Tagged: Spider-Man

Review: ‘Superpowers’ by David J. Schwartz

superpowers-us1-4585912Superpowers: A Novel
By David J. Schwartz
Crown, June 2008, $14.95

There are two kinds of superhero novels, with very different rules. The more common – but less respected – kind of superhero novel takes characters and situations we already know from an existing comics universe and tells a story using that furniture. Those books can be amazing, like Elliott S. Maggin’s two Superman novels, Last Son of Krypton and Miracle Monday, or they can be mediocre, like…fill in your own example here. But they all hit the ground running, since they work from our knowledge of those universes. Who would read a Spider-Man novel if he’d never heard of [[[Spider-Man]]]?

The other kind of superhero novel tends to come from people outside the comics field, and usually reinvents the wheel in its vision of superheroics. (Like everything else, sometimes doing it elegantly and sometimes producing an oval object that doesn’t even work as a wheel.) Some of the better examples of that type of superhero novel are Michael Bishop’s Count Geiger’s Blues and the recent Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman. Those books often have aggressively obvious titles – [[[Superfolks]]], [[[Hero]]], that kind of thing – to immediately signal to the audience that they’re novels about superheroes.

[[[Superpowers]]] is one of the latter kind of novels, down to the title. The British cover (see the continuation) even has line drawings of the characters in costume (by Norm Breyfogle, a name we who read comics will nod knowingly at), much in the style of last year’s [[[Soon I Will Be Invincible]]]. And the set-up is quite typical of an outsider superhero novel: five undergraduates at the University of Wisconsin (Madison) develop individual superpowers after an evening of drinking homemade beer. (One of the endearing things about Superpowers is that Schwartz doesn’t even try to explain their origin – something unexpected happened, and they now have powers. Period.)

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Comic Book Market Farces, by John Ostrander

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  • June 26, 2008

How’s this for a concept of a superhero? A guy who is strong, can leap maybe a mile but doesn’t fly, and only a bursting cannon shell can puncture his skin. He is on the outs with the government, the local representatives of whom may be corrupt. He’s on the side of the “little guy” who otherwise may not have a chance against the Big Interests. He dangles neer-do-wells by one foot high in the air and threatens to drop them unless they co-operate – and he laughs while he’s doing it. The guy may be more than a little crazy.

Like the sound of this guy? Readers during the Depression did when they first started reading Superman. You ever go back and read those initial stories? In one, Superman decides that one slum area of the city needs urban renewal, which, of course, the city is disinclined to do. Superman then provokes the army who tries to drop bombs on him. He rushes in and out of abandoned tenements and the bombs level those buildings instead. The army fails to capture Superman and the tenements are leveled. The city now has to rebuild public housing, given the attention on the area.

That Superman today would be labeled a terrorist.

Or how about Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner over at Marvel when it was called Timely Comics. He was at war with the surface dwellers – us – and, in one story, deliberately flooded the Hudson Tunnel into New York. The tunnel is shown full of cars and there is no doubt in my mind everyone in them drowned. (more…)

‘Marvel Apes’ Covers Debut

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  • June 25, 2008

I have to admit, I’m a bit torn about the upcoming, four-issue Marvel Apes miniseries. On one hand, it’s nice to envision a post-Marvel Zombies world. Even though I enjoyed the original Zombies stories (and a few of the dozen-or-so subsequent spin-offs, tie-ins and one-shots), it’s long past time to put the living dead back in their graves and move the heck on.

So I’m glad to see the Merry Marvel Marketing crew find a new shtick.

On the other hand… it’s monkeys. Marvel Apes, in fact.

Well, regardless of how you feel about the notion, EW.com recently posted several cover images from the series and the variant covers that will be popping up on other Marvel titles throughout the Apes run, depicting a variety of simian-styled Marvel characters. Pictured here is one of my favorites, the variant cover to Punisher: War Journal #3, due out September 3 (I’ve posted a larger version of the image after the jump). Be sure to check out the Rob Liefeld ape-ified variant cover to Cable #6, too. Words fail me.

Here’s the synopsis of the Marvel Apes "epic," according to EW:

It begins when Marty ”The Gibbon” Blank, a mutant chump with chimp-like powers, is ensnared in a science experiment gone wrong. He’s jettisoned into a sinister alternate reality devoid of humans; here, all of our crime-fighters are now hirsute anthropoids. Joined by the fetching human scientist Dr. Fiona Fitzhugh, this wannabe villain (the Gibbon founded the Spider-Man hating/baiting Legion of Losers) is, in fact, recruited by the seemingly upright Ape-Vengers as he searches for a way back home.

The first issue of Marvel Apes is scheduled for a September 3 release. You’ve been warned. (more…)

‘God of War’ Creator Talks Spider-Man Videogames

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  • June 24, 2008

Unless you’re a rap star, it’s rare for established entertainment professionals to openly criticize someone else in the industry. But when they do, people pay attention — if only as a reminder that the pros can occasionally be angry fans just as much as the rest of us. One of comics’ famous feuds was the Peter David and Todd MacFarlane debates from the ’90s. Now videogames based on comics get theirs.

