Comics made the mainstream news only with some event regular folk could understand and think was worth going into a comic book store for the first time…ever.
Superman is dead.
Superman gets married. Which is the same thing as being dead.
Spider-Man gets married.
Spider-Man becomes Latino and black.
Spider-Man gets divorced (because he became Latino and black).
Archie kisses a black girl.
Archie is booted out of the Tea Party (you know why).
The news that DC is being kicked out of major bookstore chains because of an exclusive deal they made with Amazon is messing with my head.
That’s not the only thing either, I read an article in Wired magazine recently that stated that iPads could both revolutionize and destroy the industry.
Again. My head is being messed with.
I don’t want to see mainstream media talk about comics unless it’s a new comic book movie, Comic Con or Archie uses the ‘N’ word during a argument with his black girl friend.
Yes, I know I’m being naïve. Yes I know that comics are a business and change is inevitable, yada, yada, whatever. I get that.
But…
I long for a return to the good old days when the press would make a big deal out of The Death Of Superman and regular folk would be naive enough to buy dozens of copies because it never occurred to them that Superman would be back.
“It’s a comic book you moron.” I said to about a zillion people who were shocked that Superman was not dead forever so the 50 copies they purchased along with the 50 billion sold would not be so valuable as to put the kids through college.
I remember a “regular folk” about to pay a retailer $40 bucks for two copies of The Death Of Superman at a NY Comic Con when the very same issue was cover priced at a newsstand in the lobby of the Javits Center where the con was being held.
I told the guy about the newsstand price and assured him they still had plenty of copies left. He thanked me like I just handed him a winning lottery ticket. Man, was he happy!
The retailer, not so much.
Yes, mainstream press, give me that kind of comic book news and keep your gloom and doom for what you do best: Lindsey Lohan.
Walking home from food shopping, thinking about this week’s column. Thinking about all the “news that’s fit to print” (and some not) about the portrayal of women in comics. And I thought, has anyone written about the portrayal of men in comics? I’m talking down and dirty, hot stuff, glistening muscle, chest hair or no chest hair?, blue brown or green eyes, skin-tight costume, hunky super-duper M-E-N.
Distaff geeks unite!
I’ll start. Off the top of my head, and in no particular order:
Dick Grayson, a.k.a. Robin in New Teen Titans written by Marv Wolman and drawn by George Pérez. He looked like a guy I had a crush on in high school… and for years afterwards.
Clark Kent, a.k.a. Superman, drawn by Curt Swan, Jerry Ordway, John Byrne, and many others, up to and including Rags Morales and Jesus Marino.
Hal Jordan, a.k.a. Green Lantern. Just read recently that Julie Schwartz wanted him to look like Paul Newman. Explains a lot.
Scott Summers, a.k.a. Cyclops. Who’s behind those Foster Grants?
Peter Parker, a.k.a. Spider-Man. It was Revenge of the Nerds, thanks to J. Michael Straczynski and John Romita, Jr!
Adam Strange. Why can’t a Zeta-beam land him in my bedroom?
Now for the “live-action”:
Christian Bale makes delicious eye candy and engenders dirty thoughts as Bruce Wayne/Batman. But isn’t it odd that the comic version doesn’t make my “off-the-of-my-head” list?
Of course the true superhero, Christopher Reeve. “Easy, miss. I’ve got you.”
And I have always, always, always had a thing for Robert Downey Jr. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched Iron Man. Even sat through Iron Man more than twice just to look at him. Special mention for Sherlock Holmes.
Not so much for the blondes, generally. Though there is Chris Hemsworth as Thor. And Robert Redford (“See ya, Hubble”) in The Way We Were. And Jason Lewis as Jared Smith on Sex And The City – the scene where he shaves his signature long, blonde, thick hair in solidarity with Samantha as she loses her hair due to the chemotherapy, well, every man who has ever questioned why his girlfriend or wife left him should be chained to a chair ala Malcom McDowell in A Clockwork Orange and forced to watch that scene over and over and over until he screams Igetitigetitigetitigetit!
uh, sorry ‘bout that. where was i? she said sheepishly.
John Wesley Shipp as The Flash on the too-soon cancelled TV series.
No quibbling allowed on the next four. I am the columnist. I am allowed my all things Buffy. Anyway, maybe they started out as live-action characters, but they all appear in comics now. And don’t give me any lip about any of them not technically being superheroes. I don’t see you fighting demons and vampires and saving the world over and over again.
