the background. It was a good series, and managed to spinoff a sequel miniseries and then a full-blown ongoing called Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane.

2007: Sean McKeever moves across the street to DC Comics. He jumps into Countdown with both feet and, well, it sucked. Everyone sucked on Countdown, though, so maybe that was just the fist of editorial fiat cramping his style. He took over Teen Titans in issue 50. Twenty-one issues and a mini-series later, there were, what, a lot of dead Titans and a whole lot of comics that weren’t exactly worth reading? McKeever gave up the reins to the book, and instead scripted a back-up feature starring Ravager that run until issue 81.

In late 2009, McKeever came back to Marvel with Nomad: Girl Without A World. Nomad was Rikki Barnes, an alternate universe’s Bucky who was trapped on Earth. She had no hope of getting back home, so she was trying to make do with the life she was given. A story about a teenage girl hero trying to find where she belongs? McKeever killed on it. It was a good story, the sort of pitch-perfect teen work that I expected to see out of him when he took on the Titans. It clicked. It worked.

McKeever got an upgrade. Nomad was moved to a back-up story in Ed Brubaker’s Captain America, boosting its profile and reminding Marvel fans that McKeever was back. Though the hardcore espionage tone of Captain America clashed with Nomad‘s free-wheeling teen action, the story was good. It was simple stuff, a hero having to solve a mystery and make a friend (Araña, a heroine dating from the days when Gravity debuted), but it was good. It’s what you want out of teen comics.

Later this year, McKeever and David Baldeon, the artist on Nomad, are launching Young Allies. It’s a teen team book and it sounds like it’s right up McKeever’s alley. He’s bringing in Firestar of the New Warriors, a character he recently wrote to good effect in a one-shot, Araña, Gravity, and a few new characters.

I hate to pigeon-hole the man, but it seems like teen heroes are his thing. He’s good at them, and I like reading about them under his pen. Teen Titans should have been a match made in heaven, with Marvel’s premiere teen writer paired with the only teen team that was still viable in comics at that time, but something got screwed up somewhere and the stories we got were nowhere near what McKeever is capable of. I don’t know why, though my best guess considering other high profile disappointments at DC would be “editorial handcuffs.” Who knows, though. It’ll make a good tell-all interview one day.

But, he’s back at Marvel, and he came out swinging for the fences. I think I’ve liked all of the Marvel work he’s done since he came back. He’s even done a little fill-in on Web of Spider-Man with Stephanie Buscema that I dug. I’m happy that this guy who was there with some interesting ideas back when I was getting back into comics is back to pumping out good stuff years later. Young Allies sounds dope, and I’m honestly hoping that Marvel gives Heinberg a miss and hands over the Young Avengers. McKeever would kill with those characters.

In less than two months, the new A-Team movie will be released in theaters. Even though I have a feeling the movie will be less than great, I’m still excited about it and have been ever since I heard about the casting. As far as I’m concerned, they were four-for-four with their choices and that gave the project a big head start. I suppose as long as it isn’t amazingly terrible, it’s good to see the movie exist because I’m just happy to see more A-Team.

It was a really good show and it hits me of why. The thing was like a Justice League made up of four characteristics that dudes find empowering: suave, slick, crazy and tough. Each guy fully encapsulated these ideals and nobody came off as the weak link. All four had something to offer. That said, the additional members pretty much sucked. By that I mean the two female reporters and that Santana guy they tossed in during the last season. I appreciate the attempt to keep the show fresh in the face of declining viewership, but I can’t remember a thing that guy had to offer. When the show lasted, you had a great foursome of heroes enduring explosions, rampant gunfire that almost never hit a single human being, episode after episode of making fools out of the government and bad guys who could be taken care of in less than an hour thanks to Hannibal being on the jazz. It was manly as hell.

Of course, the man we remember the show for most of all is Mr. T, who played the role of Bosco “B.A.” Baracus. With momentum from his role as the antagonist of Rocky III, Mr. T not only became a highly-paid star during the A-Team’s five seasons, but it practically defined his career. While George Peppard, Dick Benedict and Dwight Schultz each played characters, Mr. T was – and still is – a character in himself. Baracus was nothing more than an extension of his real life persona to the point that it’s hard to tell where Mr. T ends and B.A. begins. Even to this day, he stars in Snickers commercials where he gets so outraged at a man’s cowardice that he fires Snickers bars at him from a helicopter and warns him not to make him do this again because he hates flying.

And God bless him. I think the world of Mr. T and it’s hard to say exactly why. I guess he’s just a larger-than-life personality that accumulates nostalgia, super-strength, unique style, badass disposition, camp and a genuine heart of gold. Not only that, but he embraces what he is. Not as endearing as him kicking cancer’s ass (T-cell lymphoma, ironically), but endearing enough.

I thought I’d celebrate the lead-up to the A-Team movie by taking a look at Mr. T’s many comic book appearances from over 25 years. That’s right, over 25. Eat that, Norris!

What better way to start it off than Marvel’s A-Team miniseries? It lasted three issues, with the first one written by Jim Salicrup and drawn by Marie Severin. If you’ve read this far, I’m sure you probably already know what the A-Team is about. A handful of soldiers are wanted for a crime they didn’t commit and now go from city to city, righting wrongs as soldiers of fortune. There’s the brilliant, cigar-chomping tactician Hannibal, the quick-witted ladies man Face, the insane and childlike “Howling Mad” Murdock and of course, B.A. Baracus. Oh, and there’s reporter Amy Allen, but she never did anything of importance.

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A large part of the appeal of superheroes is the ongoing narrative. Like soap operas, wrestling, and movie franchises, people like to drop in and see what’s going on with a character. While there are Elseworlds, What Ifs, dreams, alternate universes, and house shows, there’s a clear series of stories that are “real.” You can trace the biography of Clark Kent from 1938 to 2010, and buy books that tell that story from the beginning. Regular reinventions re-tell his origin, but with rotary phones replaced with touchtone phones, and then newspapers replaced by the internet, and then the internet replaced by newspapers again.

