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Molly Jackson’s Brunch – With a Side of Comics!

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I was out with some friends for brunch this past weekend. Brunch is a standard weekend event in the NYC area now, and it seems like a month rarely passes where I don’t have brunch plans on the horizon. The unannounced purpose of this brunch was to get to know a friend’s new girlfriend. So of course, I bring up comics as a get to know you topic. (Brunch tip: One always needs go-to conversation topics for brunch outings.)

She gave me a sad, but not surprising answer to my query. She said as a child, she found comics disappointing because there were no female writers creating stories and the female characters, dressed in very revealing costumes, didn’t represent her at that point in her life. This exact argument should be familiar to anyone who has read almost any article about women or minorities in comics, ever.

Of course, I immediately began rattling off graphic novels with female creators, important social topics, or just amazing storytelling. Afterwards, when I was on my way home, I realized that I keep this running list of graphic novels to recommend to people who specifically complain about lack of diversity in comics. A list for those people who can only think of Gail Simone when you quiz them about women in comics. Gail is great, but there are so many other women in comics; in part because of all that she has done.

Now I suspect the people I’m talking about aren’t regular readers of ComicMix. Frankly, if you tune in here on a daily basis, we’ve totally sold you on diversity in comics. Yay us!  But now comes the hard part. Teaching others that yes, there is growing diversity in comic creators!  Right now is the potential for a boom of diverse creators in comics. As the political climate affects change, fans are becoming more focused than ever on who are the storytellers. However, just because it is getting better doesn’t mean it’s a solved problem but we can make it better through our voices and our wallets.

With our dollars, we can continue the trend of well-rounded and well-dressed that is building thanks to Batgirl, Faith, and Ms. Marvel.  We can encourage female creators like Amy Chu, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Jennifer Hayden, Amy Reeder, Gail Simone, Mags Visaggo, or the many more that I’ve run out of space for.

So the next time you are in a crowd (or out to brunch), ask the question about comics.  See who says comics don’t represent them and then show them that they can.  Encourage reading comics written by diverse creators and together, we can show publishers that diversity matters.

Mike Gold on Insanity and the Creative Process

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Are all creative people insane?

By “creative people,” of course I mean writers, artists, musicians, movie makers, actors of all types… the whole enchilada of people who wake up – sometimes in the morning – and face a blank piece of paper or an empty stage or studio and have tasked themselves with filling that space up in some interesting and maybe entertaining way.

There’s a simple answer to this question: yes, they are.

If you’re not part of the creative enclave, and from time to time most people are, you might think my answer is a bit cruel. Not in the least. That blank slate is the beginning of the creative process. It’s usually starts as a solitary experience, a person with his or her guitar, or script, or computer or drawing board. That artist might have an idea where to start and/or maybe where to finish, but working out the details and polishing the nuances in a way that communicates to the world at large is a draining experience. It is not unlike severe constipation: you’ve got to get it out. Hopefully, the end result isn’t shit.

It’s not unusual for a creative type to be kind of awkward in social settings. They don’t live in the real world; they only visit it when time allows. And many are in a state of arrested development. I like to tell people I’m immature, but I’m immature for a living. As I have aged I have learned how to fake adultness, but it’s only a mask. It’s my inner-eight-year old who pays the rent.

When my daughter was a lot younger, I gave her my sage advice about dating – not that she was obligated in any way to follow it, or even likely to do so. We all need to make our own mistakes and learn from those mistakes. And if we ignore said advice and things work out anyway, we love to indulge in the most basic of human emotions: the urge to turn to the advisor and sing “nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah.”

So I “suggested” there were three types of men she probably shouldn’t date. The first was rock and roll drummers. That guy in the Muppets, Animal, isn’t just based on real life. He is real life and he reflects the impact of the creative process quite effectively. The second was hockey players. That should be self-evident. By the time they’ve left the frozen fiords for the big show, they’ve already taken too many pucks to the head. It’s a living.

The third was comic book artists.

Not for the reason you might think. Yes, some – many – are batshit. That’s not a disqualifying factor: you’ve got to be batshit to face that blank slate every day. No, it’s because comic book artists have no life. They chase deadlines all day long. Their idea of a vacation is to go to a comic book convention, sit behind a table for three days and sketch Scooby-Doo, Batman, and/or costumed characters with ludicrously proportioned body bits.  Yep, it’s a living.

