Podcast Episodes Back Up

We lost all five Geniusboy Live On Demand Radio episodes when the podomatic.com site went down a few weeks ago. I uploaded everything back to their server today, and all five episodes are downloadable once again.

Enjoy!

GENIUSBOY LIVE ON DEMAND RADIO

On Hiatus

Hey! I'm taking a few weeks off to get some stuff done. I'll be back after Thanksgiving, though, so don't worry.

The Format Wars: Whither Comic Books?

Since my local shop didn't get this week's comics yet, except for the final issue of Aquaman, of all things (which I bought, and I have to say that even though I haven't been reading it regularly, I enjoyed Tad Williams and Shawn McManus's take on the character a lot more than the humorless Busiek/Guice version), I can't talk about new comics much. So, instead I'll discuss which comic book format will thrive in the future marketplace: the floppy, the trade paperback, the hardcover, or the webcomic. Actually, I'll let those formats sort themselves out--I'm impartial myself:

Webcomic: I'll start, I guess since no one else seems to be...

Floppy: No. I'll start. I've been around a lot longer, so...

Hardcover: Wait. But you suck.

Trade Paperback: Yeah. Heh heh. You do suck.

Webcomic: They're right, dude.

Floppy: I know. (pause) But everyone used to love me so much. I once sold millions of copies of myself and wallpapered John Leguizamo's bathroom. What happened? Where did I go wrong?

Hardcover: Maybe it was all those "Tabacco is Whacko!" advertisements. Those really pissed me off, I don't know about you guys.

Trade Paperback: Yeah. Heh heh.

Webcomic: Or maybe it was because I didn't exist yet. Kind of makes it easier to compete with me. My not existing at all. By the way, have you read Perry Bible Fellowship. I am so awesome.

Floppy: What about all those years when I was coming out with great stuff like Daredevil or Watchmen or that Straczynski Strange series? Don't those count for anything?

Hardcover: Did you actually read that Strange comic?

Floppy: Yeah! It was the reimagining of Dr. Strange from the mind that brought us the reimagining of Squadron Supreme and wrote that Deep Space Nine show... Okay, you're right, I didn't read it. I was waiting for the trade.

Trade Paperback: Heh heh.

Webcomic: I'm not sure if I was clear earlier. I am awesome. Did you get that part?

Hardcover: You know what I used to like, Floppy? I used to like when your stories were so good that they made me want to come back for more--I couldn't wait to get the next issue.

Floppy:I still feel that way. I can still do that. Have you been reading Wonder Woman? Readers couldn't wait for the end of that first storyline!

Webcomic: Act-I-Vate. What is that? It's not even a word. What's with the hyphens? Beats me, but it's so freakin' Awesome!

Hardcover: That Wonder Woman story probably was good, but just like everyone else, I'm waiting for the trade.

Webcomic: I like Omnibus Editions! You should do PvP as an Omnibus. It would be so Awesome.

Trade Paperback: Sometimes I hold my breath for a really long time and imagine that I am a really, really fat Floppy.

Webcomic: Dean Trippe? Is that guy for real? Butterfly! That cracks me up.

And with that, Floppy sulked away quietly, Hardcover browsed through my bookshelves, Trade Paperback held his breath for an hour, and Webcomic went on Pirate Bay to try to find the newest Iron Fist issue. We may never resolve this eternal debate, but I think we all learned a little bit about ourselves today.

John Byrne Says Things Aren't What They Seem: Fantastic Four Visionaries Volume Two

I picked up a stack of John Byrne FF comics in trade paperback form. Byrne's work from this era is pretty fascinating. I started looking at the books on Thursday and I continue below:

In Fantastic Four #241-250, John Byrne begins to move away from the Lee/Kirby pastiche of his first half-dozen FF stories as his own ideology presents itself more strongly. The shift is not sudden, or overwhelming, but with the second Visionaries volume, Byrne's own attutudes about art, narrative, and society emerge more tangibly within the stories. He maintains the Silver Age-style trappings of pseudo-science, imaginative plots, and swift pacing, but beneath that (quite entertaining) surface, Byrne turns conventions on their heads and lets the readers know that EVERYTHING THEY KNOW IS WRONG, sort of.

Throughout the ten stories in this volume, Byrne returns again and again to the motif of illusion. Appearances are not only deceiving, but they are often artificially (or supernaturally) generated--sensory-defying holograms, or dreamscapes, or shape-shifted aliens. The sequence of illusions would presumably teach the Fantastic Four, and the reader, not to trust appearances, although the stories would lack conflict if the FF didn't fall for such optical deceptions, at least at first.

Another emergent pattern is Byrne's emphasis on the Fantastic Four as problem solvers rather than fighters. The denoument of each story often arrives not because of physical force but in spite of it. The FF don't use their powers to overwhelm opponents and beat their enemies into submission, but rather use their powers to escape and contain danger until they can find a way to defeat the villain intellectually.

In issue #241, as the male FF members are turned into virtual gladiators for the pleasure of alien/Roman Gaius Tiberius, Sue Storm saves them all by deducing that Tiberius's powers derive from his golden helmet--and by removing his helmet, he will become powerless against the team. The removal of the helm has unexpected circumstances, as she finds that the armor itself has sustained the consciousness of the being, and with its integrity destroyed, the illusory nature of the entire city falls apart. The story balances the Silver Age elements (alien Romans, gladiatorial battles, woman-in-distress) along with the illusion and problem-solving motifs and Byrne's attempt at showing progressive gender roles as the "woman-in-distress" herself, Sue Storm, saves the day with her intellect.

The potential danger of emphasizing the reasoning and problem-solving of the FF instead of the team's powers is that the comic could seem "boring" to some readers if such a pattern were to continue. Byrne, one of the best superhero artists who has ever put pencil to paper, is especially talented at showing the four-color glory of superhero slugfests, and yet he writes this series at times as if he'd rather draw guys in costume standing around discussing philosophical issues. But within each story, he's careful to include plenty of action to make sure that readers know that they are, in fact, reading an American comic book story. The action may not always come where readers have been conditioned to expect; tradition, until the recent trend of decompression, led to stories paced in this way: anticipation-action-pursuit-climactic action-resolution, but Byrne paces his stories like this: anticipation-action-problem solving-resolution. Yet Byrne's narrative model allows him not only to explore the illusory nature of reality (as character uncover the truth or get to the bottom of the deception), but also allows him to deal with the consequences of heroic action, a concern best shown in Fantastic Four #244.

In issue #244, Reed and company save the life of Galactus (after defeating him the issue before). The issue is almost entirely conversation, and although the characters may pose dramatically in the MIGHTY MARVEL STYLE (emphasis mine), the story is about compassion (for Galactus) and loss (of Frankie Ray, Johnny's love who becomes the herald called Nova). There's no slugfests in sight, and the act of saving Galactus have long-term consequences for the FF and the galaxy.

In many ways, Byrne's Fantastic Four seems to fulfill the promise of early Marvel. The combination of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby emphasized both character and action (in theory), but Lee's attempt at character was more akin to caricature, and Kirby's sense of character (as seen in unadulterated form in his 1970s work) was based more on archetypes than individuals. What Byrne does, at least in the stories reprinted in these first two Visionaries volumes, is juggle large-scale plots--Galactus coming to Earth, Dr. Doom's attempt to reclaim his kingdom--with character moments that actually work. Byrne's Johnny Storm struggles with the loss of Frankie Ray, Byrne's Susan Storm finds contentment in her role within the family but slowly develops a more forceful presence on the team, Byrne's Ben Grimm subconsciously fears turning human but loathes being the Thing, and Byrne's Reed Richards is confident but his confidence borders on hubris. Byrne's FF is not a dysfunctional family--it's a functional family struggling with overwhelming odds from within and without. Surrounded by things which are not always what they seem.