This has expanded from a biography into a mythology. It’s not enough to have Clark Kent from ’39 to ’10. You need to know Clark Kent’s place in the DC Universe, and how he relates to thousands of other characters. There is a narrative, whether on a small scale or a macro scale, that you can follow from A-Z. Superman died [mumble] years ago and this is how it affected Blue Beetle. Peter Parker fought Norman Osborn in college, and here is how that affects the Marvel Universe. Stories that do not fit into that narrative are either handwaved away in favor of the new interpretation of the character or deprecated and consigned to the realm of “imaginary stories.”

The idea of “real” stories is one that Marvel and DC both have wholly embraced. It is the stuff that runs in the veins of big events, and the reason why comics fans claim that they hate events but buy them anyway. “I want to know what happens! This matters!” You want that next chapter in the ongoing story, you need to know what happens to Peter Parker in Civil War, and you want to know the effects of Secret Invasion on the greater Marvel Universe. You’re invested in the narrative.

That investment leads to the immediacy that drives the direct market. You can go to the comic shop every week and get an update on whichever universe you prefer. If you don’t have that immediacy, that lust for the periodical, you have no reason to hit a comic shop and can just order the completed stories a few months down the line and read them at your leisure. DC’s recently stated wish to push back against trade waiters and emphasize the monthly comics (a move I find, frankly, idiotic and backwards) is their latest attempt to maintain their stranglehold on that market. These are the lifers, the ones who go in, buy their comics, complain, and buy them again the next month.

Series that don’t tie into the narrative sink like rocks. Barring aberrations like Deadpool’s current status, who ride a bubble of interest until it fizzles out, anecdotal knowledge says that niche books don’t sell. Recent casualties: Blade, Blue Beetle, Captain Britain & MI-13, SWORD, and Brother Voodoo. Books like Runaways and Agents of Atlas are repeatedly relaunched, repositioned, and revamped in an attempt to keep readers. Runaways in particular was changed to tie directly into the greater Marvel Universe for its second volume.

Those books get cancelled because retailers know that readers want important stories, so they order accordingly. Who cares what happened in Runaways? Is Spider-Man even in that? And The Mighty? Who is that? Is Green Lantern ever gonna guest star? “Save ______” campaigns, barring the amazing dedication of Spider-Girl fans, rarely work. The books get resurrected, retailers order a couple extra copies at best, since the last series failed, and then we’re left right back where we started: “Save ______.”

Simple question: why? Why are the books that are “real” considered more “real” than the others? In the end, the only thing you get out of reading a “real” story is a different set of fake information about a fake character. Both results are equally fake. You think somebody who only ever watched The Dark Knight cares that Batman once fought a dude with eyeballs where his fingertips go? Or that Spider-Man getting married matters more than that time Venom drove a truck in the Spider-Man cartoon? No, because here is the truth: all stories are fake stories. Granted, there is a certain amount of pleasure in following a character’s ongoing adventures, but let’s be real: all stories are fake stories. Being part of a string of fake stories doesn’t make it any more real than the other fake story.

So, why is Amazing Spider-Man more real than Spider-Man Noir? Easy: Marvel says so. Or DC says so. Or whoever. They have a vested interest in keeping their captive audience, for lack of a better phrase, so they maintain something approaching a canon, a group of stories that are “real.” Those other stories, Elseworlds and What Ifs and whatever, are fake, and you don’t need them to know what’s going on. If you buy them, that’s great, but look–Siege is what you need. Buy Green Lantern because it’s important.

My least favorite question in comics is “Is this in continuity?” That’s a frustrating question, especially when recommending a book to someone. There is the implication that stories that are in continuity matter more than ones that don’t, when that is undeniably false. I read Spider-Man comics for a few years without ever picking up Amazing Spider-Man.

Nowadays, I think the thrice-weekly Amazing Spider-Man is a great book, one of the most consistently good cape books on the stands. It has had its low points, its dips in quality, but the overall package is good. Last January, it was moving about sixty thousand units.

Spider-Man Noir is honestly one of my favorite Spider-Man stories. The writing was on point, the art was excellent, and it all came together very well. As far as Spidey stories go, it hits all the notes to make it a classic. It shipped thirty-one thousand copies.

Why the discrepancy? One is real, the other is not.

The problem with this system is that quality does not matter. Avengers Disassembled and Ultimatum were deck-clearing exercises. Everyone hated Spider-Man: One More Day, but it sold 150k. Identity Crisis was a terrible mystery and Blackest Night ended when a ghost popped up in the last issue and told everyone how to beat the bad guy. But, since these books are important, they sold gangbusters. Add a logo or a banner to a low-selling comic, script a tie-in to the important event, and watch the sales jump while people see what’s going on with the greater continuity. And then watch them fall once the continuity cop stuff is over.

Death to canon.

I hate the way it’s used in comics. Rather than having stories that matter, treat every story like it matters, Elseworlds or no. You can still do the ground-shaking status quo events, you can do sequels, and you can do long-running series. In fact, the way Marvel collects its events already does this. If you go to the store to buy Annihilation, you have Annihilation Book One, Annihilation Book Two, and Annihilation Book Three. They contain several stories from a variety of writers, but all tell the story of the Annihilation Wave. House of M has been collected into several softcovers. And in the bookstore, these books do not have any primacy over Spider-Man Noir or Agents of Atlas.

What’s important is the story and the creators. Not the canon, not the format, not the wrapper, not the company that made it. The story and the people who created it are the only ones that matter in this equation. By removing that fixation on the canon from the situation, comics fans can find themselves dozens of new books that are just as good, and sometimes better, than the canon-centric titles they buy in droves and talk about online.

