Marshal Rogers Batman

I remember when comics were something to be looked for at the newstand.  Now, I look for comics in the graphic novel format, because that's how comics writers write.

Recently I bought Legends of the Dark Knight: Marshall Rogers. Marshall Rogers was who I associated with Batman in my youth. He had such a crisp style. It evoked Neal Adams and John Byrne. I was happy to collect what issues I could get here in Paradise. I got most of them on news stands.

This was a nice volume of all of Marshall Rogers' Batman work.  It starts with Batman fighting the Calculator.  For the previous six months, assorted heroes, drawn by Rogers, faced off against the calculator in back up stories in Detective Comics. I would have liked to see those stories in this volume before the novel length battle between Batman and Calculator.

Nest are the Detective Comics written by Steve Engelhart and drawn by Marshall Rogers tat captured my imagination. I think I have a soft cover collection, but this edition had a couple of stories I had not read before. Add to that, the Legends of the Dark Knight arc written by Archie Goodwin and the Engelhart and Rogers Dark Detective mini series. . .

You should get this book.  Marshall Rogers was a great artist.  You'll spend hours looking at a single panel of Batman.

Michael Turner 1971-2008

Micheal Turner blasted onto the comics scene in the mid 90s. He was one of those artist whose work I admired but didn't love, if you know what I mean. Sometimes, all of his women looked the same (says the pot to the kettle). And often his work appeared over-rendered. But I couldn't deny his talent.

A few years ago, Micheal developed cancer in his hip, requiring three pounds of bone to be removed and extensive physical therapy. Naturally, he had to take some time off from work. That he came back at all is astounding

He spent the last few years running Aspen Entertainment, his own company, and drawing covers for Marvel and DC, becoming one of the most in demand artists in the industry.

Unfortunately, Micheal passed away this weekend after the cancer came back.

Currently, DC Comics is in the midst of recreating the DC Multiverse. You remember the DC Multiverse, don't you? they collapsed it into the DCU (or DC Universe) back in the 80s. I was in Japan at the time, and I had to catch up on the series when I got home.

I'm glad. I missed the old, pre-Crisis DC. I liked Earth-2, and read all the Earth-2 titles. I like the new DCU and hope they continue that. The JSA related titles are beginning to remind me of the Earth-2 titles, with the older heroes teaching the new heroes.

I also noticed that they have also revamped Lex Luthor's back story. Used to be, waaaay back in the 50s and 60s, Luthor was an old friend of Clark from Smallville. John Byrne came along and rewrote all of that. For 20 years, Lex Luthor was just an evil businessman that never met Clark Kent before Kent arrived in Metropolis. Now, Luthor was raised in Smallville, just like the series. This will be like the sixth time I've had to relearn Luthor's origin.

At least it's better than the Marvel Universe. The writers have turned the carefree Marvel Universe into a grim and gritty pre-apocolyptic universe that, except for She-Hulk, just isn't fun anymore.

I just watched "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" and I have a few things to say. If you haven't seen the movie yet, GO AWAY!

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First, Why, oh why, must every superhero movie have several villains? These guys have rogues galleries, and we still have to watch two or three villains go against our heroes.

Second, Silver Surfer was cool. Although he lacked a little of the Stan Lee angst of the original, visually he was amazing.

Third, Doctor Doom was in the movie. Why? The original Galactus Trilogy didn't have Doom in it. It had the Fantastic Four fighting against an unstoppable foe that devours planets. Galactus in this movie was extremely interesting, and we should have spent more time with this unstoppable foe. But no, we get the second Galactus arc where Doom steals the Surfers cosmic powers. This movie wasn't "Rise of the Silver Surfer," it was "Doom almost lets the Earth Get Devoured."

Fourth, according to IMDB, "The Fantastic Four learn that they aren't the only super-powered beings in the universe when they square off against the powerful Silver Surfer and the planet-eating Galactus." Galactus was completely unlike the comic version, and more like V'Ger in Star Trek. But that's not a bad thing. In fact, it makes Galactus a little more implacable. Kinda like the Borg. Wait! They showed Galactus as a sphere in one scene. They also forgot to mention that the main foe was Doom. Galactus was only in the movie for ten fucking minutes! He should have been in it at the beginning of the third act, at least! They could have made the Doom stealing the Surfer's power Fantastic Four 3 or 4. And all it takes to destroy Galactus is his herald turning his powers against master? Who creates a herald capable of destroying themselves? As Galactus was blown away, I exclaimed, "That's fucking it?!" Galactus is blown out just like a candle on a birthday cake?

