snap judgments

I’m kind of starting to enjoy these quick bits of furious webcam-ing.  This is really what I do on my ten minute break at work if I’m not hungry or aren’t reading anything.  I set up (harder than it looks as the video is so dark), record, check levels, edit as much as I can with Windows Movie Maker and then head back out to sell more books.  It’s kind of fun and gets me thinking again.  If there are at all entertaining, keep telling me and I’ll keep filming bad videos from the stockroom.

Okay, so it’s one thing to overhype your stuff to the tried and true fans; by this point, we should expect every issue of every comic that rolls off the Marvel assembly lines to fundamentally change our lives and bring peace to the Middle East.  No, let’s not get into whether or not the issues actually deliver, let’s stick with where our expectations should be.   Marvel should make it sound like every character will be the axis of their universe because somewhere, out there, that character is to that loyal fan.   All their books should crack the internet in half and cause a mad rush to the stores to but every copy and then some.  We’re fans.  We already love your product.  Marvel’s job is to make us love them more.

The common media needs to be reminded that comics still exist and that they’re pretty nifty and cheap entertainment.  Honestly, that’s it.

Anything more is either going to get confusing and be a waste of time, yours and theirs.  I remember watching Joe Quesada on the Colbert Report when Secret Invasion was coming out and asking myself, “Why is he finishing a rather fantastic interview having to explain what Skrulls are?”  Seriously, watch ’till about the 4min mark and then imagine the viewer’s brain just start translating Quesada’s voice into a Charlie Brown schoolteacher.  Not even the easy visual gag of seeing Obama or McCain morph into Skrull heads doesn’t save the obvious and uninteresting plug.  It starts out great, don’t get me wrong: using Colbert to tell people who the new Cap was going to be and when the issue came out made it easy to understand and relatable.  Telling him that he was still in the Presidential running in the Marvel Universe had the right effect:  I remember people coming into the shop to ask if that was true and to pick up at least a Spidey issue to check it out.  None of those guys asked for Secret Invasion.

So when Marvel promised ‘Civil War-like’ promotion of Captain America #600, some of us were already sitting down.  Mind you, it could have been mind-blowing: new Cap could have shook hands with President Obama and indeed, the internet might have cracked, just a little.  No advance idea of what the book was going to be about or why we should start hyperventilating now, retailers were once again caught with the Lady or the Tiger.  Order a bunch and be left with stacks of comics that don’t move or order too few and miss that frensied fevor when it turns out to be something huge.  We make the orders, hold our breath and…

… wait, that’s it?  Steve Rogers’ return is ‘Civil War like’?  NO!  It’s the first thing we all thought and I mean all, fans and non-fans.  Yeah, the rubes fell for Superman’s death, but fool me once, shame on you.  Everyone and their mom knew Rogers was coming back, it’s a freakin’ comic book trope!  You’ve got to be kidding me that this is what all of that was for! Not only that, it’s promotion for the start of a story.  Not the result.  Not the first appearance.  The beginning of a comitment to read this sucker until you get the payoff you expected before the issue came out.

Don’t get me wrong, Ed Brubaker has been writing the most consistantly amazing Captain America stories I have ever read.  The sun will rise and set and Captain America will entertain and delight you, even if it’s just Bucky having a birthday.  When I got a chance to breathe the same air as Mr. Brubaker last February at WonderCon, he was as giddy as a schoolgirl when he mentioned that July was going to be huge for Cap.  A schoolgirl, people.  Don’t try and get the image of Ed Brubaker in pigtails out of your head, just know that I’m deadly serious about trusting him with this very obvious story.

But that’s me.  I’m a fan.  I’m already sold and this is just trying to be the cherry on top of my awesome Cap sundae.  For the average man on the street, hearing that the start of a story will be coming out on a Monday (“You mean they still make comics?”) bringing back a character from the dead becomes a joke on NPR.

Lemme show you how it’s done:  this Saturday, June 20th, at 10am, I am returning from the dead.

I’m serious.  Go to Metro Entertainment this Saturday and see Yours Truly sell you a goddamned comic again because I’ve finally got the Doctor’s OK to go back to work.

That, my friends, is a payoff.

And God granted us Dan Slott.

