Don't Call It A Comeback... (because they're calling it "Rebirth", dummy)

I have not been this into a DC comic in a long, long time.

I've read through rebirth three times completely, and flipped through it at least a dozen times since, just marveling at it (no pun intended).

This is a brilliant, brilliant work.  It has behind it the weight of years of fan disappointment, years of lagging sales, years of questionable creative decisions, years of wrong directions and years of character (and universe) mismanagement that it aims to address and course correct, all in one shot.  And that's just the metatext.

Beyond that, writer (and Chief Creative Officer at DC) Geoff Johns had to craft a story that will not only resonate as something meaningful to the characters, but also excite the lapsed and new fan base alike.

He nailed it.

Gary Frank cover

As frustrated as one can get with him, one can also forget Johns is a good writer, in fact a great writer of characters in a superhero universe.  It's easy to get frustrated with him, for his most notorious achievements were also spitting in the faces of fans who grew up in a post-Crisis DCU.  The charges laid against him are that he only wants to play with what he knew as a kid, and that he always wants to reset things back to the Silver Age in the DCU, hence Green Lantern Rebirth and Flash Rebirth.  This makes sense. Though Johns' is only 3 years older than I am,  Wally West and Kyle Rayner and Barry Allen's death and Hal Jordan's insanity...these are things that he should have equally grown up with in the DCU.  As he became a teenager, these character's (as well as the universe's) evolution should have happened alongside his own.

But then we tend to look upon the things we liked as teenagers with a jaded eye.  There's a pureness to what we like as a child, but when we're teenagers our emotions run rampant and it's hard to see the forest for the boobs or the sky for the violence.  Especially as boys we tend to like more extremes in sex and violence as we process the world with our expanding brain, a better sense of the way things work but also a reluctance to discarding childhood naivety or a rejection of adult responsibilities. We do a lot of stupid things as teens and the things we like at the time can, later on, sometimes be seen as an extension of those stupid things.  Johns may have thought Wally and Kyle, and Zero Hour and the like to be some of those stupid things, and Hal and Barry were the purity from his childhood that needed to be restored.

For a great many of us, though, Wally became our guide for growing up.  He was just a kid superhero, though after 20-ish years as a Teen Titan, he was starting to outgrow the "Kid" part of his Kid Flash moniker.  Taking over as Flash meant he had to grow up... he had a legacy to fulfill.  But in fulfilling his legacy, he also forged his own path.  Suddenly super-villains became friends.  He accepted a role in the Justice League Europe where he was class clown, but eventually he had to grow into a truly reliable teammate. He discovered things about his powers even Barry never new, thus exceeding him in the role, running out of his shadow.  Wally quit chasing girls and found true love.  He became a mentor and then a father.  For over 20 years Wally was the Flash, almost as long as Barry was, or as Jay was before him.  He went from being a kid to defining the role.  (Barry was a very milquetoast character, quite dull in fact.  Wally-as-Flash is the benchmark for the character.  Even today, much of Grant Gustin's character of Barry Allen owes more to Wally than traditional Barry)

Ugh, Barry and his dull-ass crew cut

Bringing back Barry was a slap in the face to all of those who grew up alongside Wally (of course we can't forget that the Flash had been kind of broken as a title for a couple years, with writers not knowing how to deal with Wally's family life, or making Bart the Flash).  Like when you finally feel like you've grown up, only for something to happen at work that makes you feel small or shamed.  An authority figure can put you in a place sometimes, a place which you thought you outgrew.  And Barry's return meant Wally was being put in his place.  Or, rather, he didn't really have a place anymore.  All seemingly because Geoff Johns wanted his childhood back.

But the charge laid against Johns, about wanting the DCU to be exactly like it was when he was a kid rings false.  Even bringing Barry and Hal back were just the first steps in massive thrusts forward, such as the amazing Lantern Spectrum cycle, starting with the "Sinestro Corps War" and ending with "Blackest Night".  Even working with his old boss Richard Donner on Action Comics, Johns introduced a young Kryptonian refugee, born in the Phantom Zone to Zod and Ursa, whom Lois and Clark were set to adopt since the logistics of them having a child of their own were ...complex (see Mallrats).  But it seemed DC didn't want Lois and Clark to have a child and that story was dropped.

Yes, marginalizing Wally (and turning Impulse into Kid Flash) had vilified Johns in many people's eyes. In some ways, DC Universe Rebirth can be seen as an apology.  From the opening panel we're provided a narrator, the text box yellow with red border.  If it's not immediately clear page 6 spells it out, a full page showing our narrator is Wally West, emerging from the Speed Force where he's been trapped for 10 years, the memories of his existence erased from everyone's memories but our own. (He emerges in the Batcave...not unlike a similar scene from Dawn of Justice, which itself is a nod to Crisis on Infinite Earths)

I love that man right there.

