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Mike Gold: The Daredevil Issue

Lately there’s been some controversy about the creator credits on the Daredevil teevee series. To be specific, the hubbub revolves around the use of the name and comments of some comics industry notables with respect to the issue. In other words, we have a controversy about a controversy.

Both are important issues, and are quite different from one another. But for the purpose of this particular polemic, I’m going to focus on the root issue, which is, as I understand it, as the creator of the costume used in the program, whether or not Wallace Wood deserves a creator co-credit.

The issues revolving around creator credits, a subset of the entire creators’ rights movement, are of vital concern. But they’re not very cut-and-dried. For example, there’s a good reason that the creator credit on Superman reads: “Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.” That seems simple and straightforward. It is not.

I think we can all agree that Siegel and Shuster created Superman. If not; go away. I can’t deal with you. We may agree that they also created Lois Lane. Maybe. But, how about… Jimmy Olsen? Kryptonite? Perry White? Almost certainly not; all three were created for the Superman radio series and adopted by the newspaper strip, the comic books and the subsequent media manifestations. Okay, that’s just an example. I can cite dozens more. Maybe hundreds.

In the case of Daredevil, the first issue of the comic book was something of a train wreck. I read it off the stands and loved it, but I didn’t know that artist Bill Everett had enormous difficulty completing the issue and “various hands” were brought in to finish the job. Joe Orlando took over with the second issue, and Wally Wood followed Joe starting with issue #5, often with the credited assistance of Bob Powell. Bob penciled issue #11 and Woody inked it, and Jack Kirby and John Romita took over with #12. The briefness of Wally Wood’s tenure is not an issue here.

Woody changed the coloring of the costume from yellow-and-black to all-red in issue #7, which, coincidentally, costarred the Sub-Mariner – Bill Everett’s creation. The popularly held story, and there’s no reason to doubt it, is that Wood thought Everett’s costume was silly and that if the guy is called anything-devil, he should be in red.

So, some contend, because it is the Wally Wood costume that is being used in the television series, Wally Wood should get a creator’s credit.

I am second to no one in my admiration of and lust for Wally Wood’s artwork. I believe he was the first artist who’s work I could recognize by name – because Woody signed his stuff and Jack Kirby did not. But the immense quality of his craft does not enter into this argument.

There are comics creators, almost always writers, who believe that because they were the ones who came up with the original idea they were the true, and sole, creators of the property. Generally I reject this because comics is, first and foremost, a visual medium and the person or persons who create the visuals are also critical to the creation of the property. When I work on a creator-owned property, as I do almost exclusively these days, I insist the creators have a signed agreement stating their ownership positions. This makes life easier for everybody. I really do not care what those positions may be – as long as it’s not totally egregious, it’s not my business. If it is totally egregious, I know that it will blow up before long and possibly take the project down with it. That’s the only horse I have in the race.

After that point, things get a little tricky. Can you imagine the creators’ credits on any contemporary Superman story? Damn, the credits on Superman The Movie ran longer than some life-forms. Imagine adding the names of the people who came up with all the other characters and unique elements of the saga.

Of course, Batman’s “creator” will get his contractually due credit in next year’s Batman/Superman movie. I won’t get into the issue of just who created Batman right now; it has little to do with the Daredevil situation and, besides, my head would explode. Just consider my quotation marks to be editorial comment.

In my view, Wally Wood did not recreate Daredevil’s costume. As dynamic as the change was – and, damn, it certainly was – it was a coloring change and a tiny bit of alteration akin to putting that yellow circle around Batman’s bat. I know I just pissed a lot of people off and I’m sorry about that.

But it’s a tough one. Marvel notes all (or most all) of the writers and artists whose work is adapted for each movie and television show, and I think it drives my daughter crazy when I freeze-frame that part of the end credits because we’re both enjoying the “coming next week” teaser. But I’ve never seen the end-credits on Daredevil because, at least on my Netflix delivery system, the screen shrinks down to an unreadable size so that Netflix can inform me of how much time I have to not read those credits before the next episode starts. My guess is that for those who believe Woody’s name should be prominently displayed wouldn’t be satisfied, and I get that.

Comic book characters that survive for any length of time are like snowballs going down a ski-slope: they get bigger and bigger as they roll on. To me, the phrase “created by” refers to the people who started that ball rolling.

And my love of and respect for the work of the late Wallace Wood remains undiminished.

 

Emily S. Whitten: Literary Lacquers

I have a thing for rainbows. Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve always liked rainbows. Not the upside-down-smiley-face, fluffy-clouds-on-the-ends drawings of rainbows (I kind of don’t like those), but real, elusive, illuminated water droplets in the sky and spectrums created by prisms rainbows. I have even been known to run out into the rain to get pictures of a really good (really big) rainbow.