Fifth, the fight against Doom wasted another great FF villain: The Super Skrull. Johnny's fight against Cosmic Doom with all the FF's powers was awesome! But how will they win next time? One person wielded all the powers of the FF already. How do you top that?

To sum up: It's a good movie. It's a good movie to end the series on. Their most powerful foe was destroyed in five minutes. Only Doom will return. Feh.

Today's comic books suck.

There. I said it.

Don't get me wrong there are some great writers out there, but by and large, comics suck. Everyone's trying to be Brian Michael Bendis. The problem is, there already is a Brian Micheal Bendis. We don't need any more. Bendis created the Marvel Ultimate line, and brought a modern feel and real world aspect to super heroes. It's a trend furthered by Kurt Busiek in Astro City, and actually started by Busiek and Alex Ross in Marvel Comics' The Marvels. It showed how superheroes intersected with the people of New York City. I loved Marvels, and I love Astro City. Ultimate Marvel? Not so much.

The basic concept of the Ultimate line was to publish comics featuring Marvel's stars in lines independent of continuity. In other words, start publishing a title from the 60s like it started today. It's a great idea, but the first Spider-Man origins story took a 11 pages to tell. Bendis stretched out the story to 180. And that, dear readers, is why modern comics suck.

There are no more stand alone stories. Instead creators write arcs, expanding a panel or two into entire issues. A perfect example is a Superman arc from the 90s. Superman is on his way to the Fortress of Solitude, or is looking for Lois who has disappeared. In the middle of this arc, there's an issue about Superman fighting a sea montster. Maybe it wasn't an entire issue, but it was several pages. It was, for lack of a better term, padding. On the text page, the editor proudly noted how far comics had come. In the 50s and 60s, he asserted, the fight with the sea monster would have lasted only two or three panels. Today we give the sea monster motivation and explain where he came from, he added. The thing is, the fight with the sea monster was not involved with the main plot, looking for Lois or going to the Fortress! Leaving it out wouldn't have changed the ending, except for the three pages of Superman explaining what took him so long.

Here's another example: I'm enjoying Dynamite Entertainment's new Lone Ranger series. But here we are in issue #5 and we just got the Long Ranger on his fucking horse to ride into town to avenge the deaths of his fellow rangers. After a hundred or so pages! Granted, the TV series took an hour and a half to tell that story. At this rate, we've got three more issues before the Lone Ranger brings Butch Cavendish to justice. Does a comic book editor doany editing?

Captain America's dead? GOOD! His latest series borders on being dull because it takes too long to tell a single story. Maybe the new Cap will have writers that can wrap things up a little quicker.

And could we get Wolverine in a couple more titles. He's not getting enough exposure.

Captain America 1940-2007

A couple of years ago, Marvel Comics began publishing a title called "Young Avengers." A group of teens claiming ties to the Avengers began operating in New York. Captain America and Iron Man rushed to stop them, claiming that these young heroes needed to be trained before they started fighting crime. And who better to argue that? Captain America was born in the 40s when a young Steve Rogers volunteered for a secret experiment to create a Super Soldier. He spent several months being trained by the government before appearing to fight German-American Bund operatives on the Eastern seaboard.

Last year, Marvel began publishing "Civil War" and Cap's opinion on training changed completely. A man who spent his entire career under the often loose supervision of the government, turned against the Superhero Registration Act (passed when a group of young heroes fighting super villains caused a small town to be destroyed), saying that the government had no right to know his identity (which he'd revealed for the second time (the first in the ate 60s or early 70s when Stan Lee was writing the title) in the aftermath of 9/11) and tell him what to do. "Civil War" once again demonstrated that Brian Michael Bendis is a plot driven author, who doesn't mind having his characters act against type. Anyway, Cap went underground, recruiting a cadre of heroes who didn't want to regisiter to join his fight. Last month, the opposing sides squared off in New York, devastating the city. Seeing the destruction, Cap realized that he should have opposed the registration act through the courts, and surrendered. This month, after being released from jail, Cap was assassinated.