As a final note, I'd just like to point out that, as if to contradict any assumptions I've made about Byrne's direction with the series, this volume ends with a two-issue story which is almost 40 pages of one, long fight scene, as the Shi'ar Guardsman known as Gladiator comes to Earth in pursuit of some Skrulls and ends up facing the FF, Avengers, and anybody else Byrne felt like drawing that month. Gladiator, of course, is one of the Marvel analogues of DC's Superman. And in this two-part story, Byrne establishes some of the pseudo-scientific reasoning he'll end up using when he takes over the Superman title years later. He establishes that Gladiator's powers must be telekinetic in nature, since there's no way he can pick up a building by its corner and not have it fall apart under its own weight. Such an approach shows that perhaps Byrne sees himself as an intellectual problem-solver, making sense out of the illusions of the world which would seem to ask us to believe, honestly believe, that a man could pick up a building by a corner!

Luckily, Byrne and the FF are around to dismiss such illogical deceptions. It's all an illusion, or telekinesis.

I mean, how else can you possibly explain something so silly? Geez.

Mental powers. That makes sense.

I'll continue looking at John Byrne FF trade paperbacks every Monday until they run out (Byrne FF trades, not Mondays). On Thursday, I want to talk about NEW COMICS.

In Living Benday--Fantastic Four Visionaries Volume 1

Unexpected delays prevented me from posting yesterday, but in keeping with my promised Geek Assignment, here are my initial thoughts on John Byrne's first nine Fantastic Four stories, as reprinted in Visionaries Volume One:

With Fantastic Four # 232, John Byrne plants his flag as the heir to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. I'm not overly familiar with the post-Kirby, pre-Byrne Fantastic Four, but I have read a handful of the Roy Thomas and Marv Wolfman issues, and other than a few Heralds-of-Galactus-related plot points (Terrax the Tamer, mostly), it doesn't seem like Byrne is very much interested in anything that followed Kirby's exit from the series over one hundred issues earlier.

Byrne launches his long, continuous run with a straightforward superhero smash-em-up, as the FF confront the maniacal alchemist known as Diablo. Actually, they don't so much confront him as defeat his elemental minions through the old superhero switcheroo (with the heroes swapping enemies to more effectively defeat each one--an old trick from Gardner Fox era Justice League comics). It's only at the end of the issue that they capture Diablo, with the deus ex magica help of a suprise guest--Dr. Strange! He shows up out of nowhere to track down Diablo and give the story closure.

With the elemental minions facing the team, Fantastic Four #232 draws attention to the idea that the Fantastic Four members are, themselves, based on the four ancient elements. I seem to recall Stan Lee mentioning somewhere or another (readers, any clue where I may have read this?) that he had the notion of the four elements in mind when creating the FF (not that surprising--he's probably on record somewhere claiming credit for inventing earth, air, fire, and water as well), but I'm not convinced that it was part of the original concept. Sue's initial powers weren't so much air-related as, well, straight invisibility (wouldn't an air-concept hero be able to fly?) and the Thing didn't start out as the loveable pile of rocks we know so well--he was more a pile of hardened dough. So even though the concept of a "family" probably drove Lee and Kirby's initial concept more than the idea of "elementals" did, the characters eventually developed in such a way as to make the elemental parallels more obvious. And that notion is what Byrne plays with in the first story in the reprint volume. Each FF member faces his or her elemental opposite, sort of. Air vs. the Human Torch. Water vs. the Thing. Fire vs. Mister Fantastic. Earth vs. Invisible Girl. Then they do the switcheroo and have some fun.

Even with the silly and all-too-easy wrap up with Dr. Strange, it's a great way for Byrne to begin his run. It clearly demonstrates the powers of the team, establishes their relationships and use of teamwork, and provides all of this at the expense of a lesser Lee/Kirby creation in Diablo. It was originally published in 1981, but Fantastic Four #232 is a Silver Age story through and through.

After that, the stories in the volume become a bit more bizarre.

The Human Torch basically solos in a twist on a wrongly-accused-murderer story. The Torch uncovers evidence which proves a falsely-accused man innocent, but it's too late to save him, and even the victim's mother thinks that her son was a bad apple anyway, and "got what he deserved." It reads almost like a repurposed Daredevil story, with Maggia villain Hammerhead, but Byrne includes enough Human Torch-specific character moments to keep it faithful to the FF. He probably envisioned it as a change of pace story, a street-level tale for the readers before moving to more cosmic altitudes.

In Fantastic Four #234, L. R. "Skip" Collins inexplicably wields the power to alter reality as he wishes. It's like one of those Eisner Spirit tales, the ballad of a pathetic minor character with some deep and powerful secret. Skip Collins's tale leads nowhere, though, and every change he inflicts on the world is reset in the end as he wishes everything back to normal and apparently loses his power forever. The story serves a larger-scale purpose, as it helps to get the FF off planet in a rocket ship. (Collins hadn't been causing most of the disturbances, as Reed tells us, it's being cased by a probe from SPACE!) The idea of a reality-shaping character must have interested Byrne, however, even though he didn't seem interested in pursuing the idea with Skip Collins. In a later volume, Byrne gives very similar powers to Franklin Richards, but that is a discussion for another post.

One the team gets into orbit, they confront none other that Ego, the Living Planet (another Lee and Kirby creation, from the pages of Thor), and handle the cosmic threat in an appropriately fantastical way.

But the real gem of Visionaries Volume One is the story from Fantastic Four #236, "Terror in a Tiny Town." The team members find themselves powerless, havig strange dreams about powers they can't quite remember. What is reality? The Puppet Master's lurking around, but nothing seems to make sense. Sue even has her old, mountainous hairdo. The truth is finally revealed, however, as they learn that the world they inhabit is not a virtual reality simulation, it's not a dream. Instead, they find that they are living in a miniature scale model town, their psyches inhabiting tiny little dolls. Their bodies are hooked up, via Kirbyesque machinery, to some contraption that keeps them physically in stasis while their minds inhabit these teeny, tiny little versions of themselves. Talk about a brilliant supervillain death trap! And to make it even cooler, Victor von Doom is not only behind the whole scheme, but he is playing along, having inserted his own psyche into Tiny Town as well, just to prove how AWESOME he is compared to the FF. He's living out his ultimate teenage revenge fantasy. "I'll make them very tiny, and make myself wicked cool so I can mock them," he probably thought. It's what I would have done when I was 13 (if I had a maniacally genius mind, an armored facemask, and a green hoodie).

Nicely done, John Byrne.

It's really a fun story--a tale that captures the mixture of scientific brilliance, egotism, and stunted maturity that makes up the core of Dr. Doom. Byrne's portrayal of Doom in later stories is more noble, more haughtily tyrannical, but I like this cruel sadistic Doom-with-the-goofy-plan so much more.

By the way, the FF defeat Doom's Tiny Town scheme by RECREATING THE COSMIC RAY EVENT (or an approximation of it), thereby giving their teeny, tiny little bodies FF powers, which they use to fly up out of the little model town and kick some normal size bad guy butt. And, they trap Doom in his own creation, which serves him right, the bully!

Great, great stuff. Once again, Byrne seems to be at his best doing these inspired Silver Age-style comics.

He does a few other things in the stories that follow--he estabishes Frankie Ray's flame powers, he returns the Thing to his lumpy form, he gives us a Twilight Zoneish story about a weird little town and a cute little girl with a secret, and he brings in Lee and Kirby's Inhumans for a story in which the FF just kind of stand around and watch how cool the Inhumans are.