I also have a thing for nail polishes – my collection of colors and varieties is embarrassingly large – and have been known to play around with sort of complicated designs for kicks, including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle nails, Iron Man arc reactor nails, magnetic polish nails, and Union Jack nails. (And so many more, but I can’t find all the pictures, alas! You should have seen the Burberry nails.) I’m also always on the lookout for cool nail polish products, like for instance the Espionage Cosmetics geek nail wraps.

And of course (of course!) I love literature; and especially genre literature. So when I was browsing Etsy for some lilac jewelry to wear on April 28 in memory of Sir Terry Pratchett and stumbled upon a brand of a) holographic (rainbowy!) nail polishes b) inspired by literature, including a fair amount of genre literature, I was very excited. The pictures looked awesome, the descriptions were great (read them!), and the literary inspirations showed that the creator of these polishes is clearly a kindred spirit. I immediately wanted to try them all; so I contacted Literary Lacquers to see if I could get some samples to review, and the great gal behind the brand kindly obliged.

I was stoked to receive my samples a couple of days ago; a sentiment echoed by Catbug and Baby Groot. After much browsing of the many, many choices in the store, which included options from favorite literature like Discworld, The Dresden Files, Stardust, Lord of the Rings, Anne of Green Gables, The Chronicles of Narnia, A Wrinkle in Time, Harry Potter, Dandelion Wine, and so many more, I made my selections.

Based in part on what colors would actually look good with my skin (I craved Dandelion Wine but doubted it would work for me) I went with Phenomenal Woman, Strong Steady Hand, Avada Kedavra, The Mad Ones, Ether Binge, Swallowed Up In Blue, The Ultimate Outlaw, Marilla’s Amethyst Brooch, Laters, Baby, Sidewalk’s End, I’m Drinking Stars, and Goodnight Moon. I picked mostly holographics, given how much I love them, but threw in some other types for variety to see what the full line is like.

Right off the bat, I will say that they seem to be of a consistently good quality. They go on evenly, and with three coats (I do thin coats) they give me solid color coverage. (They could also be put over e.g. a light colored or silver or gold base coat for a light sheen on top.) They also seem to be fairly durable when it comes to chipping. I have only been wearing them for a couple of days; but in that time I’ve had no major chips and only a little bit of wearing off on the edges of a couple of nails (which happens with pretty much every polish I’ve ever tried).

Most importantly, the colors are great. Even though I have some difficulty in photographing holographic effects (they always look better in person!) here are photos of ten of the colors so you can see what they look like on and in comparison to each other. Also here are a couple of close-ups attempting to capture the holographic effect. And best of all for seeing the full effect, here’s a quick Vine video of Strong Steady Hand in action.

The pure holographics (Phenomenal Woman, The Mad Ones, Ether Binge, The Ultimate Outlaw, Sidewalk’s End, I’m Drinking Stars) all have a consistently high-quality holographic effect in bright light, and even in low light you can see a bit of a rainbow. The glitter holographics (Strong Stead Hand and Laters, Baby) have the same sheen, only outshone by the bigger glitter flecks. I really like these for the fact that the larger flecks of glitter add to the gradient rainbow effect of the holographic, and are of a brighter, more dimensional and holographic quality than glitter I’ve seen in other polishes. Swallowed Up In Blue, the holographic blue that also has a pink shimmer to it, is also particularly cool, because the holographic effect is as strong as the pure holos, but on top of it, even in low light, you can see the pink sheen over the blue.

Marilla’s Amethyst Brooch is one of the rare non-holos I chose; and although I always prefer rainbows, it has a good depth and rich purple glitter to it that is actually slightly more striking in low light than a pure holo. Goodnight Moon, another non-holo, is nice for its light purple sheen and tiny rainbow glitter, along with the bigger flecks, including moons. As with any of the larger glitter fleck polishes I’ve ever used, it needs to be applied with care to get the bigger flecks off of the brush and onto the nail, but it’s no harder to use than any similar polish I’ve used. Avada Kedavra, the only matte I chose (I like the look of mattes but have bad luck with them chipping) is very cool; without a top coat, three coats gives a nice slightly sheer black, with a much more evenly distributed coating of large glitter flecks than similar polishes I’ve tried; and chipping so far is no worse than for a regular polish. With a top coat, the mixed-in tiny rainbow glitter flecks are made brighter, which gives it a bit more pop.

