Batman #678 and Batman #113: The Zur-En-Arrh Connection

I'll post annotations for Morrison's Batman #678 sometime in the next couple of days, but since the annotations will rely heavily on reference to February 1958's Batman #113, I'm going to give you a closer look at Zur-En-Arrh right now. If you're interested, here's a collection of all of my Morrison Batman posts. Also, click on the images below to enlarge them for your viewing pleasure.

Batman #113's cover story, "Batman--the Superman of Planet X" is the relevant bit, although it's the third of three Batman stories in that one issue. The first two stories, "The Menace of False Face," and "Batman Meets Fatman," don't seem to play into Morrison's Batman run, although Fatman--a, you guessed it, overweight guy in a Batman costime--is due for a revival any day now. Perhaps as a a Vertigo book?

Anyway, "Batman--the Superman of Planet X," written by Ed Herron and drawn by Dick Sprang (according to Comic Book DB) begins with Batman sneaking out at night for a little Batplane recon, wondering why he's compelled to go out alone instead of bringing Robin with him (by the way, Batman and Robin slept in the same bedroom in the 1950s--is this common knowledge? Any trivia fiends know when they stopped being shown occupying the same sleeping quarters?). Soon the Batplane gets all whirly and spinny, as you can see here:

And as this page shows, Batman ends up on Zur-En-Arrh, greeted by Tlano, the red, yellow, and purple Batman of this strange planet.

Just like many other Batman doppelgangers (like the Club of Heroes, and, of course, Fatman), Tlano was compelled to become the Batman of his world by watching Batman. Batman's inspirational powers aren't just limited to Earth, obviously. Since Morrison seems to be interested in Batman doubles--and we know he's interested in Silver Age weirdness--it's not suprising to see Zur-En-Arrh/Tlano play such an important role in Morrison's Batman. Well, I guess it might be surprising if you are a casual reader who picks up the much-hyped "Batman R.I.P." and three issues into it your find yourself dealing with a Batman who has stitched together a crazy red, yellow, and purple costume. But really, the Zur-En-Arrh connection is just added texture, and all you really need to know is that Batman's going crazy in Morrison's run. Here, in the Ed Herron story, he's very sane. Super-sane. Or is he?

And this space-travelling Batman hangs out with Tlano and checks out his sweet alien Batcave, filled with an "atomic-powered" Batmobile and a Batplane that looks a lot like a Bat-rocket. (Because space aliens have better tech than earthlings, circa 1958, and have less fear of atomic energy.)

But the coolest, most emphasized, and least defined (well, it's explained, but the explanation doesn't make a whole lot of sense) item in this alien Batcave is actually from Tlano's utility belt. It's his BAT-RADIA, which "issues electronic molecules that cause controlled disturbances in the atmosphere." I'm not sure how that works, but Tlano says he uses it to jam the power to flying cars, so I guess that comes in handy. It's space caltops, then. And our Batman doesn't comment on how awesome the gadget is, perhaps because, like us, he doesn't quite understand the science at work. But the Bat-Radia will come in handy in issue #113, and as far as I know, won't reappear until Batman #678.

As the cover of this issue indicated, this story is all about Batman acting like Superman, because the lower gravity on Zur-En-Arrh gives him the ability to leap tall buildings and punch real hard. So that's what Batman does, helping Tlano and his people repel an alien invasion (an alien invasion featuring an army of giant robots!). But the aliens keep turning invisible before Batman can punch them good enough. What is a space-displaced superhero to do?

The Bat-Radia! Of course! "The Bat-Radia is turned on...the electronic molecules are streaming forth!" That's what Tlano says in the final panel of this page, helping out his Earth chum with his super-alien-science. Dialogue Morrison swipes, word for word (minus the ellipsis and the exclamation point) to begin Batman #678.


The Batmen win, sending the alien invaders away with confidence. Tlano, in particular, is sure that they "never need fear their return." Because why would aliens bother to attack when the Bat-Radia is in the house? Except, as the end of this story shows, the Bat-Radia is actually sent home with Bruce Wayne.

"Tlano throws a switch" and Batman is back in his Batplane over Gotham City. Was it all a dream, Batman wonders: "It would be far easier to consider this a dream...but how can I? For in my hand, I hold the BAT-RADIA!" Dum dum dummmm!

(The musical cue at the end was added in my mind.)

So just as Morrison begins Batman #678 with a direct quote from Batman #113, he ends it with one as well, lifting Batman's final lines and putting them in the mouth of a deranged Bruce Wayne who has crafted himself a Zur-En-Arrh-ian Batman costume. Luckily, he's got the Bat-Radia in his hand. The Club of Villains is doomed.

