Jimmy Olsen’s Blues

When did Sam Mendes and John August get attached to a potential Preacher movie?  Last I heard, it was still in the muck-encrusted hands of that hackiest of hacks, Mark Steven Johnson — the “director” who blessed us with the atrocious Ghost Rider, Daredevil, and shat all over my favorite novel of all time.  If Mendes and August are attached — and they’re already talking sequel before the first script is done — man, that might conceivably become — gasp! — a really good movie.

It might actually be time for me to get excited about this project…

Today’s Question-

Dear Mr. Hex:
Recently, I’ve entered into an online relationship with a girl who lives about 700 miles away. She seems to be going through a rough patch financially, because she’s asked me for (and I’ve sent her) about $2,500 in the last three months. We’ve never actually met face-to-face, but I’m now convinced that I should quit my job as a supermarket assistant manager and move to be with her. I’ve tried to gauge how she feels about this possibility, but lately it’s gotten so hard to get even a word in with all the other people chatting with her during the webcasts from her bedroom. How can I tell if it’s time to overcome my fear and take that leap of faith in the name of love? You may be my only hope.

–Sleepless in Starkville

Jeezus H! In the time it took to finish reading your palaver, I came up with two plans.

First Plan:

1. Quit your job, go to where this “girl” lives (I’m not too savvy about those fancy computers, but… you’re sure she’s a girl, right?).
2. Ask her for your money back. If she says no, ask her to marry you and be done with it. If she refuses again, sing her Peter Cetera’s “The Glory of Love” from Karate Kid 2. I’m sure you know the words.
3. Start planning your wedding. It’s a’comin’, no doubt.

Second Plan:

1. Wire me $1,000. (Or PayPal it–didn’t say I was computer illiterate, just that I’m not that savvy.)
2. I go to see this “girl”.
3. I get your $2,500 by threatening to shoot her and her “boss” in the face.
4. $2,500 in hand, I shoot them both in the face for drawing on me as soon as I turn my back.

Only one has a chance at working–you guess which one and get back to me.

Jonah Hex is a life coach with over 140 years experience in counseling and conflict resolution. Send your request for guidance to j.hex@bulletsofwisdom.net or care of this site.

Once upon a time, DC could have announced Kevin Smith writing a new Batman miniseries and then a monthly series to follow and I would have eaten that shit right up.  I liked his Green Arrow fine and really enjoyed his Daredevil, and of course I really liked his movies up through the mid-2000’s or so.

But then Smith blew most of his comic-writing cred with me by writing a couple of series he never bothered finishing for Marvel.  (Or Marvel never bothered asking him to finish them, maybe.)  Further, I didn’t much care for the issues that did come out.  And then he did a recent Batman miniseries which turned the Joker — in theory one of the scariest, most bat-shit (so to speak) insane villains DC has — into a Clerks-style innuendo-filled fop.  And on top of that, he had one of his cronies (Walt Flanagan, previously best know as the owner of the small priapic dog who bedeviled Jay and Silent Bob in Smith’s comics of the mid-90’s) do the artwork, which just feels a little more obviously nepostistic to me than I might care for.

So, yeah, totally not excited by this announcement (nor, particularly, the Green Hornet book he’s going to write based on his aborted film).  Even with the gaps built into the schedule to allow him to complete this thing, I have no confidence it’ll actually get done on any reliable schedule, or at all.  Note that I’m not necessarily speculating as to the quality of these books, mind you — they could be perfectly entertaining.

As long as he leaves the Joker out of it.

• There’s not many excellent — or even very good — movies based on standard (i.e. Big Two) superhero fare. We came with about a dozen or so films that we both really dig, and a had a more difficult time than you’d imagine coming up with a dozen more that we knew weren’t gonna make the grade. Sorry Fantastic Four franchise! Maybe someday, Unbreakable.
• There’s even fewer superhero movies floating around that aren’t based on standard comic book fare. We came up with The Rocketeer pretty quickly, but just as quickly left it off the list because it didn’t seem to be ’superhero-y’ enough and neither of us remembered any part of it as fondly as the image of Jennifer Connelly in the movie. (But don’t feel bad, Billy Campbell — I have a feeling you’ll show up again in next week’s Ten.)
• Marvel’s movies rake in more dough (even if you handicap Marvel for their advantage in sheer quantity of releases), but DC seems to have put out more memorable films.

