Tagged: Green Arrow

‘The Graysons’ Fly to the CW

  • News
  • October 1, 2008

grayson3-4602958Inspired by Clark Kent’s Smallville roots, the CW is launching a new DC hero-turned-angsty teen television series called The Graysons. According to Variety, the show follows the early years of Dick "DJ" Grayson before he becomes Robin. Smallville executive producers Kelly Souders and Brian Peterson are behind the series, as is Supernatural executive producer McG. The CW has committed to a pilot episode.

Variety is calling the show a potential replacement for Smallville should that series end this season as anticipated. The Graysons would also be a solid companion to Smallville should it return next year. Further, the move to bring another DC property onto the CW shows a sign of good faith from Warner Bros., who has a 50% investment in the network.

Fans of the character are familiar with Robin’s origin. Dick, a young acrobat, is orphaned when his parents are murdered by gangsters during their trapeze act. He’s taken in by Bruce Wayne and becomes Batman’s protege. The Graysons takes place before these events. Set in modern times, the hour-long drama will focus on young "DJ" as he faces tasks fit only for a hero of Robin’s caliber: first loves, young rivals and family. Ahem. Guess you can’t say Dick on TV?

Smallville grew out of the oroiginal producers’ desire to tell the story of yourn Bruce Wayne.  When Warner Bros. refused to let television have access to their movie franchise, they shifted gears and set their sights on Clark Kent growing up and discovering his powers.

Since then the eight seasons have seen a variety of DC heroes and villains appear, some with spin-off potential.  Among the characters already seen have been Oliver Queen (Green Arrow), A.C. Curry (Aquaman), Bart Allen (the Flash), Dinah Lance (Black Canary), Cyborg, and the Martian Manhunter.  Coming this season will be Plastique and the Legion of Super-Heroes.

In 2006, a pilot was produced for an Aquaman series much in the same vein as Smallville and the proposed The Graysons, but the CW decided not to air the program. Smart money says that even if The Graysons sees the light of day, the series won’t survive long. Part of Smallville‘s appeal is its unique spin on a superpowered adventure. Considering The Graysons is pre-Robin, it’s hard to imagine little Di–… sorry, "DJ" sharing in Clark’s success. Makes one wonder why they didn’t just go for a Bruce Wayne show. Maybe then Armie Hammer would actually have a job.

Baltimore: Bendis Vs. Kirkman

  • News
  • September 29, 2008

Over a month ago, Robert Kirkman (Invincible, Walking Dead) posted a video mission statement on the idea that many who work at DC and Marvel are there because they do not realize that creator-owned books can provide a stable living with healthy profit and that such titles are the way to enhance the industy.

Brian Michael Bendis immediately responded by saying that things weren’t that easy and that it was irresponsible to tell people that, speaking as a man who works on many Marvel titles and has had success with his creator-owned Powers series.

The two sides of the argument have been tackled, discussed and disected across the board on message boards, in comic stores, in bars, possibly even in secret lairs hidden beneath wealthy manors.

And so, at Baltimore Comic-Con, Bendis and Kirkman met to continue their debate and elaborate on their points before an interested audience. (more…)

Batman’s Comedy of Eros, by Dennis O’Neil

  • News
  • September 16, 2008

Way back in the late 80s, or maybe early 90s, an inker working on one of DC’s superhero comics rendered a female form rather more like the Lord made female forms than the mores of the time allowed. The editor dealt with the problem by putting a color hold – a purple one, I think – over what some would have deemed offensive nudity.  Sex always wins. The lady’s charms shone clearly though the purple haze and a fuss ensued.

I remembered this anecdote when I saw, in the New York Times, an item about a Batman comic describing “a two page action sequence that is filled with foul language…uttered by (a) heroine…

“A black bar covered the blue words, but it was too transparent and allowed the text to be read.” Sex always wins and maybe “foul language” at least doesn’t fight fair.

According to the Times, the print run was destroyed. Having made more than my share of blunders when I sat in an editor’s chair, I know how easily goofs like this can occur and I hope the ensuing fuss doesn’t devolve on the editor, whoever he or she may be. As a certain Secretary of Defense said, stuff happens.

