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Bendis vs. Johns: Conquering the Big Threat

June 10th, 2012 Posted by Gavok

I’m one of those comic fans who tries not to allow himself to be dragged into the whole Marvel vs. DC argument based purely on the characters and being loyal to them. It’s all about the writers and the quality that comes with it. Sure, there are many times when the scale is skewed immensely, such as pre-Flashpoint when I was only reading a couple DC comics compared to now, but that’s on them. For the past 6-7 years, when you compare Marvel and DC, there’s no better writer sample size than Brian Michael Bendis and Geoff Johns. These two are the butt of a crazy amount of jokes about how they each write 80% of the comics of their respective companies.

Hell, I’m guilty of this myself. If they ever brought back Amalgam Comics, every issue would be written by Geoff Bendis.

They both have their strengths and weaknesses. I dropped all the Bendis Avengers books after growing impatient and realizing that the only reason I was reading them in the first place was because of enjoying what he used to write. At the same time, I’m really loving Ultimate Spider-Man and the whole Miles Morales experiment. With Johns, I lost complete interest in Justice League shortly after the origin arc, yet I eat up his Green Lantern and think his Sinestro is the most compelling character going in DC. Not that that’s hard, considering he has a head start over 95% of the New DC cast.

This isn’t so much a simple Bendis vs. John post, but more a comparison over something Johns does that I’ve always dug about his work and really helps earn him his spot as “that DC Comics guy”. It’s also something that I’ve found Bendis to almost get, only to drop the ball and go the opposite direction.

What I’m talking about is setting up a threat, usually in the first act, that allows the readers to say out loud, “These heroes are absolutely screwed.” This is a lot better as a selling point to a comic than “it’s important.”

I’m going to focus on the event storylines, since these are the ones given more emphasis and put under such a microscope that the two writers have to make extra sure that their threat is something that can’t simply be waved away.

I’m also going to skip over Avengers Disassembled and Green Lantern: Rebirth, since I don’t even really see those as events as just gigantic plot points meant to set up the next several years of storyline. Disassembled is something I read years after the fact and found it to be kind of a mess in terms of storytelling and Green Lantern: Rebirth was a big mess of retcons and reveals meant to pave the way for Johns’ lengthy run on the Lantern corner of the universe.

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Black History Month 2011: Olivier Coipel

February 14th, 2011 Posted by david brothers




Olivier Coipel
Selected Works:: Siege, Thor by J. Michael Straczynski Omnibus

For a while, Bryan Hitch held the crown of slam bang superhero action. On The Authority and The Ultimates, he took his Alan Davis-inspired style and redefined how what cool action scenes meant in cape comics. Hitch splurged on spectacle: hundreds of space ships, hyper-detailed rubble, and battle-scarred landscapes. He held the crown, until Olivier Coipel came along and knocked it right off his head.

My first exposure to Coipel came in House of M, an event comic that had a story that was actually pretty terrible. Despite that, Coipel’s art shone through. His broad, muscled figures really sell the power and majesty of the superhero. He can do that big, nasty superhero action that the fiends live for, and he only got better as time went on. He knocked Thor out of the park, and Siege, with inks by Mark Morales and colors by Laura Martin, looked amazing.

I don’t think of Coipel being a realistic artist, at least not in the way that Hitch or Alex Ross are realistic, but I do think that his comics look real. He’s got more in common with that old Alan Davis style, where characters have believable proportions but are absolutely subject to cartooning or exaggeration for effect. Coipel draws straight up comic books, without realism being the goal. If it looks good on the page, he does it. Sometimes this means drawing regular humans, but more often than not, it means playing with scale. His superheroes are barrel-chested and broad as a house. His faces are cartoony, perfectly caricatured, and exaggerated when things get emotional.

I dig this guy quite a bit. His comics look real because he’s just a consummate artist. He doesn’t have to work in the same lane as Hitch to get the same effect, and for my money, he’s holding the crown of what an event comic should look like.

(I accidentally uploaded a fifth image. Here it is.)

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Scattered Thoughts on the Siege and the Sentry

May 19th, 2010 Posted by Gavok

There’s little more disappointing in comic books than a bad ending. A story that’s bad from start to finish? It happens all the time. A story or series with a rough beginning? As long as they can get past it and get their footing, it gets a pass. A rough ending, on the other hand, easily poisons your final thoughts on a product. For instance, let’s say Return of the Jedi ended with a scene of Luke saving the galaxy by viciously murdering Darth Vader and the Emperor. Not only would that have sucked, but Return of the Jedi would have sucked and the Empire Strikes Back would have sucked in retrospect.

That’s how I feel about Siege, the miniseries by Brian Michael Bendis and Oliver Coipel. The miniseries ended about a week ago and I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it initially. Why did the ending bug me so much?