The Superman 2000 Pitch: The Fortress

This is possibly my final commentary on the excerpts from the Morrison/Waid/Millar/Peyer Superman 2000 proposal. Chad Nevett and I have almost run out of bits to excerpt, and he'll probably wrap up the discussion later this week with one final segment. Here's my (probably final) new excerpt, from the section of the proposal titled "The Fortress" with some commentary by me (just to clarify, the block quotes come from the pitch, and the other stuff between the block quotes are my comments):

Superman's super-intelligence and increased speed of perception, etc., has left him with more time and brain cells to fill, so the Fortress becomes a place of baroque activity once more as Superman becomes the hobbyist par excellance, the polymath who's interested in EVERYTHING. The Fortress becomes trophy room, laboratory, gymnasium, observatory--the perfect hangout for the ultimate being. Let's see the Fortress stuffed with incredible artifacts from all space and time. The Titanic hangs from the ceiling (Supes and Lois dine in the great staterooms, overlooking the wonders of the Fortress).

Superman's laboratory contains the Superman Molecule, where Superman engraves his personal diaries using heat vision through special goggles which reduce its bandwidth. The stories on the Superman Molecule are all told by Superman himself and allow us to see the world via his incredible senses: "The alcohol on his breath killed exactly 15 billion bacteria. There was no way I could save them. I did my best to patch up a liver malfunction during a microscopic high-speed scan of his body..."

Geoff Johns has reclaimed some of the spectacle of the Fortress of Solitude in his Action Comics run, but Morrison's All-Star Superman has really taken advantage of the Fortress as Superman's ultimate laboratory/hang-out. Either this section of the pitch was written primarily by Morrison, or he was heavily inspired by it, because you'll see that this Fortress aspect of the Superman 2000 proposal deeply informs his recent Superman work.

Elsewhere lies access to The Phantom Zone Vault, with its weird maps of this odd, infinite region of unspace originally used by Kryptonians to house artifacts and weapons. (The Phantom Zone sectors currently mapped by Superman include the site of Prometheus's Crooked House and the region where the White Martian Mothership is docked. The Zone will be colonized by the 30th century and become known as Tesseract Space.) The idea here is to emphasize the outrageousness of Superman's Herculean pastimes--he's seriously making maps of an infinite region of apparent nothingness. In the same Vault, the Phantom Zone Telescope is a machine which allows Superman to observe the eerie world of Phantom Supermen left here after THE KINGDOM.

Superman's Impossible Room opens into a transtemporal flaw. Here, Superman is able to rendezvous with his descendants, members of the Superman Squad from upcoming eras.

The Infant Universe of Qwewq, saved from Wonderworld by the JLA. This microscopic, living universe needs "care and feeding" and Superman spends long hours observing events here. He even descends into the nanoscopic Earth of Qwewq for occasional adventures as "Hyperman," the only superhero in that universe. (Qwewq is OUR universe, though we never mention it, and here, in our real world, Superman has adventures on a planet where he can never, ever reveal himself or tell people who he is or what he is.)

The Superman Squad members from the future. Qwewq as our universe. These are spot-on references to what Morrison has just done in All-Star. One wonders if All-Star #12 will involve Superman entering our world as "Hyperman."

There's a Krypton Museum which has a huge floating globe of the lost planet reconstructed from the holographic memory traces in the resonant atomic structure of Superman's rocketship (whose metal, being part of the atomic structure of lost Krypton, "remembers" the atomic structure of lost Krypton. Superman and his robots are now sophisticated enough to perform archaeological forays into ambient molecular memory and slowly reconstruct the glorious landmarks of the doomed planet). "You can even see Fort Rozz, Krypton's Mobile Arsenal, and there's the Quantum Jungle moving rapidly across the face of the planet..." etc.

Huge solar batteries collect the Antarctic sun during the long summer days. Sometimes, Superman bathes in the rays of the huge solar collector. Suspended between the giant mirrors, Superman could perhaps even super-charge his cells with extra solar power before a serious battle.

The Living Library is Superman's complete DNA record of every species he has ever encountered.

Close by will be Superman's Bizarro Habitat, where Superman keeps poor, deformed creatures mutated by the attack of the Cube Earth--Bizarro dogs and cats and rhinos, whatever. He tries to make their pitiful, illogical lives as comfortable as he can, all the while seeking an antidote to the Bizarro plague.

The Fortress also includes titanic memorial statues of Jor-El and Lara, a Gallery of Foes, new upgraded versions of Kelex and the other Fortress robots, Superman's JLA Boom Tube generator and anything else that occurs as we proceed. Fragments of his rocket. The Electro-Supes suit. His "Hyperman" costume. A "KLTPZYXM" word balloon left by Mr. Mxyzptlk. The emphasis is on cool stuff. A Fortress we can do cutaway diagrams of again. The ultimate treehouse. The greatest den known to man.

The more I read this, the more obvious it is that this is deeply Morrisonian. This is his version of Superman, as a fetishist of the fantastic. This Fortress is far more vast, though, than anyone has ever expressed in any comic book story. Johns hasn't taken the Fortress this far, and even Morrison hasn't taken it as far as he and the team proposed here. It certainly celebrates the wonder of the Superman universe, and that's something that was missing from the character throughout the late 1980s and 1990s.