For those creators who have family, there is at best a serious disconnect between their vocation and their parental need to know their child is going to be financially and emotionally secure. In response, many young creators who are approaching their college years get inwardly violent every time they hear the phrase “have a degree to fall back on,” as if their failure as a creator was preordained.

The problem is, the odds are against the creator. For every Buddy Guy or Joan Jett or Eric Clapton out there, there are hundreds of even more skilled guitar players who never get out of the garage. Every young creator knows this. The conflict between the creative compulsion and the need to have a meal and a bed can drive you crazy.

So the next time you see an artist of any stripe in any medium, show some sympathy and some taste. If you don’t understand the nature of their game… just accept it. The world would be impossibly boring without them.

 

Daniel Radcliffe’s Swiss Army Man Arrives Home on Oct. 4

SwissArmyMan_BD_3DSkewSANTA MONICA, CA (August 16, 2016) – Golden Globe® Nominee Paul Dano (Love & Mercy) and Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter franchise)  star in the “bold and original” (Chicago Sun-Times) Swiss Army Man, arriving on Blu-ray (plus Digital HD) and DVD (plus Digital), October 4 from Lionsgate. Written and directed by acclaimed music video directors Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan (collectively known as DANIELS) in their feature film debut, the “wild and inventive” (The Huffington Post) storyfinds a hopeless man stranded in the wilderness who befriends a dead body and together they go on a surreal journey to get home. Winner of the 2016 Sundance Film Festival’s directing award and a New York Times Critics’ Pick, Swiss Army Man also stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead (10 Cloverfield Lane) and features music by Manchester Orchestra members Andy Hull and Robert McDowell.

Hank (Paul Dano) is stranded on a deserted island, having given up all hope of ever making it home again.  But one day everything changes when a corpse named Manny (Daniel Radcliffe) washes up onshore. The two become fast friends, and ultimately go on an epic adventure that will bring Hank back to the woman of his dreams.

The Swiss Army Man home entertainment release includes a music-less audio track along with Q&A with the filmmakers, two behind-the-scenes featurettes, audio commentary with DANIELS and crew and deleted scenes. The Blu-ray Disc of Swiss Army Man will feature a Dolby Atmos® soundtrack remixed specifically for the home theater environment to place and move audio anywhere in the room, including overhead. Swiss Army Man will be available on Blu-ray (plus Digital HD) for $24.99 and DVD (plus Digital) for $19.98.

BLU-RAY/DVD SPECIAL FEATURES

  • Q&A with Filmmakers
  • “Swiss Army Man: Behind the Scenes” Featurette
  • “Making of Manny” Featurette
  • Deleted Scenes
  • Audio Commentary

PROGRAM INFORMATION

Year of Production: 2016
Title Copyright: Swiss Army Man © 2016 Ironworks Productions, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Artwork & Supplementary Materials © 2016 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Type: Theatrical Release
Rating: R for Language and Sexual Material
Genre: Comedy, Adventure
Closed-Captioned: NA
Blu-ray Subtitles: Spanish, English SDH
DVD Subtitles: Spanish, English SDH
Feature Run Time: 97 Minutes
Blu-ray Format: 1080p High Definition 16×9 Widescreen (2.40:1)
DVD Format: 16×9 Widescreen (2.40:1)
Blu-ray Audio: English Dolby Atmos (Dolby True HD Compatible), Music-Less Track with Filmmaker Intro
DVD Audio: English 5.1 Dolby Digital Audio, Music-Less Track with Filmmaker Intro

Box Office Democracy: Sausage Party

It’s a shame there’s no outlet in our current media landscape for R-rated sketches written by high profile talent. There’s Funny or Die and its ilk, I suppose, but I can’t imagine the money there is anything like it is for a feature-length film. I’m pretty sure there’s a good eight-minute sketch to be made out of Sausage Party that would be, if not quite to my taste, generally enjoyable but instead it’s this endless rehash of the same five or six jokes that seems to drag on forever and ever but only takes 90 minutes.