This whole issue is Wally's cry to be remembered, but it's not just about remembering him, but remembering what it was he brought to the DCU over his 20 years as Flash: legacy, love, and life.  Mike Wieringo was the first to prominently bring the lightning to Flash comics (in conjunction with the arrival of the Speed Force) a visual symbol of the crackling vitality Wally brought to comics.

Johns breaks the book up into four thematic chapters, the first "Lost", then "Legacy", "Love" and "Life" follow.  He's identifying first that DC had lost its way with "The New 52" and that the key components that were missing were the latter 3-Ls.

In the first chapter, Wally is a reminder of what was lost but also reminds us what the DCU lost when they rebooted after Flashpoint.  Through Wally, Johns delivers a fairly concise recap of 80 years in the DCU prior to the reboot, all through the eyes of what was most important to Wally.  Rebirth really is a character-driven epic.

In the second chapter, legacies are reintroduced.  Wally is pulled towards Johnny Thunder (because of his pet lightningbolt...?  Clever choice on Johns' part if so), while the Legion (looks like Saturn Girl..but should have been Lightning Lass or Lightning Lad if the theme were being stuck to), a few years dormant in the DCU, are paying the past a visit once more.  The Atoms Ray Palmer and Ryan Choi are both back as professor and student, Ted Kord plays mentor to Jaime Reyes, Damian Wayne turns 13, there's a new Green Lantern on Earth (finally, a woman) and Aqualad (sadly not Kaldur from Young Justice) are shown.

The chapter ends with Pandora, one of Johns' "Trinity of Sin" characters, whom he wanted to make a major cosmic player in the New 52, like the Phantom Stranger and Spectre have been in decades past.  Pandora represents the idea of setting the evil free, and one of the major events of the modern DCU was "Forever Evil" where the bad guys take over.  That's just case-in-point of how far off the path DC has strayed.  Pandora speaks, but there's no one around her.  We're to think that she's talking to the mysterious orchestrator of the DCU's darkening in the New 52, whom we're led to believe by the touches of blue and the cosmic reach and Watchmen imagery, is Dr. Manhattan...and yet, I think Johns is having Pandora speaking directly to him.

Though I'm not sure if Johns truly represents the statement, "Skepticism, doubt, corrpution.  All things your cold heart believes in", he at the very least feels responsible for how dark things got.  Just look at the wholesale slaughter in Infinite Crisis and the imagery of a crazed Superboy ripping people apart.  If there's a mea culpa in this book, this would be it.  Johns blows up his agent of darkness, his desire to explore evil above hope and good manifest in a single character.  He obliterates the cause of evils, disintegrated into pink smoke.  It's an extreme gesture, signifying that she's no longer needed, perhaps even a bad idea to begin with.

The "love" chapter starts by dropping a bomb in two panels, more explicitly a word balloon and a text box.  Diana has a twin brother.  One panel later, we see a baby with glowing red eyes (and Kirby crackle), Darkseid is reborn (by his own daughter it would seem...ick).

Turn the page, a two page spread, Superman is dead, and yet no one really seems to be mourning.  Wonder Woman and Supergirl look sad, but Mari McCabe seems to be flirting with Steve Trevor, and Oliver Queen locks eyes with Dinah Drake for the first time in this DCU.  Lois and Clark from the pre-Flashpoint DCU have been living in hiding on a world not their own, but also not completely unfamiliar.  Lois asks Clark "is he going to return from the grave like you did?"  Clark kisses Lois sweetly on the forehead, "Let's hope so."

Hope.

It takes the pre-Flashpoint Superman to return hope.

Arthur Curry is the reluctant king, and not "the terror of the oceans" which legend have made of the lord of Atlantis.  He hopes to take a warrior for his queen.  It's all about setting up love, even amidst loss.  So it's all the more heartbreaking when the love of Wally West's life, the woman who has saved him, the hero, multiple times, no longer recognizes him, and cannot save him this time.  The DC directive for the New 52 was no weddings (causing Greg Rucka to leave writing Batwoman as he was planning Kate Kane and Maggie Sawyer's nuptials) and no kids.  Happy families make for boring stories, apparently, and yet, family was what the DCU was about for such a long time, most prominently with Barry and Wally

Life.  Life is finite.  Wally's life is fading.  He's desperate, reluctant, a fighter.  He sees old enemies, colleagues, friends... all have forgotten him.  He sees his replacement, another Wally West with superspeed destined to become Flash's sidekick and a Teen Titan. But he's also family, and a hero.  The world could use two Wally Wests, but it doesn't have to have them.

