Jimmy Olsen’s Blues

Well, they can’t all be winners.

-Billy Bob Thornton, from his documentary Bad Santa.

10. Nomad’s baby.

This is strictly hand-me-down bling, borrowed from Lone Wolf and Cub and now passed on to Cable. Is there a more foolproof comics move than kidnapping yourself an infant sidekick from her crackhead mom? And what was that kid’s name, anyway? Mary Plot Device? Fake Suspense, Jr.? (It was actually Bucky. I’m not kidding.)

9. The Vision’s Cape.

This is one of the few capes seen on a Marvel hero, for good reason. Aesthetically, it makes little sense given his skill set. While a ghostlike cape seems cool, a cloak as hard as diamond… does not. (But Marvel sticks to its guns, though; the cape itself is treated like a big deal in one 70’s Avengers storyline featuring Attuma, who actually steals it like it’s some fabulous prize. For some reason, the Vision forcibly reclaims the stupid thing.)

8. Dr. Doom’s tunic/dress/skirt.

You’d have to rule your whole nation by fear to get away with this getup. “How can I be even less attractive to women than that bunsen-burning, prematurely gray, socially retarded Reed Richards? I’ve got it! Witness the Renaissance Faire drag of DOOM.”

7. The Son of Satan’s “Wicked” Pitchfork.

Or as everyone else calls them, tridents. Are you the Son of Satan or the Son of the Red Lobster? What, were horns too on-the-nose for your desired image, Daimon Hellstrom? (You might want to take a moment before answering. Because you have a pentagram on your chest.)

6. The Cosmic Cube.

I just don’t why everyone who possesses it insists on keeping it as a cube. Why work so hard to keep it in your grasp? Eventually you either drop it or it gets knocked out of your hand (usually by someone you should’ve turned into ranch dressing about 18 pages ago). It’ll do anything, so the first thing I’d do is make it a Cosmic T-Shirt that never needs cleaning. or better yet… The Cosmic Thong. “If you want the cube that bad, Captain Marvel…”

(cue disco ball and What is Love.)

(And keep your terrific “I’ve already got cosmic boxers… in my pants” quip to yourself.)

5. Speedy.

Even if the Seven Soldiers of Victory were storming a medieval castle, I doubt they’d need two archers shooting boxing glove arrows, so Roy Harper makes this list as the only accessory to have tried heroin.

4. The Eye of Agamotto.

The Ancient One didn’t have the heart to tell his apprentice that the Eye he cherishes was actually purchased in a Tibetan head shop, along with a Strawberry Alarm Clock album, some wicked herb, and a black light poster of Buddha. It only matters that the Sorcerer Supreme believes in it, right? Really, Doc, how do you screw up a kick-ass Cloak of Levitation with that swap-meet crappery? Even Baron Mordo had to fake-like it, for appearances.

3.Aquaman’s Harpoon Hand.

Of all things to replace his missing appendage, why use a fisherman’s tool? It would seem to be contrary to his mission statement. I understand that even if you’re in the Justice League, John Henry Irons or whoever can’t just whip out a custom waterproof robot hand. But was that the only loaner they had in the whole shop?

2. The Loin-Diaper of Fin Fang Foom.

No need to be modest, FFF; we can all tell you’re packing.

1. The Plentiful and Pointless Pouches of Cable.

Hey, Nathan Dayspring A’skanison Pufnstuf, call us when you’re going by “Batman” and all those pouches are on a utility belt. Because the Utility Belt, as science shows us, is undeniably great.

From TulsaWorld.com:

OKLAHOMA CITY — Some Oklahoma County voters can expect to receive comic books in the mail soon, but the subject matter will have a serious tone.

The 16-page publication prepared by Commissioner Brent Rinehart’s re-election campaign lampoons gays and criticizes Rinehart’s political opponents. It also features an angel who supports the embattled commissioner and Satan, who supports his critics. Toga-wearing gays, political figures, trench coat-clad henchmen, concerned residents and Rinehart make up the rest of the comic’s characters.

I really hope some 10 year old plucks this beauty out of the mailbox, asks his “liberal, good ol’ boy” (cannot get enough of that phrase!) dad what “anal sodomy” is, and gets this taxpayer-fleecing goon arrested for peddling “filth” to minors, just like poor Gordon Lee (well, except for the fact that Lee didn’t do anything wrong).  And this time, let’s hope the CBLDF is a little too busy to help out.

Here’s a blast from the past, courtesy of a Marvel Bullpen Bulletins inside Avengers (volume 1) #71, 1969:

The only reason I even noticed this was the fact I’d just read Beau Smith’s terrific Busted Knuckles column, and his good-natured challenge to Marvel and DC to “give the readers one full year of stand-alone stories”.

I was a little surprised at the response he received. Most readers gave reasoned, if opposing viewpoints (notably Peter David, who never met a devil he couldn’t advocate), but some were downright unreasonable and almost angry at the suggestion. But why?