Maybe I’m becoming too old and stodgy to enjoy comedy anymore, but I just don’t think the idea of a hot dog and a bun having sex is funny enough to be the anchor for an entire movie. This is the joke of this movie. Not the only joke, there’s a literal douche who is also a figurative douche and the whole thing with food being alive and not knowing it’s going to be eaten, but the hot dog bun sex thing is the big one— we start with it, we end with it, it comes up amazingly often, and it isn’t really that funny. They try to spice it up in the second act by adding a lesbian taco, and let me tell you, what this movie didn’t need was a greater variety of speculative food intimacy (but it’s clearly what the producers thought it needed as the whole film concludes with a massive food orgy).

Sausage Party is, when it isn’t a hastily constructed vehicle for bad jokes, a takedown of religion. The food thinks they’re going to heaven when they’re selected by humans (called “The Gods”) because they have been tricked by a consortium of non-perishable food items that have seen the cycle play out for some time and invented the story to make the food less afraid of their impending horrible deaths. I would say that it’s the screenplay embodiment of the arrogant attitude about other people’s personal beliefs you get from taking one college-level philosophy class, but Ricky Gervais made that movie seven years ago and it was The Invention of Lying— so Sausage Party isn’t even original in being a smarmy ball of quasi-intellectual tripe.

It’s hard to get too bothered by bad representation in a movie that feels as insubstantial as Sausage Party. If a few Jewish writers want the only Jewish character in their movie to be a nebbishy Woody Allen stereotype, I don’t have any specific problem with that as a Jewish man. I’m a little less confident that the right choice was to make an equally stereotypical Arab character and have that character be voiced by David Krumholtz. Having those two characters end up screwing each other senseless in the aforementioned giant food orgy plays in to some ugly stereotypes vis a vis masculinity with regards to both communities, but I doubt this is something that went through the head of literally anyone involved so it’s more a sin of ignorance than malice. I’m slightly less willing to be charitable about the decision to have Bill Hader play both a Native American stereotype and a Mexican one in the same movie, but every moment I spend thinking about that is one less moment I get to spend never thinking about Sausage Party again.

It’s possible I’m simply too old for Sausage Party. South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut was one of the funniest movies I had ever seen when I was 15 years old and I was an evangelist for it among my friends. Perhaps Sausage Party is sending the same ripples through teenagers today and I’m out of touch or simply heard enough swear words in my life that reciting them as rapidly and randomly as possible doesn’t make my laugh the way it did when I was younger, but I don’t believe it. I firmly believe Sausage Party is a bad and lazy movie, but there were enough laughs in my theater to give me this slight moment of pause.

Supergirl comes to Lego Dimensions…BUT…

  • News
  • August 16, 2016

lego_dimensions_supergirl_playstation_minifigure_1471253602-150x217-3845662As part of year two of the popular toys-to-life game Lego Dimensions, the company has announced that Supergirl will be joining her cousin in the DC Comics cast of characters. But that announcement comes with a number of caveats.  The Supergirl minifig will only be made available with new purchases of the starter pack for the game, and only for the PS4 console.

Supergirl will be added to the game for all players as a “Hire a Hero” character, a feature added to the game that allows players to elicit the aid of a virtual version of certain characters at strategic points in the game. This is useful for situations where a character with a particular talent is needed to progress in the game, a character that a particular player may not own.

In addition to her own kryptonian powers and abilities, Supergirl will transform into her Red Lantern form, and gain the abilities of a member of the rage-fueled army from the Green Lantern titles.

Judging from the product shot above, Supergirl has a gold base, a year two feature which will allow the character to play in an “Battle Arena” based on the figure’s adventure world.  So far, only year two figures have been shown to have that feature – this suggests that at least the DC world may have one of these  battle arenas.

UPDATED – WB Games has verified that Supergirl will NOT open up a Battle Arena option:

“only LEGO minifigures included in the wave 6 through 9 expansion packs will unlock a Battle Arena within the Free Play Adventure World of the corresponding entertainment brand.”

Supergirl_RedLantern_Poses_10_1471253510Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment has made no information available if there will be a later release of the figure for other players, so for now, if you’ve been playing the game since day one, the physical figure will not be available. Nor will it if you do not own a PS4 system.