Squadron Supreme 2 #1 Review

Recently reviewed by me at CBR: Squadron Supreme 2 #1, about which I write the following sentences: "The first hero to appear has strange spider-like powers. The second is draped in the American flag. (On the cover to issue #1, though not yet appearing in the issue, is someone wearing a suit of armor -- perhaps one made from iron.) You can see where this is going, right? Just as the Squadron were originally JLA pastiches, we now get pastiches of the popular Marvel characters -- Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man -- appearing in the Squadron Supreme universe. The story doesn't ham it up, and the narrative isn't interrupted by characters winking and laughing with the reader, but this series is clearly designed to play with the Marvel hero archetypes in relation to the DC archetypes of the Squadron. Or maybe not, because the Squadron is barely found within this issue. Maybe Chaykin's new direction is about these strange Marvel analogues replacing the Squadron as the new heroes of Earth. Maybe it's all a meta-commentary on the supremacy of Marvel."

Boy, that cover looks like a mess, but the comic is pretty good.

Read the entire review HERE.

Punisher War Journal #21 Review

Recently reviewed by me at CBR: Punisher War Journal #21, about which I write the following sentences: "Under the guidance of Matt Fraction, 'Punisher War Journal' has alternated between clever, witty looks at the Marvel Universe and serious and severe looks at the screwed-up world in which Frank Castle lives. The tone hasn't been exactly consistent from arc to arc, but I don't see that as a drawback at all, because the Punisher in straight-up vigilante mode has never been all that interesting in the long term. The Punisher is an inconsistent character, really, if you take into account all of his in-Universe portrayals over the years. He's been a buffoonish killer, a monster, a hero, a lunatic, a patriot, and almost anything you can imagine. Fraction has written him as a strange combination of all of those things, and if he isn't heroic in a traditional sense, at least he has a code he follows. He's a psychopath headlining a book set in the Marvel Universe, and Fraction has made him compelling and somewhat noble, while never going so far as to make Frank Castle admirable."

Read the entire review HERE.

Astonishing X-Men #25 Review

Recently reviewed by me at CBR: Astonishing X-Men #25, about which I write the following sentences: "'Astonishing X-Men' #25 is a great superhero comic, and it's the best X-Men comic in ages, precisely because it feels like something new. It feels like a fresh take on the characters, and it doesn't really bear any similarity to the first twenty-five issues of this series. The cast is a bit different, the characters behave a bit differently, and they are interested in different things. This isn't another ode to Chris Claremont. This is Warren Ellis's X-Men, and it's Simone Bianchi's X-Men, and it's quite a joy to read."

This comic comes out today, and I suspect it might be the best book of the week.

Read the entire review HERE.

Grant Morrison: The Early Years in July Previews

As Greg Burgas mentioned yesterday at CSBG, Grant Morrison: The Early Years is listed in the July Previews! That means your local comic shop can order you a copy--and not just a copy, but a revised and slightly expanded version with a cover that's also revised and expanded (well, the picture is expanded--you'll see). Click on the link below to see the new cover and the listing in the online version of Previews.

Order yours today: Grant Morrison: The Early Years

Superman: Distant Fires--Has Anyone Else Read This?

In 1998, DC released a 64-page Elseworlds comic written by Howard Chaykin and illustrated by Gil Kane (with inks by Kevin Nowlan). Have you read this thing? You should. Because it's CRAZY!


Yes, that is Superman riding a giant mutatated cat as the Earth burns beneath him. And all his superhero pals are following his lead. Well, the ones that can fly anyway. The rest are screwed. But before I get into the horrible deaths of the many non-flying heroes, let me tell you a little bit about the premise of this Elseworlds marvel.

It begins with a global nuclear war. Everyone and everything is destroyed. Superman cries (because, being Superman, he survives, even if his shirt does not).


The nuclear armageddon really didn't do too much more than cause a lot of really big tidal waves. No nuclear winter. No gigantic radiation-filled zones. Just a lot of rubble. Rubble that's good for makeshift gravestones, thinks Superman. Oh, yeah, and Superman has also lost his powers, so he has to resort to using a shovel. And since he can no longer fly, he's at the mercy of the GIANT MUTATED RATS that infest Metropolis. Yes, it's the day after the nuclear war and the rats have already mutated to the size of elephants. That radiation works quickly, but only on animals. Luckily Superman hasn't forgotten how to fight, so he quickly dispatches the evil rats and runs away. And meets a new friend. A giant kitty cat that he tames and mounts, He-Man style. He compensates for the loss of dignity by sporting a vest and a sweet ponytail:


He wanders the continent, thinking he, his beard, and his ginormous kitty are all alone in the world, but then he bumps into Wonder Woman and finds out that people have survived! Including, Wally West, who insists on wearing his Flash costume even while hobbling around on one leg:


Note that nobody else still wears their costumes. But Wally West? He's the fastest man alive, and he wants people to know it. Even if he can't walk anymore. But that's not the real story of the comic. The real story is that the all-grown-up-now Billy Batson is in the camp with the survivors, and when Superman shows up, arm-in-arm with Wonder Woman, Billy Batson gets his Shazam-envy on. He goes so far as to create a civil war within the camp, dividing the factions between those loyal to Superman and those loyal to Captain Marvel's jealous rage. Oh, and in the battle, Wonder Woman dies. Superman sheds more tears before punching Billy Batson in the chest. Then the Earth starts to explode.


