Let's take a little time away from laughing at the ridiculousness of Superman and Batman vs. Aliens and Predator, to appreciate one of the long lost crossover masterworks, Godzilla vs. Barkley.
Instead of writing up a long plot summery, I've decided to give you an abridged look at this classic piece of sequential art, presenting all the most important bits, removing unnecessary plot points and context. Enjoy.
Yesss, indeed.
I made the prediction that there was no way that Iron Man and the rest of his pro-registration goons were going to win Civil War. And I was so very wrong.
Now, it's too early for me to start bitching about this new status quo or how it will effect the next few years of stories. (I don't read that much current Marvel anyways.) Luckily, it will probably be nullified by some other huge event by 2010 at the latest.
But what I am left really thinking about is how the ending of Civil War, specifically Captain America's simple surrender, must be angering legions of fans but how it also makes a lot of sense. It was perfectly clear from the very get-go that Iron Man was the villain of the series and that Cap and his band of rebels were the one's worth rooting for. But why is that? I think that the general pro-Cap sentiment among fans was grounded in the idealism that superheroes represent for people. It is the same reason why some people get all bent out of shape about Batman killing in the movies: superheroes are good, just and should not be questioned or lowered in stature. By subverting superheroes (also mistakenly called "darkening" them) creators undermine the virtues that are projected onto the characters.
It is this and the plain fact that the Stamford accident is purely fictional that makes Iron Man's side so hard to accept and Cap to easy to root for. But let's be perfectly serious, if 9/11 were caused by superhumans (good or evil, doesn't really matter) instead of religious terrorists, you'd bet that we in the real world would all be calling for superhuman registration as well. It makes sense that a vast majority of people in the Marvel universe would side with the government and be in favor of registration and so it makes sense that a hero so dedicated to the people to surrender to such an opinion, like it or not.
Perhaps the "problem" of Civil War's resolution has less to do with flaws in the series and more with a fundamental flaw in fiction, that we can only get so close to the characters, that we can only understand their motivations to a limited extent. It is this distance from the character's reality (or even our own distance from the event Stamford is so shamelessly based on) that makes it hard to look past the idealism of Captain America and to see just how practical Iron Man and SHIELD are being. To say that the ending of Civil War sucks is perfectly reasonable, but to say that it isn't the way it should have ended is simply a fandamentalist delusion.
That being said, I am glad that the only contemporary Marvel comics I am dedicated reading are Runaways and Punisher MAX. Everything else I'm reading was published decades before Civil War.
This last week wasn't the best. I spent four days home from my job due to a lack of work, I suffered from a terrible sinus infection and northern Indiana was blanketed with inches upon inches of snow. Luckily, with the time I was snowed in, coughing, snotty and unpaid, I was able to finally read Black Hole by Charles Burns, which I had checked out from the library a month before. I read the 350+ page graphic novel in on sitting, which may not have been the best for my health, but it certainly allowed me to get the full experience of the story.
Black Hole is the story of several teenagers living in 1970's Seattle, where a strange new STI mutates those who are infected. The lucky ones are given strange yet concealable deformities, while the unfortunate are mutated beyond recognition.
The best thing about Burns' graphic novel is that it not about the disease (called The Bug), which would have limited the story to the realm of horror. Instead, Black Hole focuses on the characters, their desires and fears, and very little of the conflict has to do with the Bug directly. Black Hole is essentially a coming-to-age/love story set in a viseral and surreal world. The story telling and characterization is excellent and the artwork is both clean, precise and perfect for the dark and nostalgic tone of the story. The way Burns examines the theme of "otherness", both in terms of the perfect object of desire and the threatening opposite, is brilliant and fascinating.
According to Wikipedia, Black Hole was originally serialized over the course of ten years, which may account for the only problematic element of the story. The story seems to want to be bigger than itself, somehow universal and far-reaching, almost cosmic or mystical in stature, but that is difficult to achieve with a story that is so focused on characters unique as their individual deformities. But this is really just a minor compliant as the story only falls into this mode during a handful of sections, concentrated at the beginning and end.
I highly recommend Black Hole, as a graphic novel that is a perfect balance of darkness and nostalgic idealism. It's not a perfect book, but its without a doubt one of the best and most original books published in recent memory. And if you're a fan of Brian Wood's Demo and you still haven't read Black Hole, you have no excuse.
