Author: Mike Gold

Mike Gold: Committing Suicide

So now we’ve got most of the Suicide Squad movie cast – Tom Hardy as Rick Flagg (who probably won’t be turning into Bane), Will Smith as Deadshot, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Cara Delevingne as Enchantress, Jared Leto as The Joker and maybe – just maybe – Oprah Winfrey as Amanda Waller. Jai Courtney will be playing Captain Boomerang, not to be confused with Nick Tarabay, who plays the part on the Arrow and Flash teevee series.

Warner Bros’ dedication to the complete separation of television and movies is why they’ve been the go-to studio for such great superhero movies as Catwoman, all but the first two Superman movies (and only half of the second), the third and fourth Batman movies, Steel, Jonah Hex, Green Lantern, and, oh yeah, the theatrical version of Constantine. Maybe Tarabay’s Boomerang will take a vacation from the Flash and Arrow shows (et al) around the time of the Suicide Squad movie, but the actorectomy will still annoy the faithful… as will the different Flash and Green (or not) Arrow performers. It is the faithful who now drive the bus. Our hyper-excited word-of-mouth makes for nine figure opening weekends.

They can change Amanda Waller performers all they want. They’ll never run out of black actors, and thus far they’ve employed so many in the role they can fill all the empty seats at New York Jets games.

In fact, I’m very pleased to see the Suicide Squad getting the big-budget treatment. It’s a good concept, one that came out of the Legends series I named and edited. This version was created by ComicMix columnist and massively talented writer John Ostrander, who also created the aforementioned Ms. Waller. And for the record, ComicMix reviewer Bob Greenberger edited that book. So expect to see the ComicMix crew at the mandatory night-before screenings.

I’m not the only person who has raised the question of how much is too much. I can’t fault Hollywood for Hulking-out on a fad: that is what Hollywood does. Can the market support all this? Even if the “product” is uniformly great – and good luck with that ­– there’s only so much of one thing to go around. I just hope we get excellent Wonder Woman and Doctor Strange flicks.

Warner Bros. must learn the lesson that has worked so well, so fantastically well, for Disney’s Marvel Studios. They must respect the source material and they must show that respect on the screen at all times. It’s not good enough to simply have wonderful CG – we get that on Doctor Who. It’s not good enough to have name actors. You have to play the material for the faithful – establish your characters and treat them sympathetically.

Of course they’re creating their own reality. We do that all the time. But to quote another ComicMix columnist, Dennis O’Neil, “sure it’s phony science – but it’s our phony science.”

When it comes to writing from the sense of wonder, truer words were never spoken.

 

 

Dennis O’Neil: Dirty Words, Done Dirt Cheap

  • News
  • November 27, 2014

Somewhere or other I read, or maybe heard in a lecture, that the area of your brain that activates when you use a naughty word is different that the part that activates when you aren’t being a pottymouth. Interesting, because it means that somewhere, some time, back in the murky eons those words that you never heard coming from a pulpit had some survival value. If they didn’t, evolution (Evolution?) wouldn’t have bequeathed to them their own little piece of cerebral real estate.

I wonder if they still own it.

Because there’s nothing special about such words, not any more. Once, in the Catholic days of my youth, I heard those words only on what we might deem special occasions, usually when someone was seriously pissed off. (“Pissed off” was, I think, considered more vulgar than sinful, but still. you wouldn’t say it at Thanksgiving dinner.) I heard them very little until I joined the Navy and then I probably heard them pretty often and after my discharge, not so much again, and now…

Holy cow! All the time! The movies. The television programs! The most common usage is what when we were genteel we might have called “the F word.” Often, on basic cable and broadcast shows, it’s bleeped and I wonder why, say, Jon Stewart uses it so often knowing that we won’t actually hear it but we’ll know what it is anyway. He doesn’t need it to get his points across, surely, and we already know that he’s sophisticated and worldly because, you know, he’s a television star. (I also consider him to be a national treasure, but that’s a whole other discussion.)

The F word was pretty shocking in some contexts, but it wasn’t the biggie. That distinction, the young me might have claimed, belongs to the GD word because that hair curler, is specifically forbidden by nothing less than the 10 Commandments themselves. Surely you haven’t forgotten “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain”?