Altogether, I am very impressed with this nail polish line (as well as with the cool themes and descriptions. You should read them! If you like any of the books that inspired them, the descriptions will make you feel happy and nostalgic for your favorites). I would not single out any color as a non-favorite; but I would say that my favorites of the pure holos by a small margin might be Phenomenal Woman, Ether Binge, and I’m Drinking Stars (the holos are particularly visible in them); and of the others, Strong Steady Hand (excellent bright rainbow effect!) Avada Kedavra (cool even glitter application, and can be worn two ways!), and Swallowed Up In Blue (good effects in both high and low lights!). In summary: I recommend!

So if you’re into literature, nail polish, rainbows, and the like, hop on over to Literary Lacquers and give some of these great colors a try. (And speaking of geek shopping, remember my recent column about it? Well I’ve just created a Pinterest board to show some of my favorite recent purchases. Check it out!)

And until next time, Servo Lectio!

REVIEW: Kingsman: The Secret Service

kingsman-the-secret-service-blu-ray-cover-art-481x586-e1432565013837-9352793You have to give Mark Millar a lot of credit. Not only does he possess a fertile imagination, but produces works that are ripe for cinematic adaptation. A cynic could tell you Millar does this by design, but I believe he’s just in tune with the current zeitgeist. As a result, just about everything he releases gets snapped up by Hollywood and if they’re all as successful as Kingsman: The Secret Service, we’re all the better for it. The incredible streak began with the wonderful Kick-Ass, which was brought to the screen by director Matthew Vaughn and they have successfully reteamed here.

kingsman-3-4904956The film is out now on Digital HD from 20th Century Home Entertainment, with the DVD combo set to follow. On the extras, co-writer Jane Goldman notes how the film and comic share the same DNA but changes had to be made from print to screen so the mass wedding execution is gone but replacing it is a nice bit of backstory about the espionage agency fronted by the perfectly cast Colin Firth. Director and co-writer Matthew Vaughn speaks at length about the changes he made from Millar’s story, most notably changing the antagonist to an older man to better match him against Firth.

kingsman-1-7571149The miniseries, now available as a collection, was from Millar and Dave Gibbons, an artist who knows a thing or two about clean storytelling, despite the mayhem and bloodshed inherent in spy stories. Millar and Vaughn agreed that spies had grown too serious and the films needed to loosen up which is why with a wink and a nod this doesn’t exactly send up the genre but is just over the top enough to be immensely entertaining. One of the best touches is the truncated subplot about celebrities being kidnapped with it being boiled down to just mark Hamill, who plays himself.

kingsman-4-e1432565352155-7835092The basic premise has Harry “Galahad” Hart (Firth) recruit “Eggsy” (Taron Egerton) to join the covert spy agency. The first third of the film is about the training Eggsy and the others have to survive before going into the field. The timetable winds up accelerated when the eccentric billionaire Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson) attempts “cleansing the population in order to counteract the effects of global warming”. Very Bond, but so much broader than most of his opponents.

Running the agency, located within the Kingsman Savile Row tailor shop, is Arthur (Michael Caine), who has seen it all and brings enough gravity to make the operation seem convincing. On the other hand, Mark Strong’s Merlin is everything you want in the most hawkish military man.

Yeah, there’s tons of action and special effects and humor but there’s heart, which grounds it and makes you root for Eggsy. As we learn, his father was in the service and there’s a bond between Galahad and Eggsy which is nicely developed.

There’s little doubt that the Digital HD format is great for mobile viewing and the 1080p image is crisp and flows without hesitation. If there’s anything to miss, it’s the DTS Lossless audio track but the AC-3 audio is just fine.

Without the physical confines of the disc, it also comes complete with the Blu-ray extras so the digital age continues to transform how we consume media. There’s 1:31 of extra material, broken into sections — Panel to Screen: The Education Of A 21st Century Super-Spy, Heroes And Rogues, Style All His Own, Tools Of The Trade, Breathtakingly Brutal, and Culture Clash: The Comic Book Origins Of The Secret Service — that covers everything from the miniseries’ creation, with Millar and Gibbons chatting, to the casting, production, stunts, etc. All of it is slickly assembled and fine to watch.

Yes, the box office was surprisingly strong and a sequel is on its way but the original is tremendous fun and is a fine addition to your video library.

Mindy Newell: Dear Supergirl…

Crisis_on_Infinite_Earths_7

Superman: C’mon, Kara…don’t give up. You’ll make it. Pl…please…please stay with us.

Supergirl: I can’t. B…But’s it’s okay…I knew what I was doing…I wanted…wanted you to be safe. You mean so much to me…so much to the world.

Superman: You succeeded in destroying the machines.