After being sick for a few weeks, I've finally gotten around to checking out my comic book-related feeds and what do I find? The preview of Batman #663 posted at Every Day Is Like Wednesday. You know, the one with prose.
I am giddy. It'll be nice to have something different come along, especially in a Batman book, especially by Grant Morrison.
Now, I'm not exactly sure why Caleb is having what seems to be a negative reaction to the format of the book. Even moreso, I'm surprised by a reader's comment on the post saying, "What the hell is this thing?! I thought it couldn't get any worse than Arkham Asylum!" I think this comment is strange because the prose isn't exactly strange when compared to works by other postmodern authors. Is there a more widespread negative reaction to this preview, as I have been cut off from the comic blogosphere for a while?
Are comic book fans, especially those of superhero books, out of touch with prose fiction? Is it inaccessible? Or even threatening that it unnerves us should it appear in what we expect to be "comics only" spaces?
I don't mean to sound snotty or pretentious (although anyone talking about prose vs. comics is bound to), but I love a good ol' non-comic book now and then. I won't try to argue which medium is better, as that is a ridiculous discussion, but I will say that my recent reading of The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood was more rewarding than any comic I've read in the past year*. But I do know that many comic book fans do not read much other than comics, and then there are those who only read prose that is related to popular sci-fi/adventure franchises. Everything else seems to be considered either unaccessible or boring.
I have no solution to the problem, but I do implore readers to give Batman #663 a chance. Prose fiction may seem strange in your monthly publications from DC, but it's not that big of a deal. It could be good. It's Grant Morrison for Christ's sake. Give it a read, even if it's "not a fucking comic book."
*It is also the major reason I have not been blogging in the past few weeks, along with lessened computer time and being sick lately. And I only say it's better than any comic I read in the last year as a safe estimate, but it could very well be better and more rewarding than any comic ever. Seriously. Read it.
Okay, since have access to pretty much every What If...? issue ever, I'll be taking your requests for reviews.
A full list of every What If...? scenario can be found at this Wikipedia page, so scope it out and if you'd like to know what happens in the story I will be more than happy to read it and tell just what would happen if Spider-Man was bitten by a radioactive stink bug or whatever.*
Keep in mind that I have some "special posts" already planed, so I may not be able to answer all of your requests in detail without becoming redundant, but I should be able to do most anything people what too see.
Also, this is my contribution to National De-lurking Week, so if you're reading this please make a comment. Please, massage my ego and tell me someone is reading the crap I post.
*Mary Jane, Aunt May, Black Cat, Green Goblin, Daredevil, The Owl, Rhino, Wolverine, and Flat Man all die.
Dearest DC Comics,
Next time you want to do a weekly series, please hire me as a proofreader. This blog may be riddled with grammatical and spelling errors, but Lobo is having a punctuation emergency. I can help. I can also write meaningless copy for background text. That way you don't have to publish embarrassing keyboard mashing.
Also, I'm not mad at you for killing Animal Man because we all know how permanent death is in the DCU, regardless of what "changes" have been "made" to "New Earth."
See you in June, Buddy!
Branching off of Nostalgia Week, I've decided it is time to take a good, close look at a series that holds a very special place in my heart: What If...?
What If...? is the quintessential comic nerd series. The basic premise, for those who do not know, is to explore alternate outcomes for famous Marvel storylines. Every alternate scenario is presented as a question. Its with this series that we get the final answer for the burning questions like, What if the X-Men lost Inferno? or What if Captain America came back today? or What if Longshot didn't have a mullet? The truly important stuff! I had a subscription to What If...? as a kid, and I probably didn't really know anything about the original stories, but I still loved seeing weird, over-the-top scenarios every month. What If...? was the best.
And for all of those people out there who draw a parallel between What If...? and DC's Elseworlds books, please stop it. There is a pretty noticeable different between the two and the difference is what makes What If...? the more superior series as a whole. As I said, most every What If...? is based on an existing event in the Marvel canon, only with a different outcome.* This is a lot different than Elseworlds, which are all about creating totally different universes for the characters to exist in, therefor telling stories of Batman being De Vinci's apprentice, Steel being an slave during the Civil War (the real one, guys) and Hal Jordan being a Nazi. Other than that last one, none of those premises have any basis in mainstream continuity. A lot of Elseworlds are really, really good, but the concept of What If...?, being grounded in canon, provides much more nerdy fun than seeing Robin dressed up as a samurai.