And yet a Pixar Studios masterpiece trumps them both…

10. Batman (1989). This movie bridges the gap between the wince-inducing last gasp of the old school superhero movie (Superman IV: The Quest For Peace, anyone? Or no one?) and the wow-inducing sunrise of the new (X-Men, Spider-Man, Superman Returns). Warner Brothers discovered, as we all soon did, that matching the director with the project might be a worthy use of time before signing that first check. Tim Burton brought a vision that didn’t treat the material as “kid’s stuff,” and really seemed to understand the source material and how best to take advantage of its conversion to moving pictures. DC’s approach to building its creative team obviously rubbed off on Marvel, who would eventually sign up Bryan Singer and Sam Raimi to launch their two big franchises. Speaking of…

9. X-Men. (2000) The most popular comic series of the last 30 years would have made ungodly sums of cash no matter who shot it or starred in it, but Marvel wisely paid attention to what worked for DC and also what failed miserably with the Batman movies, and got it right the first time with X-Men. What worked: getting directors and writers with the right sensibilites and the right sensitivities. So enter Bryan Singer, who’d cut his teeth on a character-intensive ensemble piece (The Usual Suspects) and a taut thriller that touched on the horrors of Nazi persecution, war and how sneaky evil can be sometimes (Apt Pupil). What didn’t work: an escalating cycle to cast “name” actors in main roles in superhero films. By keeping the known quantities to a minimum — and at this point, Halle Berry was best known for Introducing Dorothy Dandridge and Boomerang — the movie overcomes that handicap of “that’s not Batman, that’s George Clooney at Halloween.”

8. Superman: The Movie. (1978) We’re giving Warner Brothers and the orginal Batman crew a little too much credit, probably, as the same path we just applauded Batman and X-Men for taking, Richard Donner and Christopher Reeve cleared out in the first place decades before. While the Batman movies’ appeal springs from what we can become, Superman movies draw us in because of what we wish we could become. However sappy that sentiment is, that’s why the first two Superman movies hold up so well today.

7. X2: X-Men United (2003). The sequels always tend to play better than the kickoff flick, probably because there’s no need to waste a third of the film “introducing” everybody, thus giving the creative team space for a more detailed plot. X2 in particular succeeds because both the action and character pieces don’t hit you over the head with the “people hate things that are different” theme, unlike X-Men and X-Men 3: The Last Stand.

6. Superman II (1980). (Note that Roman numerals for sequels are oh so very passé these days.) Even though Stan Lee has a prominent role in Kevin Smith’s Mallrats, does Smith reference any Marvel big-screen triumphs? No, because there weren’t any at that point, and because “Kneel before Zod” is just much, much cooler than even Stan Lee most days.

5. Spider-Man 2 (2004). Oh, look, yet another second installment. See, what’d we tell you? Spidey 2 ups the action quotient from Round One while also giving us that most rare and wonderful of characters: a truly sympathetic villain. Alfred Molina’s Dr. Octopus was far more developed than his comic-book counterpart — he actually seemed less like a villain than simply a broken man pushed too far. (Keep this distinction in mind when we make our way up to the number two slot in a bit.)

4. Iron Man (2008). Closer to Stan Lee’s ideal of the Flawed Hero than even his revered Spider-Man — not only is Tony Stark besieged from without, he’s besieged from within. Possibly no other mainstream hero has as many self-inflicted obstacles and limitations. Not to mention the fact that any first semester psych major could break Peter Parker’s whiny neursoses down in a second, while world-class head shrinkers could go on for days about the complexitites of an alcoholic, narcissistic (but strangely hyper-self-critical) genius with a life-threatening injury that seals himself in a suit of armor, but paints it bright red and yellow.