David Boreanaz as Angel, first on Buffy and then on the eponymous TV series. Broody, morose, dark and tragic. A vampire Hamlet.
Alexis Denisof as Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. I envy Alyson Hannigan.
James Marsters as Spike, a.k.a. William the Bloody. Just for the record, I’m one of those who believe in Spike and Buffy 4 Ever. S.W.A.K.
J. August Richards as Charles Gunn. He almost didn’t make the list, ‘cause his selfish actions led to the death of Fred, but I can’t deny that bod’!
Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles. Loved him ever since the Folger commercials. ‘Sides, I’m a sucker for British accents. Ask John Higgins.
What’cha think of my choices, fellow geek women? Who are yours? Martha, y’ wanna start?
For those of you who won’t have a clue to what I’m talking about, let me explain.. Nate Heller is a fictional private eye in a series of historical hardboiled detective novels and short stories written by the redoubtable Max Allan Collins. Some of you will know Max from his comic work on Ms.Tree and Wild Dog and more will know him from his graphic novel, Road to Perdition, which was made into a terrific movie by the same name which maybe even more people will know. (Actually, it’s fun to spring that on a lot of non-comics reading folks. The usual comic book movies – Superman, Batman, Iron Man, X-Men and so on – they know but lots of unsuspecting folks are stunned they when get told that Road to Perdition started as a graphic novel.)
What you should know Max for, though, is the Nate Heller series as well as the rest. A quick disclaimer – I know Max personally and like him but I got into the Heller novels before I met him and was a big fan of the series from the start. Heller is a private detective set largely in Chicago in the 1930s when the series begins and he gets neck deep in cases involving the famous, the infamous, and the scary from that time. Max, along with his research buddy George Hagenauer and, early in the series, Mike Gold, aids in the research on these cases and often comes up with interpretations and theories that I think are rock solid.
For example, in his Heller book on the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, Stolen Away, for which he won his second Shamus Award in 1992, Max posits that the “corpse” of the baby that was found could not have been the Lindbergh baby so convincingly that I think it should be in every history book.
Above all, what Collins does over and over again is take historical characters, people we know from histories or news reels or whatever, and make them real in ways that, perhaps, regular history can’t. They’re complicated, conflicted, contradictory human beings. Yes, Max makes up things for them to say and do but they are so close to what we know of their historical selves that it rings true to me, over and over again.
A case in point is the latest in the Heller series, and the first in nine long years, named “Bye Bye Baby.” It deals with the death of Marilyn Monroe and this is the place where you get the standard SPOILER WARNING. I may reveal things that are in the book and if you want to not take a chance I’ll spoil it for you, skip to where it says it’s okay to read again.
Heller, and Collins, make a strong argument that Marilyn Monroe did not commit suicide, so strong that its past arguing as far as I’m concerned. What’s more important is that Max fleshes out Marilyn as a person and a creative artist and not some poor bimbo who was a victim of her own success.
She’s not the only historical character Max brings to life in this book. Frank Sinatra, Sam Giancana, Jimmy Hoffa, Peter Lawford, Joe DiMaggio (in a not very flattering portrait), and especially Bobby Kennedy are all featured and really well drawn. While I’m not totally crazy about the solution to the mystery of Marilyn’s death, it plays and works within the context of the novel. I’d be really interested to talk to Max and find out who he really thinks was responsible but this is a mystery novel and something has to be worked out that is satisfying to the genre, the lead character, and ultimately the reader.
OKAY, IT’S SAFE TO COME BACK NOW. I’m recommending not just this latest addition to the Nate Heller series but all of the books which I believe have come back into print. Max himself suggests starting with his “Nitti trilogy” of True Detective, True Crime, and The Million Dollar Wound but it’s also true you can pick up just about any of the novels and start there. He also a collection of the Heller short stories out in paperback called Chicago Lightning. I haven’t read it yet but I’m going to and soon. Max says it’s also a good place to sample Nate Heller.
If you like a good hard boiled tale told well or just a chance to watch history really come alive on the page, give ‘em a try. You’ll come back and say, “Ostrander, I owe you one.” Glad to do it, my friend. Glad to do it.