The Baltimore Comic-Con revealed to us the way and the light by announcing DAN SLOTT was going to be taking over writing chores on the Mighty Avengers, the finest Avengers news I’ve heard in a great long while.  Let me explain:

Originally, Mighty Avengers was supposed to be the ‘real’ Avengers book.  Widescreen action with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, as opposed to Earth’s Most Popular Heroes over in New Avengers.  There was supposed to be a difference in action and adventure in the two books and from it’s first yelling-screaming cover, I had a front row seat for action action ACTION!!!

And then they fought girl Ultron, a Venom Bomb, and Doctor Doom.  Then Secret Invasion hit.

I know I’m not the only one who wasn’t really ‘feelin’ it’.  Despite throwing three rather unique looks at three very popular Marvel villains, Doom being quite possibly the Mother of All Villainy and Awesomeness in the MU at the moment, I still don’t feel like these Avengers have really accomplished anything.  The girl Ultron story took far too long with a threat they’ve faced time and time again (and honestly, was better used in Annhilation: Conquest), the Venom Bomb was strangely handled too quickly when you think about it (I mean, Venom’s still plagued by his symbiote after how many years and they all clear up a city-wide infection in a few issues) and then the rather bland Doctor Doom appearance… I’m not feelin’ it.  I’ve seen the characters done better in other books.  I’ve seen balls-to-the-wall action done better in other books.  The real Avengers story wasn’t brought to the table.

Over in Avengers: the Initiative, we’ve gotten a great look at a very clear cast with a very clear objective: train to be superheroes.  There is a tremedous cast of characters here, all of whom have gotten some measure of time in the spotlight.  The action is there, there’s been some mystery given to us in small doses and the overall theme of the book has been pretty solid and fun to follow.  They had one of the best tie-ins to World War Hulk thanks to how easy it was to fold in the overarching plot with the book’s own purpose.  The had the added benefit of being ‘B-Listers’ so to speak and could go out, fight evil, get affected by it and create a good story as opposed to that one issue of Iron Man during World War Hulk that had Tony Stark on the ropes and in a dire situation and then promptly put him back to normal the issue after.

Dan Slott has done such a remarkable job with Avengers: the Initiative that it only makes sense that they would give him the big boys to play with.  From the interview given above it seems as if his stylings on the book won’t differ that much from how well he was doing on Avengers: the Initiative, except to make it more awesome.

My hopes are high.

I didn’t always, but I really like the Authority.

I’m sure somewhere Warren Ellis has said it smarter or better or not even this at all (seriously, YOU try and predict that man!) but it’s kind of the logical extension of the Justice League.  If people as powerful as Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman just hung around and waited for the Justice Phone to ring or worried about when Lex Luthor ot that Star Alien Doodad were going to rear their ugly head, it seems sort of a waste doesn’t it?  We get a lot of superheroes leading ‘normal lives’ or ponying up to charity work between punching evil in the face, but what would happen if they just stopped and devoted themselves to 24-hour, 365 day-a-year ass whuppin’?  If they became THE AUTHORITY (just like the name of this cartoon!) of the planet?  Are these people up for it?  What kind of world would they make?  How on Earth would you oppose people in a hgh-tech flying fortress just waiting for your ass to step out of line?

It’s brilliant and from this idea have come some very awesome stories (and some stinkers, but hey, such is comics).  The heart of the matter is there and I’ll always sneak a look at what’s got their name on it this week to see if they’re talking about the theme I really like.  Sometimes the Authority will show up in a crossover and just stand around long enough to have a little yellow box with their name hover next to them and sometimes their latest volume is dropped like it’s hot from two people you think would do really well with the theme (everyone thank Grant Morrison and Gene Ha, kids.), but on the whole, I’m waiting for them to get back to their overseeing roots.  To see what happens when the world’s most powerful people regulate.

Authority: World’s End #1 caught my eye as Number of the Beast and DreamWar and whatever else Wildstorm is doing did not:  it had their name on the book and the characters on the cover.  Woo!  Imagine my surprise to find out that the Carrier had crashed and the world was under a general apocalypse!  Man, where had I been? Now, over on Funnybook Babylon, the crew there had seemed to take some issue with the rather cliched idea of surviving the world when it done gone bad and how boring the idea of post-apocalytic worlds are these days and how much they really didn’t like the characters so it really did nothing for them.

I think this is freakin’ BRILLIANT.