The GD word is sprinkled throughout J,D, Salinger’s book The Catcher in the Rye which is taught in middle schools and so I guess it’s okay with most folks.

It, and the F word, have become everyday language and so I once more wonder if they set off cerebral alarms and if they don’t, have we lost something? We must have taboos for a reason. It’s not the words themselves we’re concerned with – they are, after all, just words – but the very existence of taboos. Get rid of them and maybe we’ll also be getting rid of something we don’t know that we need.

And wouldn’t that be fucked up!

 

Mike Gold: More Superhero Movies of the Ancients

Last week, I taunted you with visions of ancient superhero movies – serials, as they were called back then. Today we’d call them really low-budget webcasts. Here’s a few more worthy of your consideration, and this time we’re delving into a trio of iconic heroes from the pulps and newspaper strips – and now, of course, comic books.

the-shadow-6920190The Shadow is the best-known of all the classic pulp heroes, and for a very good reason: many of the more than 300 stories published were quite good. Walter B. Gibson created something magical – a series with a lead character who had plenty of secrets but no secret identity, aided and abetted by a slew of agents who had no idea who their master was. The character’s popularity was enhanced massively by a highly successful radio series, one that gave The Shadow an alter-ego and a female companion and took away most of his agents.

Sadly, The Shadow didn’t fare as well on the silver screen. I don’t think the sundry producers could ever reconcile the differences between the pulp stories and the radio show, and they certainly were restricted in the deployment of violent action. But there is one major exception, the 15-chapter Columbia serial from 1940. Whereas they did a decent job of using three agents (including Margo Lane), the real beauty of this production was the man who played the lead, Victor Jory. A talented and accomplished actor (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Miracle Worker), Jory had the additional benefit of actually looking like The Shadow and his adopted form of Lamont Cranston, as portrayed in the pulps. Serials generally lacked verisimilitude; The Shadow had it in spades. And it’s a damn fine actioner, by serial standards.

spider_serial2-3922375If you found The Shadow pulps to be lacking in action, The Spider made up for it and then some. Every plot revolved around a madman’s quest to destroy humanity. New York City got trashed more often than a Thing vs. Hulk fightfest. The death count in your average Spider story was at least in triple digits. The books should have been published in red ink.

Obviously, they couldn’t duplicate that degree of violence in the movie serials. But they got the flavor and the spirit right, giving the Spider a real costume (he didn’t have one in the pulps), keeping his cast of associates intact, and using Warren Hull, who played the lead, in the various disguises typical to the pulp hero. There were two Spider serials: The Spider’s Web and The Spider Returns, and both are quite worthy.

flash-gordon-9076016I’ve left the best for last. The one series of serials I would recommend even to people who don’t like serials or kids who can’t handle black and white and cheesy special effects.

The Flash Gordon serials, Space Soldiers, Flash Gordon’s Trip To Mars, and Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe, are blessed with a cast that, by and large, looks as though they were designed by Flash Gordon creator Alex Raymond. All three follow the spirit and direction of the classic newspaper strip, and the first serial is as close to a literal transition from comics to film as I’ve ever seen. Whereas Buster Crabbe is impeccable as Flash and his relative inexperience as an actor inures to the benefit of this part, it is Charles Middleton as Ming who steals the show, as well as the popcorn off your lap.

In my jaded worldview, Middleton’s Ming is the best villain on film, period. He’s evil, he’s imperial, he’s a warrior, he’s a master scientist. He is everything Fu Manchu wanted to be. Middleton pulls it off with style and aplomb without overacting – which, in serials, is unique. The only actor who comes close was Roger Delgado as the original Master in Doctor Who. Even when Ming is being cooperative with our heroes, he doesn’t have a shred of sympathy to draw upon. Ming’s nobility works hand-in-glove with his position as Emperor of all he sees.

These serials are generally available from the usual sources – you might have to Google around for The Spider, but the Flash Gordon trio is easily available. Much of it all is on Hulu, YouTube, and sundry other streaming services.

These are the characters that provided the budding comic book medium with its backbone. It set the standard for all future heroic fantasy films. Check a few out.