Supergirl: Thank heavens…the worlds…have a chance to live…y-you’re crying…please don’t,,,you taught me to be brave…and I was…I love you so much…for what you are…for…how good you are…

The Death of Supergirl, Crisis on Infinite Earths #7 October 1985, Marv Wolfman and George Perez

Dear Supergirl,

I watched the teaser. And though I generally don’t watch them because of their usually really bad quality, the bootleg version of the pilot episode mysteriously showed up in my e-mail box the other day; by the time you read this I will not have been able to resist. You are my favorite super-heroine of all time.

How many times have I mentioned you, Maid of Might – one of your nicknames back in the day – on these pages in the last two – or is it three – years? The last time was just two week’s ago in Occam’s Razor.

I was heartbroken when Marv and George decided to end your life in Crisis. I mourned both for you and for the death of my childhood dream. And I mourned for the end of an era – of all the changes that Crisis wrought, this was the one that struck me at my core, this was the one that felt real, felt irreversible.

And I felt old.

And even though you came back, you didn’t come back the same. You were no longer your cousin’s secret weapon, you were no longer hiding in an orphanage as an ordinary Earth girl named Linda Lee. You didn’t have a Linda Lee robot to cover for you when you were off doing super-missions on your own or for your cousin, and you didn’t have a best friend in the orphanage named Lena Thorul, whom you didn’t know was actually the sister of Lex Luthor, your cousin’s arch-enemy.

You didn’t have a cat – the only thing I didn’t like about you, because I’m a dog person – and you didn’t have a super-horse named Comet – which was another reason I loved you, because I’m a horse person – for the “strange brand” marking his hide. You weren’t a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes, and you didn’t have three boyfriends: the 31st century green-skinned, brilliant Brainiac 5, the Atlantean fish-tailed mer-boy Jerro, and ordinary Earthling and fellow orphan Dick Wilson.

Fred and Edna Danvers didn’t adopt you, and you didn’t rescue them from certain death, blowing your secret identity, which of course your cousin agreed you absolutely had to do. And the people of Earth never celebrated and honored you when your cousin finally said that you were ready to graduate and step out on your own, so you never met the President and you were never honored at the United Nations.

Well, there is one good thing. You were never kidnapped by Lesla-Lar of the bottled Kryptonian city of Kandor and brainwashed into believing you were she, living her life as a respected scientist in a city in a bottle kept by your cousin in his Fortress of Solitude while she lived your life on Earth.

All that history, and more, wiped out of existence as if it never happened, never inspired the imagination of one little girl and, I bet, thousands, maybe millions, like her, who read comics and dreamed of things that never were but could be.

All that history to draw from, to borrow, to homage, to even reinterpret…all the things that could be….

…when you, Supergirl, make your first debut on network television this fall.

I don’t know whether to laugh and cheer…

…or to cry and mourn once again.

 

Ed Catto: Look Who’s Talking … or Who Should Be

It can be a pretty disappointing world out there. So often, our real word heroes stumble and reveal they are less than what they appeared to be. We see it all the time with politicians in whom we had once believed, celebrities we had once admired and even with high profile people who may have not even been on our radar until their fall from grace. “He really tweeted that?” “I can’t believe she said that to a parking attendant!” “Didn’t she know there was a camera recording it all?” These are just a few sentences we’ve recently uttered in exasperation around our household.

On the other hand, one of the cool things about fictional characters is that it’s unlikely that they’ll misbehave. It’s no secret in advertising that using a fictional spokesperson relieves a marketer of the fears of using a real-life spokesperson. When was the last time Tony the Tiger was caught in a compromising position by the paparazzi? I can’t imagine the Lone Ranger getting into drunken brawls. Of course, one of the actors who played him did. But another actor, Clayton Moore, took the role so seriously that in public he always made efforts to present his best self, understanding that he was representing the heroic ideals of honesty, kindness and selflessness exemplified by the Lone Ranger.

But I’m not going to simply go on about how most superheroes are depictions of good people and provide good role models. Like Geico always tells us, everyone knows that. Superman is a good fella and we should all strive to be honest like him. But there’s a bigger idea here.

Now that we’re in graduation season, when many of us will be listening to impressive graduation speeches (I just heard General Major Charles F. Bolden, Jr. of NASA speak at Gettysburg), a wry thought came to mind.