But it's really "Terror in a Tiny Town" that makes this first collection worth picking up.

I haven't finished Byrne's entire run yet, but I'm working my way through the rest of the volumes, and I know that it doesn't get much better then "Terror in Tiny Town," at least not in any self-contained issue. What Byrne perhaps does best, once he gets rolling on the series, is develop a consistent, slow progression of a long-term narrative. We see the beginning of it here, as he sets up a few things with Doom and Frankie Ray and threats from outer space, but nothing can really beat itty bitty Ben Grimm tearing open a full-size computer panel with the words, "I majored in destruction."

Join me on Monday as I look at Byrne's second Visionaries volume (which, unfortunatly, has no tiny little Ben Grimms at all).

Geniusboy Live On Demand Radio--Episode 5

Episode 5 is here and it's wicked awesome! In this episode, Tim and Ryan discover a long-lost cassette recording from 1987 and listen to its amazing contents. You may think you know the Geniusboy Live crew, but wait until you hear their Top 5 picks from twenty years ago.

As always, you can visit our podcast site at geniusboylive.podomatic.com to listen to the newest episode (or to check out our glorious back catalogue or even SUBSCRIBE to receive regular doses of Geniusboy goodness). If you like what you hear (or hate it passionately), leave us a comment here or at the podomatic site. We may or may not care what you think.

If you're too lazy to visit our podcast page, you can click on the title of this blog entry to listen directly to Episode 5.

Geek Assignment: John Byrne's Fantastic Four

I'm sure many (or perhaps all) of you can relate to this idea: You give yourself some kind of reading task, saying, "I'm going to read (or reread) all of X this Y," with X being some comic book title or novelist or whatever and Y being a finite amount of time (like "this week"). Just to see what happens. Maybe it's some OCD thing we have, but if you're like me, you do it all the time.

I call it the Geek Assignment. It's not something we're forced to do, and we sometimes abandon it before completion, but I know I give myself Geek Assignments all the time. Recently, some of my Geek Assignments have turned into projects. Several years ago, I decided to read every Grant Morrison comic, and I ended up getting a book out of just the first part of that task. Last year, I decided to read every Legion of Super-Heroes story, starting with the Archives and working through to the present, and I'm editing a book about the Legion now.

Most of my Geek Assignments are just for pure pleasure, though, and I never "do" anything with what I read. Sometimes it's reading the collected works of Kurt Vonnegut (one of my earliest, high school-age Geek Assignments), other times it's rereading the entire run of All-Star Squadron (a Geek Assignment that I've set aside for a while as I track down the final two missing issues). Vladimir Nabokov is a perpetual Geek Assignment, but since I started with the best stuff first: Lolita, Pnin, The Collected Stories, and then worked backwards from there, I'm finding myself less and less inclined to finish them all.

Recently, after reading Casanova, I've assigned myself all of Matt Fraction's work (completed), and after the Grove multi-volume Samuel Beckett collection was published, I decided to become a Beckett expert (failed--I've only read a few plays and some of his essays). I'm still in the midst of a war comic Geek Assignment, working my way through Sgt. Rock Archives and Showcase reprints of The Haunted Tank and The Unknown Soldier. I have, stacked on my nightstand, the (almost) entire collection of Moebius Blueberry graphic novels, but I haven't read past the first volume yet--another Geek Assignment on hold (largely due to coloring issues in the books, NOT because of the quality of the stories or Moebius's amazing artwork).

So, in the midst of these ongoing (and often delayed) Geek Assignments, I've decided to give myself another: reread all of John Byrne's Fantastic Four issues. "Reread" is probably not accurate--I would guess that I've only read about 30% of his run on the title, mostly from the Trial of Galactus collection and the last dozen single issues around the time of Secret Wars II. I don't know what I'll find. I may find that the comics are absolute trash, failures on every level. I might find that they are works of a singular genius at the top of his game. I'll probably find something in between.

Nevertheless, the Visionaries trades have been ordered. Byrne's entire Fantastic Four run is zooming across the country to my doorstep. And, to keep myself on task, I'll share my findings with you as I read each volume. Anyone want to play along?

(Also, post your past and present Geek Assignments in the comments--I want to see what everyone else is up to.)

Jonathan Hickman's Propaganda: The Nightly News

Let's get one thing straight: Jonathan Hickman's The Nightly News, is a major work of contemporary graphic fiction. But it also embraces the techniques of propaganda. Which raises the question: Can a work of propaganda validly attack the propaganda disseminated by others? Perhaps the answer is simple: Yes--you have to fight fire with fire.

Hickman's graphic novel has been called a "polemic" by some, but it's more like a call to arms. It's also an exceedingly self-aware piece of fiction that mocks its own pretensions while embracing its cause passionately. It's a bundle of contradictions, wrapped in a comic book package which, like all works of literature, carries on a dialogue with the past while looking forward to the future.

Most comic book narratives rely heavily on the past. Whether they're superhero melodrama, revisionist westerns, or zombie ninja assassins, comics rely on the tropes of past stories to frame their own narrative. Each story either comments upon its predecessors by continuing the tradition (more of the same, every issue--Daredevil's love interest is in jeopardy, will he save her in time?), or openly rejecting what came before (Batman is not, contrary to the implications of a thousand other stories, a father figure to Robin--he's a sadist who makes Robin eat rodents in the bowels of a cave). The Nightly News is no different. What makes it stand out is the way in which it chooses to react to its precursors, and the types of ancestors it selects. It's not a superhero narrative or any of the more traditional comic book genres. It's a Social Protest book, and it's damn proud of it.

Protest fiction doesn't age well, as the revived-from-the-dead Upton Sinclair can attest (read Chris Bachelder's U.S.! immediately), unless it stands as a significant literary work above and beyond the aspect of contemporary society it rails against. Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man comes to mind as an exemplar of that. Originally interpreted as a work of protest, it is now most often read as an American Ulysses (at least in my house)--a proto-postmodern bildungsroman that embraces the techniques of the Western canon while smashing their ideological foundations with the beauty of a Jazz-drenched hammer. The comparisons between Invisible Man and The Nightly News are numerous, but I'm not sure that Hickman's work will have the same lasting impact.

The other thing about protest fiction, though, is that while it doesn't tend to have much lasting resonance as literature, it can sometimes change the world. Uncle Tom's Cabin probably did. And so did The Jungle, and I'm sure Hickman would much rather see that kind of impact anyway. (He's pissed as heck, and he just won't take it.)

Getting back to the question of literary merit--How does The Nighly News engage in a dialogue with the past, and what does it seem to say? (Other than the obvious: "hey past, you suck! I'm gonna shoot you and blow up your stuff.")

Let's start with the Invisible Man connections, since I already brought it up, and it seems like a fruitful place to start. While Hickman's Brother John doesn't go through the same progression as Ellison's unnamed narrator, some of the steps are similar. Both are brainwashed by the society in which they were raised, then conditioned by a cult to behave in radical ways. Both are asked to convert others to their cause, and both ultimately gain a true awareness of the hypocrisy of their "brotherhood." Structurally, both works rely on the motif of blindness, visually demonstrated by Hickman on the comic book page in the form of black, featureless eyes (not all characters lack pupils and irises, but most of them do--they just have black shadow where their eyes should be). The final image of Hickman's work displays a close-up of the ringleader, the "Voice" himself, half of his face engulfed in shadow, the other eye peering out at us--a literal embodiment of the phrase, "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." Both Invisible Man and The Nightly News exist in a state somewhere between absurdity and nihilism, and although Ellison's narrator is ready to re-engage with the world now that he has gained his new perspective, Hickman's characters are bastards through and through. Their revolution isn't over yet, and it never will be.

