Writings and Other Things

Posted: 5/2/15 So the last Wednesday marked the last issues of Avengers and New Avengers and today, Free Comic Book, marks the beginning of Secret Wars with Secret Wars #0. But what, exactly, is Secret Wars? And how did Avengers and New Avengers end? Let’s find out! Be warned: this article is full of spoilers for Avengers and New Avengers. Also, it’s super complicated. The Incursions It started in the pages of New Avengers: Black Panther discovered an area where he was able to see another Earth in the sky. And then he witnessed that other Earth being destroyed. He called the Illuminati (Iron Man, Captain America, Black Bolt, Mister Fantastic, Namor, Doctor Strange, and Beast) together in order to figure out what was happened and they did: planetary incursions. Two parallel Earths were occupying the same space and if one Earth wasn’t destroyed, both universes would die. During an Incursion, they discovered the woman who destroyed the other Earth, Black Swan. She revealed that the Incurs...

Posted: 5/27/15 So Convergence #8, the last issue of the crossover, came out this week and you might have heard that it did something very interesting. Something that I don’t think anyone expected. Here is my explanation, in the form of a Q&A. Warning: spoilers inside. Q: So what happened? A: The Multiverse was changed... Q: Again? Isn’t that like the tenth time? A: Sort of, but this was kind of different. The original Crisis on Infinite Earths was changed. Q: Really? Did they retcon it out of existence? A: No, it still happened, it just happened differently. Q: How so? A: Well, for one thing, the Multiverse wasn’t destroyed. Q: WHAT? A: Yep! Q: But...how? A: Well, I have to start at the beginning to explain that. So, okay, remember Brainiac? Q: Big guy, sometimes a robot, sometimes a green alien, likes to miniaturize cities? A: That’s him. Well, it turns out that the “real” Brainiac actually exists outside of space and time and was able to witness all of the reboots of the univers...

Posted: 6/5/15 Welcome, gentle readers, to the last article about DC’s crossovers. Previously, DC turned into some good and some bad crossovers , but going into 2009, things were going to get even more bumpy. Are you sitting comfortably? Then let’s begin. After Green Lantern: Rebirth (where Hal Jordan came back to life) and The Sinestro Corps War (where the larger emotional spectrum was introduced), the gigantic War of Light storyline was a big part of Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps. There was the yellow Sinestro Corps powered by fear, the purple Star Sapphires powered by love, the Blue Lanterns powered by hope, the Red Lanterns powered by rage, Agent Orange powered by avarice (he was the only member of his corps), and the Indigo Tribe powered by compassion. And then came the Black Lanterns powered by death. When the black rings were unleashed, they attached themselves to the dead, called out “RISE!” and bam, instant zombie army. And thus Blackest Night happened. Geoff Johns, wh...

Posted: 6/2/15 Previously: the Golden Age had few, the Silver Age had more, the Bronze Age had the biggest one of all, and the Dark Age had some contenders for the worst. And now we get to the Modern Age, which had perhaps the most ambitious crossovers. Some of them hit their mark and some missed it completely. First, a disclaimer: I am merely calling this the “Modern Age” as a convenience. The Ages of Comics Books tend to last around ten to fifteen years. The Golden Age lasted from 1938 (the first appearance of Superman) to the early ‘50s (you could try and pinpoint it to 1954, when the Comics Code Authority started, but it’s still pretty vague). The Silver Age lasted from 1956 (the first appearance of the Silver Age Flash) to 1970-71. The Bronze Age began then and ended in 1986 and the Dark Age appeared to end in 1996. But if the Modern Age began in 1997, it’s been eighteen years without stopping. Some call the age before now the “Prismatic Age” for its ability to change between ...

Posted: 5/31/15 Ooh boy. This is going to be a tough one. Previously, the Bronze Age ended with the publication of Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns. From now on, due to the success of those two books, comics would take a turn for the dark and the edgy. You think, “Oh, how bad can it be?” but I haven’t even gotten to the part where a bunch of supervillains sell their souls to the Devil. But let’s start with the first post-Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover: DC didn’t even wait a year. The last issue of Crisis on Infinite Earths came out March 1986 and the first issue of Legends came out November 1986. As crossovers go, however, it wasn’t that bad. It was about Darkseid trying to tarnish the “legend” of superheroes through the machinations of Glorious Godfrey posing as the American political pundit G. Gordon Godrey (wow, subtle!). The series was more notable for what came out of it: it was the first appearance of post-Crisis Wonder Woman, it was the start of the Wally West Flash, and i...

Posted: 5/19/15 Previously, the Silver Age ended with the complete overhaul of the Comics Code Authority. This allowed for darker and more mature themes. It also allowed Marv Wolfman to use actual wolfmen (the Comics Code prohibited the use of “werewolves” in comics, leading to a funny story where DC gave credit to Marv Wolfman as a joke to get around that restriction and soon everybody wanted credits). But what about crossovers? Well, let’s begin with something quite different, something that had never been attempted before: Jack Kirby’s Fourth World saga. Not just one book, but four books (The New Gods, Mister Miracle, The Forever People, and Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen) were dedicated to telling a giant story about the Fourth World, a world where the “old gods died” and the New Gods lived on two worlds: utopic New Genesis and hellish Apokolips. Kirby’s saga was, on the whole, pretty successful, so much so that DC kept trying to extend it. Kirby had originally envisioned it as a gi...