And then there's his uncle.  Barry Allen.  His mentor.  A better father figure than his own.  Here Wally sees a man who reflects his ideal, he reflects who Wally ultimately became, a hero with a smile on his face, a compassionate man with a sense of justice and honesty.

Here we see a Wally who's seen the world change before his eyes, the light is returning to the DC Universe.  He's ready to give in, but with every last ounce of effort he needs to see his own hero again, to let him know what it all meant to live the life he did.  Even if it didn't matter anymore, even if no one remembered, Wally was still grateful.

Can I give you a hug, Wallace? You look like you need a hug.

Those pages (and this whole chapter) so masterfully illustrated by Phil Jimenez, inked by Matt Santorelli and vibrantly colored by Gabe Eltaeb as the lightning erupts around Wally, electrifying Barry, shocking him with the memories of a forgotten lifetime... they're beautiful.  Barry pulls Wally from the Speed Force at the last second ("every second is a gift"), and Jimenez conveys perfectly, with one panel of Wally's reaction just how grateful, and yet shocked, he is.  The expression of incredulity is so palpable on his face.  And Barry's reaction, as a flood of memories return, the guilt he feels for not just forgetting Wally but ultimately letting him down for so long...in a flash, it's forgiven.  Wally is a hero, he knows this world of heroes and what happens.  There's no grudges, just a lot of losses to accept and lost time to make up for.

I shed genuine tears...of both happiness and pain.  With each reread, or even just staring in to Wally and Barry's faces on those pages, I well up.  Comic books excite me and make me laugh, even horrify and disgust me.  They're potent, more than capable of eliciting a reaction.  But, I don't remember the last time one made me cry.

Nope.

The book starts and ends with Watchmen iconography.  A happy face pin with blood spatter.  A watch's inner workings messed up by a missing tooth on a rusting cog.  The watch taken apart and repaired.  Mars.  Dialogue between, supposedly, Adrian Veidt and Dr. Manhattan.  I don't have a problem with this.

I like the meta commentary here, that the Watchmen and its contemporaries unintentionally ushered in a dark wave into comics.  I don't get the sense that Manhattan is a villain here, but at best an experimenter.  The fact that Adrian Viedt (and a "Mr. Oz"..short for Ozymandias?) is at play, a man who considers himself the world's smartest without any humility, could he be the manipulator, and Manhattan the one trying to set things right?  Adrian seems to be taking ownership, "I did the right thing, didn't I?"   There's plenty of possibilities.  The Watchmen are welcome in the DCU, so long as their exposure within it is kept to a minimum.

Also, that missing tooth in the cog on Page 1, it's repaired on the third last page.  The tooth is Wally, and the watch is restored...but... the problem with the watch on page one seems to be time is going backwards, and yet it's still moving backwards even after the tooth is repaired.  It's moving backwards from 5:00 (or "V").  Is this to indicate moving back in time, away from "V" (for Vendetta) and other misinterpreted lessons from Alan Moore?  Did Alan Moore unintentionally break the DCU, not personally but through the influence of his works?

But when the watch flips to a Watchmen-style clock face, time is at midnight, with the blood spatter on the inverse side from where it is on the button Batman finds.  Why?

Every panel in this book has intent, meaning and/or purpose.  Even if it doesn't make complete sense to everyone, the tone, in its entirety, feels meaningful.  Even if you don't know DC's rich past, or even if you're not going to follow along in the future, you can feel it all change here.  You can feel the rich past colliding with a brighter future.  You can feel a heavy world get lighter, the darkness turned vibrant.

Somehow the fact that Gary Frank can't not make smiles
look goofy only makes it work better for Ted Kord

Smiles, how many smiles.  Once we get past lost (where the only smiles are of Evil and in the past, w get a Legionnaire's smile, Ted Kord's smile, Damien Wayne's smile all up close and personal, followed by Green Arrow and Black Canary, wry and hesitant, Aquaman and Mera, Wally and Barry...the pleasure of another's company.

DC's execs -- Didio, Lee, and Johns -- said this wasn't another reboot, this was a shift in philosophy.  A return to form.  An acknowledgement of what was done wrong, and a path forward for a better, more engaging, more meaningful stories.