 

 Mike Gold: Superhero Movies of the Ancients

Don’t you just hate it when work interferes with work? It’s a sure sign that you’re working too hard.

I am rarely accused of this. Nonetheless, it’s late Tuesday, my column goes up early Wednesday, and I’ve got more work stuff I’ve got to do. So, instead of the well-researched, rabid screaming think piece that surgically eviscerates the comic book world as we know it today, I’m going to share with you some stuff I love.

There was a time when comics fans were in touch with related media such as illustration art, pulp magazines, science fiction, old time radio and newspaper comic strips. This was a time that preceded the mega-million dollar superhero motion pictures in which many fans find their legitimacy. No, what we had were movie serials. Most of them preceded comic books per se, but not those media noted above that were our cultural forbearers. Some of these serials were a lot of fun. A couple were brilliant. Most were crap, but, to be fair, Sturgeon’s Revelation – 90% of anything is crap – is as vital today as it was when he stated it around 1958.

Keeping this in mind, and acknowledging one person’s crap might be another person’s holy grail, I want to share with you some of the heroic fantasy serials I deem worthy of attention.

superman-6266171We’ll start with what I regard as the best superhero serial of them all: the above-illustrated Adventures of Captain Marvel. Well acted, well written, fairly faithful to the Fawcett comic book, and featuring special effects that were quite good for their time and minuscule budget.

Whereas we’ve had a lot of other superhero serials, including the surprisingly well-made Spy Smasher (another Fawcett hero), the second-rate The Phantom, the third-rate Batman serials, and the god-it-truly-sucks Captain America serial, my second favorite are the two Superman serials, particularly the second, Atom Man Vs. Superman… Atom Man being none other than Lex Luthor. Superman was played by Kirk Alyn, who later had the lead in the pathetic Blackhawk serial (for one thing, the Blackhawk serial really didn’t have any air fight scenes). Noel Neill, who reprised the role in the 1950s teevee series, played Lois Lane.

captain-america-6656319A lot of fans dislike these serials because the flying scenes were animated. Animated not like Ray Harryhausen, animated like Hanna-Barbera. I suspect kids in the late 1940s didn’t have a problem with it, as it really isn’t that bad. Ms. Neill was the perfect Lois, and she continues to hold that title to this day. Kirk Alyn was fine as Superman, kind of cute as Clark Kent, and in costume he looked better than anybody save Christopher Reeve. An oddity: Lex Luthor was played by Lyle Talbot, who also played Jim Gordon in the second Batman serial as well as a major part in The Vigilante serial, based on DC’s long-running Action Comics feature. He also appeared in an uncountable number of television shows.

There’s more. A lot more. Really good ones such as The Shadow, The Spider, and the best of the bunch, Flash Gordon.

Next week.

 

Mike Gold: They Aren’t So Fantastic…

There has been a debate amongst comics wags that the rumor about Marvel cancelling their flagship title, Fantastic Four, during their 75th anniversary celebration was just that – a rumor. Marvel/Disney couldn’t possibly be that petty. Bleeding Cool.com‘s Rich Johnson, who carried the story, steadfastly stood behind his sources. Good for him.

Evidently, Marvel wasn’t happy with how 20th Century Fox was treating the property in the forthcoming movie reboot, they didn’t want to support it and so were cancelling the comic book. OK, but would they cancel all those X-Men titles if they didn’t like the way Fox handled their latest X-movie? Of course not. Nor did Marvel cancel the Spider-Man titles despite the atrocious way Columbia handled the Spidey flicks of late – and they’ve got release dates for three or four more.

To be fair, compared to the profits of the X-Men comics or even the (fewer in number) Spider-Man comics, the revenues racked in off of The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine are a fart in a blizzard. Even so, it just seemed real petty.

As it turns out, Rich was right. Kudos, pal. But it’s a damn shame anyway. Historical affinity aside, James Robinson was settling in nicely on the series and he’s one of our medium’s best writers.

Prior to this brouhaha, some cast members of this forthcoming FF flick were saying it wasn’t really based on the comics, it was an “expansion” of the concept, it wasn’t comic book shit, it’s goddamned art and they wouldn’t be associated with lesser trash. Yes, I’m wildly paraphrasing, but not out of my long-acknowledged love of the Stan Lee – Jack Kirby creation. No, I’m crabby about this because it’s a stupid business decision. Haven’t they seen any of the Marvel Studios movies? The recently concluded Batman trilogy? Any of those Marvel and DC shows on television right now?