I’m realizing that one of the greatest strengths of 21st century heroic fiction found in so many comics and geek-focused movies is that not only do the heroes do the right things, but that they do things. They are doers. They are purposeful. I’m thinking of so many of protagonists (and antagonists) and realizing they have a baked-in entrepreneurial spirit and a clear sense of purpose. Nobody tells a superhero to create a brand, sew a costume and go on nightly patrol, but they do. There’s no corporation telling the Avengers they have to avenge, the Defenders they have to defend or the Teen Titans that they have to ..umm..Titan. But they do.

Looking beyond the traditional superhero formula from the big companies, we can see similar themes. Mark Millar’s Chrononauts are self-motivated and ambitious. Ed Brubaker and Steven Epting’s character Velvet is smart, canny and self-directed with an urgent sense of purpose. Valiant’s Kay McHenry is a courageous woman who’s ready to step into a bigger job.

And taking it a step further, what about the creative folks behind it all? Fast Company voted Kelly Sue DeConnick of Ms. Marvel and Bitch Planet as one of the most creative people in business. Mike Pellerito, the president of Archie Comics, seems to be always looing at the toys in his toy box and asking, “What if we did something different?” A guy like IDW’s Dirk Wood brings an off-the-chart level of personal passion and impish mischievousness to his publisher’s efforts and to the industry in general. CBLDF’s super-intelligent Alex Cox educates while fighting for the right of creative expression. Retailer Marc Hammond, of Skokie’s Aw Yeah Comics, puts it all on the line every day by creating an immensely enjoyable retail experience for hard-core fans, casual first timers and kids of all ages. And these folks are just the tip of the iceberg.

These great characters, both the real ones and the fictional ones, all have a personal passion. And more than that – they all share the very best qualities of entrepreneurship: persistence, adaptability, strong work ethic and the abilities to communicate and inspire. As I’m thinking about what kind of stuff to fill my head with, I’d argue that comic heroes and their creators’ messages are the healthiest “foods for your mind” in all of pop culture. Better than politicians. Better than celebrities. Better than movie stars. There’s innovative creativity to be sure, but it’s wrapped in the classic can-do attitude that’s at the heart of it and is at the heart of American business.

You know, the luminaries of geek culture can provide great ideas to next year’s graduation planners about the very best types of role models…and doers.

 

John Ostrander: It’s always Halloween at the Con

Before I was a professional comic book writer, I was a fan. I still am. I was going to comic cons long before I turned pro. Some are good, some are not so good, and some are the San Diego Comic Con which is too large to fit into any category. For me these days, cons are mostly working weekends where I meet with fans and fellow pros, sign some autographs, maybe sell a few of my trade paperbacks.

Last weekend, I and My Mary were at the Motor City Comic Con in Novi, Michigan, and we had a great time. It’s close enough to where we live so that we could just drive there and the Con gave us a hotel room so we didn’t have to drive back and forth. The cats weren’t pleased that we were gone but they survived and, once we fed them, forgave us our absence.

Last time I had been to Motor City was maybe a decade ago and it has really grown. My understanding is that they had over 50K attendance over the three days this year. It was large but not too large and, while it had a nice selection of media guests, it was still a con focused on comics.

I managed to make contact with some old friends such as Jim Calafiore (we worked on Magnus, Robot Fighter together) and current ones such as Chris Scalf (we have a new project we’re working on). I also met Mike McCone, with whom I had done one of my favorite Batman stories (a three-parter in Detective) but whom I had never actually met. (Comics are often like that; you work with someone but you may not actually meet them in the process.) Arvell Jones was at the table next to mine along with his family; really nice folks and a pleasure to meet them.

One of the media guests was Michael Rowe, who played Deadshot on Arrow when the Suicide Squad appeared there. I thought it would be interesting to go up to his table, introduce myself, tell him I had defined Floyd Lawton in the comic. Surprise! He showed up at my table first. He knew exactly who I was and told me he had read everything I had written on Deadshot and used that as the basis for the character he played.

I knew there was a reason I liked his version.

He was really nice and actually had me sign some of his comics. That can make your head spin around. I remembered the movie Stranger Than Fiction in which a writer discovers a character she is writing is real and they meet face to face. I’m not sure I would want to do that, given what I’ve done to a lot of my characters – especially Deadshot – so meeting Michael was a little surreal but very pleasant. He didn’t hurt me at all!

There were a couple of things that really struck me about the Con. One was not only the number of cosplayers present but the overall quality of their costumes. I know some folks are not all that keen on cosplayers at cons; some actually want them banned. For me, I really like what they add visually to a convention. It becomes like a great Halloween party.