What makes a shared universe great is not that every event affects everyone, but that every event could affect everyone... and not just today.  A shared universe allows for a building of history, a sharing of history, and the changing of history.  It provides a framework that's rigid enough to withstand pieces being removed or moved around without it all falling apart.  Flashpoint and The New 52 took the whole thing down and started again, and attempted to rebuild it without a plan.  And as such their design started to take shape like the structure before it, but warped and twisted, sometimes in interesting ways, but mostly in not good, fragile ways.  With 80 very carefully crafted pages, Rebirth moves the new structure onto the old foundation, instead of the soft ground beside it.  Rebirth has found some of the pieces of the old left in tact and is using those to brace a creaky design.  There's still a lot of work to be done but this is an excellent start.

This is, to me, Johns' best work to date.  It's honest and personal , yet grand and sweeping, full of easter eggs and devilish clues around his intentions.  It's past, present and future colliding, allowing for new possibilities for all.  It's not trying to be provocative, or change things just for change's sake as he's so often done in the past.

As a standalone work it's wondrous.  As a turning point, it's like hitting five bullseyes with one shot: not just skill but a miracle.  Johns has reinvigorated the DCU, restoring it to a point where it can legitimately challenge Marvel once again as a place you want to spend your time (and money).  With 80 pages it's gone from being a barely familiar place I once cared about to an exciting and revitalized venue to which I wish to return.

Thrilled about Wally, not so thrilled
about Brett Booth

When I first read about Rebirth, I was jaded.  I couldn't believe Didio, Lee and Johns would steer the ship right after colliding with icebergs so long.  For the first time I want to know where things are going, I want to follow Superman as a father and as a stranger on another planet (yet again).  I want to see my Superman integrate into the heroes of this DC Universe. I want to go wherever Wally West is willing to take me.  He looks younger but has the weight of a lost life riding on his shoulders.  Even with his spark of light returning, there's still some heavy clouds that follow.  (And I want to see Wally and Superman meet again, the last remaining survivors who remember a whole other universe).

I want to know what happened to Ray Palmer, and I want to accompany Ryan Choi on his journey as he finds out.  I want to see my two favourite Blue Beetles occupy the same air.   I want more Supergirl, more Legion, more Vixen and Batwoman and Stephanie Brown.  I want the history, the legacy, the Justice Society to return.  I want my comics to be better than the TV shows they spawned.

The electricity is back.  It's not the same world I grew up with, but it doesn't have to be.  It just needs to be true to where it came from in order to mean something going forward.

---
STRAY THOUGHTS

- I'm not so sure about this Spectrum version of the Shazam Family


- What's up with the letter from Thomas Wayne, is that a Flashpoint remnant?  I didn't read Flashpoint.  Did Flashpoint Batman send Barry back with a letter for Bruce?

- That the Comedian's button wound up in the Batcave makes ZERO sense, though, right?

- I love the story as it played out, but if Wally went to Clark and Lois White, problem solved, right?  I look forward to their reuinion.

- What was the "help against the capes" that Swamp Thing speaks of to Constantine.  Is that past tense?  I'm intrigued.

- Poor Linda.  Hopefully Wally doesn't go all Carter Hall-like stalker on her, talking about destinies and junk.

- Mr. Oz apparently trained New 52 Superman (showing up in a Johns-written issue of Superman).  He kind of sucks, visually. A cloak and a scythe?

-  Ivan Reis' lazy scale on Aquaman's tunic really annoys me.

- I love Ray Palmer's very Lost-like video, particularly how it cuts off at the most important point.  So cliche, yet so effective.

- Johnny Thunder's pained "I didn't mean to throw you away!"  That's a gut punch of a scene.  He'll always seem like the kid who screws everything up, even as an old man.

- I'm not sure how I feel about three Jokers.  Is the Comedian supposed to be one of them?  That would be bad. 

- Wait.  Thomas Wayne in Batman v. Superman was played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who played the Comedian in The Watchmen.  Is that supposed to be part of the connection here between Thomas Wayne's letter and the Comedian's blood-stained pin?  If it's just an easter-egg, then it's fun, but if it's supposed to be something more meaningful than that, it's kinda dumb... like the Comedian is Thomas Wayne on Earth 41 or something.

Catching up on Comics with CGraig: Midnighter #11-12

The Wildstorm Universe never felt like a home.  It felt like one of DC or Marvel’s alternate earths, one where you could pop in for a curious visit, but not somewhere you'd care to stay too long.  It came to be in the 90's during a time when artists and their "hotness" were the driving force of comics, and a time when tits and violence were getting so much more of the focus than the actual stories being told.  