Imagine the Joker has you tied up. You’re in a dimly lit warehouse right off the river. The air is thick, stale, and musky. The tide raps against the nearby docks punishingly. The rope that binds your hands behind your back is chokingly tight. Every twitch in your wrist scrapes twine against raw flesh. Footsteps on concrete floors echo louder and louder as they draw near.
That laugh. It starts out low and menacing. It crescendos a bit. A few “hee-hees” and “ho-hos” tossed in jovially. It crescendos. Cackling, lung emptying chortles screech on your ears. You wince and tense up. Your wrists chafe as skin breaks. You can feel blood reaching the surface of the rope.
“So fanboy, it wasn’t hard to lure you here. The promise of a preview copy of Catwoman 2 was all it took. Well. that and the promise of more side boob. And now? I bet you’re hoping… praying… that the Bat shows up and saves you. Well, pookie? The joke’s on you… he’s too busy reading Voodoo to show up here! HAAAAA HAAA HAA HAA HAAA!”
Question: The voice in your mind just there? The voice of the Joker? Well, if you’re anything like me… the man reading back my poorly written dialogue in your head was Mark Hamill.
Since 1992, Hamill has portrayed perhaps one of the single hardest roles for any actor, be it voice or otherwise, to play. The nemesis of the Dark Knight has been written many ways; from straight-up sadistic murderer to psychotic sycophant. Bruce Timm and Paul Dini created perhaps the single greatest interpretation of the seminal superhero and tasked Andrea Romano with the worst possible task. The interpretations of role had been truly original to say the least. Both Cesar Romaro and Jack Nicholson had portrayed the Clown Prince of Crime and took liberty to imbue the character with their own charm. Romero painted over his mustache and played the campy cackler with scene chewing glee. Jack Nicholson exuded his … Jack Nichosoness. But here, with Batman: The Animated Series, we were getting a truer-to-comic presentation. The Joker in this case could not be so closely tied to the actor portraying him. And the less we say about Larry Storch’s voice acting during the Superfriends/Scooby Doo era the better.
Enter Luke Skywalker.
Mark Hamill had done a handful of voice acting roles prior his turn as the Joker (so says IMDB), but none with as much clout. Certainly any kids as crazy-obsessed as me hit the pause button while watching their tapes of recorded episodes to see the voice cast… and would be baffled to see their beloved Jedi master lending his baritone to The Joker.
Astonishment aside though, Hamill sunk into the role such that I strongly believe no one else will ever top it. His nuanced delivery, that carries everything from the silly to the psychotic, is pitch-perfect. Over the course of the series, the animated Joker was pulled in several directions. One episode he’s dressed as a sea captain, driving a barge of joker-gassed garbage down the Gotham River; the next, he’s holding Commissioner Gordon, Harvey Bullock and Renee Montoya hostage on live TV. And whether he was back handing Harley Quinn, or flying away on a rocket powered Christmas tree, Hamill captured the character like no other.
In watching a little featurette about the characterization, Hamill put it best. The iconic laughter of The Joker had to be right. It’s a tool in and of itself. With every laugh he delivered behind closed doors, Hamill captured the essence. For all his nuance and outright amazing portrayal of the character in The Dark Knight, even Heath Ledger wasn’t able to really use it. Credit to Hamill’s fearless acting. As you’d learn in the clip, he performed it standing up. You can feel the manic energy in every line he spoke. And when the animated series ended, Hamill (and fan favorite Bat-voice Kevin Conroy) brought the role out one last time for the now-causing-mass-sleep-deprivation video game Batman: Arkham City videogame. Sadly, Hamill told the world it’d be his last foray into the fracas… and thus his reign as the ringmaster of insanity came to a close.
Other people have taken on the role, to less effect. The fantastic John DiMagio (of Futurama fame and much, much more), Kevin Michael Richardson, and even now Brent “Data” Spiner have all tried to take the mantle. But none capture that balance of the character. Some of it may come from the writing itself… but as we all know, the best actors can make lemonade from just a packet of Sweet-N-Low and a wedge of lemon. Mark Hamill’s been blessed with fantastic writers, but took the role to such heights that now I fear no one will ever replace him.
And just then, the window above shatters. Shards of glass rain down on the floor around you, reflecting the pale moonlight and streetlamp glow as they ping-ping-ping into pieces. A leathery flap darkens the area where you sit. You can’t see anything, but you hear a desperate plea.
“Wait, Batsy, no! We were just about to read O.M.A.C. #1 together! HAAA HAAA HAAA HEEE HEE HOO HOO HEEEE!”