Remember that thematic element I like so much?  The idea of Earth’s Mightiest being exactly what it says on the cover of the book and really being the 400 lb gorilla of evil foiling?  The way the Authority was set up, it seemed impossible for these guys to lose.  They were there to keep the peace and they had just the orbital canons to do it and now…

They failed.  Not only did they fail, but they are mere shadows of who they used to be.  The team is personally broken down in a far more elegant way than they had been before.  This is not humiliation, this is a job undone.  This is not the finer world they wanted and now they have to live with this defeat.  Already, I’m interested in not only the larger post-apocalyptic theme at work, but how the characters are personally surviving it.   Sure, the setting is cliched and we really have seen it done a tousand times before but not with these guys and each member of the Authority is going to handle it in a different way.

Take Midnighter (because he kicks ass):  in #3 he sets out to go stop the big bad and his cronies from ruining their rescue efforts and he does it the only way he knows how: violence!   A beatdown commences that can never be finished as apparently, our Bad Guy this evening can’t be killed.  Or at least, can’t be killed in a way that the Midnighter can compute.  All the times evil’s reared its ugly head, the Midnighter has been able to ball up his fist and strike it in the face time and time again for the fastest results and now?  Violence is not the answer.  The Bad Guy tells him that if he’d just asked, he would have left their rescue efforts alone anyways which, while maybe not the whole truth, presents an interesting look at how this new world works.  it works in a way that the Authority aren’t really known for.  The idea that they could have used diplomacy in order to get their way isn’t a factor for the world’s most powerful people and let’s face it: the Authority isn’t really known for it’s pulse-pounding talking action.

I got a good feeling about this new start, so let’s hope they keep on making it.

Last year, I was lucky enough to be on a movie set for a particular project I’ll eventually be free to speak about.  Let’s just put it this way;  I am legally obligated not to say a thing about what I did, who I saw and what I heard and if that doesn’t make you want to know what it is, you have no idea how much I want to tell you all.

Enough about me.

So, on set, one of the extras next to me is this absolutely fascinating guy I can’t remember the name of.  What he does and did is far more important.  He trains military soldiers to go to Iraq and protect themselves and others in a hostile urban environment.  Everything from procedures on how to handle a suicide bomber, how to clear a road efficiently and quickly as possible, enduring interrogations from the enemy, even how to survive in the sweltering desert and get to safety.  He told it all casually, as if his preparation wasn’t saving lives and making stronger people.  His shoulders were huge, his jaw square and he was funny as hell.

And he wanted to be a Green Lantern.

The moment comics came up in casual conversation, he just lit up like he recited the Oath.  He’d been reading Green Lantern comics since he was a kid and adored John Stewart.  He could tell you anything about the character and we talked over recent story lines with great enthusiasm.  At that time, he talked about the movie possibility and while he didn’t know the particulars, he knew he’d be first in the casting call line the moment he got word one.  You know, if he wasn’t off training in the middle of the desert.

Comics are great, people.  Anyone and everyone can be a fan of smoe odd facet or another for a million and one reasons.  The guy on set was amazing, in both his acting career and in his day job and when I heard news that the Green Lantern movie seems to be set to film next Spring, I thought back to that guy.  Sure, hal Jordan seems to be the main named dropped, but if there’s room for a John Stewart, you’ll have a very brave and awesome guy front and center.

Dear Sirs,

When you first took over writing chores on the Incredible Hercules, I was rather upset and might have said some rather harsh words regarding your ‘hijacking’ of one of my favorite titles.  I didn’t think it was fair the the title character of the book formerly known as Incredible Hulk got kicked off his own main book and a bit player from World War Hulk was getting his place.  I was upset, World War Hulk had kind of bummed me out and again, I took this out on your book, vowing never to read it until Hulk and/or Banner once graced the interiors.

I would like to apologize for this knee-jerk fandignant reaction because Incredible Hercules FREAKIN’ RULES.

WOW.  On a whim, I started reading it for Secret Invasion tie-in and my jaw has dropped with the amount of action you deliver, the amount of depth of character you create and how wonderfully told these tales are.  It’s a rare sight indeed these days to see both bodacious battles, humor and a little life lesson thrown in for good measure in comics in just the right way and you both have knocked it out of the park in every issue I’ve had the pleasure of reading.  These feel like old stories from Marvel’s finest age, wherein mortals could mix with gods, go on an adventure and come back better people for it.  From the use of mythology to the casual heroism of Our Hero and how much that all reflects on the cast.  These are serious stories told in a non-serious fashion that leave excited for the next issue while satisfied with the results of what we’ve just read.  While he wasn’t a character I thought I would have believed in and quite frankly was frustratingly annoyed by at the start, slowly and surely, I’m coming around towards Amadeus Cho, a truly exceptional feat.