Wildstorm was a reflection of all of that.  It was not a place I went very often.  It wasn't for me.  The characters didn't make much sense, they didn't really look that great either, and it wasn't until the whole "hot artist" thing died that it got creative over there... with Alan Moore, Joe Casey, Warren Ellis and Ed Brubaker pushing the limits of a shared continuity.  Once the writers took over, it was more their show. It was a place where writers could do things to characters that the Big Two wouldn't allow.  Similar to when the artists dominated, the characters didn't quite matter, there was no preciousness to the continuity that the company was trying to protect.  Wildstorm was always a bit of a wild west show that way. Their characters weren't iconic and had no real defining aspect to them, so once the writers took over anything could happen.  But it was still hard to really care.  It's fairly telling that the two characters that tend to persist since Wilstorm folded into DC were the Superman and Batman analogs, Apollo and Midnighter.

I never liked their pairing as the "gay Batman and Superman".  I have no problem with them being gay, nor Batman or Superman analogs, but their pairing always seemed like a dumb 1-note joke of the Mark Millar variety, one which seems smug and self congratulatory in its supposed cleverness.

So even though their rekindled relationship in these two issues is written very,very well (as an extension of M's growth as a character and not for whatever negligible shock value remains in Batman and Superman kissing) it's still not something I like for the character, or, for that matter, a series which managed to fully invest me in a Wildstorm character for the first time in it's 20-something year existence.  (I know, Wildstorm is no more and is now an amalgamated part of the DCU, perhaps a contributing factor to the darkening of DC over the past few years...instead of brightening the Wildstorm characters to fit, perhaps they darkened the DCU instead?)

M's story over these 12 issues has been about dealing with his past, which is a nice thing to force on a character who is always looking forward, calculating all the possible outcomes.  It's also been about fighting and flirting and dating and most importantly, character growth.  Mighnighter isn't a psychopath... but he does really enjoy hurting people who deserve it.  Writer Steve Orlando has defined this character over 12 issues, made him so much more than a more than a brutal, sci-fi Batman.  He's got no dual life, he is who he is in and out of costume and Orlando's run had him coming to terms with that.  (The only difference is that when he's out of costume he's very dapper and more charming, rather than threatening).  

Orlando has told the best story of a gay male in mainstream superhero comics to date.  There's nothing in twelve issues that feels sensationalistic.  It's natural and honest depiction of a gay vigilante's life, abandoning all stereotypes, and never deigning to say that this gay life represents all gay life as so many mainstream stories written by straight men (or women) feel the need to do.

It was a great run, cut far too short, and one that I'll need to do a second read through on just to a better sense of the larger picture that Orlando had in mind.

Catching up on Comics with CGraig: Astonishing Ant-Man #7-8

2016, Marvel

A tremendously weak Canadian dollar meant the prices of comics were starting to skyrocket.  A $3.99 book was now over $5 which meant my monthly pull suddenly was costing 25% or more.  Changes had to be made.  Some books had to be dropped.  A cold hard assessment of what I actually wanted to read, and what I enjoyed had to be performed, and in the process the Astonishing Ant-Man fell victim to the chopping block, being put on the "going digital" list.  The problem with the "going digital" reality is that I don't have a good platform for reading digital comics, and, as I showed with the Nameless a few posts back, there's an actual tangible difference between physical and digital such that I prefer the former pretty much always.

I've never cared all that much for Ant-Man.  Being a DC kid, he just was a pale imitation of the Atom, like Namor was a nudist iteration of Aquaman and Hawkeye was just lame Green Arrow.  But with Marvel Studios bringing little dreams to big life on the silver screen, one can't help but be charmed by these cinematic iterations, and perhaps look at them in a different light.  The fact that they've gotten to the big screen, and successfully, well before their DC counterparts has given them a tremendous edge in cool factor, intrigue and bragging rights (especially given DC's otherwise general mismanagement of their characters in the comics over the past half decade).

I was particularly charmed by Paul Rudd as Scott Lang, as Paul Rudd tends to charm in any role he's in.  And with the Ant-Man film we also ventured into my favourite superhero terrritory: legacy.  Having Michael Douglas as Hank Pym trying to find a successor for the Ant-Man role, all the while his daughter Hope was vying for the part and his once-protege Darren Cross was attempting to figure out the whole shrinking thing on his own...it's all kinds of legacy swirling about.  It's not a perfect film (there's a lot of "why would they do that?", or "what's the logic here?") but I loved it tremendously.

 Shortly after Ant-Man came out in the cinema Marvel launched The Astonishing Ant-Man comic, and of course I ignored it.  I don't read Ant-Man comics.  I read a trade of the Irredeemable Ant-Man by Robert Kirkman and Phil Hester quite some time ago, and I loathed it.  I pretty much swore off Kirkman after that (Phil Hester, meanwhile, is a tremendously underrated writer, and I tend to perk up when he's writing something...but he only drew that Ant-Man series).