It is something of a movie cliché, especially in buddy-movies, for one of the two, in the heat of battle, to mutter, “I’m getting too old for this.”
That’s how I felt before New York Comic Con.
It’s another cliché that, just when you think you have life figured out, it changes. I had a pretty good time.
Granted, I was frustrated by the crowds, and the noise aggravated me (and yet, I live in New York City!). Also, I wasn’t there on Saturday, when I’m told the crowds were the worst. And I’ve been to so many shows by now that I know how to edit my experience.
So, despite the backpacks and the people who thought that because they were taking photographs they were entitled to take away an entire aisle from pedestrian traffic, and the plethora of booths devoted to gaming, not comics, there’s a fun time in there.
Let me count the ways:
• Even before the show, the press coverage was so much better than comics used to get. Sure, there was a lot of attention paid to people in funny costumes, but there were also stories like this in the New York Times, which focused on people who are cool and creative and artists worthy of attention, just like other New York talents.
• Not only are talented writers and artists getting some respect, but so are the fans. True, there was lots of pandering to people’s desire to get something for free, but there were also some unusual businesses setting up booths. The Museum of Natural History promoted their planetarium. Chevrolet not only had a booth, but they also had artist-painted cars around the show, including one by Neal Adams. This is so much better than the first show, where there were military recruiters.
• There are so many kids (who probably hate being called kids, but indulge this old fart) who are excited enough by comics to want to make them. For example, Joe Corallo recognized me and chased after me to give me his self-published comic, The Uncanny Undergrads. Comics remain one of most democratic of media, where anyone with an idea and guts can make something amazing and try to make a career out of it.
• Best of all is seeing old friends. I never went to comic conventions as a fan. It was never part of my social life. When I met Denny O’Neil, I started to go to convention parties, back when they were easier to crash. When I had to go to cons for work, I found out that, for me, Artists’ Alley was the most fun place. It still is. At a big show, it’s a place where you can usually avoid mobs, and actually talk to the people who make the comics we love. This year, I was blessed to run into Bob Camp, whom I hadn’t seen in more than 20 years. He’s still sweet and funny and brilliant.
So maybe, if I have to go to more comic shows, I’ll go. I’ll kvetch, but I’ll be secretly pleased about it.
Martha Thomases is proud of herself for not buying a rabbit on Saturday.
It’s happening as I sit here typing, on a Thursday, about 30 miles due south of the village where I happily abide, and, barring as always the unforeseen, I’ll be in the midst of it sometime tomorrow, mingling with armies of strangers, gazing at exhibits both exotic and banal, almost certainly meeting folks I have known for decades but seldom see whelmed by noise and flashing lights and color and celebrities and hucksters and the breath of chaos…
I refer, of course, to the New York Comic Con. (You thought I meant Armageddon? Naw… but maybe next week…) This is the younger, but extremely vigorous sibling of the monstrous (in at least two meanings of the word) San Diego Comic Con, but it is no wimpy little brother. Like Athena, springing from the head of Zeus, the NYCC arrived burly and mature, though a bit disorganized, three years ago and has been growing ever since. I’ve heard that 75,000 attendees are expected at the con site over the next four days. (At the San Diego shindig I attended last year, there were 130,000 or 140,000 con goers, depending on who provided the information.) That this event, and its west coast equivalent, could not only exist, but prosper, is yet another sign of how much comic books, that lowly, despised publishing stepchild, have changed and gentrified since I shuffled into the office of Marvel Comics about 45 years ago.
There were conventions then, sure, but they were miniscule compared to the current iterations – a few hundred or later, and at most, a few thousand avid fans who were there, not to ogle celebs or buy cool t-shirts, but to share a love of a certain kind of storytelling. You may have heard me describe (at a convention?) accompanying Flo Steinberg to my first con at the McBurney YMCA in Manhattan: maybe a hundred citizens of various genders and ages wandering around the Y’s gym, a few tables bearing stacks of old comics for sale, and the afternoon’s big deal, a group of comic book professionals on the stage discussing…well, discussing something. I was among them, and that, of course, was to laugh – me, in the business a month or two, sharing an audience with men who had given joy to me on many a summer afternoon and Sunday morning, who shaped the medium in which I labored. I wonder what I said. Probably something. Ah, the arrogance of youth…
The biggest attraction, at the Y that day, was the presence of a genuine movie star: Buster Crabbe, the screen’s Tarzan, Flash Gordon, and Buck Rogers, in the flesh. If I hadn’t been a blasé college graduate and Navy veteran who’d actually been to a foreign country, yessir, or if I’d had any sense of what popular culture is, I’d have been impressed.