Oh, I forgot to mention that Wonder Woman and Superman had a baby at some point, and Superman also got his hands one of those sweet Green Lantern power rings. So he crafts a magical green spaceship and launches his infant son into space, because that's how the El family rolls when the planet is ready to blow and there's a baby kicking around.


And that, my friends, all happens in 64 pages. That's what was so great about the Elseworlds books. Anything could happen, and it often did. All in the same story. And Chaykin pumped out a bunch of Elseworlds in the 1990s--all of them deranged bits of genius. Plus, Gil Kane inked by Kevin Nowlan? Seriously? How can you go wrong?

As the main Superman titles were reaching their nadir, the Elseworlds Superman books like this one were keeping the legacy of Silver Age insanity alive. If you think sometimes mainstream comics can be repetitive and dull, and don't have enough crazy gigantic rat battles and hormonally jealous Fawcett characters, think again. This comic proves you wrong.

Green Lantern #32 Review

Recently reviewed by me at CBR: Green Lantern #32, about which I write the following sentences: "'Captain America' is a dark look at the individual struggling against the system -- it's a Marvel book through-and-through, with its pathos straight out of Stan Lee and its iconography straight from Jack Kirby. 'Green Lantern,' on the other hand, is the quintessential DC comic. It's brighter, more epic, more showy. It's about clear delineations between good and evil. It's that Gardner Fox/John Broome approach to the genre, updated for the 21st century. If you are a DC fan, Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis' 'Green Lantern' is probably one of your favorite comics, embodying, as it does, everything the DC Universe does well: spectacle with a strong sense of tradition."

Read the entire review HERE.

Ultimates 3 #4 Review

Recently reviewed by me at CBR: Ultimates 3 #4, about which I write the following sentences: "It's customary for superhero comics to have slugfests and action scenes, and it's to be expected in the climactic portions of the story arcs. But this tempo -- fight after fight after fight -- has been the standard since the first pages of the first issue. And it's not exhilarating. Or fun. It's just the comic book equivalent of someone yelling in your face for ten minutes every two or three months"

Read the entire review HERE.

Chad Nevett With More on Superman's Villains

Continuing our back-and-forth look at the Morrison/Waid/Millar/Peyer Superman 2000 proposal, Chad Nevett has posted the bits about the three great "Anti-Supermen": Bizarro, Brainiac, and Lex Luthor.

I actually disagree with Chad about the Luthor as businessman idea. I think that was one of the things that destroyed the character in the 1980s and 1990s. I didn't mind it at the time, but in the past two weeks I've read the Elliot S! Maggin Luthor and the Luthor from Stuart Immonen's graphic novel, and Maggin's ultra-genius super-scientist Luthor is such a fascinating character--much more interesting than the bland businessman Immonen is saddled with. In the novels, Luthor has multiple identities so he can create super-weapons, hide them in plain sight as works of contemporary sculpture, and then bid up the prices. Then, when someone outbids him, he makes a ton of money, then when he needs to super-weapons, he knows which museum to find them in--and he just waltzes in and steals them.

Luthor as a business man is too plain. Too desperate. Too simplistic.

The Cover Price Trend: A Graph

Here's my relatively unscientific profile of comic book price trends, in response to my prediction that mainstream comics will all be $3.99 by next summer.

This hastily-made graph on the left shows a sample of Amazing Spider-Man cover prices--from issue #55 to issue #555. I stuck with the issues ending in "55" because I figured that would avoid any double-sized issues and price problems. And I was too lazy to look up more than a handful of issues.

But you can clearly see the price trend, and by issue #655, scheduled for 2011 or so, the price should be at or above the four-dollar mark (if the graph continues in the same general direction). This graph doesn't account for the huge spike in oil prices which will probably drive the cost of EVERYTHING through the roof.

Thoughts?

DC and Marvel via Brian Reed

Brian Reed had a great line at WizardWorld Chicago, at the "Bendis vs. Johns" panel. He said that anything can happen in the DC Universe, but the Marvel Universe has a different set of rules: "Wonder Woman can come home and have gorillas in her living room and people are like, 'that's cool.' If Professor X came home and there were gorillas, fans would be like, 'that doesn't make sense.'"

That sounds exactly right to me, but what is it about the Marvel Universe that doesn't allow random gorillas?

And does such mentality destroy any chance of success for the upcoming Marvel Apes mega-crossover?

Final Crisis #2 Hits THE SPLASH PAGE

Marvel has this tiny Secret Invasion thing going on, I don't know if you've heard about it, but some of the kids are really getting into it. It might catch on, so buy your Marvel stock post-haste! DC has this other thing--this massive crossover written by Grant Morrison, who's been known to do a bit of writin' now and again. It's called Final Crisis and people don't really seem to like it because there (a) aren't enough aliens that have the powers of three or more heroes, (b) isn't a lot of repetitive dialogue and/or T-Rexes, and (c) is an expectation that readers will look at the words AND the pictures to figure out what's happening.