In penance, I have purchased the first trade (while it was in hardcover, no less!) and I am proud to say you guys write the best Ares since Oeming gave the character some weight in the God of War mini-series.  The epic battle to go defeat the Skrull Gods (an incredible mythology in and of itself!) is hands down the finest story to come out of Secret invasion yet and I only wish that the other books would take a moment to acknowledge the great job that was done there.  You both have really made a huge impact on the big event at large and, as a retailer, I’ve been telling everyone who comes to the counter where the real action is.

So thank you, sorry for not trusting your book at the start and I look forward to what you have in store for the future.

Signed,

~Carla

So, as Secret Invasion rolls along, revealing that yes, some people are Skrulls, some people are not Skrulls and hey, they’re doing whole Invasion under a religeous fervor!  For their troubles, the Marvel heroes have banded together to face this army and rip their stinkin’ heads off.

Some might say there’s a lot of out-and-out killing going on for ‘respectable’ heroes.  Some might say that this wholesale violence should be addressed.  Some might even look back to the arguements leveled at one Bruce Banner just a year ago and wonder how hypocritical can one get?

After all, they exiled him off the planet for killing people, right?  He was a danger to innocent people, property and prosperity.  And I’m sure he probably ate all the donuts before the Illuminati got a single one.  His exile was justified.

Now, the heroes are pushed to the brink of rage.  Did you see the last page of Secret Invasion #5?  Hawkeye is ready to KILL KILL KILL with a white hot rage that they brought back his wife only to kill her again.  Where one he admonished Mockingbird for letting a man who forced her to love him fall to his death, now he’s ready to start and damn well finish this war, preferably with many damn dirty Skrulls deceased.  Ms. Marvel, when tearing into a Skrull front, had a problem when the Skrulls ran into a crowd of innocent people and hid among them.  At this point, she acted tactically as a soldier and FIRED IN TO THE CROWD OF PEOPLE.  Mind you, she figured out which ones were Skrulls by which humans had the squiggly green word bubbles, but still.

I’m not saying their actions aren’t justified.  It’s clear that this is clear and unadulterated war, where hard choices have to be made and strong actions have to be taken to ensure the survival of the human race.  It’s big stuff, people.  But when not but a YEAR ago, the smartest of these heroes banned a man who was suffering under a tremendous burden, a man who had been hailed as a hero before, a guy they stood next to from time to time, it really makes you wonder if anyone’s going to take a good hard look at one another when all this is over.  Or if their war crimes are going to swept under the rug to go back to the way things were.

All in all, someone should find Bruce Banner and maybe buy him a beer.  Sorry, guy.  We never knew what it was like to be that angry.

This last issue of X-Factor ends their Secret Invasion tie-in and their She-Hulk tie-in and, I’ll be honest here, I can’t say it really thrilled me as much as an X-Factor/She-Hulk tie-in should have.  To be fair, I’ll admit my share of fandignance here and say that my expectations were probably really high and what I want to read in a She-Hulk book isn’t what Peter David wants to write, so hats off to the man anyway for putting some of my favorite characters in one big story plus throwing Skrulls in for good measure.

Anyways, I get ot the last page of the most recent issue with our heroes victorious and whatnot when I had to do a double take and re-read a word balloon for clarification:

last page of X-Factor #34

So here we are (in a very badly scanned picture, my apologies), bidding our guest-stars adieu when Madrox brings up the terrible idea that Tony Stark (the guy they’d normally turn in a Skrull villain into, seeing how he’s the director of SHIELD and whatnot) could very well be a Skrull himself.  After all, this is an invasion (says right there on the cover!), so what better a guy to invade through than possibly one of the highest laws in the land right now?  It certainly would explain a lot of his behavior, see Madrox’s laundry list below:

Yeah, that sounds to me like a nefarious plot to-

Wait.  What was that?  “Exiling your BROTHER”?  An easy mistake, sure, but at the same time… from Peter David?  He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to make a snafu on something like this, let alone a Hulk-related relation.  You can’t blame in-character knowledge as the idea that Madrox would know that Bruce Banner is She-Hulk’s cousin is a fair assumption.  Considering just how many Madroxes there are out there, I think one of them could have picked up that particular note of information.  It’s one line in a toss off word ballooon, but it shouldn’t exactly be written off.  Besides, no one’s really talked about Tony being a Skrull all along but…

Oh yeah, the Skrull Empress in the guise of Spider-Woman!  In fact, a Skrull disguising himself as a Madrox duplicate would be a pretty good cover, considering just how many of him there are and that they’re no longer as really ‘telepathically linked’ as they used to be.