All of these shows have one thing in common: they treated their source material with respect; Marvel Studios more than DC/Warner Bros., but at their worst neither ever distanced themselves from the comics.

Heaven forbid 20th Century Fox should have a movie as entertaining and as profitable as Guardians of the Galaxy – and that movie wasn’t based upon a comic book series that has been published since 1961. In fact, few civilians ever heard of the Guardians.

Now we have what, for me, may very well be the final nail in the new Fantastic Four movie coffin. Over at Collider, actor Toby Kebbell gave us the bird’s eye lowdown on the character he portrays in the film, somebody called “Doctor Doom.”

“I’ll tell you this because of our history.” Kebbell confided to Collider. “He’s Victor Domashev, not Victor Von Doom in our story. And I’m sure I’ll be sent to jail for telling you that. The Doom in ours – I’m (Doom) a programmer. Very anti-social programmer. And on blogging sites I’m Doom… The low-fi way he did it, the whole ultra-real, it was just nice to be doing that, it was nice to be feeling we had come to terms with what we had been given.”

Hey, what were you given, Toby, other than characters and a concept that had been around for 53 years and raised three generations of followers in comics and on radio, television and movies?

By the way, as of this writing IMDB is wrong. They still list the character as Victor Von Doom.

So… maybe Marvel/Disney’s reaction was not so petty. Maybe it was more fanboy, and I mean that in the most positive sense of the term.

Fine. One less movie to see and, sadly, one less favored comic book to read.

 

Mike Gold: The Fifth of November

v-for-vendetta-2799445This is a special day at La Casa del Oro. It’s my daughter’s birthday. Adriane Nash, also a ComicMixer (if you wonder how she got that job, I strongly suspect years and years of working at and managing comic book stores played a significant part), turns… ah, it’s not my place to say. But she’s one year older than she was yesterday.

Adriane was born on November 5th due, in no small part, to her mother Linda’s fantastic sense of humor. In case you didn’t know, November 5th is also Guy Fawkes Day.

If you’re not an anarchist you might not know about Guy Fawkes. According to Wiki (as well as a couple dozen books in my library, just in case you’re uncertain of my politics) he was a member of a group of English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. This was a somewhat complicated plan to assassinate King James I on November 5 1605, blow up the House of Lords, and put a Catholic monarch on the throne. Make no little plans, as Daniel Burnham liked to say. Guy was in charge of the gunpowder they stockpiled in Westminster Palace. Somebody ratted him out and the government did what they did in those days: they spent several days questioning and torturing the malcontent, and ultimately he fessed up.

On January 31, the day of his execution, Fawkes jumped from the scaffold where he was to be hanged and broke his neck, a far, far, far less painful death than being drawn and quartered and semi-hanged and disemboweled and all that stuff you saw Mel Gibson go through in Braveheart. Brits just can’t let go of this one: on this date, Guy Fawkes Day, he is routinely hanged in effigy or tossed on a bonfire (his effigy, not his bones). Fireworks and frivolity ensue.

   Remember, remember!

   The fifth of November,

   The Gunpowder treason and plot;

   I know of no reason

   Why the Gunpowder treason

   Should ever be forgot!

   Guy Fawkes and his companions

   Did the scheme contrive,

   To blow the King and Parliament

   All up alive.

   Threescore barrels, laid below,

   To prove old England’s overthrow.

   But, by God’s providence, him they catch,

   With a dark lantern, lighting a match!

   A stick and a stake

   For King James’s sake!

   If you won’t give me one,

   I’ll take two,

   The better for me,

   And the worse for you.

   A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope,

   A penn’orth of cheese to choke him,

   A pint of beer to wash it down,

   And a jolly good fire to burn him.

   Holloa, boys! holloa, boys! make the bells ring!

   Holloa, boys! holloa boys! God save the King!

   Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray!