But there is a dark side to What If...? You see, I have a theory that one of the main purposes of the series, other than hypothetical nerdy delights, is to put fanboys in their place. What If...? proves that if events happened any differently than what is published everything gets completely fucked up! Everyone dies. For instance, for all fans annoyed with the happenings in Spider-Man: The Other can just read the recent What If...? based on the story to see just how fucked up things would be if Spider-Man had not made all huggy with his inner arachnid. Essentially it is a "Shut up and quit whining" from Marvel to fanboys having hissy fits. So it's a rule: nothing ever comes out right in a What If...?, so be happy with the way things are, bitch.
Body counts and unavoidable apocalypses aside, What If...? is almost always fun, if only for how ridiculous the stories get. So let's take a Journey Into the Hypothetical and check out some of the best What If...? scenarios of all time. I'll still be blogging about other stuff, but for the next few weeks/month/however long until I get tired of it, we'll be regularly checking out classic What If...?s. Who knows what's in store for Continuity Error!?**
*Yeah, I know there were some What If...? that had premises a lot like Elseworlds, but there's only a few of them. So, I don't care.
**The Starjammers all die. Sorry, it's just what happens.
All-Star Superman #6: I'm not going to do a ridiculous "Best of 2006" post since most of the comics I read this (last) year have been older as I try to play catchup with the comic world, but if I had to name the best series of 2006, All-Star Superman would be it. And with this issue it is already the best series of 2007. I don't even like Superman all that much but I get all giddy when a new issue of All-Star comes out. It's that good.
Superman Confidential #3: I have not yet finished reading #1, but I keep buying this book. I think Tim Sale's interpretation of Lois Lane has a lot to do with it. She's purdy.
Amazing Spider-Man #537: Meh. This is probably the weakest chapter of the "War Comes Home" story arc. Disjointed chicken soup for the Spider soul. But on a whole I'm still happy with the story arc, which is more of a companion book to Civil War than Civil War: Frontline has ever been.
Punisher: War Journal #2: Captain America and the Punisher. Those two are soooo gay for each other. I'm not sure if I like this version of the Punisher compared to the MAX version, but it's nice to see him at least stand up to Cap and not just be his little bitch like he is in some other comic that was released this week but not everywhere.
Civil War #6: For those on the west coast I will simply say that this issue is fun. I liked it. I'm sure everyone else with a blog will figure out why it sucks.
I obsessively track my blog's traffic using Google Analytics, which is pretty sad considering how little traffic I actually get. But one of the best features of Analytics is the ability to see what words people were Googling when they visited your page.
I wrote about this a while back after I started getting a ton of traffic from people searching for "incest" and "incest comics." This was after I blogged about the theme of incest in the Dr. Thirteen backups in Tales of the Unexpected. If fact, I even got a comment on the post by some pervert defending his "perfectly normal desires" to have sex with his daughter. I deleted the comment by the way. Anyway, I now have a few more posts under my belt, some more content and so new hilarious, if not a little creepy, keywords are popping up.
The most popular new trend (but still way behind the incest-related searches) are concerning Psylocke, who I blogged about during Nostalgia Week. There is "betsy braddock" and "betsy braddock nude" (first result, baby!) and then there is my favorite so far, "psylocke costume wedgie."
Other popular searches are "spiderman penis," "mantra boob" and "she hulk nude." Nerds just love their fictional characters naked, don't they?
Of course there are plenty of normal, healthy searches that land people here. I'm the second result for "jla vs predator" and terms related to Nightwing and Civil War are among my all time most popular search results.
But they will aways be outweighed by the pervy searches looking for nasty porn and naked superheroes. And of course the funniest thing is that the posts that are getting all the dirty attention are in opposition of the concept that is being searched for. My Dr. Thirteen post takes a strong stance against incest and the irresponsible use of it as a theme in fiction. The Psylocke post is about the absurdity of her oversexualization and the Spider-Man penis one was basically about how seeing his wang is no big deal. Only the She-Hulk post, part of Cheesecake/Beefcake Appreciation Week, supplies some naughty thrills. But even then she was wearing clothes.