Hickman has mentioned that his high-concept pitch for the book was "Network meets Reservoir Dogs," but it's probably closer to "Bamboozled meets Targets." I can see why he didn't say that in the pitch, though. He did want people to actually buy it. But Spike Lee's underappreciated satire of the American media and racial identity is closer in tone to what Hickman's going for in The Nightly News. Both works seep with indignation, and rightfully so, as they demonstrate, each in their own way (Lee with racist artifacts and film clips, Hickman with charts and graphs) what's so wrong with the world. And Peter Bogdanovich's Targets, capturing the fear of the "sniper with a gun" and the corrupt society which can drive humans to such actions, has more in common with Hickman's style and content than the genre-conscious whimsy-mixed-with-brutality of Tarantino's work.

Hickman's style, by the way, seems to overwhelm the content of his narrative, at least on first glance. The static images (and, yes, all comic book images are static, but the American superhero tradition of Dynamic Anatomy and Perspective is so pervasive in even non-superhero narratives that Hickman's frozen figures seem suspicious in their inactivity) and the use of boxy word balloons and typography show a distinct rejection of comic book traditions, as do the page layouts, which are designed around the figures and typography instead of broken into typical panel to panel sequences. Such a technique is more than just a way for Hickman to hide any deficiencies in his drawing ability--the style complements the narrative. The content deals with characters who have a rigid mindset as the media (and overbearing technology swirls around them). The art visually represents this.

The art, with its mechanical feel, captures the inhumanity of these characters, trapped in a mechanical, industrial, corrupt-beyond-belief corporate world. Nature barely exists in the world Hickman creates--a shadow of a tree here, a small hint of a decorative plant there--and even the humans seem far from organic and whole. At it's core, in dialogue with its antecedents, The Nightly News is a classic Romantic tale. A rebellious shout for truth and freedom in a world drenched with machines, in a world designed to turn us all into machines. It's the same stuff Byron and Shelley and Wordsworth wrote about 200 years ago, only now the poets have sniper rifles.

Finally, Hickman claims in the Notes section, that no character undergoes the heroic journey of the Joseph Campbell variety, as if to deny his book's dialogue with the past. He might be correct to say that no character COMPLETES the journey, but EVERYONE (in the comic and in life, including Hickman himself in the making of the book) undergoes the heroic journey. The heroic journey is the story of life, and the cycle repeats itself not just throughout the ages but throughout our years as well, as we complete one phase of our journey to begin a new one. Just to use an example from The Nightly News, Brother John indeed undertakes an archetypal heroic journey. His call to adventure is to join the revolution; his mentor is the Voice; his tests and trials are the assassinations and the recruitment of others; his helpers are the Brothers and Sisters; his elixir of life is the deprogramming he undergoes; his guided return is in the back of a limo sent by the Voice; and his final battle is him vs. the police at the end. Only the final stage of the journey is missing, since he dies during the battle, but the last stage, rebirth is what the comic is for. Brother John will complete his heroic quest when we, the readers, respond to his experiences by taking action of our own.

But what kind of action? Hickman doesn't say, yet he shows the peril of the violent approach. He shows characters, all of whom become compromised, taking action and failing to change anything. Except the Voice. He wins, really. But even when I say The Nightly News is a call to arms, I'm speaking metaphorically, right? Hickman doesn't want us to kill to make the media more honest. Yet he doesn't give us any other answers. Because The Nightly News is a work of literature--a satire which describes the world in which we live and tells us what's wrong with it. It's up to us to find a way to change it.

Then again, he's chosen to engage us in these thoughts with a work which, as ambiguous as it is at its core, employs the techniques of propaganda. Propaganda to counter the prevailing propaganda. Fighting fire with fire, as I said at the beginning of this piece. Maybe it's the only way reach the people.

But if you fight fire with fire, everything burns.

Read The Nightly News. It will make you think. And that's a good thing.

Meltzer's Justice League of America: Now that we've all calmed down, was the comic any good?

This summer, hot off the fun of my "debate" with Douglas Wolk about New Avengers, I asked Andrew Gardner, comic fan and intelligent British guy, to begin an e-mail discussion with me about Brad Meltzer's Justice League run. I thought it might be worth looking back at the series to see what we thought about it, now that all the hysteria and hype and disappointment had worn off. I proposed that we discuss the entire 12-issue run, and eventually post our conversation maybe on Sequart.org. But, due to our busy schedules, we never made it past a discussion of the first story arc, "Tornado's Path." Nevertheless, I think we had some interesting things to say about Meltzer's approach, and, for posterity, here's what we wrote:

Andrew Gardner: I really enjoyed [Justice League of America] #0. It looks lovely, the right artists for each era, with a nod to New Frontier at the start. I thought the yesterday/tomorrow pattern worked well, Meltzer setting his stall out early. The yesterday scenes were respectful of comic book history, and mostly felt like a fresh slant on familiar moments in league history. Rather like the logo, where the old seventies design is slightly updated to ensure the JLA letters run vertically. The tomorrow ones were intriguing, although how many come to pass we'll have to wait and see. There's a nod to the Dark Knight Returns in the Andy Kubert page. I notice Meltzer avoids the Morrison era, though. Howard Porter does draw a page, but the backdrop is from the start of the Mark Waid run.

This is obviously the story of the friendships behind the masks, and I thought Meltzer did a good job of portraying a convincing relationship between the big 3. This may not have been the Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman we're used to seeing, but that just added to the feeling that these were the hidden, private moments of great heroes, who can only indulge their friendship in private. Batman in particular feels like he can let loose his emotions in this setting, with the tantrums and tears of the little boy who lost his parents. Wonder Woman, perhaps a little predictably, gets to play mother. Who's Superman? Dependable, trusting, a little po-faced. But that tear of betrayal with the "damn you Bruce", or the sullen look after his death betrays his need for their friendship.

Some of the scenes in #0 worked better than others. Perez is a wonderful artist but struggled with the line "to have a family" (although who wouldn't) whereas Gene Ha does a superlative job conveying the grief on his page, from the fragile rendition of Ma Kent in the first panel to the way Bruce plays with Clark's Basketball trophy in the last panel.

Meltzer obviously got the Justice League of America gig on the back of Identity Crisis's success. I notice in interviews he talks about having planted the seeds of this incarnation of the league in that book, which retrospectively explains the Black Lightning/ Katana scenes in that book, as they seemed incongruous at the time. Meltzer seems comfortable with the pace and stylistic tics in his previous comic work, using a lot of familiar techniques - internal narratives in colour boxes, intercutting of simultaneous events, detailed slow-motion fight scenes, irrelevant subplots and lots.

Of broken.

Portentous.

Sentences.

I don't mind that, although I can sympathise with those who find it hard to take. As long as it services a good story, like I thought it did in Identity Crisis, and then I don't mind. So what happens in "Tornado's Path"?

The set up is ostensibly the Big Three of Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman (or Bruce, Diana and Clark if you prefer) choosing a Justice League line -up after their 'missing year'. This doesn't go to plan as the eventual roster of Hal Jordan, Black Canary, Black Lightning, Hawkgirl, Arsenal, Red Tornado and Vixen comes together by chance to foil a plot orchestrated by nattily dressed Solomon Grundy to take over Red Tornado's robot body, which involves John Smith being tricked into a human body by Felix Faust and his robotic body being spliced with Amazo by Professor Ivo. The Parasite and some minor villains controlled by baby Starros are thrown in for luck and nostalgia and it all ends with a sort of status quo, with Grundy dead (again), Amazo destroyed (again) and Red Tornado in his robot body (again). But surprisingly Vixen proves to be the pivotal route to victory, and Arsenal graduates to become Red Arrow. The League hands out shiny new membership plaques and build a new Hall of Justice in D.C. and a new Satellite in orbit, replete with a holodeck of all things. And Geo-Force turns up, although God knows why.