We get the comics industry we deserve. By focusing only on the Universes, you miss the good stuff. I shifted my perception and found a wealth of books I would’ve otherwise ignored that rocked my socks off. I’m a firm believer in liking what you like, but at the same time, if I ruled the world? Comics would be a whole lot different than they are now. Fake stories are fake stories, no matter what anyone says. Once I started treating them like that, I started liking comics a whole lot more than I did already.

I’m ambivalent about the Batman and Robin run so far.  There are some great characters and the stories have all the lurid pulp appeal that a Batman fan could want.  At the same time, there are places in which Morrison heaps on needless complications that detract from the overall story.  (What was the point of making Jason Todd a redhead with a gray streak?)

But I’m intrigued by the fact that Deathstroke popped up in the last issue.  The character has basically been used out in the last few years.  He’s come to be a generic villain, which is a shame given the unusual character he started out as.  Morrison, however, does not do generic villains.  I’m willing to bet that Deathstroke is in there for a reason.

I’m wondering what reason, though.  Deathstroke, in every iteration, seems extremely unlike a typical Morrison character.  Morrison’s characters, although they vary considerably, all share a febrile, hallucinatory energy.  Deathstroke has always been the grizzled, plain-spoken mercenary/soldier.  It’s an incongruous match, and I’m interested to see how the writer and the character match up.

Ideas?

And I like it. 

Lex Luthor has always been one of my favorite villains.  Well, any character can be my favorite or least favorite depending on how they’re written, but I like the concept behind Lex a lot better than I do most villains.

For one thing, businessman Lex is not the kind of villain who will kill everyone in the room.  The Jokers, the Deathstrokes, and the Prometheii made me pretty sick of that.  Luthor is the type to slowly, surely, brilliantly grab for more and more power.  He undertakes plans with a specific and productive end and doesn’t just go for off-the-charts death and destruction.

Which isn’t to say that there isn’t emotion and insanity in there.  Luthor’s main motivation has always been more clear and – for me – more understandable than the motivations of other villains.  When he got a Lantern Corps ring, his motivation was Avarice, but for me, he’s always been ruled by envy. 

This is a guy who prides himself on being the master of the universe, and all of a sudden a bigger, stronger, more powerful, and more popular guy shows up.  In his city.  And that guy isn’t even of Luthor’s own species.  I can just feel him burning with frustrated rage and jealousy, and twisting it around in his head until he has the moral high ground. 

And when you put him in a business suit, he has to keep himself restrained enough to keep that moral high ground, at least in his own head.  It makes for a great drama, great stories, and great, stable, continuity.

At least in theory.

*sigh*

Maybe that cover’s just a fantasy sequence.

Awards exist to make people mad. I mean, honestly, has anyone ever gone “Wow, those Oscars sure were on point this year?” Sandra Bullock won an Oscar and a Razzie in the same weekend, for the same role. She knows what’s up. This goes double for comics awards. Superhero fans speak out against indie bias. Indie fans feel eternally underrepresented. Everyone else is mad that they didn’t get nominated. Fans wage war like their life depended on it.

With that said, hey, Harvey nominations are open for the next twenty-four hours! Last year was interesting. Nascar Heroes #5 was nominated for Best Single Issue or Story, alongside Kyle Baker’s Nat Turner, a Love and Rockets, and The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard. Witchblade Takeru was nominated as one of the best manga of the year. So, you know, these aren’t perfect. I’m sure we’ll see some curveballs this year. But, at Deb Aoki‘s urging, I’m going to put my King of the World hat on and sit in my I Am Always Correct chair and tell you who should be nominated for what, as long as I’m familiar with the category. “Best Original Graphic Publication for Younger Readers?” I dunno, what do kids read these days? Amelia Bedelia? That should win it.

And before you tell me how wrong I am, or that I left off some book… look at this hat. Look at this chair.

C’mon, son.

BEST WRITER
I know you’re probably expecting Grant Morrison here, but he completely underwhelmed me in 2009. Ed Brubaker, another great writer, wrote Captain America: Reborn, which felt like a stumble in an otherwise great 50-issue run. So, who gets the nominations? Johnathan Hickman has managed to make intrigue and relatively new characters work in Secret Warriors to a fantastic degree. Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto packs all the emotional punches you need, just 500 zeus a body. John Arcudi and Mike Mingola’s BPRD: The Black Goddess is the best comic you didn’t read. Ed Brubaker’s Criminal: The Sinners, unlike his mainstream Marvel work, was good fun. Dark horse candidate: Zeb Wells for Dark Reign Elektra. Considering my apathy toward, or active stance against, the Dark Reign status quo, Dark Reign Elektra told a great tale, and is easily the best Elektra story since Frank Miller killed her.

BEST ARTIST
Amanda Conner is the first name that pops to mind– she’s done some impressive work on Power Girl, particularly in terms of facial expressions and body language. Add in obvious front-runner JH Williams III for Detective Comics (overall page design/versatility), Takehiko Inoue for Vagabond (intense emotional work), Daisuke Igarashi for Children of the Sea (amazing seascapes), and Naoki Urasawa for Pluto (Atom’s hair) and you’ve got a great line-up. Tough to choose.

BEST CARTOONIST
Last year was a strong year for cartoonists. Simple, off the top of my head, nominations should go to Darwyn Cooke (The Hunter), David Mazzucchelli (Asterios Polyp), and Naoki Urasawa (Pluto, 20th Century Boys) right off the bat. Inio Asano’s What a Wonderful World! was particularly strong, despite being older than 2008’s Solanin, but I don’t know that it’s award-worthy, at least not in this category. Stan Sakai’s Yokai, however, was fantastic, a veteran artist just having fun. Final spot goes to… Takehiko Inoue (Vagabond, Real). No one else flips styles like he does, and the story in both those titles is excellent.