But hey! I’m no greystache lamenting the good old days when, dang it, things was the way they oughta be, decent and proper. Things now are different, but they’re as decent and proper as the universe allows them to be.
Somebody say amen.
Recommended Reading: Walden, by Henry David Thoreau. Hey, have you ever actually read it? Or read it since you had to do so as schoolwork?
For those of you who experience my weekly hysterical polemics over at Michael Davis World (yep, that Michael Davis), it will come as no surprise that I was looking forward to Dark Horse’s new series Orchid. Sure, new comics come about as often as simians poop, but this one was written by Tom Morello.
Who, you may ask, is Tom Morello? I’ll try not to indulge in musical and political elitism here; there’s always enough of that to go around. Suffice it to say that Morello is one of those activist musicians, and his work shines brighter than most. Best known as the guitarist for Rage Against The Machine, Tom was also in the bands Lock Up and Audioslave. For much of the past decade he’s been a solo act, a.k.a. The Nightwatchman. This latter work is acoustic; the former more punk/new wave/hip-hop. Or, as we in the Whole World Is Watching racket like to say, loud. I play his stuff on Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind, I listen to his work lovingly, I watch him on Bill Maher, and evidently we are or have been members of the same union. Indeed, if he was at last week’s New York Comic Con, he and I were probably the only two people among 100,000 to be wearing IWW garb.
What I find really cool about this guy, outside of his work and his politics, is that his mom co-founded the anti-censorship organization Parents for Rock and Rap (say “anti-censorship” and I’m there) and, oh yeah, he’s the nephew of Jomo Kenyatta, the anti-colonialist anti-Communist activist who became Kenya’s first president.
Ahem. So, to get down to the nitty-gritty, is Orchid worth reading?
The simple review is, yes it is. I wish I had worked on it. There’s some rough edges in both the story and in Scott Hepburn’s art, but compared to most of what haunts the racks these days it’s Alex Raymond. Hepburn seems to have been influenced by British guys like Mik McMahon and Ian Gibson; that’s high praise. He’s done a lot of Star Wars stuff for Dark Horse and some Marvel gigs, and his storytelling is as strong as the story he’s telling. In fact, I might track down some of Hepburn’s Star Wars work – as John Ostrander can tell you, it takes a lot to get me to read Star Wars.
The story is post-apocalyptic, an overworked genre that generally lacks the strong emotional point of view needed to make it work. Not so with Orchid. The lead character is a teenage prostitute who protects her family in their struggle to survive in swampland shanties while the rich live above the morass in their fortresses, harvesting the poor (I’d say the 99%, but this number has not yet been established) as slaves, organ providers and sex toys. Morello and Hepburn make it work by sheer dint of their craft and their applied appreciation of allegory.
Morello supplements each issue with a new downloadable song. I’d give you the link, but I’d rather you check out Orchid #1, available at more-intelligently run comic shops and online.
I can’t help wonder if the current Occupier demonstrations all across the nation – now, all across the world – weren’t orchestrated by Morello as a promotion stunt. Given my own background, I’d say that was really cool. Highly doubtful, but really cool. If only that same intensity were to morph into greater exposure for Orchid.
Math. Ugh. Hate it. Too real world for me. Unyielding, unforgiving, no sense of humor, and numbers don’t talk to me the way words do. My brain isn’t wired for it. However, numbers are a part of comics and comic book writing.
Certainly there are the important numbers regarding sales, but they also figure into telling a story. Let’s go through some of them. First number: the number of pages. Right now, your monthly comic book is 22 pages long. Let’s say you’ve been asked to do a fill-in story or a complete in one story for a given book. There are certain space limitations you need to take into account.
How many panels are in a page? Well, your first page is usually the splash page which means one big panel. This page also usually has the title of the story and the credits box for the creators. Here’s some rules of thumb for the other pages: when there’s a lot of action, you use fewer panels per page. If it’s a talk scene, you can have more. I generally figure that it will average out to five panels a page. The splash page is one panel so you have 21 pages times five panels. We do the match and the whole thing totals 106 panels in which to tell your story.