The 501st Legion was well in evidence and they always have great costumes. I got to meet and chat with Thomas John Spanos who I first met when he was cosplaying Ganner Krieg, an Imperial Knight that Jan Duursema and I had created for Star Wars: Legacy. This time out Thomas was in his Clone Emperor incarnation. Really nice guy. I’ve been struck by his artistry and talent and attention to detail, something I find in all of the 501st members and the cosplayers in general that I saw last weekend. For example, I saw a really well done Groot posing for pictures, especially with kids who were thrilled.

Which brings me to another thing that really struck me about the Con – the number of kids I saw there, from very small to teens. About ten years ago, I saw a drop in kids at Cons and that worried me. It seemed they were all going to video games. I felt that wasn’t good for the Comics Industry. The kids are where the next generation of readers would come from and I was afraid we had lost them. I personally think that unless you start reading comics by a certain age as a kid, you don’t get into them and they’re never going to be a part of your life.

What’s changing that? Less the comics themselves with all their relaunches, new directions, and crossover events than the movies and TV shows based on comics. (They may also be more coherent and accessible than the comics.) In any case, there were a lot more kids at the show than in the past and it’s amazing how many of them were cosplaying as well.

One last thing about a Con the size of Motor City; while I was pretty busy autographing books and doing interviews, I still had time to chat with those who came to my table and I really like that. I managed to tell a lot them about the new project Tom Mandrake and I are getting ready to launch and don’t worry, I’ll be telling all of you as well when the time comes. The fans and I talked about what I’ve done in the past and hope to do in the future. I am so appreciative of the support that the fans have given me and my work over the years. Thank you.

So it was a good time and more than just a “working weekend.” I hope to do more Cons in the future and, if I do, come by and say “hi.” I give good blather, I think you’ll find.

 

The Point Radio: The Mysterious Debra Messing

Actress Debra Messing rolled the dice and came back to TV this season with NBC’s MYSTERIES OF LAURA. We talk to her about how the gamble paid off and what lies ahead for next season, and what about that WILL AND GRACE reunion? Plus this weekend may be the unofficial start of summer, but the season began weeks ago at the box office. Have we seen the summer’s biggest hits already? The folks at Fandango weigh in on that and more.

Marc Alan Fishman: Not So Super, Girl

As we are assuredly living in the golden age of superhero TV, it was a clean jab to the jaw to watch the trailer for the forthcoming CBS Supergirl show. In only six and one-half minutes, my optimism – once high and mighty – was sucker-punched and left waning in the gutter.

Flash and Arrow are running at a breakneck pace, unyielding in showcasing how comic book shows can be both inspiring and hopeful, as well as dark and gritty whilst still being network-appropriate. Gotham, while no means as good as its CW counterparts, had flashes of brilliance in between the scenery chewing and trope-filled set-pieces. Agents of SHIELD and Agent Carter both delivered period-appropriate ass-kickery, and more than one jaw-dropping moment. And while I’m not much on the whole zombie thing, iZombie and Walking Dead have both popped up in my Facebook feed as being well-produced and good fun for the fans. While nary a single one of these shows appeared to be as brilliant as they actually turned out to be, there was always enough there to see the greatness to come.

In contrast, Supergirl not only showed me nothing to be excited about, it made me worry for what will make it to screen, come the fall.

After a decent setup on Krypton, we’re whisked away to Metropolis by way of Devil Wears Prada. The prototypical rom-com workplace is our setting du jour. Really? Cat Grant, once a dirt-digging reporter and gossip columnist is now a low-rent she-devil running her own tabloid. While I might dig the girl-power aspect of giving Grant the power of the rich and famous, her screen time is given only to insult her employees and undercut women by celebrating girls. And she also calls herself hot, which I think must be a given – as her face looks to be comprised mostly of space-age polymers. But I digress.

Our titular Kryptonian is shown as a dichotomously dipsy dolt one minute, and a boy-golly-gosh-gee-howdy hero the next. It’s Super then it’s it’s Syewpah. Kara’s rocket ride through the cosmos apparently crash landed her on the set of Leave It To Beaver, and frankly it’s a shame. In the wake of Arrow and Flash, we’ve seen how our silver age heroes can exist in the modern era without being overtly cheesy. As presented, our heroine only seems to act appropriately when there’s actual trouble afoot.

And what of that trouble? By the trailer’s end, we’re introduced to the super serious black guy who informs us that all sorts of bad guys are just pilfering and plundering all over the planet. Luckily, I guess, Kara is here now to fight one each week.

It’s not that I don’t understand and accept the procedural portions of our pulpy wares when translated to serialized television. It’s just that based on what it set to tease us for the coming season, we’ll be whisked away to a doppelgänger universe where morts-of-the-week will be presented for super-punching. Given how closely Arrow and Flash run their shows – with home bases chock full of wonderful technology, and happy-to-help friends with no personal lives – it’s hard to find excitement in another retread of the same ground. Even if it’s on another network. And even if our protagonist wears a skirt.