The pace is certainly slow compared to say, Morrison's JLA #1 or the Griffen/DeMatteus Justice League #1, but there's enough to hold the attention, at least in the first few issues. If all superhero comics were like this it would be pretty grim, but as an exception it's not so bad. Meltzer obviously knows how to write a successful thriller and it's admirable that he hasn't made many concessions to the flying cape genre, while remaining respectful of his antecedents.

I particularly liked the undercutting of the Big 3 playing superhero top trumps (as well as being a loving homage) by having all the action happen elsewhere. Life is what happens while we make plans and all that. He maybe pushes it a little. #1 to #6 takes place over only a few hours, and the Big 3 don't even stand up until #4! This is what they mean by decompression, isn't it? It probably doesn't help that 52 was running concurrently, perhaps posterity will reward Meltzer for sticking to his approach against prevailing trends at D.C.

Where the thriller element fell apart for me was at the most important bit, the end. There are two whodunits in this mystery - who's in and who's the villain. As far as the line-up is concerned, I enjoyed Meltzer toying with reader expectation, using the photo choices as decoys as well as revealing insights into the Big 3. The villains were less satisfying, toppling through the narrative like gaudy dominos until we reach the unsatisfying denouement. Red Tornado's back! Grundy's dead again!

Although this incarnation of Grundy gives the impression of Machiavellian intelligence with his sharp suit and Sisyphus references (most cringe worthy dialogue? Arsenal's retort), I thought he came across as the most over emotional Grundy yet; concocting a desperate scheme to maintain his new found intelligence. "What makes you think I have a heart?" is pure bravado interrupting a desperate barrage of punches no less vicious than those of his previous 'mindless' incarnations.

Some of the themes planted in #0 are nicely developed. The tension between Yesterday and Tomorrow appears everywhere. Like Geoff Johns, Meltzer has the grown up fanboy approach, wanting to remain faithful to the comic heritage he's devoured since childhood, but also wanting to carry the torch. "It's time to move on" says Superman at the end of #0, but the Tornado's Path is constantly tripping over the ghosts of JLA's past, with it's pick-and-mix-from-each-era line-up, classic villains, familiar locations, characters discussing heritage and lessons learnt. Grundy in many ways is the perfect villain for this piece, perpetually reincarnated for our reading pleasure. But whereas the heroes can cherish this endless cycle of rebirth where the very universe shifts from Crisis to Infinite Crisis to accommodate their existence, villains like Grundy and Ivo curse their fate and either fruitlessly attempt to become heroes or plead for their death.

I thought the biggest let down of the series was Ed Benes art. I don't necessarily want to criticise the artist himself, but I don't think it's a good match for Meltzer's words. Benes is an experienced superhero artist, comfortable drawing muscular men and women in tight garish outfits beating seven shades of daylight out of everything in sight. Black Canary's demolition of the Red Tornado clone in #3 demonstrates his familiarity from his Birds of Prey days. It's dynamic and exhilarating, and most of the action scenes benefit from his skill in providing clear sharp detail, and Sandra Hope's flowing inks only enhance the effect. But, as a cursory glance at the Ed Benes website shows, this is an artist whose work can sometimes drift into, lets be frank, superhero soft porn. He also, like many superhero artists, draws identical figures and faces for everyone, relying on the costumes to differentiate the characters. The result gives the impression that we're watching the cast of Baywatch in action, and the acting required by Meltzer's script is beyond them.

Arsenal and Green Lantern's relationship, an interesting one not really examined since the old Green Lantern/Green Arrow issues of Brave and The Bold, suffers from Benes inability to lend their dialogue any emotional weight. There's much made by Meltzer about their generational ties, an important theme in the story, and yes, there's an early reference to Hal being technically younger than Roy in #1, but their identical physiques and facial structures completely undermine the impact of their scenes together. The presentation of the Red Arrow costume in #7 and Hal and Dinah's tears are made laughable by a succession of panels where Roy looks more like he's lost his car keys than embracing his heritage and his future. Meltzer was far better served by Rags Morales in Identity Crisis and Geoff Johns gets great work out of Dave Eaglesham on this front.


Timothy Callahan: So, what's my take on "The Tornado's Path"? I'll add my thoughts by responding to yours, and your main points can be broken down and (over)simplified in this manner:

(1) It's a bit slow and decompressed.
--While the pace felt slow when the story was read in monthly doses, I think it works very well when read as a whole. And you say, "If all superhero comics were like this it would be pretty grim, but as an exception it's not so bad." You seem to be referring to the decompressed pacing, but I would completely agree with your statement if it was relating to the tone of Meltzer's JLA. That was the thing I found to be utterly grim. Perhaps it's Meltzer's attempt to shock us back into an emotional connection with these characters, but I actively disliked the sadistic violence and pain expressed in the "The Tornado's Path." When arms are ripped off and blood spurts across the panel, it's just a big downer for me. To me, it's all part of the unbearably serious, "oh, being a super-hero really hurts!" tone that permeated Identity Crisis. Reading Meltzer's approach to comics is a bit like going to a really cool dentist. No matter how much fun it might seem at times (and Grundy is cool, as are some of Meltzer's pet JLA additions), it still involves discomfort and downright suffering. And, unlike a trip to the dentist, Meltzer's JLA isn't even good for you.

--So I didn't mind the pacing so much as the relentless severity of each moment of the story. Yet, as painful as it was to read, I did appreciate Meltzer knocking me out of my normal, readerly ambivalence. I appreciate any comic book that can do that. I'm certainly fascinated by Melter's JLA, even if the tone turns me off during "The Tornado's Path." It's brutality (of portentious characters along with acts of violence) gives it that edge, and, yes if all superhero comics were like this, it would be grim indeed.

(2) The two main mysteries don't conclude in a satisfying way.
--I thoroughly enjoyed the use of Grundy in this story, so I can't agree that the mysterious villain turned out to be a disappointment. I not only enjoyed Grundy himself, as portrayed by Melzer, but I enjoyed the abject panic of message board posters who declaimed Meltzer for being the worst writer in the history of the universe for daring to give us an intelligent Grundy. It's not such a sin, especially since James Robinson established Grundy's reborn-with-a-different-mind-each-time history in his Starman series. It's a good use of Grundy, and while it may not have played by the rules of a true whodunit (nobody could have guessed a completely revamped Grundy was behind the whole thing), it works as a shocking reveal, and Meltzer plays it out appropriately.

--The other mystery: "Who will be chosen for the new JLA?" is not so much resolved in an unsatisfying way as completely abandoned with almost a footnote to indicate that it was ever important in the first place. I don't mind that the ending turned out to be that they just chose the group based on who helped out with the Grundy battle, since that's the way JLAs have formed in the past, but I do mind how much time Meltzer spends setting up the whole photo-and-discussion-of-strengths-and-weaknesses thing, only to render all of those pages (and pages and pages) of debate irrelevant by saying, "oh, we'll just go with the random bunch." Meltzer didn't have to spend so much time on those discussions if he just wanted to establish the dynamic between the Big Three (Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman), so the ultimate effect is that "The Tornado's Path" feels like a story that got derailed along the way. I'm fairly certain that Meltzer planned it all out, and he knew the team was going to be "randomly" formed, but it reads as if he changed his mind halfway through writing it. Here's one of those times where authorial intent doesn't help us in the analysis, because whether he intended it exactly the way it turned out or not, the total abandonment of the premise of the first couple of issues (the premise that this would be a team chosen for a reason) just seems sloppy. And what does Geo-Force have to do with anything? Sloppy.