This is not the first time such an exclusive offer has been made for this genre of games.  Disney Infinity made a PS4 exclusive version of Boba Fett available at launch of the Star Wars update of the game. However, they made it clear that the figure would become available later in the year for other players. And it was – shortly before the line was cancelled.

The Supergirl-exclusive PS4 starter packs will release in late September, to tie into year two of the Lego Dimensions line, which includes Sonic the Hedgehog.

Joe Corallo: The Ray of Light

  • News
  • August 16, 2016

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freedom_fighters_0001-2245169It’s been brought to my attention that CW Seed (the CW’s digital content hub) will be airing a new animated DC Entertainment series, Freedom Fighters: The Ray, in 2017. What makes the announcement of this new series extra newsworthy is that The Ray himself gay and would be the first gay superhero to be the lead in his own TV series. Pretty neat, right?

Before I discuss the impact the first gay superhero to lead his own TV series has on me, I’d like to talk a little about who The Ray is, since there is a good chance you are unfamiliar with this character. Hell, I was only vaguely aware of this character myself.

The Ray was original conceived by Golden Age artist Lou Fine and premiered in issue #14 of Smash Comics, part of Quality Comics’ lineup. Lou Fine worked on other characters at Quality Comics including The Black Condor, Doll Man, and Uncle Sam. Ironically, one of his most well-known contributions to comics is likely his work on The Spirit comic strips, which at the time he went uncredited as he was a ghost-artist for Will Eisner.

Eventually DC Comics acquired Quality Comics and took all of the previously mentioned characters as well as others including Phantom Lady and put them all in their own superhero team, the Freedom Fighters. Since then, a few different other people have been a hero under the banner of The Ray. Most of which have a nearly identical skill set including light absorption and manipulation as well as flight.

The version of The Ray being used in this animated series is Ray Terrill. In the comics this was the identity of the second person to call themselves The Ray, and also the son of the original The Ray, Lanford Terrill. However, that version of The Ray was never revealed to be gay.

This version is based on The Ray from Grant Morrison’s Multiversity. In it, one of the alternate world’s depicted had the Freedom Fighters, but they were slightly altered to make them a more diverse group. In doing so, Grant decided to make this Ray gay.

I’ve talked before about how making characters like Iceman or Green Lantern gay is difficult as they are such thoroughly established characters that people have already made their minds up on that it could easily be dismissed, even by the next creative team tackling the characters. Similar to what George Takei was calling for in Star Trek: Beyond, I want to see new characters being created that better reflect diversity rather than retconning previously established characters.

smash14-3678487In a situation like this one I think this actually a pretty good way to meet halfway. DC Entertainment is able to use a character that doesn’t get much use to begin with and help make its comics and now TV shows more diverse. No offense to the late great Lou Fine, but the kids these days found out about The Ray just last week when CW Seed got their announcement of this new series out there. This is the kind of recycling I think we can all agree on. Okay, maybe not all of us.

Keep an eye out for Freedom Fighters: The Ray as we enter into 2017 on CW Seed. Make no mistake that this is a big deal to many queer kids and young adults eager for more content that better reflects their own lives. Hell, it’s important to some of the old timers too. And if this animated series goes over well, you’ll be seeing The Ray in live action form too.

Let’s not forget that the Freedom Fighters will also be in this show. I don’t know about all of you, but I could really go for some Phantom Lady action on the small screen. Her Golden Age adventures have been reprinted in the Roy Thomas Presents Classics. They might be out of print by now, but you can still find them in some comic shops and online at suggested retail. I think they’re a lot of fun to read.

The Ray, on the other hand, is quite difficult to find in reprinted collections. As a result, I really have very little idea of what to expect from this animated series. Though I am curious to read some old stories with The Ray, it may work out better for me and general audiences coming into this animated series with no preconceived notions and watching the development of the first openly gay superhero leading a TV series from the ground floor. If enough people feel the same way, we might see this kind of representation move forward faster than a ray of light.

Win a Copy of The Huntsman: Winter’s War

  • News
  • August 15, 2016

the-huntsman-e1465935680723-7895725Universal’s The Huntsman: Winter’s War has been available on Digital HD since August 2 but when the 4K Ultra HDTM, Blu-ray™, DVD and On Demand  editions hit August 23, you will have a chance to win a copy of your very own.