Three months later though, I happened to notice while reading Marvel solicits that Nick Spencer was writing The Astonishing Ant-Man and that in the series Scott Lang was employing reformed (or supposedly reformed) supervillains in his new Miami-based security agency.  I knew immediately this was a book I had to read.

Anyone who read the Superior Foes of Spider-Man (and there were far too few of us for a book of such tremendous quality) knew that Spencer + D-level super-villains equals superhero comedy gold.  And I have an incredible soft spot for D-level super-villains.  It stems back to the Dark Side Bar from I think issues 43 and 44 of the Giffen-DeMatteis Justice League America with Wally Tortellini winning a bunch of gear off of super-villains in a poker game and downright shaming he JL.  Actually, it predates that even, with the introduction of the Injustice League, a group of lackluster villains (Major Disaster, Big Sir, The Cluemaster, Clock King, Multi-Man and the Mighty Bruce!) much earlier in the series.  Or maybe even before that with Suicide Squad.  Regardless, these were comics where the writers and artists were plumbing the depths of the DC pantheon and pulling out the dullest, most tarnished, impurest of nuggets and polishing them into gold.  Spencer did the same in Superior Foes, and continues to do so with the Astonishing Ant-Man.

Not only that but Spencer is dealing with Ant-Man legacy in a much different way than the Ant-Man film.  It's not so much about Hank Pym and Scott Lang, but rather about Scott Lang and his daughter Cassie, who was in the Young Avengers as the giant-lass Stature.  Darren Cross stole her heart, literally, and now she has no powers and has lost a tremendous sense of her identity, while Scott has the poorest of coping skills for all these events, and mishandles pretty much everything.  But then he always has... and he always faces the consequences... such as his short-lived relationship with Darla Deering, aka Miss Thing, in the pages of Matt Fraction and Mike Allred's run on FF (I thought I was missing something, as I read all of Jonathan Hickman's FF run, but did not carry forward with Fraction/Allred's) that has reared its head again in Spencer's book.

Meanwhile there are two competing smartphone apps for hiring supervillains at the touch of a button, not only that, but the creators of one of the apps is able to bestow superpowers upon willing new recruits.  Cassie herself enlists with one, gaining new Wasp-like powers, and the moniker "Stinger".  Her task is to infiltrate Darren Cross' organization and corrupt his competing super-villain app.  Scott's all too aware of the danger his daugher is in, and needs to enlist a group of super-villains himself to infiltrate Cross' org and get his daughter back.  (Spencer has carried the latest incarnation of the Spider-Man villain Beetle over to Ant-Man as a quasi-love interest for Scott).

I'm not sure why I dropped this from my pull, but I was so very wrong to do so.  Watching Civil War, my favourite part of the film was Scott Lang's transition into Giant-Man.  It's one of the most giddily delightful things I've ever seen.  It reminded me how much I liked the comic and I felt that I had made a huge mistake in dropping the title.  Thankfully, it was easy to catch up on and it's great.

io9 pointed out today one of the greatest highlights of the series so far: the group of Scott's super-villains showing the new guy the ropes, dropping knowledge on all the pain points of the Marvel U.

Catching up on Comics with CGraig: The Manhattan Projects

The Manhattan Projects: The Sun Beyond The Stars #2-4 (2015-2016)

I've noticed more than a few creator-owned books have gone from being regular series to mini-series format.  Think Tank, Life After, and The Manhattan Projects are all books I've read their full run but have been negligent in picking up their follow-up books.  I don't think this would have happened if they were still ongoing.  I would have made sure that I had the next issue of an ongoing I was reading.  It's long been stated in comics retail that mini-series don't sell as well as ongoing series which is why DC and Marvel tend to offer up left-of-center things like Prez and Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur as ongoing rather than as minis.  But I wonder if there's a different attitude these days at the indie or smaller presses, where they can sell (and make money selling) 4000-8000 copies of a title regardless of whether it's an ongoing or regular series.  Is it the case when your likely selling as many copies of a series run in trade paperback that it's indistinguishable on the trade shelf wheter a book was the next volume of an ongoing or a subsequent mini?