(3) Even if the series is an attempt to move forward, it hinges too much on a convoluted legacy.
--This is the dilemma of the super-hero comic in the 21st Century. Neither Marvel or DC has a continuity that makes any kind of sense (in the big picture), and yet both companies have fans and creators who are obsessed with continuity, but only the continuity that they, themselves, care about. I'm sure there are people who care about every little continuity detail, but everyone I know seems to be willing to ignore the completely ridiculous things that have happened (the Clone Saga in Spider-Man, the relative ages of various heroes, Maxwell Lord) while expecting writers to adhere to the continuity that they, the readers, care about. Continuity should matter, since it's just internal storytelling consistency on a grand scale, but it can't matter in the Marvel and DC universes because the continuity is already corrupt beyond reason.

--So I don't think Meltzer's JLA is any better or worse at using or abusing continuity than any other comic book on the shelf. It's probably better just to think of this series as Meltzer's All-Star Justice League of America. Because that's basically what it is. It's his version of the Ultimate JLA story. His favorite characters fighting against really cool villains, with some of his favorite DC characters popping up. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that type of approach. It's apparent that Meltzer is a fan of the 1970s to mid 1980s DC Universe, and that's what he draws upon. Taking these characters and trying to make them more "realistic" by making every moment seem utterly serious and important may not work particularly well, but that's Meltzer's approach to fiction, apparently, and it isn't affected by his acknowledgement of the past.

(4) Ed Benes is the wrong artist for this series.
--Yes. Oh so true. First of all, you say "The result gives the impression that we're watching the cast of Baywatch in action, and the acting required by Meltzer's script is beyond them," and that about sums it up. But I'll add, second of all, it's such a strange choice to put an Image-style artist (and Benes, if anything, is a synthesis of Silvestri, Lee, and Liefeld) on a book which requires some serious emoting. Gritted teeth don't allow for much emotional range. It's like putting David Finch on an Avengers story in which the heroes are shown expressing their deepest feelings as they face their own Disassemble-ment (oh, wait, that did happen). If Meltzer is, as he seems to be, attempting to ground the superheroics in a kind of stylized, grim emotional reality, wouldn't a less glossy, less porntastic artist be more appropriate? (The answer is yes, and the proof is Gene Ha in JLA #11)

So after all of this, what's my overall verdict on "The Tornado's Path"? Well, let me evaluate it according to my Seven Standards of Good Comics:

1. Art which helps to tell the story (and does not detract from it or cause unwanted confusion)
--No. The art detracts, and does not add to the quality of the story.

2. Art which amplifies and accentuates the themes through visual symbolism
--No. The art is all about surface and neglects subtelties of characterization which would have symbolic meaning.

3. Stories which resolve in some way
--Yes. The story resolves!

4. Main characters who have more than one facet to their personality
--Yes, although the multiple facets themselves aren't very complex. (Red Arrow is cocky AND uncertain; Black Canary is tough AND protective, etc.) Meltzer seems interested in TRYING to add depth of characterization.

5. Something to say about one or more of the Essential Human Ideas (aka themes)
--Yes, although Meltzer seems more concerned with plot developments and individual character moments than he does with expressing a cohesive theme. Yet, I would say the dominant theme of "The Tornado's Path" is "maturity," which we see in Red Arrow's subplot, Geo-Force's subplot (such as it is), and even in the Red Tornado who is forced to grow up and accept the reality of his situation.

6. Narrative consistency (in character, plot, setting, and theme–jumps from one setting to another, for example, should be explained or alluded to)
--Yes. With the major exception of the Geo-Force stuff, everything makes sense in sequence.

7. Something new to say (about the medium, the genre, the characters, or the world)
--Yes, Meltzer has something new to say about the role of the JLA in the DC Universe (though he abandons that idea), and he wants to say something new about Red Tornado's search for humanity and Red Arrow's search for adult acceptance.

Five out of seven "Yesses" does not necessarily make a Good Comic, especially since some of the positives were marginal at best. Yet I would say that, with all of its flaws (the wrong artist, and the grim self-importance of the tone) Melter's first eight Justice League of America issues are, as a whole, examples of Good Comics full of Serious Flaws. The result is never dull, even if the whole thing doesn't quite work.

I'm Still Reading Comics

I've been absolutely overwhelmed with work and extra-curricular activities this month (like trying to help out my poor, video game deprived children), but I'm still keeping up with my weekly comics fix. I don't know how much longer I'll keep buying such a massive amount of comics each week, but for now, I'm still getting a ton of stuff each Wednesday. I'm now at the point where each comic I buy is not just a slice of entertainment or a piece of art, but a crucible upon which I test my willingness to keep up with this unbelievably expensive weekly hobby. So how do some of last weeks comics fare? Do they make me want to keep going? Abandon floppies in favor of trades? Give up on the whole medium entirely? Let's see.

COUNTDOWN TO MYSTERY #1 is surprisingly good. I've been on a bit of a Steve Gerber kick lately, and if I had some more free time, I might be inclined to write about two other Gerber series I recently read: Omega the Unknown and Foolkiller. Both series are fascinating portrayals of New York as a corrupt urban jungle, and both series rise above their mainstream Marvel setting to ponder serious questions about violence and justice (in their own basically goofy but oh-so-serious ways). Gerber's Doctor Fate story in Countdown to Mysery has shades of such philosophy--it feels in many ways like a Bronze Age comic--and the artwork nicely matches the tone of the story. I don't really care about the hellspawn demons which propel the cliffhanger, but I'm going to stick around to see what Gerber does with this flawed Doctor Fate in an urban landscape. The back-up Eclipso story is also better than expected, and I'm curious to see how Darkseid fits into everything. I'll keep buying this one.

ARMY @ LOVE #7 continues Rick Veitch's satirical hijinx, and the characters continue to be completely incompetent and/or completely devoid of ethics. All of which is the point, but this book does not read well in monthly installments. (Although you have to respect Veitch's ability to both write and draw this comic on a monthly basis--how many creators can do that anymore?) This will probably read better in the trade--I'm positive it will, but I buy it to keep the series alive. That's possibly a stupid reason to keep buying it, but if we all stopped buying it, we wouldn't see what Veitch has planned for this series. Then again, he might not have much of a plan. It might just be the same satirical idea (America is a sex-obsessed, selfish, idiotic country--imagine if the military acted that way too) over and over. I think there's more to it than that. Then again (and I may have referenced this before) Vladimir Nabokov, as a professor, railed against satire, saying that if it's a good book, it doesn't matter if there's satire in it, and if it's not good, then it doesn't matter if there's satire in it either. Satire itself isn't enough to make a good book bad or a bad book good. I'm horribly paraphrasing his point, but I think my point here is that Army @ Love needs more than just its satirical foundation to sustain itself, and after seven issues, I'm not convinced that it has anything more. But I trust Rick Veitch enough to keep paying a few bucks a month to let him play around in this particular sandbox.