There are also limits to how much you can put in a panel. This includes speech balloons, thought balloons, captions, and sound effects, if you have them. You don’t want to crowd the art. I generally figure the limit of all of the above is three per panel.
Nor can you do that every single panel. If you do that, you have a wall of words and the reader usually will just ignore it and go on to the next page that hopefully has less verbiage. The exception to this rule is Brian Michael Bendis and, trust me, unless you are in fact Brian Michael Bendis, you’re not Brian Michael Bendis.
There are also limits to how much you can put into each word balloon, thought balloon, or caption. Again, I use a rule of thumb and it’s based on my font type and size. I tend to use Geneva 14 point (my eyes aren’t great and that’s what I can most easily see). So I figure the maximum is three typed lines per balloon or caption. Again, you can’t do that with every panel or you’ll wind up with the Wall of Words that gets ignored. Again, the Bendis Exception applies.
So, being generous, let’s say you average about 1.5 balloons/captions per panel. Do the math. If you have 106 panels per issue, that comes out to 159 balloons/captions with which to tell your story. That’s it. 21 pages, 106 panels, 159 balloons/captions in all. That’s plot, plot twists, characterization, theme, and snappy banter. Ladies and germs, that’s not a lot of space.
There’s a bit more math with telling a story as well. Each panel should have one clear definable action per panel. Batman leaps but he does not leap, land, spin, and hit the Joker in one panel. Asking your artist to draw that is grounds for justifiable homicide. I’m kidding. Your artist won’t kill you; he/she will simply ignore your instructions and find a way to make it work. But they will hate you… with justification.
You can have a secondary character do something in the panel as well but you can’t do that a lot unless your artist is George Pérez who will add more action if you haven’t. The Pérez Exception is the artist corollary to the Bendis Exception.
And you have to do all this without making it seem crowded or rushed.
That’s the mathematical reality to writing a single issue comic book, kids. If you’re doing an arc, then you multiply by the number of issues. The number of issues you’re allowed will depend on the price point (again, a number) the company figures the public will pay. It’s usually four or five issues. So, for an arc, you can multiply the above totals by those numbers. Still not a lot of space. Finally, there are deadlines, which are another set of numbers, namely the date by which it’s all due. Violate that at your peril.
And that, as our friends in the newspaper trade were wont to say, is -30-.
So, I just watched the trailer for The Avengers. I had to change pants. Because I pooped them. Why the premature defecation, you inquire? One movie with Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, The Hulk, Worthless Chick and Bow and Arrow Man… that’s why! In all seriousness (that would be the seriousness of a comic nerd geeking out at maximum dorkatude), it’s because this is the culmination of years of planning on Marvel’s part. And simply put, it looks like they aren’t going to screw it up.
In their own rights, each of the Marvel heroes who have been given a solo movie have done spectacularly well. Iron Man grossed over $318,000,000; Thor nabbed over $181,000,000; and the glorious Captain America took in over $175,000,000. Bob Wayne at DC once said “You vote with your dollars…” and by the looks of it, America (nerd and non-nerd alike) has proven its love for the Marvel movies.
Speaking purely from a fan-boy perspective, I’ve had nothing but mad love and respect for their cinematic endeavors. Iron Man was grounded in reality (for 4/5s of the film), and elevated by a continuously energetic performance by Robert Downey Jr., Thor was able to mix the completely ridiculous with powerful mythology and gave us perhaps one of the hardest to believe Avengers such that we as an audience believed a God could be a superhero. Captain America was able to build a fantastic period piece that gave the world an iconic and fearless leader. And now, Joss Whedon and Marvel Studios is cramming all of them (and a handful of others) into a single picture.
The basic fear most fanboys have had since the idea of an Avengers movie was dropped on our collective consciousness revolved around over-complexity. Rumors of Loki, the Kree/Skrull war, Red Skull, and numerous other villains danced on message boards. And let’s face it. Putting 4 or 5 “A-Types” into a team picture will potentially numb any chance at character building and nuance. If Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and The Incredible Hulk each required their own picture, how can they share the limelight? And on top of it… Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury looks to be far more than just a cameo to boot. In simpler terms, The Avengers could easily become 10 gallons of Superhero in a 5 gallon hat.