I would give anything to see what people were searching for when they stumbled across entries on other feminist comic blogs like When Fangirls Attack, One Diverse Comic Book Nation, Comic Book Thoughts, Pretty, Fizzy Paradise and Written World. I'm sure most of them will be along the lines of "wonder woman naked" "batgirl rape pics" or "amanda waller nude fan art."
The following review is a piece I've had buried in Blogger since I started Continuity Error! four months ago. I must have sat on it while I scanned some images as examples, but as I no longer really care to revisit The Hidden Years, I'm just going to give you this review as is. Prepare to see me at my most bitter fit of fanboyness.
Normally I would not review a entire monthly series with a total of 22 issues in one fell swoop, but I think it is a fair generalization when I say that this series sucked from beginning to end.
In the late 1960s, due to sagging sales, Marvel stopped producing new X-Men comics and for the next five years (issues #67-93) only reprinted older stories. Oddly this occurred when Neal Adams was supplying the artwork for the book, which made it a hundred times cooler than it had ever been. So, in 1975, Marvel introduced the "All-New, All-Different" X-Men and new X-Men stories began to be created.
But what about those years between issues #66 and #94. Well, I would have assumed that the X-Men just sat around and did homework, but that explanation wasn't good for John Byrne, because those "missing years" are the subject of X-Men: The Hidden Years.
There were a number of things working against The Hidden Years, so it's no surprise that Joe Quesada canceled it after less than two years.
The writing style is a "homage" to the cheesy narratives and dialogue of the Stan Lee and Roy Thomas stories. I'll never understand why that crap flew back in the 1960s, but it sure as hell isn't going to work in the 2000s. This must have been a boon to all the older comic fans looking for a lethal dosage of nostalgia,* but for the rest of us, less-gray fans, this stuff is just torture to read. Did Byrne not realize that writing like this is one of the reasons why X-Men was canceled in the first place? And it looks like crappy writing does strike twice.
If there is one thing that this series has going for it, it's that every issues was instantly accessible thanks to the page long back-issue-summery-in-the-form-of-flashbacks. Seriously, who thinks like this? I've never found myself, urgently driving in my car to an important appointment, and instead of thinking about what I am going to do, reminisce and summarize the events of the past three days, explaining where my friends are and what I had for breakfast the Tuesday before.
For a series that attempts to fill in the five-year gap before the X-Men's relaunch, this series sure doesn't get through the years very quickly. Overall, I'd estimate that the
The Hidden Years is basically nothing more than a John Byrne wankfest. The Fantastic Four (who Byrne wrote for six years in the early 1980s) appear in two of the storylines. That's two storylines in a series that only had 22 issues! I think Mr. Fantastic might get more panel-time than Iceman. Also, Moleman shows up at one point for no real reason.
And another strange thing is that a majority of the series involves the X-Men going on a sort of "World Tour," beginning with a trip to the Savage Land and taking them all over the place before they finally find themselves home. This should sound familiar, because it is exactly the same thing that happened when John Byrne began his run as an artist for Uncanny X-Men, back in the late 1970s. John Byrne basically ripped himself off, right down to the conflict with Magneto that kicks the whole thing off.**
I like the idea of a retroactive X-Men series, because those early issues need to be replaced by something. Anything. Well, anything but this crap.
*For the purpose of this review, "nostalgia" is defined as "ignoring the fact that the stuff you liked as a kid really, really sucked."
**As of writing this review, I read some more early Claremont issues and found that the premise of going to the Savage Land (or, rather nearby) to confirm that Magneto is dead is ripped right from the pages of Uncanny X-Men. The story line takes place soon after Byrne left the book, so at least he wasn't ripping of a story he actually worked on.
Because I'm still a twelve-year-old at heart, I am compelled to share what comic book related gifts I received this Christmas season.
Absolute Watchmen: My friend and potential collaborator Eric Carl hooked me up with this gorgeous, massive hunk of Alan Moore goodness. I'm split on whether I should read it or just stare at it and grin. This thing won't even fit on my bookshelf it is so epic.
Kia Asamiya Joker figure: My buddy Gary picked me out this sweet Joker figure, which perfectly compliments the Catwoman figure I picked up for my wife.