In the end, I’d say that either Inoue or Mazzucchelli should walk away with this one. Both showed an absolutely appalling range of talent in their books. I’d be hard pressed to choose between the two.

BEST LETTERER
I’m having trouble thinking of much lettering that knocked my socks off in 2009. Mazzucchelli’s Asterios Polyp was inventive and enhanced the storytelling in the book, making it the front-runner for this section. 99% of Big Two comics last year had completely generic lettering. Some of the DC stuff used the old default lettering templates that used to be on Blambot. I love Viz’s books, but none of their lettering was anything but functional. Nothing fancy. Paul Pope’s lettering on Wednesday Comics stuck out and was distinctive. John Workman did a fantastic job on The Winter Men Winter Special. Clem Robins turned in quality jobs on 100 Bullets, BPRD, Wednesday Comics, and Unknown Soldier. Final spot goes to Jared K. Fletcher for co-lettering The Winter Men Winter Special (?) with John Workman, doing solid work on Young Liars and the criminally underrated Renee Montoya backup in Detective Comics.

BEST INKER
Anybody but Danny Miki, I guess. Art Thibert on Mark Bagley looked okay, Kevin Nowlan inking Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez in Wednesday Comics was a treat.

BEST COLORIST
Just throwing out some names here: Melissa Edwards (The Winter Men Special), Jose Villarubia/Lovern Kindzierski for their work on Paul Pope’s Wednesday Comics story, Paul Mounts for his work on Power Girl, Dave Stewart for BPRD. Laura Martin for her Rocketeer recoloring job.

BEST COVER ARTIST
Dave Johnson wrapped up 100 100 Bullets covers. JH Williams III got me to buy Detective Comics. Sean Phillips is doing amazing work on Criminal. Darwyn Cooke’s The Hunter stands out on the shelves. Inio Asano (and the Viz design team, I assume) had frankly spectacular covers for What A Wonderful World! 1 and 2. Pow. This one was easy.

MOST PROMISING NEW TALENT
The problem with this one is how you judge new talent. Does new mean actually new, like began working in the past [period of time]? Or does new mean new to the mainstream, for whatever value of mainstream you subscribe to? Give this one to Kate Beaton or Jay Potts.

BEST NEW SERIES
Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, and Amanda Conner’s Power Girl (DC Comics) takes this one in a walk. Or they would, but there is some stiff competition from Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto, Daisuke Igarashi’s Children of the Sea, and Johnathan Hickman’s Secret Warriors. I think Mark Waid and Peter Krause’s Irredeemable just barely missed the cut. The first three or four issues were a little too “Mark Waid vs the Internet” for my taste, though the later issues picked up considerably. Batman & Robin‘s first three issues were fantastic, but the next three were terrible. C’est la vie. Number five is Brandon Graham’s fantastic King City.

BEST CONTINUING OR LIMITED SERIES
Captain America, Spider-Man Noir, Power Girl, Pluto, or Real? Take your pick.

BEST GRAPHIC ALBUM – ORIGINAL
You can probably guess three of the entries here: The Hunter, Asterios Polyp, and Gogo Monster are the obvious picks. Empowered volume 5 was excellent, with a sublime blend of action and character work. The last entry for this category… Marian Churchland’s Beast. I loved it and said so, and I’d even say that Churchland deserves both a nomination and a win for this one.

BEST GRAPHIC ALBUM – PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED
The Complete Essex County, The Life and Times of Martha Washington in the Twenty-First Century, Vagabond volume 5 (Vizbig Edition), and I Kill Giants Titan Edition were all spectacular repackaging of previously collected material. The Martha Washington hardcover was beautifully designed, with a great red, white, and blue theme. Vizbig manga is the best kind of manga– three books at a time in a large size. The Titan Edition of I Kill Giants added a ton of pages to an amazing book, with gobs of special features after the story ended. Though I’m not a fan, I have to give it up to Absolute Promethea. The large pages really make JH Williams III’s art pop.

BEST AMERICAN EDITION OF FOREIGN MATERIAL
Most of the “foreign material” I read last year was manga. But, Abouet & Oubrerie’s Aya: The Secrets Come Out was great. Taiyo Matsumoto’s Gogo Monster was worth the cash. Urasawa’s Pluto was one of my favorite works. I’m going to point you in David Welsh’s direction for more suggestions. I read a lot of manga, but have very specific tastes. I love One Piece,, but I don’t know if it’s actually award-winning material.

SPECIAL AWARD FOR HUMOR IN COMICS
Everything I read has people dying or cursing in it. I’m singularly unqualified for this one. The Muppet Show should definitely be nominated, though. Dinosaur Comics, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, GastroPhobia, and (obviously) Kate Beaton. Webcomics are funny. Comic books generally… aren’t.

BEST BIOGRAPHICAL, HISTORICAL, OR JOURNALISTIC
PRESENTATION (ANY BOOK, MAGAZINE, FILM, OR
VIDEO THAT CONTRIBUTES TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF
COMICS AS AN ARTFORM)
4thletter! is the best, death to the rest.

I quit the Avengers books. Bendis’s plotting was dragging, Dark Reign was bugging me, and I was honestly bored since some point around the middle of Secret Invasion. Billy Tan on art didn’t help. I also quit pretty much every DC comic. I love Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, and Amanda Conner’s Power Girl, and I check in on Batman & Robin once in a while (when Quitely and Stewart are on art, mainly), but that’s where it stops.

I didn’t quit Marvel’s cosmic books.

Over the past four years, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, with a strong assist from Keith Giffen, have quietly carved a stale and stagnant corner of the Marvel universe into a vibrant and fascinating sub-franchise. I’m not particularly a sci-fi guy, but DnA have written some frighteningly consistent books over the past four years, ones of such great quality that when you get an issue that’s merely “good,” you feel a little disappointed.