Oh, yes. Guy Fawkes and his story served as the inspiration for the truly classic Alan Moore / David Lloyd graphic novel V For Vendetta, which also happens to be my all-time favorite graphic novel. The likeness David employed became synonymous with the contemporary anarchist movement, the anti-World Trade Organization movement, and was also adopted by many in the Occupy movement three years ago.

Last Friday, I had one trick-or-treater wearing a V mask. Then again, I had another trick-or-treater dressed up as Ebola.

Both received extra candy.

 

Our Ostrander Update!

  • News
  • November 2, 2014

john-ostrander-8538812Artist Mary Mitchell informs us our pal ComicMix columnist, noted comics writer, actor, playwright and all-around swell fellow came through his triple bypass surgery with flying colors (or maybe that part was the anesthesia). Within 24 hours, he was walking with only minor assistance, having meals with Mary, making the hospital staff laugh their asses off, and thinking as clearly as before. At least.

I can’t even begin to tell you how happy we are. Continue your speedy recovery, John! We-all love you and miss you.

Mike Gold: More Movies, More Movies, More Movies

Now that both Marvel Studios and Warner Bros. have released their slates of movies-to-come, I offer a question of deep concern.

How much … is too much?

Over the next six years or so, we are supposed to get (take a deep breath) Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man, Fantastic Four, Deadpool, Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Captain America: Civil War, X-Men: Apocalypse, Suicide Squad, Doctor Strange, Sinister Six, Venom, Spider-Verse, Wolverine 2, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Wonder Woman, Fantastic Four 2, Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther, Justice League, Amazing Spider-Man 3, The Flash, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1, Captain Marvel, Aquaman, The Inhumans, Shazam, Avengers: Infinity War Part 2, Justice League 2, Cyborg, and Green Lantern-certainly-not-2. There’s another Superman solo movie floating around, and Fox might interject one or more Fantastic Four and/or X-Men universe movies into the above schedule.

Of course, hard as it may be to believe, there are superhero properties published by other outfits as well. Will we see another Hellboy movie? How about The Mask? IDW has their own movie division now.

Seriously. I’d love to see each and every one of these movies be amazing as well as amazingly successful, but I know the odds are overwhelmingly against it. How many flops within this relatively short period will it take for Disney (Marvel) and Warners (DC) to think of their stockholders’ wrath and then think about protecting, as Mel Brooks put it, their phony baloney jobs?

And I’m not even beginning to count all the superhero television shows – broadcast, cable, and streaming.

Again I ask: how many turkeys will it take to tank the ship? How many superhero movies in such a relatively short period of time do we get before the vast movie-going public decides enough is enough?

I don’t know, but I do know this: many billions of dollars in production budgets are at stake. Many careers are at stake.

And, since Disney makes movies and owns Marvel Comics, and Warner Bros. makes movies and owns DC Entertainment, how many cinematic failures will it take before either or both companies see their comic book divisions as sink holes?

I’ll take them one at a time. I’m looking forward to Age of Ultron.

Mike Gold: Everything Old Is New Again

justice-inc-5802105When was the last time a major comics publisher launched a new series of superhero comics? Of course, by new I mean “totally original characters.”

For example, both Dynamite and Dark Horse are doing quite nicely with their somewhat integrated lines of heroic fantasy. Dynamite based theirs upon well-known pulp heroes such as The Shadow, Doc Savage, The Avenger and Zorro. Dark Horse has resurrected golden age licensed characters such as Captain Midnight and Skyman and has been integrating them with their own Comics Greatest World (X and Ghost), brought back from wandering around the1990s. Nice stuff – some of it great stuff – but these are not new characters.

The same thing is true over at Valiant. They’ve resurrected their characters and did what amounts to the fourth or fifth relaunch of their universe, sans those licensed from Western Publishing (which are now over at Dynamite Comics after Dark Horse took their shot). This time the effort seems to be well-received and its worthy of that but, again, these are not “new” characters or original characters.

DC and Marvel keep on altering their atlases as though somebody dared them to confuse M.C. Escher. Nothing new here outside of the occasional new-person-with-old-code-name gambit, sometimes followed by the old-person-returning-to-the-old-code-name variant.