But I’m curious.  Did the creative folk always intend the offensive language to be covered? Surely not. Why go to the bother and expense of lettering copy that no one will read? Easier, one imagines, to simply do the black bars in the first place, though as a storytelling strategy, that would be questionable; why pull the reader out of the story while they puzzle over the meaning of the black bars?

Okay, the copy was meant to be seen? Didn’t somebody wonder if such language could cause trouble and…I dunno – ask around?

Maybe someone saw it as a free speech issue. If so, I’d demur.

I think the First Amendment is the crown jewel of the Constitution, and, personally, I can be a potty mouth. Much of my choirboy vocabulary was left on an aircraft carrier and much of whatever was left in the gutters of the East Village, pre-gentrification. But I think the way things are marketed creates expectations, and it’s not playing fair with the customers to thwart those expectations. Anything – and I do mean anything – should be allowed in the public arena, but if one buys a book bylined Henry James, one should not be subjected to a story by Mickey Spillane.

Comics have come a considerable distance in the few years since I left editing. Hell and damn, once verboten seem okay both in comics and on TV, and a few gamier locutions are beginning to pop up. But I don’t believe the medium – comics – has evolved to the point where authentic street lingo is expected.

A final consideration: The question in matters like this is always a simple one. Does it help the narrative? Is the vocabulary the writer is using his way of showing off, or does it serve a larger purpose? Any vocabulary that tells the story is almost certainly the right vocabulary, though I’d expect to get argument on this. In the case of the Batman comic we’ve been discussing, I don’t know, and probably never will.

RECOMMENDED READING: Redemolished, by Alfred Bester

Dennis O’Neil is an award-winning editor and writer of Batman, The Question, Iron Man, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and The Shadow– among others – as well as many novels, stories and articles. The Question: Epitaph For A Hero, reprinting the third six issues of his classic series with artists Denys Cowan and Rick Magyar, will be on sale in September, and his novelization of the movie The Dark Knight is on sale right now. He’ll be taking another shot at the ol’ Bat in an upcoming story-arc, too. 

‘Ciudad’ set up at Paramount

  • News
  • September 6, 2008

Oni Press has sold the film rights to their forthcoming graphic novel Ciudad to Paramount Pictures.  Anthony and Joe Russo (You, Me and Dupree) wrote the comic and will pen and direct the screen adaptation according to Variety. The comic was drawn by Ande Parks (Green Arrow).

The trade describes the premise as “story centers on a weary hostage extractor who travels to Paraguay’s Ciudad del Este, a border town considered one of the world’s most dangerous and corrupt locales, to save a kidnap victim.”

The duo researched the story for years, traveling to South Africa and intend to return to their grittier filmmaking style.

Oni Press has optioned four other properties to Universal Studios where they have a first look deal.  Their Scott Pilgrim film begins shooting in a few weeks.

 

Turning Comics Into Manga, By Dennis O’Neil

  • News
  • September 1, 2008

If you’re a student, or a teacher, you may not be reading this when Mike Gold posts it. Unless there’s a glitch he’ll be doing digital voodoo-hoodoo that I don’t understand – me and Johnny Mac, Luddites and proud of it – and making these words available to interested parties, if any, on Tuesday morning. The reason you’re not reading this on Tuesday morning, if you’re a teacher or student, may be that you’re in school and presumably putting your laptop to other uses. (I didn’t say “better.” I said other. Let’s not be judgmental.) Here in Rockland County New York, school begins early this year and unless the unforeseen happens, Marifran is, on the Tuesday-to-come, down the hill, beginning her forty-seventh year of teaching and I’m… oh, eating breakfast. Reading the paper. Sleeping. Something. I hope Mari didn’t wake me when she left.

For comics professionals, these fine, crisp September days are often a lull – an easy interval between the frantic, convention-going days of summer and the rush to finish and get to press the upscale books that publishers hope will be under a whole lot of trees on Christmas morning. Not much happening. The only items of interest that have come to my attention recently are the demise of one of the new comics publishers and Marvel’s announcement that it will tailor its superheroes for the Japanese market.

That market has been something of an enigma. The Japanese are, as a nation, the world’s largest comics consumers and have been for decades. Why? One theory is that experiencing narrative through the medium of pictures is natural to many Asians because their written language is pictorial – it may have begun as actual drawings and has evolved into a series of highly stylized glyphs. Neither a new idea, nor one restricted to comics: the great Russian director and theorist Sergei Eisenstein offered a similar explanation for Asia’s quick adoption of movies.