So, editorial gaff or very clever ruse?  U DECIDE!

You might have noticed that there was no recap for this issue.  Despite returning to ‘present’ time, despite the good push this particular story had when we first saw Ka-Zar and Spidey hash things out in the Savage Land right around the first issue of Secret Invasion when all the Marvel heroes that arrived on the ship and they started fighting against the New and Mighty teams.

Well, when this went down, Ka-Zar and his band of Savage Landites happened upon the whole thing and wound up trying to get a handle on what’s going on by talking with Spider-Man as seen in New Avengers #41, only to have Captain America happen upon them and the threat of a fight start.  Well, a couple issues later, Spidey and his Savage Friends try talking this Cap down by explaining he can’t be Cap since Cap is dead, but this just leads to, you guessed it, fighting.  No one thinks to ask “Hey, Cap!  Great to see you back!  What the hell are you doing on a spaceship?”  Sure, we know it’s not really Steve Rogers (for heaven’s sake, Fallen Son was just one ‘No really, Steve Rogers is really dead we mean it it’s serious, he’s dead, the end!’ after the other), but humor the bastard!  Try to get some info out of him!

Well, not-Cap gets blowdarted to bits and falls only to reveal himself as a foamy mouthed Skrull.  Cut to a flashback where they talk about how this Skrull got the blood blanket treatment, how it doesn’t always go according to plan, how the Skrull Mind Priestess had to do a little fussing with the memories of this warrior so that he would remember an alternate timeline that would make him believe he’s Steve Rogers with greater clarity but this doesn’t matter at all BECAUSE HE’S DEAD AND THE HEROES CAN’T LEARN THIS INFO.

So the reader is now told that the spaceship that crashed in the Savage Land didn’t have the real Captain America in it.  Thanks to Secret Invasion #5, we know that the spaceship didn’t have the real ANYONE inside, but if you read this issue before that, you would have figured out the same thing.

And that’s all you need to know.

I sit in my car, the husband driving (sadly, he won’t let me call him Happy Hogan as he’s both chauffer and bpdyguard this trip), listening to Sirius channel 22 (1st Wave!) and anticipating the Big One.

And for once, I’m not talking about earthquakes.

The San Diego Comic Con is like nothing else on Earth and the name is slightly misleading.  It’s not so much a comic book convention as it is a media blitz, full of sound and fury for everything from movies to TV shows to soft drinks to webisodes and oh yeah, comics.  For a few years, Marvel didn’t even come ot the big show and let DC have all the fun, but now, lives are on the line as comic properties are product above and beyond the call of a monthly title.

Right now, I can say I’m intimidated.  It’s a very daunting thing to see the list for the panels and previews and find yourself staring at the abyss of everything you wanted to know about.  Remember Tiny Toon Adventures and Freakazoid?  Yep, they got a panel.  Miss Mystery Science Theater 3000?  Yep, they got a panel.  Want to discuss the future of Star Trek?  They have three panels (and yet nothing on the upcoming movie?)  And oh yeah, comics.

How can they put so much into four days?  How can I possibly see it all?  Obviously the panel I don’t go to is the one that’ll have a cure for cancer and free t-shirts.  How do I manage my time?  How could you possibly see it all?

The answer is YOU CAN’T.

For serious.  You really can’t see everything they offer.  And in a way, you shouldn’t want to.  Don’t be a slave to their marketing shill!  Don’t forget to leave the convention center at least once every day and yes, before you go to bed.  Forage for food at a grocery store.  Go find the beach.  Do something non-Con related each day and I swear you will have a fonder memory of the experience than what was covered at any panel or picked up from a dealer’s table.  Once you come to terms with the fact that you can’t see everything, that all things are not attainable, that’s when you will find yourself at peace with the Con.

Sometimes you might run into a friend.  Hell, you might make a new one.  Sometimes you’ll go to something you hadn’t planned on and find yourself enthralled by something new.  Sometimes you  might even win a free t-shirt.  Let Comic Con come to you, do not chase the dragon.