All I can say is, Yes, I know Cap will return. The only person who has stayed dead in the Marvel Universe is Spider-man's Uncle Ben. The only other long dead character, Cap's WWII sidekick, Bucky, was revived last year as a Soviet assassin. So I know Steve Rogers will return.

I can also say that this makes a perfect place to stop reading Cap. His title has been boring for the last couple of years. And I've grown tired of 6-10 part arcs that lose me in a couple of months. And Marvel Comics in general have followed this trend. I've stopped reading a couple of Ultimate titles, Fantastic Four, and New Avengers. Cap's death will allow me to make a clean break with the universe I used to love.

Mmmm. Girls in spandex. Why can't there be more movies like this?

Dave Cockrum - 1942-2006

In 1975, Len Wein and Dave Cockrum created a comic called "Giant Size X-Men #1." That comic introduced the X-Men lineup consisting of Cyclops, Storm, and Wolverine. Today, that fifty cent comic can sell for thousands of dollars. Those characters have been featured in three films, making Marvel Comics millions of dollars. Dave Cockrum never saw a dime of it.

But that's the nature of the comic biz in the 70s. It was work for hire. It wasn't until the 90s that comics creators got a cut of merchandising.

Cockrum worked at DC Comics before moving over to Marvel, illustrating Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes and other DC titles.

Cockrum died over the weekend after a long battle with diabetes and complications. He was a driving force of comics in the 70s and 80s, and is one of my favorite artists. I will miss him.

The House of Ideas is now out of Ideas.

Back in the 70s, during the Kung Fu craze, and yes, I lived through it, Marvel and DC cranked out several martial arts titles. One of Marvel's creations was Iron Fist. I read some of the Iron fist books, mainly because they were a bit more accessible than the Shang-Chi series based on Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu stories.

Now, thirty years later, we learn that there have been many Iron Fists? The latest issue of Wizard magazine lists four previous Iron Fists: Bei Ming-Tian (1194-1227), Wu Ao-Shi (1517-1550), Bei Bang-Wen (1827-1860), and Orson Randall (1900-1933). The writers of the new Iron Fist series, Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction want to "explore the character, and to cross pollinate the well of Wuxia fable, the pulp tradition and Marvel Superheroes."

Sounds to me like they are ripping off Lee Falk's The Phantom.

I have just finished reading Star Trek: The Manga. It was okay. Mike Barr's story "'Till Death" was a rehash of "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield," or "Chosen Realm" except this time it's a war between the sexes, and it ends in Balok and Loki fashion. "Anything But Alone" by Joshua Ortega rewrites Enterprise's "Oasis" and Deep Space Nine's "Shadowplay." Chris Dows' "Side Effects" gives us yet another origin of the Borg. "Orphans" by Rob Tokar comes close to originality but brings mecha into the Star trek Universe in a Marvel Comics fashion. (Anyone remember the Loch Ness monster attacking the Enterprise? That was from the so-called "House of Ideas.") "Oban" redoes "Elaan of Troyius" with an cute animal instead of a hot asian chick. Micheal Shelfer's art in the Oban is passable, even though he can't seem to decide which incarnation of the Enterprise he wants to use--the Original Series version or the movie version, or he is just too dependant on his refrences.

Is it too much to ask that we get an orginal story?

I just got Dr. Slump #5 today, and I'm feeling pretty smug. Twenty-some years ago I was an exchange student in Japan, and I read Dr. Slump. It was a teen gag comic, and with my limited Japanese, I got most of the gags. I still flip through my Dr. Slump books, and I still laugh at them.

Now I'm reading the translations, and I'm not finding the jokes as funny. I wonder if it's because the thrill of actually understanding them in Japanese was part of the enjoyment.

By the way, the art is by Akira Toriyama, the coloring is by me. And no, I'm not going to explain the joke. You will have to buy to book to find out.