(more…)

‘Smallville’ Season 8 Preview

  • News
  • September 1, 2008

Kristin Dos Santos at E!online provided fans of Smallville with a ton of information regarding the eight and final season of the CW series.  It returns to the air in September and leaves the farm community further behind as the action seems to be concentrated more and more on the Daily Planet in nearby Metropolis.

Darren Swimmer, one of the four executive producers trying to replace Alfred Gough and Miles Miller, explained, "[Clark]’s going to be seeking out the trouble, as opposed to reacting to trouble when it happens. One of his main motivations for going to the Daily Planet was to be somewhere where the information comes in."

As a result, not only does Clark now work at the DP, but Lois Lane (Erica Durance) and Jimmy Olsen (Aaron Ashmore) continue their employment.  In a nice twist, it’s Jimmy, not Lois, who starts to suspect Clark may be more powerful than a locomotive.  It’s his snooping around that makes Clark start to consider the need for a secret identity.

Lois and Clark meantime begin to see each other in a new light, as a maturing Clark recognizes it may be time to put his romance with Lana Lang behind him. "Erica Durance and Tom have such a great chemistry on camera together as Lois and Clark,” Swimmer noted. “I just love seeing the dailies. They’re going to be butting heads a lot, as usual. They’ll be teaming up on stories and getting into the typical hijinks together."
  (more…)

Heroic Gloom, by Dennis O’Neil

  • News
  • August 26, 2008

Tuesday, August 26: 146 days.

They continue to dwindle down, the days, but maybe not fast enough. If Dennis Kucinich is right in a New York Times interview, Georgie just might launch an attack on Iran sometime between now and the election because…well, we don’t want to switch leadership in the middle of a military crisis and we have to be tough on terrorism, et cetera. And lest we think that this is lefty paranoia from a vegan who is, after all, a friend of Shirley MacLaine’s, just look at the last eight years…

But enough gloom on this fine pre-autumn day, at least enough political gloom. Let’s switch to some nice television gloom. This is not a good week for Okay, I’m gonna bust in here. In case we haven’t met before, I’m Randy Hyper, a fictional character that dweeb O’Neil made up ‘cause he hasn’t got the cojones to tell you about the stuff he’s doing that he wants you to know about. (And if there’s a bigger loser in comics, don’t tell me ‘cause I don’t feel like crying.) Anyway…what el dweebo wants me to tell you is that he’s again teaching a course in writing comics and graphic novels at New York University, beginning next month, September 24, and running until December 3 on Wednesdays from 6:20 till 8:40. Course number is X32.9372. Phone is 212-998-7171. I can tell that he’s looking forward to this gig ‘cause last semester’s group were what he might call “cool” which just goes to prove that even he isn’t wrong all the time. Now back to our regularly scheduled blather. so if you like sports, this is your week. The last gasp of the Olympics, preseason football, the big tennis matches, plus the usual baseball action – lots to keep you sports fans amused. As for the rest of us…not wonderful.

And if you’re a Lois Lane – a superhero lover – the season beyond this week isn’t awfully promising, either. As far as I can tell, there are no new superdoers on the television schedule and one of last year’s, the revamped Bionic Woman, won’t be returning. This despite the fact that the summer movie schedule was pretty superhero-intensive and two of the entries do for this kind of fantasy-melodrama what the films of John Ford, Howard Hawks and maybe John Huston did for westerns: mature them. No longer are the cape-and-tights crowd fit only to provide the airiest of light entertainment; they now have a claim on art, of maybe even Art.

(more…)

“Voltron” Film Moves Forward, “Robotech” in the Works?

  • News
  • August 20, 2008

Variety reported earlier this week that the big-screen adaptation of the popular anime series Voltron: Defender of the Universe has been moved forward into the "turnaround" phase of production, bringing the project no one really expected to see in theaters closer to fruition. According to Variety, a Fox-based financing and production agency is looking to secure a moderate budget for the film, akin to a film like the recent adaptation of Frank Miler’s graphic novel 300.