First, let’s look at the miniseries itself and how it ranks as an event. At only four issues (regardless of the unfortunate delay), it’s really refreshing. With Secret Invasion and Blackest Night, I’ve become completely sick of overly long event comics. This goes doubly for the two examples, as it means every single comic tie-in is going to be the same basic story told over again. Siege is quick and to the point. The issues are action packed and move the story forward at breakneck speed. The tie-ins are quite good for the most part, with the worst being at least inoffensive. It’s the first event where the Ben Urich tie-in mini is actually pretty good.

The art’s rather nice too.

Then you have to look at what it’s all about. Usually with these event comics, they do so well because they’re really dynamic story ideas. You can rant about how people only buy them because they’re important to continuity, but I mostly disagree on the basis of having described these stories to non-comic readers and seeing their reactions. If you tell someone about what World War Hulk or Civil War or Blackest Night is about, a lot of the times they’ll come across as interested.

How do you describe Siege to somebody? “There’s this crazy jerk who is one of the country’s bigwigs and he conspires with a trickster god to attack a floating city of gods in Oklahoma just because they’re there. The crazy jerk has a uber-powerful ace in the hole and a bunch of superheroes interject themselves into the battle.” It doesn’t have any real kick to it.

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This Week in Panels: Week 34

May 17th, 2010 Posted by Gavok

Welcome to a very special Siege/Brian Michael Bendis/Luke Cage/Keith Giffen-themed This Week in Panels. For those of you new to the concept, every week, we take every new comic we’ve read since Wednesday and sum it up with one panel as a way to give you the gist without being entirely spoiler-heavy. hermanos has broken the rule against using full or two-page images as panels, but he writes the non-existent checks, so I’ll let it slide.
(joke’s on Gav, that page from BPRD: King of Fears is the top half of a page and the bottom half are a series of reaction shots. not technically a two-page splash! that’ll be two week’s non-pay for libel. -djdb)

Amazing Spider-Man #631
Zeb Wells, Emma Rios and Chris Bachalo

Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis #1
Warren Ellis and Kaare Andrews

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This Week in Panels: Week 31

April 25th, 2010 Posted by Gavok

Just got back from CHIKARA’s King of Trios and I’m completely exhausted. I’ll do a little trip report of sorts later. For now, it’s panel time.

Amazing Spider-Man #628
Roger Stern, Lee Weeks, Mark Waid, Tom Peyer and Todd Nauck

American Vampire #2
Scott Snyder, Rafael Albuquerque, Stephen King and Rafael Albuquerque

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This Week in Panels: Week 30

April 18th, 2010 Posted by Gavok

Flying solo again this week, so I’ll toss in last week’s Street Fighter II Turbo, since my shop got it in late.

Booster Gold #31
Dan Jurgens

Brightest Day #0
Geoff Johns, Peter J. Tomasi and Fernando Pasarin

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This Week and That Week in Panels: Weeks 25 and 26

March 21st, 2010 Posted by Gavok

For those who haven’t noticed or forgot, a nasty storm caused me to lose my cable connection last week and rather than wait a day to post TWiP, I made the dumbass decision to add it onto the next week. Apparently I was too busy to notice that this week was a huge one regardless, making this a gigantic update. Welp, let’s get moving.

The A-Team: Shotgun Wedding #1
Joe Carnahan, Tom Waltz, Stephen Mooney

Amazing Spider-Man #624
Mark Waid, Tom Peyer, Paul Azaceta and Javier Rodriguez

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This Week in Panels: Week 20

February 7th, 2010 Posted by Gavok

Well, it’s Sunday night and we’re ready to strike!
Our special forces are in for a fight!
With heroes in the air and zombies on the ground!
This Week in Panels is takin’ over the town!
We gotta get ready! We gotta get right!
There’s gonna be some comic art at 4th Letter tonight!

So get ready…
I MEAN, get ready…
ARE YOU READY FOR SOME PANELS?!
A COMIC BOOK INVASION!

This week I’m going against my rule of never using a final, or even last-page, panel for this. Why? Because that Deadpool Team-Up panel completely sums up the entirety of that issue and why Stuart Moore wrote it in the first place.

Batman Confidential #41
Sam Kieth

Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #3
Greg Rucka and Nicola Scott

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“Every time he come around your city…”

January 22nd, 2010 Posted by david brothers

Marvel recently released the Deadpool variant cover to Siege #3, the one that’s tied to their promotion involving Blackest Night covers. Here it is:

Never change, Marvel.

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This Week in Panels: Week 16

January 10th, 2010 Posted by Gavok

More meat than last week. Also features Deadpool’s new black glove fingernails. hermanos pointed them out to me and I can’t not notice them throughout that issue. Why does Deadpool now have black glove fingernails? Why?

Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #2
Greg Rucka, Nicola Scott and Eduardo Pansica

Deadpool Team-Up #897
Adam Glass and Chris Staggs

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