Infinite Crisis hardcover: While I won't be reading it any time soon, my wife did the right thing and gave me the book I had to have on my bookshelf but kept putting off buying. Lately I've been wondering what it would be like to read through Infinite Crisis from start to finish without waiting for issues. I assume it would likely be best described as "continuity overload" but at least I can find out now.
Limited Edition She-Hulk figure: I may not know much about her, but I loves me some She-Hulk. She's like the gorgeous, popular girl in high school that all the nerds are in love with but know nothing about. Just like that. Anyway, my ever attentive wife observed my complaints over the absence of the Marvel Select figure at the local comic book shop. She did some hunting and found that it was in fact a limited edition figure only sold at Wizard World and other comic conventions. And she found me one. She is the best.
Essential Man-Thing: Nothing says "holiday spirit" like Man-Thing! There is something about this guy that I cannot resist, so ever since I learned about this "Essential" I knew I had to have it. The copy on the back of the cover promises Howard the Duck and a Peanut Butter Barbarian. How can I pass that up. I hope to do a "Man-Thing Month" in the near future as I work my way through this book and other things mucky.
This has been the nerdiest Christmas I've had since I was a kid.
Nostalgia Week was a brief walk down memory lane as I took a closer look at the comics I loved as a kid.
Batman #446: Batman takes on the NKVDemon in this, my very first Batman comic.
Superman, Man of Steel #37: Guest-staring Batman, Batman, Batman, Batman, Batman, Batman and Batman.
X-Men #31, or specifically Betsy Braddock's butt: I take a look at my earliest reactions to the hypersexualization of women in comics and theorize on how fans become numb to it.
Another one of my Civil War predictions is coming true!
I always knew that "final battle" was only code for a hot, sweaty Cap/Punisher slash fest.
I am Spider-Man
| I am intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.  |
...either that, or 52 has some rather lazy writers.
Now, this may not be as lazy as Scott McDaniel's refusal to draw the lines of Green Arrow's bowstring, but it is real fucking obnoxious. When I saw this panel I immediately thought that Luthor's comment was about the fact that his researchers have filled their report with sa;olkda;lskdl;sakd;la keyboard doodling. It's not even random doodling, it's the same eight or so keys!
For a book that has four perfectly capable writers (one of which being a genius) it is pretty unacceptable for this laziness and scene killing crap to make an appearance. And this is not the first time, too! Nearly all background text is nothing but random letters.
This has to stop!
I predict that Oliver Queen will die in the next year to be replaced by Roy Harper as the key archer in the DC Universe.
Because Ollie is a retard.
The proof:
His bow has no bowstring! How stupid can he be to go into battle without a damn bowstring? He must be becoming senile in his old age.
Or it could be that Scott McDaniel's art has become progressively more sloppy and lazy.
Or maybe Roy just stole all of Ollie's bowstrings. He has one on the cover of JL0fA #4 after all.
Today I was surfing Comicvine, the new superhero wiki/internet crack, when I noticed that X-23 had been attributed with the "power" of Attractive Female. My initial response was offense, but that quickly changed to pity. You see, Comicvine has a cool ranking system for all of the powers given to characters. This is a ton of fun when you're voting on which characters could win in a fight but when it comes to ranking the Attractive Female "power", it would be nothing more than voting on which fictional character is the hottest. That's just fucking sad.
I made a bit of a stink on the forums about it, calling it ridiculous and asking why there wasn't a "Man Candy" power. Well, turns out there is! The only problem is that not too many people seem to be making much use of it. I wonder why.
So fangirls, I implore you to go to Comicvine, sign up, and let the world know who the hunks of comics are. I marked Batman and Nightwing as "Attractive Males" since I know both get more ladies than they can handle. But other than that, I have no clue who the fangirls (and plenty of the fanboys) out there are fawning over. So go set the record straight!
Correction: You don't even need to sign up to vote in the superhero beauty pageant.
I was going to make a post about Batman #410, an all-time favorite issue of mine, for my Nostalgia Week, but I've decided not to on the grounds that I plan reading all the Jason Todd era comics sometime soon. I also plan on blogging about those old stories, so in hopes of reducing redundancy I am canceling the final nostalgic post. Well, postponing it, really.
But before I get into reading old-school Batman, I'm going to be reading through my stacks of What If...? issues. Be ready for fist fulls of hypothetical situations and high body counts, because What If..? However Long I Take Getting Through Them is about to start!