So where’s the new stuff? Where are our totally new and original superheroes? I remember the thrill I felt when I fell across T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1 – the real one, done by Wally Wood and Reed Crandall and Steve Ditko and Gil Kane. Totally original stuff created by some of the greatest talent the medium has seen. They made such an impact upon baby boomer comics fans that they’ve been resurrected by such well-financed publishers as Archie Comics, Penthouse, DC Comics and, most recently, IDW. Even Marvel had a bid in on at least two occasions. And, as it turned out, the only thing these latter efforts were lacking were the likes of Wally Wood and Reed Crandall and Steve Ditko and Gil Kane… and the 1960s sensibilities that molded the property in the first place.

We’ve got brilliant creators wandering around out there today. Most are all well-employed, and their creator-owned stuff tends to be non-heroic fantasy. That’s completely understandable. If you spend most of your time doing The League of Uncanny Spider-Bats, you’re going to want your own stuff to taste different. Even the brilliant lads at Aw, Yeah Comics (the imprint, not necessarily their home-base comics shop) do that.

Nonetheless, it is 2014. We’ve got a whole different set of concerns. The DC Universe was born out of the depression and World War II. The Marvel Universe was born out of the nuclear arms race. Today we’ve got terrorism, plagues, a completely dysfunctional government, and a planet that has been savagely and perhaps terminally abused.

So. Where are our superheroes?

 

Mike Gold Kisses Up To Robert Downey Jr.

Right now, the pop media is full of stories about how Robert Downey Jr. is about to sign on to Captain America 3. Evidently, the only thing holding up the deal was his amount of screentime: he wanted more. He really wants this to be a true Marvel-style crossover, ushering in the Cinematic Universe’s adaptation of the first Civil War storyline.

I think Downey has a very strong understanding of how the Marvel Universe works, and how to bring that over to the movies. This crossover flies in the face of the movie star image: he’s fighting hard to be the second banana in a movie titled after somebody else. It’s hard to imagine Al Jolson doing that.

O.K. He gets it. Other than making a potentially fun movie happen, how does that affect us?

Well, for me and hundreds – now, maybe, thousands – it protects our jobs. This, in turn, protects the future of the comics medium in America.

Prior to Iron Man 1, the comics business was on the ropes and heading into the worst economic crisis we have seen since The Great Depression of 1929 – 1941. Then this particular movie, starring a number of actors who really were no longer “A Listers” at that time and featuring a property that was hard-pressed to be considered a “B Lister,” was unleashed on a world in need of some high-quality diversion. And the comics business has never been the same.

Let’s face it: the profits of even one well-received movie can eclipse the profits made by that property in its entire history of publishing. Fine. Something’s got to provide fuel for the engine, and shoveling in flatcars full of money usually works.

Lots of such movies started being made, and most of those produced by Marvel Studios made just unbelievable amounts of cash. Some of the others didn’t do badly either, although Batman has its own momentum and Superman has been treated like a leper. And, now, Batman has to bail out the Superman franchise.

A year after Iron Man’s release, Disney bought Marvel Comics for a mere four billion bucks. That’s not publishing money, that’s not even movie money. That’s movie-and-licensing-for-movies-and-television-and-new-media money. Yep, that’s Steve Jobs’ face on the one billion dollar bill.

Only one month later, Warner Bros. took control of DC Comics, renaming it DC Entertainment in a fit of reality. They started measures to move the company to the left coast, a process to be completed sometime in late spring.

Whereas I’m not crazy about Hollywood running a marginal industry that it (and most MBAs) does not understand and wouldn’t believe if they did, it beats oblivion. And let’s face it, you cannot keep your stockholders happy with profits that would barely impress even the most conservative investor.

And we owe it all to Robert Downey Jr. His performance was electrifying, akin to Orson Welles’ Harry Lime. We wanted to see more, and by “we” I mean moviegoers, not just the ever-tightening circle of comics fans. Iron Man probably would have been a fine movie without him, but with him we were able to root for the previously-troubled actor at the same time as we were rooting for his character.

So, Mr. Downey, on behalf of the Greater Comic Book Community, I thank you for helping keep our jobs alive.

Next time, lunch is on me.

 

Categories

Archives

Everything you need to make great comics!

comicmix-pro-300x69-2

Nucleus X

Bookshop Zaks