Ed Brubaker’s Captain America is a consistently good comic. Good, but a little too much of the same thing, month-in, month-out. You run out of things to talk about. Not so for this cosmic stuff. DnA plugged several shake-ups into their plotting, keeping their heroes rocking from status quo to status quo without feeling jarring. It fits together almost like a series of movies. You can hop in wherever you like, though some points are obviously better than others. But that’s okay. I’m here for you. Let’s talk about lame characters gone good, terrible concepts turned interesting, and nobodies turned heroes.

Let’s talk about outer space.

Annihilation

It began with Annihilation. An army of bug monsters from space, the Annihilation Wave, set about the destruction of all that is not them. The story is one thing. What’s important here are the characters.

There is Thanos. He was born on Titan, Saturn’s moon, to a race of godlike beings. He was born twisted and deviant, and lusts after the personification of Death. He’s committed genocide and attempted omnicide to gain Death’s favor, to no avail. When Death senses the Annihilation Wave coming, she describes it as “something wonderful.” Thanos allies himself with Annihilus so that he can partake and impress his love.

Drax the Destroyer used to be strong and dumb, an outer space version of the Hulk. Then, he died. When he came back, he was lean, smarter, and less strong, but doubly lethal. Drax was created for one reason, and one reason only: to destroy Thanos. The need to wipe Thanos off the face of the universe is in his genes. That is his goal, and when faced with his target, he can’t help but pull the trigger, and damn the consequences.

Before Drax was Drax, he was Arthur Douglas, father to Heather Douglas. On a trip through the desert, the Douglases witnessed Thanos landing in a spacecraft. Deciding to preserve his secrecy, the Mad Titan blasted their car. The blast instantly killed Heather’s parents and accidentally threw her clear. Thanos’s father took Heather to his homeworld and trained her to be one of them. Now she is Moondragon, a master martial artist, telepath, and scientist.

Imagine being the child of the greatest hero in space. Now, imagine being the genetically-grown kid sister of the heir to that legacy. And then, imagine that heir dying, and being the only one left alive to continue the family business. Phyla-Vell of the Kree, daughter of Mar-Vell, better known as Captain Marvel, knows exactly how that feels. Her father was a hero. She is nowhere near as popular. When Moondragon, her girlfriend, is kidnapped by Thanos, she’s forced into the spotlight.

The Silver Surfer, Norrin Radd, is a former herald of Galactus, the world-eater. He has little interest in seeking out worlds for his former master to find, but once Annihilus’s forces begin attacking Galactus’s heralds in an attempt to secure and weaponize Galactus himself… well, the Surfer is forced to make a decision.

Ronan the Accuser is a Kree warlord with a giant hammer. Desperately loyal to his people, even when placed on trial for treason, Ronan is forced to battle his own government to prove his innocence and expose the rot inside the Kree empire. When you are accused of a crime by Ronan, it is best to simply take what’s coming to you.

Unless you are Gamora, the most dangerous woman in the universe. She is Thanos’s adopted daughter, and part of a race with the unlikely name of “Zen Whoberi.” Thanos raised her to eliminate the Magus, the evil aspect of Adam Warlock. She worked with and for Thanos for years, and betrayed him when he revealed himself to be a threat. Lately, she’s been mind-controlled and her reputation has diminished. With the aid of Godslayer, her newfound sword, she wants to get back out there and make people fear her name once again.

Adam Warlock is the messiah. No, really. He’s here to save us all. The problem is that at some point in the future, he becomes the Magus, a religious demagogue, and works to enslave the universe. His loyalties shift and blur because of this, making him particularly untrustworthy. Messiah or doom–which is it?

Imagine Peter Parker joining the Green Lantern Corps and you have the basic building blocks of Richard Rider, better known as Nova, the Human Rocket. He has more or less the same origin as Hal Jordan, but at the point Annihilation begins, he’s just a foot soldier. He’s five years in to being a Nova Centurion, one of thousands, but forty-eight pages later, he’s the only one left. And since the Nova power is shared amongst the entire Nova Corps, what happens when Rich is forced to contain all of it? What happens when you send a man to war?

That’s all you need to know to get started. The story begins in Annihilation, which is composed of three volumes (Book 1, Book 2, and Book 3). Annihilation tells the complete tale of the Annihilation Wave, as well as laying the foundation for the revamping of Marvel’s cosmic universe. Later was Annihilation Conquest, which told of an opportunistic invasion by a crappy X-Men villain turned fearsome. This was collected in two volumes (Book 1 and Book 2), and told the story of a race that was bent on turning sentient beings into slaves. Annihilation Conquest set up two series. Guardians of the Galaxy was about a group of heroes who banded together to protect the universe from an oncoming threat. The galaxy had been rocked by two incredible threats, back to back, and enough was enough. Someone had to put a stop to it. In Nova, Rich Rider is faced with the daunting task of rebuilding the Nova Corps from scratch and policing a galaxy on his own.

While all this was going on, a mad earthling assumed control of the Shi’ar empire, a race of bird people. Others did not take kindly to this, which led to the War of Kings. The aftermath of the war, called Realm of Kings, left a hole in space, and that hole leads to something akin to hell. In another universe, life has completely defeated death. Lovecraftian elder gods and infected versions of heroes we know lurk in the darkness, waiting for their chance to push through.

At this point, DnA are dragging the cosmic heroes into another catastrophe. Their solo series are on hold for The Thanos Imperative. The Mad Titan is back, pissed, and stronger than ever before. Complicating matters is the incursion of the Lovecraftian monsters from the other universe, but when you pit the ultimate manifestation of life gone wild against a god who worships Death herself… well. We’ll see.

I can’t stress how solid DnA’s cosmic work has been. They’ve taken perennial z-listers like Star-Lord and Nova and turned them into multifaceted, interesting characters. They’ve taken goofy concepts like Annihilus and the Phalanx and made them into believable threats. And they have done it month-in, month-out, since 2006.