If I look at the "unread" stack beside the bed (which isn't so much a pile anymore, but an easily flip-through-able row of books on a bookshelf beside the bed) I notice most of the titles remaining unread are either mini-series I'm waiting to finish or ongoing series I prefer to read in arcs rather than issue by issue.  I really should be trade waiting on most of these books but then I'm thoroughly entrenched in the Wednesday habit so it's kind of easier (if a tad more expensive) to do it this way. Plus I still get a charge out of buying floppies that I just don't get from trades.  I'm rarely as excited to dive into a trade as I am into a new floppy. And reading a run of floppies is so much better than reading a trade.  The ritual of getting to the end of one floppy, rebagging it, and unbagging the next one is kind of like a mini-Christmas.  It's certainly a more interesting process than just turning a page to continue a story.  It's just too bad floppies don't look as good on a shelf and aren't as easy to lend out.  Plus I'm much more protective of my floppies than my trades, the old collector mentality.

The Manhattan Projects: The Sun Beyond The Stars is a characteristically weird entry in the MP series.  It looks like Hickman and Pitarra are using the mini-series format to tell a concentrated story centered on a subset of the cast rather than continue the ongoing story of the entire cast. I'm not dissatisfied but I quite miss the more sprawling scope and erratic nature of the ongoing, not to mention the character glossary that each issue contained was a great part of its charm.  I'm in for pretty much anything Hickman does so lets just say I liked the mini-series format plenty, just not quite as much as when it was ongoing.

Catching up on Comics with CGraig: Nameless #1-6

(2015, Image)

After my disappointment with Annihilator, I was a bit worried that maybe Grant Morrison was becoming too "Grant Morrison", too into metafiction, too into self-reference or deep fictional reverence.  For a creator who so rarely disappointed me in the past, and was so frequently unique, Annihilator was like brushing every raw nerve the critics have exposed with a wire toothbrush.

I had amassed all of Nameless before I got to reading Annihilator, but had I actually read it beforehand I likely would have passed on this Image series.

I'm both glad I didn't, but also wishing I did.

Nameless starts off in a very cinematic fashion, opening with our titular hero -- a very British, Constantine-esque mage -- en media res, finishing up a case where he's making an escape through Inception-like layers of surreality.  It's weird, but also speaking some familiar enough language to not make it too off-putting.

By the end of the first issue Nameless has taken on his new assignment and is off to the moon.  In the second issue he meets the boss (virtually) and the team he's to join.  Their objective is to destroy or divert a giant asteroid with a trajectory towards Earth.  Nameless' role is to ward off the negative mojo the rock is emanating, a particular sigil emblazoned on its face a signal that it's not just an errant piece of rock.

As the crew takes off, its revealed that the face of the boss in the virtual console is a facade, masking a room of horrors about him.  Prometheus --or Alien before it-- as Nameless deduces the origin of the structure as an ancient prison for a mad god, and he's worried they've just freed it.  What happens next is a literal horror show as the crew is attacked by an ancient evil and rapidly succumbing to it in horrific ways. 

The crew has a daring mission of exploration and destruction before them, and issue 3 is a wonder, an absolute awe-inspiring visual feast from Chris Burnham (see the preceding post).  There some of the better elements of Ridley Scott's

The third issue ends with the reality of the entire series called into question, doubly, with a two page spread taking place with Nameless on Earth, and the final page showing Nameless horrifically mutilated yet kept alive in a nightmare world.  The fourth issue expands upon all these, weaving between the three realities of space, Earth, and nightmare, and Nameless (and the audience with him) completely unsure of what is real.

The fifth issue features, presumably, a flashback showing Nameless has not been as in control of any situation as he thinks he has (as most of the situations he's been involved with haven't been working out very well), while the story starts looping back to the beginning, bringing back the veiled lady and the angler fish men from whom he tried to steal a key in the opening pages. 

What went from being straightforward through to most of issue three (well, as straightforward as far as Morrison goes) descends into one of Morrison's lesser used traits of total insane mindfuckery.  This is comparable, if not even more confounding than The Invisibles, but, coupled with Burnham's terrifying imagination, far more unsettling.  (About halfway through issue 3 I was convinced that Nameless would make a great movie, and then it takes its turn and I uttered aloud "Nonono, I don't want to see that.")

There was a point where I thought I understood what was going on in the book, a point when I thought I got the story, but this is one of those Morrison-mind-trips where really only he gets all the connections.  They're so mired in his research and knowledge of arcane topics and horror fables well beyond Lovecraft, that deciphering these six issues would be a full time job for at least a year.  This isn't to say that the book isn't worth reading (I hesitate to recommend it because it is so damn weird and gross, but at the same time it's very fascinating and engaging) but it's not wholly satisfying either.  Then again, its structure is one that demands you loop back and give it another pass, or two, or three...if you can stomach it.  

Some of Morrison's works are like Mensa puzzles, only for the truly gifted to solve, but that doesn't mean the non-gifted can't give it a go themselves, nor appreciate its complexity.

What the...?

LOOK!