LEGION OF SUPER HEROES IN THE 31ST CENTURY #6 is by far the best issue of the short-lived series. It not only features a massive amount of Legionnaries, but it's got page after page of futuristic Green Lanterns, plus Starro the freakin Conqueror. This is honestly one of my favorite comics, and because DC releases collections of these Johnny DC titles in the smaller digest form (which makes the lettering and the artwork way too small for my tastes---that size is great for Manga, because it was created for that format, but shrinking standard American comics down to that size absolutely ruins the impact of the artwork), I will definitely keep buying it monthly. I wonder, though, if the comic will shift to mirror the "more mature" tone of the second season of the cartoon. Perhaps it will serve to fill in the gaps between Season One and Season Two, but then I'm not sure that it makes sense as a television tie-in anymore. (Viewers will pick up a comic with characters that look quite different than their cartoon counterparts this year.) We'll see.

The demise of IRREDEEMABLE ANT-MAN with issue #12 saddens me. I've been telling everyone how great the book is since the very beginning, but I guess I just don't have enough friends. It's Robert Kirkman's best Marvel work yet, and its demise is enough to make me doubt the current direction of mainstream comics. It was definitely different than anything else on the Marvel shelf, and that means it was a GOOD THING. Different is good, people. Don't hate.

JLA HITMAN #1 featured the best characterization of the Justice League that I've seen in years. This comic is a bit of a strange beast though. It's deeply linked to continuity, and nearly every two pages contains a footnote referring to a past issue of the Hitman series, but I don't see how it fits into JLA continuity. The Hitman actually tried out for membership during Grant Morrison's JLA series, and the characters didn't seem to know him back then, but in this comic they don't refer to the fact that he ever tried out. Normally, I wouldn't care so much about the inconsistency, but when the comic keep bringing up the past meeting between the characters, it becomes an annoying omission. I really, really liked this issue otherwise. It even makes the horrible Bloodlines event cool in retrospect (mostly by making fun of it).

UMBRELLA ACADEMY APOCALYPSE SUITE #1 is very good, by the way. I don't know much about My Chemical Romance, other than that song "Welcome to the Black Parade" or whatever it was called was pretty much my favorite pop song of last spring. I couldn't get enough of that sucker. I don't really seem to like the rest of the songs on that album, but many of my students do, and they mock me when I actually say the entire name of the band, instead of the hip abbreviation "MCR." Like I'm supposed to know that. I am ever so old. Yet, Gerard Way can write a playful comic, and Gabriel Ba's art is even more stunning here than in (the much greater) Casanova. This comic does feel like a mix of other influences, but since those influences are things I like, I don't mind AT ALL. Many others have pointed out the Mike Mignola, steampunk, Matt Fraction, Grant Morrison, european design, zany feel of the comic, and I know exactly what they're talking about, but to me, especially by the end of issue #1, the comic feels most like Wes Anderson's Royal Tenenbaums, but with aliens and superheroes. And that sounds just about right to me. I'll keep buying it if this quality keeps up, and then I'll probably pick up the hardcover collection too.

I've read a lot of other comics this week, but just based on what I've written about here, you can probably tell that I'm not giving up the weekly habit anytime soon. Luckily, I am so freakin' wealthy that I can keep up this insane fixation. As long as I'm willing to sell everything else I own on Ebay.

Ebay Action

My son and daughter want a Nintendo Wii, and to be honest, I would love to play it too. So we've decided to pool our resources and sell a bunch of stuff on Ebay to raise money. My son's getting rid of some good Playstation 2 games really cheaply, and I've got some quality stuff for sale: Kirby hardcovers, the Hunger Dogs graphic novel, a Moebius western, Marvel Masterworks books, Justice League toys, and even a really ugly Hulk t-shirt that's waaaay too big for me. If you want to contribute to the Wii fund and pick up some awesome merch while you're at it, check out the items HERE!

Bid away, my friends. Bid away.

Seduction of the Innocent with EIGHTBALL!

You must have heard, by now, about the high school teacher forced to resign after assigning Eightball #22 to a freshman. If you haven't read about this fiasco, Heidi covers it pretty well over at The Beat.

The case concerns me on quite a few levels, not the least of which are that I am (a) a high school teacher, (b) heavily involved in a "comics in the classroom" movement, and (c) of the mind that Eightball #22, reformatted in hardcover as Ice Haven is not only Dan Clowes's most accomplished work, but it's by far one of the best graphic novels of the past decade. So my initial reaction to a dude losing his job (and possibly his career) over it is: yeesh!

But here's something that concerns me: the teacher assigned it to a 9th grade girl, independently of the rest of the class. Eightball #22 is a masterpiece, but it's a strange choice to give to a Freshman, and a strange choice to give to a single student as a make-up assignment for missed summer reading. The work is a sophisticated tapestry of shifting narrative perspectives and graphic styles. It's as much about comic book history as it is about the characters or the town represented in the story. It's not an ideal entry into the world of graphic narrative for someone who is unfamiliar with the techniques of the medium.

I think it's too "adult" for that grade level, but not because of the supposed sexual content, but because of the narrative fanciness. It's most salient virtue is its style, and stylistic analysis is not what Freshmen are known for. So it seems like a weird choice in that regard.

Yet I could see myself, in my younger and more clueless days, possibly recommending Ice Haven to a 9th grader who I thought was interested in the medium. Hell, I actually have an Eightball promotional poster hanging on the wall of my classroom (it's the one featuring Clowes's "Death Ray" character, from the cover of issue #23). So although I have never actually given out a copy of Eightball to a student, I might have made that choice once upon a time. I might have been the guy pressured into resigning.

But I'm not sure I understand why he resigned. I'm sure he had excellent reasons, but I can't imagine that I would resign if I were in that position, because I don't assign a damn thing to my students unless I know exactly why I'm doing so. If I assigned Eightball #22, which, in theory, could have happened, then I would have plenty of reasons for it, most of which having to do with the national standards for English Language Arts. If I didn't have a good reason for assigning it, then I would not assign it! I don't know why, exactly, this teacher assigned the comic, but he resigned abruptly, so that automatically makes him seem like he's afraid of any further investigation. It then makes the whole situation seem more creepy, and that begins to corrupt the whole situation. If this case draws national media attention, and it may have (or it may soon), then for the whole country, we'll end up with a really bad equation: "comics=perversion," or more specifically, maybe, "comics in the classroom=lock your doors and hide your daughters."

It's just a bad situation for everyone involved.

Yet here's something else I can't help but consider: What are these parents protecting their kids from by labelling Eightball as "pornography"? Do they live in the same world I live in? Because let me tell you something about my world: In my ten years of teaching, this is the FIRST YEAR that I don't have a 9th grade student who is either pregnant or a mother. That's right. Every other year, I've had at least one (if not more) 13 or 14 year-old student who was already a parent (or a mom to be) in my class. In a world like that, it's dangerously naive to think that Eightball #22 is a corrupting influence. That isn't to say that kids shouldn't be protected. That isn't to say that we shouldn't help to prolong innocence as long as we can. But in the world I live it, Eightball #22 isn't the problem.

Geniusboy Live On Demand Radio--Episode 4

Episode 4 is finally here! Listen as Ryan and I provide some quick comic book reviews, recommend great Western films, discuss my mastery of the game Stratego, and talk about what we will not be watching this fall on television.

Go to our Geniusboy Live website at geniusboylive.podomatic.com to download the newest episode (or subscribe!). Or, if you prefer, just click on the title of this blog post to listen to Episode 4 directly.

The Answer!

The "Guess This Artist" contest from Monday? Not a lot of people tried to figure it out, but the answer is: DARWYN COOKE!

It's almost impossible to recognize this early work (his first published comic book work actually, from DC's New Talent Showcase), but it is indeed the same guy who now writes and draws The Spirit.