That kind of dependable quality isn’t anywhere else in comics right now, save for Mike Mignola and John Arcudi’s BPRD. This cosmic stuff where the great stuff is hiding out at Marvel right now. There have been a few mis-steps. CB Cebulski’s two-issue Darkhawk miniseries was perfect deleted scene material and entirely missable. Some of the art has been questionable, but never for too long. But, if you don’t read Marvel, or you don’t read this part of Marvel, you’re missing that good stuff. Get familiar.

Booze, Broads, & Bullets was not going to be a week at first. It wasn’t going to have posts by other people, either. No, I had the great idea of reading Frank Miller’s entire collected body of work and doing a post on every single book over the period of– well, I don’t know how long. I know I own almost all of his trade paperbacks, save for things like Bad Boy and his ’80s charity/one-off stuff, and that’s like 19 or 23 books. At that point, writing that much over a short period of time, essentially doing with Tim Callahan did with Grant Morrison: The Early Years, would leave me dead, depressed, or worse. I think a book on Miller’s work like Tim’s book would be fantastic, but not writing it myself over a short period of time. So, instead, I drafted some friends, turned it into a week, and we went at it. Booze, Broads, & Bullets speaks for itself, I think. What you see is what you get. We had a team-up. You were great.

About three weeks before BB&B, I began the process of rereading every Miller book I owned. I put my already sizable to-read stack on pause, making occasional breaks particularly enticing new purchases, and breathed Frank Miller for a few weeks. At some point during this process, I think during the first week, Tucker Stone emailed me and told me that I absolutely had to read James Ellroy’s American Tabloid trilogy. I quote: “This was made for your brain.” He was right. Tucker is a guy who knows good books. He takes bad ones to task, yes, but when it comes to recommending books, Tucker doesn’t steer you wrong. And he didn’t this time, not even close.

My days were Frank Miller. Lunch breaks at work, that week I had to ride the bus because it was raining too hard to bike, and a bit of the evenings were dedicated to reading about hard men and harder women. That hour I usually spend in bed staring at the ceiling before I fall asleep was given over to James Ellroy, Kemper Boyd, Ward Littell, the Beard, and Jack Kennedy. I knocked out American Tabloid in two weeks, longer than I usually take for real books, and moved on to The Cold Six Thousand. I’m about halfway through it right now.

I’m addicted to Amazon. I’ve got Prime and I make an obscene number of orders a year. I made an order during BB&B, round about halfway through the week. I pick up One Piece 24-27 (four for three? shoot, I’ll take advantage of that all day), the beginning of the Skypiea arc, and Usagi Yojimbo volumes one through three. It wasn’t until I got them and looked at them that I’d realized what I’d done. I’d ordered four violent children’s books and three violent rabbit samurai books, but ones with an all-ages kind of violence.

I needed a break from crime, bastards, and brutality, apparently. And those are pretty much my favorite ingredients in fiction.

The same kind of thing happened last year. I was doing regular reviews of Lone Wolf & Cub from spring to summer. I made it almost exactly two months in, writing up six volumes of Lone Wolf & Cub, one of Path of the Assassin, and then a few miscellaneous posts that weren’t focused on anyone book, before quitting. I own at least nine of these books, and I was burning through a book a week or so, so I know I read several I didn’t write about.

The thing about Lone Wolf & Cub is that it is very… dry. It’s fairly formulaic, you can guess story beats once you make it to volume three or so, and it is just a miserable read. It’s good, don’t get me wrong, but absorbing all of that in a short period of time? It’s not very pleasant. By the end, I didn’t even want to think about the series again. Ogami Itto was too perfect, and his setting too horrible. It was a Debbie Downer, is what I’m saying. So, I took a break. I found something else to do. I took a few days off and came back talking about Asterios Polyp.

I was actually talking about detoxing from comics to Esther the other day. She’s frustrated with the direction of DC in general, with a specific focus on the Green Arrow family. DC has several books that have been piling misery upon misery for years at this point. The Teen Titans franchise, whether Teen Titans proper or the grown-up and trashy Titans, has been toxic since long before Geoff Johns left in 2007. The Green Arrow titles have been tripping from tragedy to tragedy ever since Green Arrow and Black Canary got married.

It gets old. At some point, you’ve got to have some kind of a release for all the misery and pain. I’ve read that Ian Sattler and Dan Didio have been saying that Cry For Justice “worked” because people are upset about the book. And well, no, it didn’t work. People are mad at the book and what happened in it, but not because it’s sad. They’re mad because it’s just another body on the pile. Ted Kord’s death was sad. Lian Harper’s death was pointless, cheap theatrics meant to shock you, rather than make you actually feel anything. But hey, yell “BOO!” at someone often enough and they stop caring.

Why did one straw break the camel’s back? Here’s the secret: the several dozen dead or maimed bodies underneath it. Lian’s chilling with Gehenna, the girl who was tortured and killed so that Black Firestorm could live in White Firestorm’s head in a bunch of comics I’m not going to ever read.

Daredevil’s life has sucked for years. Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev’s Daredevil helped draw me into reading monthly comics again, but I quit the series sometimes during Brubaker’s run. I got tired of watching Daredevil’s life spiral into misery, over and over and over again. I’m tired of that story. I’m numb to it. No, that’s not right. I don’t care. Spider-Man’s life sucks. The writers throw him curveballs every couple of months to shake things up. But, there are issues where he hangs out with his friends. There are horribly sad issues. There are happy issues. There are bittersweet issues. There is a mixture of content, which makes sure that each punch to the gut actually feels like a punch to the gut.

I got my first tattoo back in March. I was asking about how much it’d hurt, and the guy told me that after a certain amount of time (or trauma), the body goes into a kind of shock and you barely feel anything. That didn’t happen with the tattoo, but it absolutely happens with comics.