So now that Final Crisis #2 is out, Chad Nevett and I though it was time to discuss the grouchy reception some critics gave the first issue, and to talk about how it compares to that little Secret Invasion thing.

Also, we mention Saved by the Bell and Degrassi. Without any good reason, really. Read all about it in the newest installment of what some might consider the most profound work of comic criticism to ever hit the transnational internet spaceways, The Splash Page.

Some might instead click HERE.

Captain America #39 Review

Recently reviewed by me at CBR: Captain America #39, about which I write the following sentences: "'Captain America' is packed with plot twists and character moments. It's not Bendis' 'Daredevil,' which was all about interior conflict and paralysis. No, this is a comic book series that has moved tremendously from where it began, but the looming threat hasn't disappeared. The Red Skull, Dr. Faustus, and Arnim Zola continue their evil scheme. And Bucky Barnes slowly grows into the role he was born to play."

Read the entire review HERE.

Look: An Interview with Me

Here's something that was never published: a short interview Matt St. Pierre did with me a few months ago. Because even though I should post about how terrible Trinity is, I am at Six Flags the Children's Museum with my family today, and I have better things to do--like water slides!!! like puppets?--than worry about Bagley's mediocrity. So, here's the interview:

Matt St. Pierre: How long have you been interested in comics?

Tim Callahan: I've been reading comics since I was a kid, but I never really collected them or read them regularly until about middle school. What happened was that I had been buying "Web of Spider-Man" at the local grocery store, but I missed issue #1, and I was at some weird flea market place around that time and actually found issue #1 and when I got back to school--this must have been 7th or 8th grade--I told a friend that I found a place that actually sold OLD ISSUES OF COMIC BOOKS. And he was like, yeah, so what? There's a store in the neighboring town that does that. It was the now-defunct Imagine That on Dalton Avenue in Pittsfield, and once I saw their selection of comics both new and old, well... I've been buying comics on Wednesday ever since!

MSP: What about comics - the medium, superhero comics, graphic novels, and whatever else - is interesting to you? Why do you read them, follow them, keep up with them?

TC: Actually, the reason I even started buying scattershot issues of stuff like "Web of Spider-Man" back in the day was that I bought TSR's "Marvel Superheroes Role-Playing Game" and I liked reading about the characters so much in the guidebooks that I wanted to start reading the comics. I just didn't really know where to find them. Before the internet, information on comics and where to find them was scarce. And I pretty much bought all the "Marvel Superheroes" guidebooks and manuals and modules even though I never actually played the game ever. But I had a strange compulsion to learn everything about all of the characters, and then the "DC Heroes" role-playing game came out and so I got hooked on those characters too. I'm not even a gamer, really, but I liked reading ABOUT the characters and fictional universes. And once I found out about Imagine That, I was able to buy stuff like "Who's Who in the DC Universe" and "The Handbook to the Marvel Universe" and so I guess you could say that it was the vast array of superhero characters that fascinated me. I seriously read every single word of all of those character guides over and over. And traced the pictures, too.

All of this was coming out just as the big "event" comics were hitting -- stuff like "Secret Wars" or "Crisis" and then we got stuff like "Watchmen" and "Dark Knight Returns." Basically from ages 12-15 I was exposed to all of this amazing new superhero stuff--arguably the height of the superhero genre--and I just loved the scope and tone of the stories, especially the darker ones I started reading, like "Miracleman" and, later, Grant Morrison's absurdist work on "Doom Patrol" and Neil Gaiman's "Sandman."

So at just the right age, superheroes were deeply lodged into my psyche. Now I read almost any kind of comic -- I've been catching up on Moebius's "Lt. Blueberry" work and I'm reading manga I've missed out on like "Lone Wolf and Cub" and "TekkonKinkreet" as well as the major work coming out from Top Shelf and Fantagraphics and Oni. But I prefer the superhero genre for its scope and beauty. When it works well, like Geoff Johns's recent work on "Green Lantern," or John Rogers "Blue Beetle," it's just great serialized storytelling that mixes the cosmic fun of sci-fi adventure with the humanity of an epic tragedy. The artists working in the medium are consistently amazing, and I just love stories that have words AND pictures.

Although I love reading literary novels, with my current teaching and writing schedule, and two young kids at home, I rarely have the time for the sustained attention a novel of any substance requires. Comics take about 10 minutes (at most) to read, and I can squeeze them into my life much easier, even when I'm reading 20 or 30 a week.

MSP: The book you wrote about Grant Morrison - what made you want to write about him, and how easy/difficult was it to get the ball rolling?

TC: I've told this story before, but one of the few fan letters I wrote as a teenager was in response to Morrison's first American work, and you can see my letter published in "Animal Man" #5. So I've been following his work ever since it appeared over here. I've tracked down pretty much everything he's ever written, even the more obscure British stuff (with the exception of the "Captain Clyde" newspaper strip he wrote and drew as a teenager), always with an eye on maybe writing a book about his work. I grew up thinking that he was the most interesting writer (not just comic book writer, but WRITER) ever, for the way he reimagined genre conventions and brought his unique voice to everything he did, and so I always assumed I would write something about him someday.