We’ve partnered with our friends at Universal Home Entertainment to award a Blu-ray copy to one lucky reader.

All you need to do is tell us what it is about the Snow White fairy tale that has made it an enduring story. Post your theories here by 11:59 p.m., Monday, August 22. Our contest is open only to readers in the united States and Canada. The judgment of ComicMix‘s judges will be final.

The Huntsman: Winter’s War stars Charlize Theron (Mad Max: Fury Road, Monster) as the evil Queen Ravenna, who betrays her good sister Freya (Emily Blunt: Sicario, Edge of Tomorrow) with an unforgivable act, freezing Freya’s heart to love and unleashing in her an icy power she never knew she possessed. Retreating to a kingdom far to the north, Freya raises an army of Huntsmen as her protectors, with the only rule that no two of them should ever fall in love. As a war for domination escalates between the two queens, the hero standing between good and evil is Freya’s most elite Huntsman, Eric (Chris Hemsworth: Thor, Star Trek). Alongside fellow warrior Sara (Jessica Chastain: The Martian, The Help) — the only woman who has ever captured his heart — Eric must help Freya vanquish her sister or Ravenna’s wickedness will rule for eternity.

REVIEW: 11.22.63

11.22.63Based on the reviews, I knew I wanted to read 11.22.63 but its sheer size was, for some reason daunting. I figured maybe I’d just listen to it as an audiobook but those 30 hours sit waiting for me. Then, Hulu did me the favor of condensing it down to an eight-hour miniseries, which they released on DVD last week. I still will listen to the original, but this will do for now.

The idea of being able to go back in time and alter a key historic moment is always ripe for a good yarn. Heck, my Crazy 8 Press compatriots and I just did a book of alternate histories with Altered States of the Union. One of those moments that has tempted storytellers from Gene Roddenberry to King has been the untimely death of President John F. Kennedy.

Here, the master of the macabre sends an unprepared guy, Jake Epping (James Franco), back to Oct. 21, 1960 (Sept. 9,1958 in the book) and slowly, he realizes he’s the right guy to make a major difference. The local diner run by his friend Al (Chris Cooper) has a secret: there’s a door leading to the past. Sort of like SF Realism as opposed to Magical Realism. Anyway, Al’s been through the door and has been meticulously been figuring out how to stop Lee Harvey Oswald (Daniel Webber) from firing on the presidential motorcade. The problem is that Al is dying from cancer so convinces Jake to finish the plan.

Events conspire to turn the actual deed over to Jake and the miniseries follows his efforts. Complicating his altruistic missions is that time itself doesn’t want to be changed. That’s an interesting obstacle to be overcome.

A more mundane problem is that Jake needs cash to operate with and uses his future knowledge to lay down bets and win via gambling. A tried and true notion but belabored here and eventually, we find this English teacher isn’t as much the Everyman we’re initially led to believe he is. In some ways, Franco is the wrong guy for the part despite his appeal and acting chops.

Other problems include his falling for Sadie (Sarah Gadon), who teaches at the school he will one day be working at. Jake befriends Bill (George McKay), but how much should he know about the future? And there’s the CIA, of course. We toy with the question whether or not Oswald worked alone and the role his mother and wife played in his choices.

The middle chapters meander but the final two make up for it, nicely ratcheting up the tension until the climax and conclusion (not spoiled here). Writer Bridget Carpenter (who tossed in some lovely King Easter eggs) and director Kevin Macdonald do an overall nice job and Hulu gets credit for tackling this as one of the earliest original productions.

The eight-part production, overseen by J.J. Abrams and the Bad Robot team, looks authentic and the overall package is just swell. The DVD transfer is crisp, both looking and sounding strong. The Blu-ray edition contains the exclusive 15 minute featurette “When the Future Fights Back” with the crew talking about the book and mounting the adaptation.

Mindy Newell: Letting In The Light

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“Come with me and you’ll be in a world of Pure imagination. Take a look and you’ll see into your imagination. We’ll begin with a spin, traveling in the world of my creation.