Posted: 5/27/15 So last time, we examined the crossovers in the Golden Age between National Comics and All-American Comics before they were merged to create, essentially, DC Comics. (They wouldn’t officially call themselves “DC Comics” until 1977. Before that, they would brand their comics as “A Superman DC Production” or simply “A DC Production.”) But then superheroes waned in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s and instead National turned to westerns and war comics. But then a book came along in 1956 called Showcase. It was merely supposed to be a vehicle to see what stories struck the readers attention: in fact, the first three issues didn’t feature superheroes at all. The first issue had a story about firefighters, the second a western, and the third was about a “Frogman” in the Navy. And then the fourth issue was published and everything changed. The Silver Age for DC had officially begun. DC Editor Julius Schwartz assigned writer Robert Kanigher and artist Carmine Infantino to make an ...

Posted: 5/25/15 At last, the award-winning (well, not really) series is back! When last we left off, we had finished almost all of Marvel’s crossovers until the current Secret Wars. And now it’s DC’s turn. DC Comics is a strange one, because unlike Marvel (which was one company, Timely and then Atlas, before it became Marvel), DC was multiple companies before they joined together to become DC Comics. Specifically, there was National Allied Publications, which published More Fun Comics (which introduced the Spectre, Dr. Fate, Aquaman, and Green Arrow), Adventure Comics (which introduced the Sandman and Starman) and Action Comics (which introduced Superman) and Detective Comics, Inc. which published Detective Comics (which introduce that famous detective...Slam Bradley! okay and Batman sure). Then there was All-American Publications, a sister company that was started by Max Gaines (the founder of EC Comics and Mad Magazine). They published All-American Comics (which introduced the Green...

Posted: 8/5/15 So the first official trailer for Deadpool is out and it is glorious. However, non-Deadpool fans and those who have missed the perhaps ubiquitous appearances of the Merc with a Mouth in comics may be wondering: just who is this guy? Well, let me be of service and tell you the whole sordid history of Wade Wilson, Deadpool. Deadpool first appeared in New Mutants #98 (February 1991), created by Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza. New Mutants, at this point, bore little resemblance to how it had started out and would soon transform into X-Force. Liefeld had already introduced the big-gunned Cable (he of the convoluted origin) and quickly introduced more characters with improbably large guns and tiny feet. In his first appearance, Deadpool was a talkative mercenary, but wasn’t quite the wisecracking, fourth-wall-breaking character he would become. In fact, he took a lot of mannerisms from Deathstroke, arch-enemy of the Teen Titans — in fact, that’s where his name comes from. Whe...

Posted: 8/6/15 The Fantastic Four is one of my favorite teams in comic books. That is because, essentially, they aren’t a team, they are a family. Two of them are siblings, two of them are married, two of them have been best friends for years. They bicker, they squabble, but at the end of the day, they have each other’s backs and act like heroes. It breaks my heart to see adaptations which don’t get that, which is why I’m writing this article. This is how, in my opinion, you can make a Fantastic Four movie and make it great. Forget the Origin The Fantastic Four made their debut in Fantastic Four #1 in November of 1961. The Cold War was still going strong and the Space Race was in full swing, so Stan Lee and Jack Kirby tapped into that zeitgeist and made his four protagonists astronauts. They stole an experimental spaceship, went into space, were bombarded by cosmic rays, and crashed back into the Earth, changed on different ways. This origin could not work at all today. It’s goofy, it’...

Posted: 8/18/15 Today, a thought came to me. A scene popped into my mind, unbidden and out of nowhere. The very first scene of a good and proper Fantastic Four movie. And here it is. Two men walk through a dark forest. We see only the back of them. One of them is leading the other, a machete in his hand, chopping branches down. He chops another and another until they reach the edge of the forest. The man looks out. BRAM: There it is. There is the ruins. The other man steps forward and looks out. We see his face — he looks like he’s in his late thirties, handsome, with aquiline nose . There is a smile on his lips. He is VICTOR. BRAM: The ruins of Castle Doom. We get a sweeping view of the castle ruins. It’s very European, but decrepit. The bridge is gone, but the water in the moat has dried up as well, so the two men take out rappelling gear from their backpacks and rappel down the moat on one end and up the other side. They step through the broken doors of the castle. BRAM: The people ...

Posted: 4/9/15 In celebration of the newest Marvel television show Daredevil and the oft-used comparison between him and Batman, I shall now list five different Marvel heroes who are totally not Batman. 1. Iron Man Okay, so both Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne are billionaire playboys. Who then go out and fight crime. But Bruce Wayne goes out and fights crime using ninja skills and technology he took from Wayne Enterprises. Tony Stark doesn't need to steal from his own company — he invented everything! Steal his company and he doesn't mope around in his mansion all day. Nope, he just starts a new company and calls it Stark Resilient. Because he built that suit. In a cave. WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS. 2. Moon Knight Okay, yes, both characters are nighttime vigilantes. With foreign butlers. And on/off girlfriends. And Batman is called the Dark Knight, so you may be forgiven for thinking Moon Knight is just a color-flipped Batman. But he totally isn't. Marc Spector was a mercenary who die...