3. Batman Begins (2005). Strangely, DC’s carefully crafted re-entry into the genre got nearly universal high marks, while the just as technically sound Superman Returns didn’t exactly shoot to the top of anyone’s list of All Times (including this one). It’s hard to put a finger on why, but maybe it’s just because both Nolan films work harder to show you not just the hero’s outer and inner workings, but those of the supporting cast and city as well; Superman Returns suffers by comparison as it stretches an examination of, really, just Superman over an equal amount of time without revealing much of anything else. Batman Begins is more of an experience for the viewer than just a Superman plot you can watch.

2. The Dark Knight. (2008) Honestly, what else can we say about this week-old movie? The Dark Knight all of the elements required to make a good comic-book movies and a whole bunch of the elements required to make a great movie… regardless of genre. And remember when we said to keep in mind that whole “truly sympathetic villain” thing? The Dark Knight pulls that feat off in a big way, while also containing one of the least sympathetic villains ever committed to film.

1. The Incredibles (2004). Surprise! But, really in terms of super-movies that succeed, why not The Incredibles at the top of the list? It manages to nail several different comic-book high concepts (The Superhero Family; ducking from the bad guys to preserve secret identities; awkward childhood made more so by having special abilities and so on) that less-ambitious offerings like the Fantastic Four and even X-Men movies barely touch upon. Oh, and all of this happens in a movie your kids will watch without giving a damn about any of that. The Incredibles, in terms of plot, character, acting, execution, you name it, rivals The Dark Knight as a Great Superhero Movie that’s also Just A Plain Great Movie. In fact this movie’s so good, that neither of us wants to see a sequel made in our lifetimes.

Hmmm, look at that… two of our top four superhero movies ever were released in the last four months. Does this mean that we’re entering some sort of Golden Age of Superhero Movies or something?  And if so, will that Golden Age die a horribly brutal death with the upcoming releases of The Spirit and Watchmen?

(Y’know when someone prefaces their monologue with, “I don’t want to be a dick, but…”? That usually always means, “I’m about to be a dick”.)

Too much Anti-Life Equation, that’s the only explanation I can come up with for this to have made it into the published version of this week’s Justice Society #17.

One week only! Composers Amazing Man and Gog will perform their entire repertoire, called by some “the strongest”. Miss it at your own risk!

I don’t want to be a dick, but did he mean rapport?

In better Geoff Johns news, the rest of JSA was typically solid, even though he’s really just moving the story from predictable ground to Really Predictable Ground. Awakened demigod Gog isn’t happy about anything bad in the world and he apparently has the power to fix it all, even the bad things that happened to many of the JSA. So what are the odds that nothing is as good as it appears, and that the JSA’s gonna have a mini civil-war very soon?

In even better Geoff Johns news, Action Comics was jaw-droppingly good and my favorite book this week. Though he’s been taking care of Super-business for quite a while now, he’s really beginning to hit his stride in Action and not just saving his best blend of characterization and action for Green Lantern. In the course of finding out more about Braniac’s latest campaign, Supes (and the reader) gets some insight into his cousin (she actually lived through a Braniac assault as a “normal” Kryptonian and still carries scars. And we witness her teary eyed heat vision–powerful stuff.^[1]), his adopted father (he kept souvenirs!), and himself (he doesn’t really know what it’s like to miss home). For a change, he gets all of this while actually doing something instead of talking to everyone about it.

I bought non-Johns comics this week too, like Final Crisis:Requiem. Some of the negatives being thrown around elsewhere are valid (unnecessary to Final Crisis proper, a little long in the violence department), but overall, I thought it was a competently written and illustrated comic that did what it said it would: show a little more detailed version of J’onn J’onzz heroic last stand, remember his life and show what his last wishes were. The flipside, though: Green Arrow’s “He was my favorite Martian” line makes it almost impossible to defend this book.

[1]If there is a god, a god who like pretty comics, we’ll see a Gary Frank Supergirl book again one day.