“What we’ll see will defy explanation. If you want to view paradise simply look around and view it. Anything you want to, do it.

“Wanta change the world? There’s nothing to it. There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination.

“Living there, you’ll be free if you truly wish to be.”

“Pure Imagination”• Written by Leslie Bricuse and Anthony Newley • Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, sung by Gene Wilder

But I ramble, to turn a phrase…

It’s a tough thing, dealing with depression. It’s a selfish disease, one whose main symptom is that it makes the whole world all about you.

Turn on the television, boot up the web, pick up a newspaper, link into the world – there’s a lot of things going on out there beyond your own life that are terrible beyond anything that Dante ever imagined. I don’t have to name them; you know what they are.

In my line of work I’ve seen a lot of terrible things, things I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, things that make me think, and sometimes say out loud, “just because we can, doesn’t mean we should,” things that make me wonder why this culture, this American society, fears death so much that we keep people alive even when in our brains, in our hearts, in our souls we know we shouldn’t, even when we know that we are not abiding by the first rule of healing, “primun non nocere – first, do no harm”

To be completely honest, I’m not even sure what my overall theme is this week, what my aim is – maybe it’s just to get these thoughts out of my head and into the world, because the one thing the darkness cannot abide is the light, even it is only flickering. That’s always been my weapon against the disease – what some in my life have called a big mouth – or what my father used to call “not knowing when to keep quiet.”

I am writing this to shut it up… I think.

Aloneness is the ally of the disease, or the belief of aloneness; but I don’t walk Depression Street alone. I have my family. I have my friends. I have a job that keeps me actively engaged in the world. I have this forum on ComicMix. I am lucky and I am blessed, and I know that, even when I am in the deepest shadow. That knowledge is another component of the light that scatters the darkness.

Sometimes, even though it is a complete oxymoron, I am glad that I have had this disease. It has made me a better person in so many ways – less quick to judge, more open to empathy. (See, I told you that my depression has been an oxymoronic entity in my life, go back and read that second paragraph.) It has made me a better professional, too – as a nurse, as a writer.

Anger, it is said, is depression turned inward. Well, I have plenty of anger, and sometimes it is displaced, but I have learned, or am constantly attempting to learn, not to turn it inward. Mostly it is anger that the depression went on so long, that it was so long undiagnosed, that it robbed me of what economists call the financially “productive” years, so that here I am at 62 and 10 months and I get scared when I think of the future… will I end up as one of those senior citizens living at the poverty line?

That’s not how it was supposed to be. But whose life is the way it was supposed to be? So very, very, few of us.

To borrow from Nicholas Cage in Moonstruck, “the fairy tales are bullshit!”

But the fairy tales – comics, Doctor Who, Star Wars, Star Trek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, all the wonderfully heroic tales, the myths and the epics from Gilgamesh to The Ugly Duckling – are all parts of the wonderfully nerdiness and geekiness of our imaginations, are also part of the wonderfully beauteous light.

Sorry, Nicholas, but fairy tales can also be not bullshit.

“Come with me, and you’ll be in a world of pure imagination.”

It’s this that keeps me going when the dark is beckoning…keeps you going, too, I hope, when your own abyss is yawning before you. The ability to accept life as it is, but also, and more importantly, to keep imagining.

“If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it…”

 

Ed Catto: The Misfit Among Misfits?

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No one can deny Geek Culture has gotten bigger, broader and more mainstream. It’s cool to know about comics and comic characters’ history. It’s now cool to wear shirts with superhero images no matter what your age. And even mainstream retailer Bed Bath and Beyond is getting into the act, borrowing the soon-to-be unveiled Captain America statue for the grand opening of a new store before it makes a permanent home in Brooklyn.

Just a few short years ago, telling the world at large that you were planning to attend the San Diego Comic-Con was met with eye rolls and snickers. Now that very same travel announcement is invariably met with envy, excitement and the inevitable “You’re so lucky! Can you get me a Dr. Strange poster?”

catto-family-ss-6056869This all leads us to the excitement and unique fan passion for the new Suicide Squad movie. I don’t think it’s all about that mainstream geek passion. It’s something different.