If the trailer is to be any indicator of what the final product will be, I feel like Marvel is headed in the right direction. With the origins of every character now “public knowledge,” things feel natural. Iron Man and Captain America are both formidable leaders in their own right. In the trailer, they knock heads almost instantly. Whedon, who wrote the script, has a real clarity of character. Tony’s response is pitch perfect. Thor, while not uttering a word, carries himself as we expect… Regally, with a dash of arrogance.
Other glimpses of the titular characters are equally impressive. Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner certainly holds himself with a quiet struggle. And the choice to make Loki the villain creates a real urgency for the assembling. A mad god? Yeah, that’s a job for the Avengers. I know this all seems a bit of a hyperbole of analysis, given that all we’ve really seen is 12,000 seconds of footage (with a solid third of that dedicated to ominous shots of New York, explosions, and Iron Man flying)… but I’ve watched the trailer a couple times now, and each time I retain the same silly grin.
Marvel’s missteps – Wolverine, Elektra, Daredevil (which I actually liked), and most likely one (if not more) of the Blade flicks – all shared a plethora of groan worthy moments. In each, the self-seriousness never felt earned by the fans. That, and Wolverine was given Clark Kent’s origin part-way through his movie. I wish I could pinpoint exactly why the Avengers, with its surplus of superheroes, seems to capture my glee, with no bitter aftertaste of “this could be a train wreck.” Could it be I just want it to succeed too much? With Iron Man, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America: The First Avenger, and Thor all leading up to this, it may very be such that I can’t fathom this flopping. I’ve dropped far too much cash at the multiplex to see Marvel bellyflop.
At its core, the Avengers is true fanboy porn. An assembling of Marvel’s best and brightest (and Hawkeye, cause, you know…) to fight the biggest of fights, is the stuff dreams are made of. To see it in live-action glory, with a bevy of computer effects and explosions is everything comic fans have dreamed of. I postulate it’s akin to The Dark Knight, where the general masses will appreciate our medium in a new light. It raises our collective mojo up just a notch. And anytime a comic nerd looks better than a Trekkie or LARPer… well, that’s just gravy. If you haven’t checked it out yet, do go watch the trailer… and come back here to tell me if I should stave my excitement, or just invest in a few more pair of paints prior to its debut.
The Internet tells me that this weekend’s New York Comic-Con anticipates attendance of about 100,000. I’m not sure if that means 100,000 individuals over the three days (plus Thursday night) or 33,000 going each day, or something in-between.
In any case, it’s a lot of people.
San Diego Comic-Con gets around 125,000 people. That’s more. And it has more of an impact on the city, where 125,000 people dressed funny are noticeable. In New York, that’s pretty much one block of the Village Halloween parade, or Times Square on a Saturday.
NYCC is a relatively new show that grew very fast. I remember when we thought San Diego was a big show with 60,000 attendees. Of course, that was back in the 1990s, when San Diego was still mostly about comics.
The New York show is still mostly about comics. Yeah, there’s a bunch of TV and movie hype, but most of the programming and the celebrity guests are from comics. Since DC and Marvel are headquartered here (for the time being, at least), that’s easy and cost-efficient.
The San Diego convention center is much nicer than the Javits Center, and much closer to the amenities one expects of a major metropolitan area. It’s set up much better for mass transit, too, which is surprising, given the Big Apple’s reliance on MetroCards. On the other hand, New York in general is set up better for tourists, with better restaurants and better hotels (with more rooms available). Be warned, though – you get what you pay for, and in New York, you really have to pay. And if you want to look like a New Yorker, you’ll walk.
When the show is in New York, I get to sleep in my own bed, with my own husband. And when the show is in New York, I have to clean up my own mess and deal with my own life.
The timing of the show is wonky. True, autumn in New York is beautiful and the Broadway season is in full swing. On the other hand, it’s the same weekend as the New York State Sheep & Wool Festival in Rhinebeck, and I hate to have to choose which geeky aspect of my personality to indulge.
This year is going to be a little bit different for me. I actually have a project to hype. Mary Wilshire and I are working on a graphic novel. I’ve been in the business long enough to know that one doesn’t actually pitch something at a show, because the editors working the booths are too frazzled by fans to focus on freelancers. Nor should they. The show is for the customers. Still, I hope to at least chat up an invitation to send in our pitch. Which means I’ll have to be nice to everyone, just like I was working a booth again.
Martha Thomases doesn’t know what she wants to buy more – original art or hand-spun yarn.
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…