So I’m starting to formulate what I’m sure is an entirely off-base, probably nonsensical theory about Grant Morrison’s Final Crisis. [1] This idea of mine comes both from some history of Morrison’s and from, of all places, statements by trade dress designer Chip Kidd and artist Gene Ha, who doesn’t even have anything to do with this book.

Let me ’splain.

I’ll start with Ha’s comments, which were made last September in passing as part of an explanation for the huge delays behind his and Morrison’s run on The Authority:

“First off, I don’t think The Authority #3 by Grant Morrison and Gene Ha is ever coming out. Grant is busy redesigning the DC Universe and I’ve moved onto new projects.”

I think that’s the first place I’d seen reference to that idea of Morrison “redesigning the DC Universe,” or at least put quite in terms quite that specific. We knew even then that Final Crisis was going to be another epic multiverse-shaking story, but little was known about what sort of result the series was going to have. (Honestly, we still don’t know that much about it; DC’s been doing a damn good job of not letting that particular secret slip.)

So we know (or can at least theorize with some degree of certainty) that when Morrison’s done, the DCU will have been changed in some way, likely with his particular brand of highly imaginative neo-retro fusion. (Really, if you were going to redesign or modernize/futurize a comics universe from the ground up, wouldn’t Grant Morrison be on or close to the top of your list of creators you’d want involved?)

The second bits of info which got my neurons rubbing together to form this wild-ass theory came from Chip Kidd when discussing the distinctive, if thus-far uninspiring, FC trade dress:

NRAMA: So what went into the process for Final Crisis’ look?

CK: Well, to start with Final Crisis – the big thing that no one would be able to know yet, and I won’t get too specific here, but for the people that think it’s a generic look – wait. By the third issue, you’ll start to get it. Basically, the trade dress dissolves. So, it’s starting out as something now, and by the second issue, it will be slightly different, the third issue, even more different, and between the third and fourth issue, I hope people will get it, and understand what we were doing all along. It might not make people like it any better, but they’ll at least understand what I have in mind. It’s an evolving trade dress. … There are people who are in the talkbacks saying that DC is just riffing off Civil War, but again – wait and see. By the fourth issue, you’ll realize that’s not what we’re doing. We’re doing something else.

So the trade dress is going to start to dissolve and turn into something else which will be apparent — or at least the direction will — by the third or fourth issue. This implies to me either the current dress and logo will “fall away” to reveal something new underneath, or will degrade and reform into something new over the last half of the series’ seven issues.

I don’t think what’s revealed or regrown will be simply a reworked presentation of what came before. I think it will be something entirely new.

I think the title of this series is going to change halfway through, or perhaps begin to change only to be complete at the end of the series.

Title and trade dress are important to Morrison. When he took over X-Men in 2001, he changed the name of the book to New X-Men precisely because he’d designed a logo for it which could be rotated 180 degrees and read the same. He had Marvel redesign the trade dress for all of the X-Men books to make them more visually distinct from the rest of Marvel’s line. I think to him these elements of comic books have more meaning than beyond the simple graphic appeal of them — while I’m not willing to say for sure it ties into Morrison’s interest in magic, it’s possible that it does, but at the very least ties into his penchant for meta-story. The trade dress of many of his books say something about the books themselves.

So I’m looking at the words “Final Crisis.” And I know that Morrison is building a new DCU. And I know the trade dress is going to change. And I know that there’s a tremendous battle halfway through the series which, I speculate, is going to result in the deaths of most or all of the DC heroes. And I know that Morrison’s using Jack Kirby’s Fourth World creations extensively in this series.

And while I can’t say for sure exactly what’s going to happen…

…I want to note that it wouldn’t take a lot of work visually for the word “Crisis” to evolve into the word “Genesis.” (New Genesis, remember, is Kirby’s “good twin” of Darkseid’s evil planet Apokalips.)

When this series becomes Something Genesis by issue #7, launching the shiny new Morrison-ized DCU, I want you to remember where you heard it first.

[1] That’s not to dismiss the work of artist JG Jones, by the way; it’s just that this particular notion of mine lies along the story and meta axes, so it’s much more in Morrison’s court than Jones’.