I’m supposed to feel bad for Roy Harper when he’s imagining his daughter screaming and crawling and dying slowly in the rubble of her house. But hey, guess what! I don’t. I don’t care at all. I’m more amazed/offended/appalled at how blatantly emotionally manipulative and inept all of it is, like the comics had been written by and for people who only had superhero comics as a reference point and had never seen a good movie or read an actual book. Hysterical melodrama-infused superhero decadence in the worst way. It’s a sob story, only the person telling it doesn’t know when to pull back and stop layering in unnecessary details.

But hey, wack writers tell wack stories.

Storytelling is essentially lying. It’s making up a new truth and hoping people believe it. The trick to being a good liar is to keep it simple and effective. When Crossed, Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows’s incredibly violent and obscene zombie miniseries, treats the death of a child in a more reasonable and mature way than a DC Comics-branded comic book, you’ve got a problem. Your emperor has no clothes. We don’t believe in you or your stupid stories.

You want to know my review of Cry For Justice and Blackest Night and all these other comics that keep banging that one drum and then go “GOTCHA!” when you go “Ew, what is this?”

“Who cares.”

Sorry for the long break there. For the past few months I was more busy writing about Eddie Guerrero and Brock Lesnar than Eddie Brock, so I had to let the whole We Care a Lot thing fall to the waysides. Now, then. Where were we? Ah, yes. I was talking about alternate reality versions of Venom for the sake of completion. Now it’s time to look into the future.

I was originally going to call this installment “Brock to the Future”, but I noticed that no matter what alternate future you look at, Eddie’s days are almost always numbered. Even in the futures where he could still be theoretically alive, he’s not only dead, but they don’t feel the need to explain how he bit the dust. Same goes for Mac Gargan, except for when he appears as Scorpion in Spider-Man: Reign.

I’ll go farther out into the future and inch my way back towards the present. That means starting with All-New Savage She-Hulk, a miniseries by rocking writer Fred Van Lente. The new She-Hulk is Lyra, who has come to Earth from an alternate future, hundreds or thousands of years from now. Her mother is Thundra, a warrior leader in the never-ending war between barbarian men and amazon women. Thundra went back to the present, scraped some DNA off the Hulk’s face during a fight, went back to her time and created Lyra. Lyra is the bane of her people for having a father, despite her great strength. That strength, by the way, comes from a zen mentality. If she gets angry, she becomes increasingly weaker.

So what does she have to do with Venom? In her time, the men are mostly split into tribes that worship the long-dead superheroes. Since her reality seems to be based on Osborn never being dethroned, the tribes are mostly copycats of different Dark Avengers. They have the clawed Howlers, the Goblinkin, the Men of Gold, the War Gods and, of course, the Crawlers.

Not only that, but the Venom symbiote still exists in her time. Man, what kind of life expectancy do these creatures have, anyway? The women warriors have their home protected by a moat with the creature now known as “The Black Bloom” residing. The women are treated with a pheromone that renders them invisible to the symbiote, meaning that when the tribes of Crawlers, Goblinkin and so on chase Lyra, they end up getting devoured by the hungry pool of black.

Later on the story, when Lyra is in the present, she fights the Dark Avengers. She’s amused that Venom wears the Black Bloom and easily disposes of him. After all, her pheromones make her into Venom’s kryptonite.

Read the rest of this entry �

I got an email from José de Leon toward the middle of last week’s orgy of a commentary on violence. He had noticed a pretty funny, and fun, comparison between Frank Miller and Michael Jordan. I thought it was funny enough to post, and José gave me his permission, so here we are! I laughed a couple times reading this. You should, too. Index for Booze, Broads, & Bullets here.

I thought I’d trot this out again, seeing your blogging series “Booze, Broads ad Bullets”…

I actually noted this duality back in the mid-1990s (I posted this to a long-dead message-board many years ago) and have been updating it to match current events in both men’s careers… They both stand out to me as the pre-eminent “populist icons” of their respective fields, probably their fields most prominent and socially-influential modern-era practitioner — these are the men who inspired Air Jordan shoes and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, expensive “prestige format” sneakers and expensive “prestige format” comics. There is also to my mind a singular intensity to their work (some would say that intensity borders on the pathological), and tracing the arc of their careers, and the quite-evident passion that both men brought to their stage has influenced my own notions of how to achieve success in life, after seeing it duplicated at the highest level — more than once.

Next spring is the 25th anniversary of THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, and Frank Miller is back next spring doing Batman comics titled “THE DARK KNIGHT” (continuing the All-Star Batman series with Jim Lee). Things come full-circle.

In celebration of the Hall Of Fame induction of The One And Only Frank Miller Of Basketball…

FRANK MILLER: THE MICHAEL JORDAN OF COMICS?

I’ve been calling Miller “The Michael Jordan of Comics” in conversation for many years now, and I believe with good justification. Looking at both of their careers closely to this point, the similarities are uncanny …

Both are tremendous successes at their chosen professions, and are considered by many the very best of all time at what they do:

MJ: comics
FM: basketball

Both are considered among the greatest ever at the essentials of their profession. On a fundamental level they are impeccable and exemplary — you can find little wrong in what they do, and moreover almost everything is done perfectly right. And because of their strength in the fundamentals of their craft, they are able to be spectacular at times, almost at will:

MJ: scoring and defense
FM: drawing and writing

Both combine in their work a rare mix — an intense ferocity over-reaching his peers, reminiscent of:

MJ: basketball’s greatest winner, Bill Russell
FM: comics essential storyteller, Will Eisner

And a sublime elegance, beauty, power and spectacle, reminiscent of:

MJ: Wilt Chamberlain, a legendary, larger-than-life figure in basketball history, and owner of basketball’s gaudiest numbers (100 points in a single game is most notable)
FM: Jack Kirby, a legendary, larger-than-life figure in comics history, and owner of comics’ gaudiest artistic achievements (100 issues of Fantastic Four is most notable)

And both have acknowledged the influence of the two men in their work.