I met the Sequart.com guys at the first New York Comic-Con and I e-mailed them about doing a column on Morrison's work. They liked the idea, and as I spent literally 10-12 hours a week on the column, I knew I wasn't just writing a column--I knew I was writing chapters of a book. And then when they said, "hey, we think this might make a good book," I said, "I know. That's how I've been planning it." Originally, they wanted to wait until I was done with Morrison's entire career, but I had written so much about his early work--from "Zenith" to "Doom Patrol" that we all agreed that we already had a book on just that section of his career. And, frankly, I was burned out on Morrison and burned out on spending 10-12 weeks on the project, so I wasn't really going to be able to write about his later stuff without a break. (I'm still on that break, by the way, and although I tried to begin the proposed sequel to the book last year, I just don't have that much ambition to continue down that particular road right now. I began listing all of the allusions he makes in "The Invisibles," for example, and it was well over 120 references in just Volume 1, and although I'd planned on reading, or watching, or listening to every single thing he alluded to, I ultimately decided that I just wasn't that interested.)

MSP: Why did you start the blog and why do you continue with it?

TC: My writing career really began with the Sequart column. I had written a couple of online things before -- reviews for "Grayhaven Magazine" and other sites you've never heard of -- but I only started my GeniusboyFiremelon blog because I knew I was going to the first New York Comic-Con, and I wanted to do a report on my experiences. So I started the blog a couple of weeks prior to that, just playing around without much direction. It's hard to write a blog when you know you aren't going to have any readers. So I updated it sporadically, and when I posted my convention report a few people linked to me, and I got a few readers. And then I started the Sequart column and started to update the blog a bit more regularly, but not much.

Then, a year later, once the book hit Amazon, I made a concentrated effort to make the blog really work. I posted every day, knowing that, as a reader, I only read blogs that were updated regularly. I thought of my blog as a comic book and pop culture magazine, with me as the sole contributor, and that helped me stay focused. Plus, I was on my summer break, so I could devote the time to it. Since my book was getting some press and I was being interviewed at various places online, I was also picking up more visitors. Since I knew people were reading it, I had more motivation to keep posting. I also thought of it as a promotional tool. I advertised my book on the site, and I could trace a pretty direct correlation between how many hits I was getting and how much my book's Amazon.com ranking was improving. Of course, when school started back up in September I had to cut back, and my stats dropped accordingly. But after I got settled in with my new classes, I returned to a more regular blogging schedule and my blog actually landed me a job at Comic Book Resources where I now work as a regular reviewer, and I'll have a weekly column starting at the end of July. I was really hoping all of that work I was doing for free would pay off somehow, and it's starting to. Of course, now I have less time to write anything substantial for my blog, but that's okay. Each month the hits increase, and my added exposure elsewhere, plus my archive of material, has brought more people to check out what I'm doing.

Between the Comic Book Resources stuff, my Morrison book, my work on the "Teenagers from the Future" book, upcoming articles for "Back Issue" magazine, and my blog, I'm actually starting to get noticed a bit, and I'm starting to shop some work around to the bigger publishers. But I'm just getting started, honestly. My plans for world comic book domination are far from reached.

The Superman 2000 Pitch: Lois Lane, Mrs. Superman

I've been commenting on excerpts from the Morrison/Waid/Millar/Peyer Superman 2000 proposal for weeks, and so has Chad Nevett. Here's another small except of the rejected proposal, from the section labeled "Lois Lane, Mrs. Superman" with some commentary by me (just to clarify, the block quotes come from the pitch, and the other stuff between the block quotes are my comments):

Lois brings us to the second major phase of our approach. Everyone’s in agreement that the marriage and the emphasis on soap opera no longer seems to be working as well in the current market as it once did and that a major part of our imperative should be to restore the Clark/Lois/Superman triangle. This is, to our collective mind, one of the most if not the most important reader-identification elements to the character--and yet, we have to find it again without putting the All-American icon through a divorce, without killing anyone, without sullying this grand romance known the world over.

Sounds familiar, no? Well, Joe Quesada and Spider-Man weren't the first to deal with these kinds of thoughts.

By the way, the "second major phase" line implies a first major phase, and that would be the return to a more powerful Superman, as I've outlined in previous blog posts. But it's worth noting that the team thought that the Lois/Clark dynamic was the second most important aspect of the comic. Honestly, Superman has been married for most of my comic book reading career, so that seems like the natural state for the character as far as I'm concerned, but in my current Elliot S! Maggin obsession phase, I've been reading a lot of Superman stories from the Bronze Age, and I forgot how essential those "oh, I secretly think Clark is Superman, but he can't be because there's Superman standing next to Clark" scenes really were. They happened a lot. And it did add some tension to the story. But a married couple with a secret life is also a kind of sexy tension too, so I'm not sold on the notion that the "triangle" is what's most important about their relationship.