What about the challenge was so shocking or offensive (or “retarded”, as a poster at Mark Millar’s messageboard so politely put it^[1])? Yeah, how dare an industry veteran and a comics reader of (I’m guessing) 40 years or more question the current economic and editorial model employed by the Big 2?

What’s so wrong about suggesting that the all-important, most desirable new reader would be better served and welcomed into the fold more easily with 12 months of accessible, approachable stories, and then hitting them with some crossovers and mega-events after they’re hooked on the solid writing and satisfying resolution? For an audience that tends to bristle when labeled geeks, loners, losers, oddballs, anti-social misfits, or nerds, it was surprising to see a suggestion to bring in some new friends met with resistance at best and disdain and insult at worst.

Think about it this way: What if dating a girl ran like the comic industry the last few years?

You go on that first date (call it the “one-shot”), and it’s nicely done: she’s dolled up and pretty, the small talk’s fairly brisk and informative, but it’s more about setting up things in the future than it is talking about what’s going on right now. You wind things up with not even a peck on the cheek, but a promise of “to be continued”. Okay, you can certainly live with that, because a little mystery is nice and the promise of bigger things to come is always exciting, and hey, the one-shot was very satisfying (if a little more expensive than the typical night out)…

Six months later, you still haven’t gotten that peck on the cheek. What you have gotten is hundreds of dollars gone from your checking account for all the nights spent going on dates not just with her, but with various members of her family and circle of friends. Some of these are those “one-shots”, some of them are dates spread out over several weeks with different combinations, but all of them are dedicated to a single goal: giving you the tiniest, tiniest bit of additional info about the lady you’re trying to woo (and get that single peck on the cheek from).

Two months after all of that, due to philosophical changes implemented by said lady, you’ve had to go on dates with several more folks to explain or correct erroneous facts passed to you along the way, like she couldn’t possibly have been born at Woodstock in 1969 like her roommate told you back in March. (Whoops!)

At what point in this cycle would you say, “thanks, but no thanks” and return to chatting on the internet or playing Call of Duty 4 online or some other more immediately gratifying art-form? Would you even finish that first date if you were warned in advance that you might never get a reward of any kind for your contributions and devotion?

If you figure you’d be happy to last those eight months, I want to date you. It’d be a refreshing change from wanting to please my wife all the time.

[1]I would’ve put a link to the Millarworld thread from mid-June, but it’s already been deleted. I guess they can handle one week’s worth of Beau and that’s it.

Just got done posting a quick comment on Warren Ellis’ Fell on his newish message board (replacing the near-utopian-in-comic-related-boards Engine) and realized it would have been even better posted on my very own cybermegaphone. Enjoy, ye who’ve waited these months for new content. I’m starting to appreciate the structure and presentation of Fell: The Series almost as much as I enjoy Fell: The Stories.

Like most good episodic television shows, it’s not a stringent requirement to access prior installments to enjoy the current one. The disuse of modern-funnybookish “cliffhangers”, “story-arcs”, and “future story-arc teasers disguised as subplots” keeps the interval between issues from being a “wait” situation; Fell comes out when it comes out. Not that I wasn’t delighted to see Fell on the shelves this week, but I didn’t ever catch myself thinking, “Christ, it’s been forever since #8 came out! I’m not gonna enjoy #9 as much, due to the waiting between issues.”

True, there’s probably (read: obviously) some backstory living in Mr. Ellis’ notebooks and scribbled on liquor market receipts, but the stories that begin and end inside a single floppy alleviate that burning need to see that history explicitly portrayed for me. I know it’s there, but Fell in its current state kind of forces the reader (this reader) to exist in Snowtown’s Now. The possibility that we might never find out the whys and wherefores of Detective Fell’s consignment to Snowtown, or that there actually won’t be a detailed six-part miniseries titled “Fell: Owsley, What’s The Deal With Your Leg?” never seems to dog my thoughts while I’m immersed in the latest update.

End of gushing rant.

My overview on Fell #9: Typical Fell, atypical comic: solid, satisfying, and yet another Comic to Wave At Sniffling “Real” Fiction Snobs.

Now, what stuck with me specifically about this issue?

“…rich like astronauts.”

I am now off to start a band, write songs, and record an album, just to title said recording “Rich Like Astronauts”.

And if you’re reading this blog and not reading Fell, I don’t really know what to do with you.

…you had a chance to do something magical Wednesday, and you were emphatically disappointing.

I have the discipline of a meth addict when it comes to New Comic Day, and I can almost always talk myself/force myself into buying at least 2 extra comics on top of my regular purchases. Yesterday, however, was an align-the-planets, hit-all-the-green-lights, served-breakfast-in-bed-by-wife-dressed-as-Emma-Frost kind of day.