But let me clear: I still hold out hope for the better. The half a dozen episodes of Birds of Prey I once watched prove my mettle. In between the quirky-peppy-girl-next-doorness of Supergirl, there were hints of something better. While my eyes are already set to roll every time we get this close to seeing He Who Shall Not Get A Credit, I will celebrate the fact that this show shouldn’t need him if it can match wits with the scarlet speedster and liberal archery master. And while it would be too much to hope they would eventually share the same universe, no doubt those counting the ad buy-ins would sooner spin-off something else to create a multiverse of superhero television empires.

Ultimately, Supergirl must be far more than the sum of the parts put together for the up-fronts. When the fans clamor for heroines that need not always be saved by the boys, Kara may be only a tiara behind Wonder Woman in terms of being the most widely recognized lady of comics. With the world ablaze in Avengers fever, and TV viewers DVR’ing anything that even sounds vaguely metahuman, Supergirl has the potential to be that bridge-gap nay-sayers need to come join the rank-and-file of the nerdy.

But if instead of a leading lady who shows that heroism is gender neutral, we get a dork who only gets hot when she’s showing off some CGI super powers… I’ll gladly continue to hold my breath for Agent Carter‘s second season instead.

 

Box Office Democracy: Mad Max: Fury Road

In 2009 my parents visited me in Los Angeles for the first time and I needed to show them a movie as the Arclight chain of theaters because I wouldn’t shut up about how great they were. There wasn’t anything out that we were dying to see so we saw the latest movie from Jason Statham more because we liked him than because we thought we would see a fantastic movie. That was the first time I saw Crank: High Voltage and it changed what I wanted from an action movie: pace above all other things. I want a movie to move as fast and damn the audience if they can’t keep up. Mad Max: Fury Road is the first movie since that feels like it is genuinely pushing at the limits of the genre and it makes for a truly impactful filmgoing experience.

Mad Max: Fury Road is a 120-minute movie that has well over 110 minutes of action. Fast action at that, breakneck paced, innovative fire-belching action that constantly threatens to overwhelm the senses of the audience. Chase sequences so far above and beyond the norm that it feels like the cinematic equivalent of the invention of the steam engine and it’s like we skipped a thousand steps and went from farming to factories in no time at all. That they could do these choreographed ballets of explosions, high speeds, and flying bodies almost exclusively with practical effects defies belief. It all simultaneously looks like it would take a million takes to get right but would only really ever accommodate one. (more…)

The Law Is A Ass

Bob Ingersoll: The Law Is A Ass #357: NEWS, FLASH: YOU CAN’T DO THAT WITH THE BAD GUYS

Okay you’ve got them, now what are you going to do with them?

By “them” I mean super villains. So it shouldn’t be much of a leap to conclude that “you” means super heroes. Certainly a lot less than a .

Doesn’t matter where you are – comic books, movies, television, or even cosplay – if you have super heroes, you’re going to have super villains. And if you have super villains, you’re going to have the problem of what to do with them after they’ve been caught. I realize that in today’s comics, catching the bad guys isn’t always a foregone conclusion, but for the sake of argument let’s assume that the super heroes actually do catch the super villains So, then what to do with them?

In comic books, it’s not a problem. Comic-book universes all seem to have some sort of power dampening technology. Turn it on and the super villains powers go away. That way they can’t use their super powers to break out of the prison.

Movies don’t seem to have much of a problem, either. Mostly because super villains in movies die at an alarming rate. Joker, Penguin, Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones and Aaron Eckhart), Bane, Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, Venom, Electro, Iron Monger, Whiplash, The Mandarin, Red Skull, Malekith, General Zod (Michael Shannon version definitely and possibly Terence Stamp version) all appeared to die at the end of their movies. And I probably forgot one or two along the way. What to do with super villains after they die isn’t much of a problem. You just wait for them to turn up, not dead after all, in the sequel.

Television is where the heroes have the most problems with what to do with the bad guys. It started as far back as 1952 and the first season of Adventures of Superman. You remember “The Stolen Costume?” Two crooks learned Clark Kent was Superman and Superman left them on the top of a mountain so that they couldn’t tell anyone what they knew. When they tried to climb down, because they didn’t believe Superman would come back with food for them, they fell to their deaths. And Superman’s reaction was to say they fell off a cliff about as casually as he might say, “Lois? Oh she fell out the window.”