How we dissolve the marriage and still be true to the fact that it happened is the one instance where we’ll have to sail close to the cosmic reboot dock--more on this below--but hopefully this time the change will be organic and satisfying and will have a magical, romantic feel rather than the cold, surgical procedures of the previous era’s retconners.

According to Morrison, in a relatively recent interview about All-Star Superman, this bit of the pitch was amended before the final proposal was submitted. Apparently, the "dissolve the marriage" idea was ultimately abandoned, but in this version of the proposal, it's a significant part of the Superman 2000 concept (and what Morrison says in that interview refers specifically to the ideas outlined here). And, as you'll see, it is a very familiar approach to creating a kind of new day, a brand new day, if you will, for a married superhero.

Our absolute conviction is that we’ll have failed in our job if readers cheer when Lois and Superman are split. Everyone will be EXPECTING this to be the first thing we do. We have to make them love Mrs. Superman and THEN take it all away. This has to be universe-shattering romantic overload and when it’s over, it has to break every heart in the land. If it doesn’t, if we do it and nobody cares, we do a disservice to the Superman/Lois relationship. Now that this has happened, we can’t and won’t treat it as just a mistake without making it at least as meaningful a farewell to the Byrne/Jurgens era as Alan Moore’s Krypto deathscene was to the Weisinger legacy. We honestly feel pretty strongly that Lois Kent and the marriage deserve our best efforts before we get rid of them.

Did "One More Day" accomplish this for Spider-Man? Did the story itself make readers love Mary Jane and that caused the uproar when the marriage was taken away? I don't think so--I think that there's no way comic book fans would ever cheer about a major superhero marriage being removed. So Morrison and company really didn't need to worry about that, but the notion of showing exactly what is so powerful about the love between Lois and Clark is a good one.

First thing we must do, however, is shake up the relationship and define its quirks and boundaries anew.

Stage one: split Clark and Lois by sending her off around the world as the Planet’s foreign correspondent. This gives us a whole new arrangement of relationships to play with below).

Lois and Clark are now physically separated. They still meet often, taking the occasional romantic weekend in the revamped Fortress (see below). He makes her breakfast in bed in a manner of seconds with ingredients from all around the world, waltzes with her through the Aurora Australis, etc. A dream, an idyll, but for their own amusement they play a game whenever they meet as Clark and Lois, sniping and sparring like Tracy and Hepburn. Lois and Clark thus become a little edgier, while the love of Superman and Lois becomes grander and more heartbreakingly poignant.

I'm not convinced that such an approach would make their love seem "grander and more heartbreakingly poignant" just because they're not hanging out in the apartment all the time, but the foreign correspondent approach is a good idea. Was that ever used by another Superman creative team?

As we approach mid-year, we unleash our Big Story. The unthinkable has finally happened. Luthor and Brainiac, working together, have finally unearthed the secret of Superman’s dual identity----and they tell the world.

In Maggin's Superman work, his exposed identity was a regular plot point--and Superman would always clean it up by the end of the story. But, wow--the similarities to One More Day/Brand New Day continue, don't they? Maybe Millar whispered some of these ideas to Quesada when he joined Marvel. It's not just "Birthright" and All-Star Superman that ended up with the ideas from the Superman 2000 pitch--it was Spidey as well..

Superman is totally and irrevocably exposed for the first time, and the consequences are more disastrous than he ever imagined. In less time than it takes to tell, his personal life has been destroyed as souvenir hunters snatch everything in his office and apartment; his parents have been hospitalized by a vengeful Parasite; the Daily Planet has likewise been leveled by his enemies, with Jimmy and Perry barely able to escape with their lives--maybe. And Lois may as well just paint a target on her head. For sixty years, we’ve been telling readers why Superman’s secret identity is important. Now we show them.

And that’s just the opening salvo.

And Bendis's Daredevil too...

The Luthor/Brainiac team intensifies its efforts to manifest a global threat. Brainiac turns Earth’s sun red to drain Superman’s powers. Luthor trips triggers he’s had in place for years, all while pitting an ever-weakening Superman against a phalanx of his greatest foes while the Man of Steel wracks his brain trying to figure out not only how to save Earth but how to get his--and, more importantly, Lois’s--life back.

And "Avengers Disassembled." But, enough of my snark. Here's the grand finale of what they had planned for Lois and Clark:

Ultimately, Luthor’s threat becomes so grand that it threatens all of spacetime--including the Fifth Dimension, forging a tense alliance between Superman and Mxyzptlk. With superhuman effort, Luthor and Brainiac are thwarted--but not before Brainiac gets his revenge.

Memories, as science is only now theorizing and as Brainiac has known for years, are not electrical in nature. They are, in fact, actual chemical deposits in the brain. And what is chemical can easily be turned to poison.

Brainiac has adjusted Lois’s chemical memory of Clark’s secret identity so that it’s killing her.