Not one comic I normally buy came out.

I was surprisingly upbeat walking into my LCS, because this was a chance for me to feel like the “new reader” that all comic producers are horny for. Their advanced marketing theories, the hours of work spent designing comics that make use of the typical rack-space in stores, all of it would be brought to bear on my weak-willed consumer psyche.

I bought this:



Big Four, if you couldn’t come up with something to sell me that was better than a comic I knew would be crappy, then get back to the drawing board (no pun intended). Otherwise, there are more weeks like this in your future. And if that happens, good luck explaining to whoever you answer to that you couldn’t sell a comic to a comics addict.

Frank Miller’s really just screwing with us at this point, isn’t he?

(From the preview for All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder #6.)

Every single mention of Batman in those panels is as “the goddamn Batman.” I know that phrase (very intentionally constructed) took the brunt of some Internet mockery the first time Miller had Batman use it, but now… it’s just getting ludicrous. I don’t think that’s Gordon, talking, either — I feel pretty sure that’s Miller’s attitude toward Batman at this point.

In fact, I’m almost positive that the entirety of Miller’s superhero output over the last six or seven years or so has been intended as a giant middle finger directed right at the very people buying his books.

Frank Miller spent ten years or so outside the mainstream superhero market crafting projects he fiercely believed in, books which were successful creatively and, to some degree, commercially: the various Sin City series and 300 especially. Those were books he wanted to do, ideas and characters which germinated from inside his head rather than from one of the comics companies, and his enthusiasm showed in the work.

But for all of that success, all of that time spent working on projects close to his heart… all it seems comics fans wanted to know was when Miller was coming back to Batman.

The goddamn Batman.

So Miller decided to give the fanboys what they wanted: he followed up his legendary The Dark Knight Returns with the god-awful hellaciously atrocious The Dark Knight Strikes Again, a work which was, on every level, an insult to the readers. The storytelling was frequently impossible to follow, increasingly so toward the end of the book, as if Miller realized he had far more story left than pages allotted; the artwork looked as if it were drawn by a Sharpie-wielding ten-year-old and then colored by that ten-year-old’s twelve-year-old sister as her first project learning Photoshop. Backgrounds? Why do we need backgrounds? It’s much easier to represent The Future with swirly rainbow colors!

Not to mention the fact that the story, which barely made any sense, succeeded mainly in defecating all over many of DC’s iconic characters, especially Dick Grayson.

And the thing, of course, sold like crazy. Miller crapped out a project which practically dripped with his derision for the characters and concepts he was using, and he likely made a huge sum of money off of it. I’m sure that whatever deal he cut with DC to produce the long-awaited sequel to one of their most well-loved and profitable series ever, it included a fairly enormous check with his name on it.

So since that project worked out so well, why not continue it with All-Star Batman? And this time, he doesn’t even have to draw it, he just has to write it — again, I’m sure, for a hefty sum. Superstar artist Jim Lee picks up the pencils for this series, ensuring that the series is going to be a gigantic hit. Any book with the names “Frank Miller” and “Jim Lee” would sell truckloads, regardless of what character they were working on; putting those two names on a Batman title was almost a license to print money from a sales and marketing standpoint.¹

All of this means that Miller ends up receiving another healthy paycheck (probably plus royalties) for writing a book about characters he now detests, a book which will prove an enormous financial success regardless of the quality of its actual content. Miller cranks out scripts which betray how little he thinks of these characters ² and variant covers which can’t possibly take him more than an hour to put together:

The above image might be the single worst cover I’ve ever seen to any comic, both in terms of execution and in terms of thematic intent. That’s, what, either Wonder Woman as a cheap stripper or a stripper in a bad Wonder Woman getup? Either way, it’s awful — this from a man who’s crafted some of the most memorable visuals in comics over the last twenty years.

Frank, I don’t think anyone would deny that you’re a fantastically talented creator — when your heart’s in your work. If you don’t want to write the goddamn Batman, stop writing the goddamn Batman. I doubt you’re in a position where you have to work on this book; if you’re doing work you actively detest only for the paycheck, you’re doing a disservice to yourself and to the people who’re supporting your work from their own wallets. You’re nothing but a hack and a whore at that point, and I don’t think those are descriptors you want attached to your legacy. Go write and direct movies, go back to your creator-owned work, go retire… just please stop sending out these monthly hate letters to these characters and your readers.

[1] What I have a harder time understanding is why Jim Lee’s continuing with it. I know that the opportunity to work with Frank Miller must be exciting, but Lee’s got to realize that what he’s being asked to draw is dreck. It ends up being beautifully-rendered dreck, but it’s dreck nonetheless.)

[2] Miller’s version of Batman, Superman and the rest of the Justice League seem to live on Earth-Psycho: the first words his twisted version of Wonder Woman speaks consist of her calling a passing stranger “sperm bank.”