Each cut his teeth and refined his “chops” early in his career during the early 1980s:

MJ: at the University of North Carolina
FM: drawing, then writing, Daredevil

Both shortly after moved onto a different stage in an unorthodox setting:

MJ: at the 1984 Olympics, showing his stuff against international competition
FM: moving to DC, to create the creator-owned project RONIN, showing the influence of international artists Moebius and Goseki Kojima

Fans still rave about things he did in the spring of 1986:

MJ: scoring 63 points against the Boston Celtics in the playoffs
FM: producing THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS

He began a breathtaking, show-stopping creative assault on his profession at large shortly after this work:

MJ: winning two slam-dunk competitions, winning Defensive Player of the Year, showing his all-around talent, and setting the highest season scoring average by someone other than Wilt Chamberlain (37.1, also the best of his career) between 1987-1990, becoming probably the most prominent star in basketball.

FM: puting out a varied body of work ELEKTRA: ASSASSIN, BATMAN: YEAR ONE, DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN, DAREDEVIL LOVE AND WAR, ELEKTRA LIVES AGAIN (personally I think this is his high point yet as an artist), mostly as a writer, showing his all around talent, between 1987-1990, becoming probably the most prominent star in comics.

Both have had a significant effect on the larger economy:

MJ: thru his success as a commercial spokesperson. Fortune magazine once estimated the contribution of Jordan to the success of the businesses he was involved in as $10 billion US.

FM: thru his success at revitalizing Batman as a haracter, he revitalized the Batman merchandising franchise, leading to movies and TV series that owed more to DARK KNIGHT rather than Adam West. He also inspired the TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (largely a parody of his series RONIN), indirectly building one of the most successful line of toys and merchandise from the ’90s.

Both have been under the long-time commercial association of a company located in Oregon:

MJ: Nike of Beaverton, OR
FM: Dark Horse of Milwaukie, OR

Major color schemes:

Chicago Bulls: Red, White, and Black
Sin City: Black, White and Red

Both took major break at the height of their career and power from their chosen profession:

MJ: to try and play major league baseball (1993-94)
FM: to try and become a Hollywood screenwriter (1989-90)

And did not do as well as they did away from the profession that brought them fame:

MJ: barely breaking a .200 batting average in double-A level baseball
FM: Robocop 2 and 3

Both returned from that break and sucked originally coming out of the gate, with one really spectacular moment:

MJ: that whole #45 jersey thing, and getting knocked out the playoffs for the only time in the ’90s; 55 points against the New York Knicks
FM: that whole Martha Washington thing, Spawn/Batman; HARD BOILED

And after the bumpy restart, got down to business and came out with a more efficient, yet still devastating style:

MJ: developing a fadeaway jumper, posting a record 72-10 won-lost record for a season, and winning three more NBA championships for a total of six over the decade
FM: developing the stark black-and-white SIN CITY style, producing 300, and producing a total of nine SIN CITY graphic novels over the decade

Entered the 21st century making a controversial return to DC, which many critics branded as a spectacular failure:

MJ: as director of basketball operations and ultimately as a player for the Washington, DC, Wizards.
FM: returning to DC Comics to produce (work-for-hire) a sequel to BATMAN:THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS.

Introduced yet a THIRD evolutionary stylistic change far, far from their original overpowering style in their latest comeback:

MJ: as a coach-on-the-floor jump shooter
FM: admitting to using a more cartoony style in his later SIN CITY work and DARK KNIGHT 2

They have had one very significant collaborator through the bulk of their career:

MJ: Scottie Pippen
FM: Lynn Varley

And worked with a strong individual performer during their abortive comeback to DC:

MJ: Richard Hamilton
FM: Jim Lee

Other significant collaborators:

MJ: Dean Smith (college coach), Phil Jackson (pro coach, championship era), Horace Grant (workhorse power forward, pre-baseball), Dennis Rodman (gonzo power forward, post-baseball), Doug Collins (coach from waaayy back, coach in latest comeback)
FM: Denny O’Neil (editor at Marvel and DC), Diana Schutz (editor at Dark Horse, SIN CITY era), Klaus Janson (workhorse inker, pre-Hollywood), Geof Darrow (gonzo artist, post-Hollywood), Bob Schreck (editor from waaayy back, editor on latest comeback)

And really stretching it… both played themselves in a movie:

MJ: SPACE JAM
FM: Jugular Wine: A Vampire Odyssey (1994 — you can find it on the IMDB)

Both have had visually overwhelming feature films produced with their heavy involvement chronicling their incredible runs of success during the 1990s:

MJ: the IMAX feature, “Michael Jordan TO THE MAX”
FM: Robert Rodriguez’s virtual transcription of the SIN CITY comic books to a feature-film version

Both have also had features directed by the director Zack Snyder:

MJ: Come Fly With Me (NBA Home Video, 1990)
FM: 300 (feature film, 2007)

Both had films presenting in stunning fashion their last great stand in 1998, when it has been argued by critics that they had reached the storybook pinnacle of their respective careers — if it was the last image of them, how magnificent was it:

MJ: Michael Jordan TO THE MAX, presenting Jordan’s last championship run and final title-winning shot with the Chicago Bulls in 1998
FM: 300, the film adapting the comic book portraying the last heroic stand of the Spartans at Thermopylae, produced as a comic by Miller in 1998

In 2007, both separated from their long-time spouse:
MJ: Juanita Vanoy
FM: Lynn Varley

Both men made a bit of an unintended splash with their controversial comments in front of the national media:

MJ: With his pathologically-competitive “acceptance speech”, broadcast on ESPN, at his induction into the Basketball Hall Of Fame

FM: With his out-of-left-field assertion that Iraq declared war on the United States, broadcast on NPR, during his 2007 interview after the State of the Union