The poison memory can’t be removed. It can conceivably be masked--Superman has more than one magical ally who could erase Lois’s conscious memory of his identity, who could facilitate a reality in which Clark and Lois were married without Lois being aware of her husband’s double life--but deep down, Superman knows that’s too risky. He can’t live with her, can’t be her husband, can’t share her life. She’s too sharp. No matter what he does, no matter how on guard he is, she’ll stumble onto his secret eventually, and when she does, it will be the death of her.

With no other conceivable option, Superman turns to Mxyzptlk. Sure, says Mxy, I can fix this--but only by altering history so that she NEVER knew. So that there was never a memory TO poison.

Unacceptable, says Superman. You have the power to fix this more simply. You don’t have to go that far.

Untrue, counters Mxyzptlk. Despite what I may or may not WANT to do for you...when I’m in the third dimension, I’m INCAPABLE of doing anything BUT mischief.

So the offer’s on the table, the clock is ticking on Lois, and together, she and her husband make their tragic decision. Though Lois would rather spend one day with Clark’s love than a lifetime without it, he swears to her that they’ll be together again when the time is right. For now...they have no choice but to erase their lives together so that Lois might live.

Mxyzptlk weaves his spell. As night falls around the globe, people will begin to fall asleep--and as they do, the world will change and Clark’s secret will be restored. People will awaken without any memory that Clark Kent and Lois Lane were ever married, were ever together. Clark and Lois have until sundown to enjoy one last, perfect day.

And so long as we live, we will never again see two people so much in love as we do that day.

Eventually, however, the violet dust of twilight settles across the city. It’s happening. Their arms wrapped around one another as if they’ll never touch this way again, Lois and Clark begin to fall asleep. With a last kiss, they drift into slumber...

...and when dawn breaks across Metropolis, Clark Kent exits his bachelor apartment at 344 Clinton Avenue and makes it to his Daily Planet desk just in time to catch the latest in a long line of caustic barbs from rival reporter Lois Lane. She has her sights set on Superman, thinks Kent for the millionth time. If only I could get her to love me as Clark...

Memory poison and Fifth Dimensional magic instead of a deal with the Devil. But still, eerily similar to the Spider-Man situation, isn't it? And by "eerily similar," I mean "pretty much exactly the same--a memory wipe."

What do you think the reaction would have been if the Superman 2000 crew actually decided to do this for real? Would fanboys have been in as much of an uproar? I don't know--it seems like it could have been possible to pull off if the story was epic enough.

Your thoughts?

Young Avengers Presents #6 Review

Recently reviewed by me at CBR: Young Avengers Presents #6, about which I write the following sentences: "Remember that 'Spectacular Spider-Man Annual' Fraction wrote -- the one where he came in for a single issue and proved how vibrant and powerful the Peter Parker/Mary Jane marriage could be? The approach he took there, with its mixture of nostalgia and emotion, is similar to the one he takes with the new Hawkeye character here. He doesn't literally retell story bits from the past like he did in that annual, but he does hit all the right beats, and he turns one of the least-developed Young Avengers characters into someone the reader can care about. In short, this is everything a superhero spotlight issue should aspire to."

Read the entire review HERE.

Final Crisis #2 Review

Recently reviewed by me at CBR: Final Crisis #2, about which I write the following sentences: "The whole issue has that dream-like quality or, more accurately, a nightmarish quality of scenes not quite transitioning together properly. But that's the point, as the characters indicate. They know something's not right. Things aren't happening as they should. Something is deeply wrong with the fabric of reality. And Morrison and Jones simulate that not only with puzzled characters, but with awkward leaps from one scene to the next. It creates for a jam-packed puzzle of a story, and even though it's all setting up the inevitable confrontation as the forces of good rally against the forces of evil, it's much messier than a typical gathering of superfolk. Because evil has already won, and the heroes are barely starting to figure that out."

Otherwise known as the review in which I feel like I somehow need to defend the quality of the best-selling DC comic of the year.

Read the entire review HERE.

...And Final Crisis #2 is Really Good, Also

Remember that day a month or two ago that was like the best Wednesday for superhero comic books ever? Well, today is another really great day. So much stuff to choose from, and I've already read a bunch of it, and it's very good.

I just finished reading Final Crisis #2, and I think it's better than the first issue, and I liked the first issue a lot. Man, it's good.

And all that Fraction stuff. And a whole bunch of Avengers stuff that looks pretty good. And, oh yeah, the new issue of Brubaker's Captain America--that was really good too.

I'm drowning in comics, and I love it.

Happy Matt Fraction Day

So, I assume you're going to get the final issue of Matt Fraction's Immortal Iron Fist, and you'll probably get his Thor one-shot because the first one was good, and you expect this one to be good also, but are you going to pick up Young Avengers Presents #6?

Well, you really should.

I'll be reviewing it for CBR today or tomorrow, and I just read a preview copy, and guess what? It's really, good. Art by Alan Davis. Script by Fraction. I literally laughed out loud at one point--and comics never make me laugh out loud. I am serious and humorless. But Young Avengers Presents #6 snapped me out of that. I loved it. And after the lackluster issues in this series so far, you were probably going to skip issue #6 entirely, weren't you?

Don't. You'll like it. Trust me.