A Different Passion

Now, as a long time fan, I’ve dragged my family to many fan-focused movies. They’ve always been great sports, but my daughters never really caught the bug. They’d sit through a superhero movie, eat popcorn with dad, and then promptly move onto the next thing after the show was over. Oh, they’d always find cool superhero presents for old dad for birthdays and holidays, but that was just them being kind rather than being passionate fans.

So you can imagine my surprise when my middle daughter, Tessa (who just graduated from college a year ago and is working in New York City) said “Hey Dad, what’s this Suicide Squad about? Maybe we should go see that.” I wasn’t sitting down when she said that, but if I had been, I would’ve fallen off out of my chair.

Who They Are And How They Came To Be

suicide-squad-pudding-hot-topic-6995407The Suicide Squad was a DC comic series that debuted with a half-hearted tryout as spy-espionage series. It really took off in the mid-80s when it was rebooted as comics’ version of The Dirty Dozen. Some of my favorite comic creators were behind this incarnation: John Ostrander, Kim Yale, Mike Gold, Luke McDonnell, Karl Kesel, Robert Greenberger and more.

More recently, the Suicide Squad bolted on one of the most popular new comic characters, Harley Quinn. At the core of it, she’s the Joker’s insane girlfriend, but she’s grown to be so much more. She’s kind of like the comic version of Chelsea Handler mixed with the irreverent, bisexual Bugs Bunny. She’s fresh, effervescent and lot of fun.

And today’s Harley Quinn and the Suicide Squad seem to stand for something special, and passionate fans are embracing and protecting it all. As the ultimate “bad boys/girls” of the superhero world, the Suicide Squad members are edgy and frightening. They are poor role models for kids. But I think that in many ways, they represent a mindset that so many fans have.

These characters certainly aren’t super-characters like Captain America. They don’t make all the right choices and they don’t do heroic things. They’re grungy and disrespectful. Authority figures despise them, but they are very comfortable with who they are.

deadshot-2-9052110And they co-opted the prettiest girl in the class as one of their own. Margot Robbie, a stunning actress who gave us all a reason to sit through the failed caper movie, Focus, plays Harley Quinn. She’s scary and insane and riveting in every trailer. It’s as if America’s Sweetheart (Spoiler alert: She’s not really American) started hanging out with the bad kids in high school.

All of this was thrown into a Geek Culture pot and stirred until it became a fresh stew of validation, alienation, and a unique kind of anti-establishment celebration.

Don’t Stomp On Someone Else’s Validation

And that’s whey when early movie reviews started slamming the movie, faithful Suicide Squad fans rushed to the movie’s defense… before they could even see the movie. Some fans tried to turn the tables on Rotten Tomatoes as payback for dissing their movie, and by proxy, dissing what these fans hold dear and their opportunity for validation.

Not everyone gets it, of course. Slate, that mostly-political site, scratched their head in a story all about the authentic and creative Suicide Squad licensed merchandise on sale at Urban Outfitters. You could almost hear the (usually hip) Slate shaking an aged fist and grumbling “You damn kids, get offa my industry of licensed movie products!”

Geek Culture has grown big – and now the tent is so big that there are areas within it for so many different groups. The Suicide Squad represents another unique segment, and they are vociferously passionate about what’s important to them.

In the holiday classic Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, Yukon Cornelius famously tells his friends “Even among misfits, you’re misfits.” And as many comic nerds have become the cool kids, they’ve left behind many who feel disenfranchised. Or, more accurately, some who feel disenfranchised.

That’s why I believe Suicide Squad is making a connection. It’s telling those who aren’t sitting at the cool kids table that they have value. They are unique. They are special and here’s a movie for you. And many folks just don’t hear that much or certainly not enough.

This isn’t really “my 80s Suicide Squad” – and I don’t think it should be.

But I am excited that so many of the creators* can see what their ideas have become on the big screen.

And I’m really excited that folks who dig arm bands and shop at Hot Topic and may feel like misfits amongst society’s beautiful people have a summer superhero movie all their own. And that we can all enjoy.

And I hope it becomes a franchise.

*One aside: Kim Yale, a trailblazing comics writer who worked on so many Suicide Squad stories, passed away years ago. She gone but she’s far from forgotten. NPR just did a wonderful piece on her and you can give it a listen here.

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