The problem got worse with the 60s Batman TV series. Oh, Batman knew what to do with the super villains he caught. It was Gotham City that didn’t know what to do with the super villains; other than let them escape. 1109514I swear Gotham Pen was built with unreinforced cardboard and doors locked on the honor system.

But in the new millennium, things have gotten really out of hand vis-a-vis captured super villains and what do with them. Especially in the shared TV universe of Arrow and The Flash.

In The Flash, the Flash and his team from S.T.A.R. Labs capture a super villain every few weeks. When they do they put said villain in The Pipeline,Particle-Accelerator-The-Flash their private a prison inside the tube of the S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator, quicker than you can say, “Jail, jail, the gang’s all here.” What the heck do we care? I don’t know about the you part of “we,” but the me part cares quite a bit. Putting the super villains in the Pipeline is problematic.

Yes, I know the S.T.A.R. labs group think that Central City and it’s ordinary prison for ordinary prisoners, Iron Heights, can’t handle the metahumans. Guess the all-S.T.A.R.s thought Iron Heights had incorporated all those prison reforms that Warden Crichton used in Gotham City . And, yes, S.T.A.R. Labs may think the metahumans are their responsibility, what with their particle accelerator having created the metas and all, but they can’t just round up all the metacriminals and put them in S.T.A.R.’s own private Ida-hole.

See Missouri – and according to the Flash episode “The Man in the Yellow Suit,” Central City is in Missouri – has a law. Missouri has lots of laws actually, but we’re only concerned with one; MO Rev Stat § 565.130.This laws says a person commits the crime of false imprisonment if he “restrains another unlawfully and without consent so as to interfere substantially with his liberty.”

The S.T.A.R. Lab Rats have definitely interfered with the liberty of the evil metahumans in a substantial way. They’ve locked them up in a private prison. Was it unlawful? Do pigeons poop in the park?

These villains haven’t been found guilty of anything. Hell, they haven’t even been put on trial. S.T.A.R. Labs just decided they were too dangerous to run around loose, so locked them up. And while S.T.A.R. Labs may be correct in its assessment, it’s wrong in its solution. You can’t go around locking up the people you think are dangerous. The government can’t do it without first affording due process of law. And private citizens can’t do it at all.

Don’t go crying PATRIOT Act to me, the metahumans aren’t foreign national enemy combatants. They’re just American criminals. Criminals with those annoying little things called constitutional rights.

As to S.T.A.R. Lab’s claim ordinary prisons can’t handle the metahumans, sez who? The Pipeline handles them all right. S.T.A.R. Labs developed some sort of power dampening technology that it uses to keep the metahumans under control in their private prison. In the episode “Rogue Air,” the dampeners even kept the metahumans under control outside of the Pipeline, when S.T.A.R. Labs and the Flash were trying to transport the metahumans to a different prison. If S.T.A.R. Labs has technology that it uses to keep the metahumans under control, why couldn’t it share the technology so that Iron Heights could use it to keep the metahumans under control?

If your answer was, “I don’t know,” don’t worry; so was mine. But I do know this, “I don’t know,” isn’t a good enough answer to justify not sharing it. Or for locking up metahumans in a private prison without any legal authority.

Now over in Arrow, there aren’t as many metahuman villains. Most Arrow baddies are held in the handy hoosegow. But there are a couple– Slade (Deathstroke) Wilson Slade_Wilson_imprisoned_under_Lian_Yuand Digger (Captain Boomerang) Harkness – who weren’t sent to the standard stockade. These two were locked up in a secret black box prison on the island of Lian Yu. Lian_YuThe only difference is that it wasn’t Arrow who locked up the bad guys there, it’s A.R.G.U.S.

A.R.G.U.S. (or the Advance Research Group United Support) is a secret organization. In the DC comics, A.R.G.U.S. is a federal agency. Arrow has been a little sketchy with it’s background for A.R.G.U.S. but on the show the organization has enough governmental ties for it to be either an actual agency or a quasi-agency of the US government. It’s certainly enough of a governmental agency that the Fourteenth Amendment – the one that guarantees the government cannot deprive citizens of their liberty without due process of law – would apply to it. So because A.R.G.U.S. has both Deathstroke and Boomerang locked up in its secret island prison without either of them having had the benefit of due process or a trial, it’s violating their constitutional rights. It may not be against the law of any state – Lian Yu is somewhere in the South China Sea and not in any state – but it’s still illegal. What with it violating the Constitution and all.

So, to repeat the question with which we opened: You’ve got them, now what are you going to do with them? I don’t know. You don’t know. Maybe even the super heroes don’t know. But whatever’s done them, it shouldn’t be what’s being done with them now.

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