Our Favorite “Doom Patrol” Story In Years
Take a look. (Hat tip: Erica Henderson.)
Monthly Archive: May 2014
Martha Thomases: Comics That Mean Something
Glenn and Mike gave me two issues of Strong Female Protagonist to read. Since they are the bosses of this particular sandbox, the ones who pay me the big bucks to do my thing here, I interpreted this action to be a strong suggestion, not a gift.
The series, available on the web at the link above (and in print) has a lot of elements that I like. Here’s the description from the website:
“SFP follows the adventures of a young middle-class American with super-strength, invincibility and a crippling sense of social injustice.”
Super-powers and social justice? I am so there.
It’s not easy to combine comic book storytelling and a political perspective. Let me amend that: It’s not easy to do unless that is the stated starting point. Underground comics were usually overtly anti-establishment, anti-war and pro-drugs. Wimmen’s Comix also big, big fun. It’s probably no coincidence that both were usually comical comics, not episodic stories.
The gang at World War 3 Illustrated carries on this fine tradition, although their emphasis is less on humor and more on inciting activism.
In superhero comics, the most successful (in my opinion, obviously) is the Denny O’Neil/Neal Adams run on Green Lantern.
There have been overtly political comics created by people first known to American readers (or, at least, me) from superhero comics. The most successful, for me, are from Alan Moore. There’s a reason the Occupy movement appropriated the most powerful image from V for Vendetta, and that, even though it isn’t nearly as good as the book, the movie still sucks me in when I find it on television.
Another great book of his, written with Joyce Brabner, is Brought to Light, a non-fiction book about, among other things, American support for dictatorships and how many people have to bleed out to fill a swimming pool.
Moore’s stories work because, first and foremost, the reader (or me, anyway) cares about the characters. The minute the reader feels the action is out of character, the political position is exposed and therefore weakened. For me, this is most noticeable with Jamie Delano. I love his work on Hellblazer and in his creator-owned books. However, he lost me on his run of Animal Man even as I agreed more and more with what he said.
Strong Female Protagonist wears its heart on its sleeve, as its title character struggles to be part of the people’s struggle, not an isolated hero. It’s an interesting take on one of our modern dilemmas.
Or at least it is for those of us who care about such things.
Fandom, DON’T BE THIS GUY!
Via Dork Tower by John Kovalic.
Flash Friday: Don’t Blink Or You’ll Miss The New Trailers
Like that one? Here’s a full five minute trailer:
The Tweeks review Gobots and Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos!
This week The Tweeks review two new DVDs from the Warner Archives Collection: Hanna-Barbera’s Challenge of the Gobots! and Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos: The Complete Series. So the question is: are these classic re-releases just for children of the 80’s or do the Tweeks feel that it’s still something kids now will want to watch as well? There’s maybe even a little history lesson about the difference between Transformers & Gobots!
This Man Wants To Attack Beardo’s Dan Dougherty With A Razor
And he’ll do it, too!
All it will take is getting the crowdfunding for Dan’s book Beardo above $5000, and our own Marc Alan Fishman will be taken off the leash to start shaving things off. Dan foolishly agreed, never thinking we’d get close to his precious beard… mwahahahahah.
First we remove the sideburns. Then the beard. Then the mustache. Then the hair on his head.
So what are you waiting for? Our very own Sweeney Todd is waiting to start, and his hand is getting twitchy…
The Coming Of… Not-All Man!
Will he save the comics community… or destroy it???
PLEASE LISTEN TO ME!
Dennis O’Neil: SHIELD, Arrow, and Superstuff
Both prime time comic-book based television series had their season finales this week, a day or two after I write this, and so any commentary on them might be premature. I mean, maybe some humungous game changer is in the offing, some gobsmacking surprise that will leave us gasping for breath, numbed and awed by the storytelling splendor we have just witnessed.
Or maybe not.
The shows I refer to are, of course, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Arrow, and although they are, as noted above, comics-derived, they aren’t two heads of the same critter. I think that Arrow is the more… well – I’m lacking precise terminology here, so let’s call Arrow the more “comicbooky” of the two. It is all about superheroes, comics’ prime export: one such hero in particular the Arrow of the show’s title, who wears a costume and has a double identity and has tricks up his sleeve – his quiver? – that might make an Olympic archer seek another sport. And over the months he’s acquired some friends who might qualify as superheroes and some enemies that might qualify as supervillains. SHIELD, on the other hand, is a hybrid, a series that occurs in a world where superheroes exist, but which is not about superheroes per se. (And yes, o astute reader, I did exile a bunch of periods from the show’s name. Sue me.) The SHIELDers aren’t super themselves, but they’ve got some supers in their Rolodexes.
I mentioned game changers a couple of paragraphs ago. Both Arrow and SHIELD have already changed the game a bit. SHIELD, as part of a nifty crossover with a movie, has gone from being a CIA/NSA-type spook organization to being a bunch of noble folk running from the authority figures, outlawed by the baddies’s takeover of whatever agency controls SHIELD. (I confess that I’ve never quite understood who signs SHIELD paychecks. A U.S. government honcho? Somebody as the United Nations? A scientologist?)
Some of you may want to read political commentary into SHIELD’s status change. Be my guest.
Arrow’s game has also changed, on a smaller scale than SHIELD’s, but kind of drastically nonetheless. The storyline replicated some comic book stuff from years – nay, decades – back. To wit: bow-twanging hero Oliver Queen loses his fortune. He’s no longer a member of the one percent. No more rich kid. I don’t know why the television guys made the change and, after all these years, I’m not sure why we comic bookers did, either. Maybe so our archer would be less like Batman/Bruce Wayne. Maybe to give him some (fictitious) street cred. Or maybe we just weren’t all that fond of mansion dwellers. Or… all of the above?
To end on a what-the-hell-difference-does-that-make note: In the comics, the Arrow was the Green Arrow, as many of you know. I approve of the renaming. I mean, why green?
Brian Michael Bendis on Sexism and Making a Nonwhite Spider-Man
http://www.vulture.com/2014/04/comics-brian-michael-bendis-spider-man-guardians-x-men.html
You know what Captain America would never do? Go online anonymously and shit on a girl for having an opinion.
And yes, Brian has a new book out today. The United States Of Murder. Go get it.
Tweet of the Day: Patrick Stewart
Patrick Stewart stars as Professor Charles Xavier in [[[X-Men: Days Of Future Past]]], opening in America on May 23. And yes, for this tweet he can have a free ad.