The film’s producer, Mark Gordon Co., plans to attach a director within the next week to the script written by Justin Marks — a name which seems to be popping up on a long list of adaptations these days, Marks has also authored scripts for a film based on the DC superhero Green Arrow, as well as adapations of the He-Man cartoon and the Hack/Slash series published by Devil’s Due.

Marks’ take is described as a post-apocalyptic tale set in New York City and Mexico, where five survivors of an alien attack band together and end up piloting the five lion-shaped robots that combine and form the massive sword-wielding Voltron that helps battle Earth’s invaders.

Also of note is a mention at the end of the Variety article that Voltron was one of several "giant robot" stories optioned after the success of Transformers in theaters. Warner Bros. secured the rights to another 1980s anime series with a massive, loyal fanbase in North America, Robotech.

You can read a review of the Voltron: Defender of the Universe script over at The Latino Review, which gave Mark’s adaptation of the series amazingly high marks.

And just in case you’re feeling nostalgic, YouTube has the original opening from the 1980s Voltron series.

Oh, by Dennis O’Neil

  • News
  • August 19, 2008

weill-1-4297233Sunday, August 17: 155 days left.

Our man the brush clearer is back in Crawford, taking it easy. Having already set a record for presidential vacation days, he’s obviously trying for a record that no future chief executive can possibly hope to break. This may not be how everyone would like to be remembered.

Back when I occupied the celestial throne that is the sinecure of all those noble beings known – here you may genuflect – as editors … make that Editors – this was the time of year when life got calmer. Big travel was done – no trips to distant cities to attend conventions – and the increased summer publishing load completed. We put out fewer issues in the fall because, conventional wisdom had it, the kids were too busy with school concerns to bother with funny books. The same logic dictated that during the summer we cram the newsstands because, presumably, the nation’s youth had nothing better to do with their long, humid days than to laze around getting massive four-color fixes and, besides, since they didn’t have to buy crayons or switchblades or whatever school kids bought, they had disposable income to spend on our productions. Which, of course, was why late spring and early summer demanded industriousness from editorial types. Those printing presses out there in the Midwest were maws…

All that was probably true once. But because the ways comics are marketed, and to some extent read, I doubt that it is true now. But I don’t know. Any editors – working editors, that is – care to enlighten the old man?

The point is, though I was a comics editor at the two major companies for about 23 years… I don’t know. I have a sense that the business has changed a lot in the seven years since I occupied the celestial throne mentioned three paragraphs ago (seven years already?). My skills might be more-or-less okay (though I’m not even sure of that), but my attitudes and assumptions would need work.

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Is Hillary Clinton Really The Thing? By Dennis O’Neil

  • News
  • August 12, 2008

I never talked to either Jack Kirby or Stan Lee about politics, so I don’t really have any idea where they stood on the subject. My guess would be that following their political spoor wouldn’t take you very far west and that they didn’t have much sympathy for the hippie-rebels of the 60s (and here allow me to blush and hide my face). After all, they and their parents (and my parents) fought for a place in the American mainstream because, finally, acceptance meant an increased chance of survival and for those outside the tribe, who suffered the Great Depression, not surviving seemed to be a real possibility. Then here came the snotty kids with their tie-dye and their girly haircuts and their wiseass slogans saying that a place in the tribe was not worth struggling for – in fact, the tribe itself was stinking of corruption.

Both generations were, in their own way, right; both had a piece of the truth.

Stan and Jack were – are – of the first of the two generations and so they were – are – probably politically a bit to the right of me and maybe you (and my parent and most of my siblings.) But events of the past week make me guess that their greatest creations were liberals. I refer to the Fantastic Four who, along with Spider-Man co-launched Marvel Comics, as one or two of you might have heard. True FF aficionados know, and perhaps relish, the tendency of the members of this supergroup to squabble among themselves. Two of the four, The Human Torch and The Thing, seem particularly apt to indulge in petty argumentation.

Remind you of any particular political group?

Yeah, right. Liberals. Witness the recent news: Ms. Hillary Clinton’s die-hard supporters are threatening to vote for John McCain, the Republican candidate, unless Ms. Clinton’s presidential aspirations are accorded full acknowledgement at the Democratic convention, which will be soaking up media time in about two weeks. This despite the fact that Ms. Clinton has already lost the nomination to Barack Obama, whose crew must be thinking harsh and uncharitable thoughts about the Clintonites.

(more…)

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