The winner of the contest was the Geniusboy Live podcast's #1 super-fan, Elliot. I'm sending him an original crayon drawing of Animal Man as his well-deserved reward.

Guess This Artist!

Still no new comics (my shop isn't getting last week's stuff until this week, ugh) so instead of talking about comics, I've decided to show you some. And play a little game.

Here's some lesser-known work by a major talent in the comic book industry. Take a guess and leave a comment below. These five pages are the ENTIRE story, by the way. Can you guess who (wrote and) drew this story???







First person to guess it correctly wins an awesome drawing done by me. I'll draw any character you want, on typing paper, using crayons, and then I'll mail it to you. I'll even sign it.

So, go ahead, guess away!

New Comics Snafu

I had planned on reviewing Infinity Inc. #1 this week, but my local shop didn't receive any of their new comics today. So, I'll be back Monday with that review instead.

The New Plan

Since I return to my teaching duties tomorrow, I won't be able to maintain the furious pace of one-post-per-day anymore. My new plan is as follows:

Every Monday, you'll get a new post where I write about comic book and pop culture stuff that's been on my mind.

Every Thursday, you'll get a new post where I review something released that week.

I'll also continue to produce Geniusboy Live On Demand Radio--The Podcast every two weeks or so, and I'll use that medium to talk about the stuff I normally would have blogged about over the summer.

Thanks for reading, and I'll be back on Thursday with a review of Infinity Inc. #1.

Burnout--Or Just End Of Summer Blues?

I've been reading various blogs and comics sites where people have been complaining about (or at least discussing) "event fatigue" and "comic book burnout" lately.

I can totally sympathize. I've been an avid comic book reader for over 20 years, and except for a one-month stretch in my late teenage years, I've been going to my local comics shop (depending on where I lived at the time) every Wednesday or Thursday to get my latest comic book fix. It seemed that everytime I started to drift out of comics, something new pulled me back in:

In the mid to late 1980s, Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, Crisis and the reboot of Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman (I'm going to count Year: One as a reboot--you may disagree), as well as the plethora of mythology-rich Marvel Handbooks and Who's Who issues, got me hooked on comics, deeply, but when the monthly stuff--Byrne leaving Superman, Perez shifting to just a writer on Wonder Woman, the stuff like Batman: Year Three and everything that followed for a while, seemingly everything at Marvel--became more and more bland, I became more interested in stuff like Grendel, Nexus, back-issues of Starslayer, Grimjack, and American Flagg. I read many of the Fantagraphics line, and whatever else the Comics Journal deemed worthy of a look.

The early 1990s brought Image, of course, and I was all for it. Even back then, I had eclectic taste, and I loved Hate and Eightball and Mister X and Puma Blues, but I also loved Liefeld's New Mutants, McFarlane's Spider-Man, and Lee's X-Men. So, like everyone else, I followed them happily and bought everything Image came out with during that first year or so. Just when I got sick of that stuff, which didn't take long, Vertigo came along with great stuff like Enigma, The Invisibles, and, my favorite at the time: Sandman. I didn't realize how much I had abandoned mainstream superhero comics, post-early-Image, but as I'm rereading Morrison's JLA run, I look at the house ads and I don't have ANY of those issues. "Millenium Giants"? No clue what that was about. And the same goes for Marvel. I don't really know anything about the Clone Saga, for example, except what I've read on Wikipedia, which seems to be more than enough. But Vertigo, and an occasional Tundra or Slave Labor comic (Madman! The Jam!) along with a Dark Horse issue or twenty (Concrete! Sin City! Hellboy!) sustained me throughout the decade. People often complain about the awfuless of...ugh...90s comics. They always say "ugh," right before "90s," and I'm sure they're right, in their own way, but I didn't read that stuff. My 90s was full of great comics by amazing creators.

In the 2000s, the mainstream superheroes sucked me back in. Hard. It's probably all Quesada's fault. I started picking up the Marvel Knights titles. Then I started getting more and more of the "regular" Marvel books and more DC titles besides just the Vertigo and Morrison or Millar stuff. Then, with Infinite Crisis looming and a Civil War on the horizon, I started buying almost everything from both companies. I wasn't interested in the crossover ideas necessarily, but both companies were bringing in more and more interesting talent to work on the titles. They both seemed to value the writer more and more, and say what you will about Bendis, or Johns, or Millar, or Ellis, or Morrison, or Brubaker, but they bring a strong personal style to their work, and I devoured it. And I've stuck with them for the past half a decade. I've read all the big events, and all the small spin-offs. I've read Veitch and Edwards Question and Smith and Dodson's Spider-Man/Black Cat and Morrison and Quitely's All-Star Superman and Bendis and Bagley's Ultimate Spider-Man. And everything in between. And as disappointing as some of those series were, I've loved a lot of the comics each and every week.

But now, as we head toward the fourth quarter of 2007, I'm getting kind of sick of it all. Maybe it's the weak crop of titles last week, maybe it's the relentless mediocrity (at best) of Countdown. Maybe it's the long wait for the next comic book with art by Frank Quitely. Maybe it's too many weeks in a row with the volume set to 11. Maybe it's the end of summer and time for me to get back to my real job.

I don't know. But "comics burnout"? Yeah, I feel it. "Event Fatigue"? Yup. I'm nowhere near ready to "quit" comics, or stop my weekly trips to the store. But I'm a bit less enthusiastic. A bit more hesitant to shell out money on the single issues.

I wonder what's going to come along and save me this time.

Superhero Death Trap #9,923,501

Even with the mass-media saturation of superheroes these days, there's a general feeling among non-comic book readers that comics are filled with repetitive stories in which a hero is trapped by a villain, the villain spouts his or her evil plan, and the hero escapes at the last minute to save the day.

While this type of plot may be very common in James Bond movies, it's not prevalent in comics at all. I can't even remember the last time I read a story which featured any kind of superhero death trap.

So that's my question of the day:

What was the last comic book you read which featured a hero caught in a wonderfully elaborate death trap (or a death trap of any kind)?

Whatever Happened to that Legion Project?

Way back in March, I mentioned a scholarly book on The Legion of Super-Heroes that I was trying to put together. In that earlier post, I put out a call for submissions, and I don't think I've mentioned the project on this blog since. Did people fail to send submissions? Did I give up on it? Did the project die?

Nope!

It's very much alive. In fact, the almost-completed first draft (still waiting for one or two more essays) is nearly 400 manuscript pages of Legion coolness. The finished book won't be available until 2008 (just in time for the 50th Anniversary, as planned), but just to tease you, here's a list of a few of the chapters that you'll be able to read in what is tentatively called Teenagers from the Future: Essays on the Legion of Super-Heroes:

• James Kakalios on "The Legion's Super-Science"

• Richard Bensam's "The Perfect Storm: The Death and Ressurection of Lightning Lad"

• Jeff Barbanell on "Shooter's Marvelesque"

• Scipio Garling on "How the Legion Transitioned Us from the JSA to the JLA"

• Sara Ellis on "Architecture and Utopia"

• Chris Sims on "The (Often Arbitrary) Rules of the Legion"

• Alan Williams on "Gender Identity and Homosexuality in the TMK Legion"

And dozens more!

The book is going to be fun, funny, informative, scholarly, and exciting. It will cover the major eras of Legion history, looking at the way the book reflected the culture of the time and predicted social changes of the future. It will explore historical trends, artistic trends, and storytelling trends in relation to the Legion's various creative teams. It will make you weep with joy.

I'm quite proud of how this book looks so far, and it's not even finished yet. When you plan out your budget for next Spring, set aside a few extra bucks for Teenagers from the Future. Trust me, you'll like it a lot.