Yeah, that's right...  Marvel has introduced the $4.99 price point.

You might think "oh, it's just the special first issue of Poe Dameron and Black Panther", but then how do you explain the random $5 price of Uncanny X-Men #6?  Nope, this is just the start of the $4.99 book at Marvel.

I know Marvel’s justification is the books are now 30 pages, but are they really?  Uncanny X-Men does actually clock in at 30, but Black Panther, stripping out the title pages and backmatter is only 22 pages of story.  Poe Dameron likewise is only 22 pages of main story with a, how shall I say, aggressively needless BB-8 backup cartoon from Chris Eliopoulis.  The man is a fine cartoonist but I really don't want to pay an extra dollar for a cutesy short story. 

The average price of Marvel comic til now was $3.99 for 20 pages (occasionally a page or two more...averaging at 20 cents per page or less).
DC's books were $2.99 for 20 pages or $3.99 for 22 pages (15 cents a page for the former, 18 cents per page for the latter).
 

$4.99 for 30 pages is just under 17 cents per page and is a better deal than $3.99 for 20 (and up to 23) pages but the math only works if you're actually getting more of the story that you want (not some bullshit about BB-8 playing matchmaker).

I'm guessing Marvel is trying to suction the money in the comics marketplace in advance of DC's Rebirth at $2.99. Even though most of DC's books are going twice monthly it's still 15 cents per page (assuming they're not dropping the page per issue rate to 18 or something dumb like that).

The problem here is Marvel is clearly making a more desirable product in most cases and they know that people buy primarily on character and story.  DC still is having a hard time establishing its New 52 Universe and characters.  Their events just aren't catching on, and the hype has yet to sustain itself into any long term allegiances. Plus they don't have Star Wars.  All of DC's books could be $1 and I still don't think they could get people to drop a $4 Star Wars book for four DC books.  That's how poor the reputation of their product is.

If people truly bought on price point and value per page, this week's clear winner would be Nick Spencer and Steve Lieber's The Fix from.  It clocks in at 34 story pages for $3.99.  That's under 12 cents a page from the same team that brought you the awesome Superior Foes of Spider-Man booke you foolishly didn't buy.  So buy this one and make up for your mistake.

Anyway, the point here is I had a pretty big problem with thw $3.99 price point when it came in a couple years ago as Marvel’s standard, and while I resister for a while, the lure of the product was too strong.  But as the Canadian dollar weakens and a $4 book becomes a $5 book, and a $5 is thus $6.25, I have a hard time justifying my hobby.  As much as I enjoyed both Poe Dameron and Black Panther, I can't support them monthly... I have to wait for trade and probably buy them for a discount through other non-brick-and-mortar comic store channels.  That's right Marvel you're sacrificing both the viability of your titles and the longevity of the retailers whom you sell through for your greed.

Black Panther debuts with it a lot of positive media exposure, and I know a few people who wouldn't otherwise read the character (or comics in general) who are going to check it out... but how many people at $5 per issue are going to leave it on the stands?  Or buy only issue 1 and not return?  Or not contemplate picking up other comics because of the price?  Shoot one's self in the foot much?

As a guy who loves to read and share and talk about comics this bums me the hell out.

Perfect Pages: Nameless #3, Page 1

2015, Image
art - Chris Burnham
colour - Nathan Fairbairn

Just look at the depth on this page.  One of the hardest things to do as an artist is creating a real sense of depth and Burnham here has done it on so many levels.  I imagine some tweaking from Fairbairn puts the spaceship into crisp focus and giving the landscape the slightist bit of blur so that it's obvious that it's much higher up from the ground.  The obvious thing is the manipulation of the landscape, doubled with the position of the the ship, forming the image of the skull, which is utterly, utterly cool, but still not what attracts me to this page.  There's just a great texture here, the lack of solid blacks give the chasm even more detail and definition.  Just an impeccable piece of art.  I stared at this for 5 minutes before moving on with the story.

Another thing to note, though, is how the physical comic page compares to the digital.  I pulled the above image from a preview of Nameless #3 on line, while below is a quick picture I took...

Notice the difference in colour on the printed page (and washed out a little more by some artificial lighting and the extra layer of a camera), but it adds a bit more warmth to the image, a further roughness to the terrain.  The grain of the paper gives it added texture, and in my opinion it looks far, far better, even as a crappy photograph with light flare in the top corner.

There's a reason why I haven't gone digital.  It just doesn't resonate the same.  It like watching TV that auto converts programs to high def.  It still works, but it doesn't look as good somehow.  There is such a thing as too clean, too clear, too crisp an image.  Texture gives images and story more life.