David Jaffe is considered one of the big names in the videogame industry for designing the Twisted Metal and God of War series, among other hits. On his personal blog, he posted images from the upcoming Spider-Man: Web of Shadows game and wrote a plea for the makers of Marvel Comics videogames to make the games more true to the spirit of the comics.

Please stop putting Spiderman games in big open sandbox environments where you swing around and do oh so slight variations on 4 pretty dull mission types (chase/race/collect/etc) and then once in a while toss in a boss fight and/or a somewhat unique mission.

I LOVE Marvel Comics and I LOVE the promise of games based on Marvel Comics. But why can’t you guys make a game that feels like a comic? I don’t mean art style wise; I don’t mean like Comix Zone with panels and cliche stuff like that. I mean feels like a comic in a story based, narrative way: a game that shows off the OTHER aspect that makes Marvel Comics so special: The characters/story. It’s not JUST about the powers, you know. But your games are always ONLY about the powers.

The post was followed up by another entry where he countered some reader rebuttals. His argument concludes:

I LOVE Marvel comics and want to see them start making games worthy of their amazing history of great products and characters. I want to see them apply their smart logic to making films to their games division.

The posts are rare example of a AAA-level creator speaking out like a fan. If you agree or disagree, let us know in the comments.

I would like to point out that Marvel: Ultimate Alliance had a story that rivaled any recent Marvel crossover, accurately detailed Marvel history, and gave us some theatrical-quality cinematics. (See below.) Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 has been announced for 2009 and will cover the events of Civil War.

Heroes Con: Elsewhere On The Grid

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  • June 23, 2008

Ah, convention season… when the wind-down from one show overlaps with the preparation for the next.

In case you missed our two-part report on last weekend’s Heroes Con in Charlotte, NC, Van Jensen provided ComicMix readers with a great summary of all the important happenings from the the convention, including some interesting thoughts on DC’s dilemma from the publisher’s rumor-plagued Executive Editor, Dan DiDio, as well as the unfortunate overshadowing of the sizeable small-press crowd.

There are some great roundups of the show to be found elsewhere on the ‘Tubes, too. Here are a few links to checkout if you want to read up on the show a bit more:

The Beat’s Heidi MacDonald has a great wrap-up of Heroes Con: Day Two, including a few more quotes related to all of the DiDio madness that has swept the industry press.

DiDio described DC’s audience as a “collector market” but defended DC’s use of character deaths and upheavals at the same time by saying these plot devices always new for some one.

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‘Spider-Man: Web of Shadows’ Combat Trailer

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  • June 23, 2008

Back in April, ComicMix gave you the first details on the next Spider-Man videogame, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows. Many of the details were hush-hush at the time, but since then we’ve learned that the story revolves around Venom invading New York City with an army of symbiotes.

Now for the first time, publisher Activision and developer Shaba Games have pulled back the curtain on what the actual game looks like. The team explains they wanted to improve combat in Spider-Man games and integrate it more with the web-slinging for more aerial combat maneuvers. See the footage for yourself below.

Spider-Man: Web of Shadows is scheduled to be released in late 2008 for the Nintendo DS, PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP, Wii, and Xbox 360.

 

Would You Believe… Ditko?

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  • June 15, 2008

Let’s see. Captain Atom. The Amazing Spider-Man. Doctor Strange. Mr. A. The Question. The Creeper. Maxwell Smart. Yup. That’s right. The one aspect all these great characters had in common was artist and demure legend Steve Ditko.

To be fair, virtually every comics artist of the 1950s and 60s did their share of teevee adaptations, but the Spider-Man co-creator was almost an exception. I might be missing a couple, but Steve drew a handful of Get Smart stories published in issues #2 and #3 (Dell, 1966), a total of 66 pages inked by Sal Trapani, according to Ditko biographer Blake Bell. His only other teevee adaptation work on record is an issue of Hogan’s Heroes, for the same publisher. 

I’ll let that sink in for a minute. Steve Ditko drew Get Smart and Hogan’s Heroes. Talk about casting against type.

Given his political work (The Avenging World, Mr. A) and the tone of much of his post-Creeper stuff, one might not readily associate humor with the famed artist. Yet these stories show quite a flair for the material while still being Ditkoesque. And I know from personal experience that Steve has quite a profound sense of humor; further, back in his Charlton days he actually had a reputation for being a practical joker.

Blake Bell’s biography of the reclusive artist, Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko, will be released next month. See the movie, read the book!

Happy Birthday: Jon D’Agostino

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  • June 13, 2008

Born in 1929, Jon D’Agostino got his comic book start in the 1940s at Timely Comics. In the early 1950s he did work for several different publishers, including Story Comics, Master Publications, and Charlton Comics. D’Agostino continued to work for Charlton on a variety of titles throughout the ’50s and ’60s, though in 1963 he also did the lettering for the first three issues of Marvel Comics’ new title The Amazing Spider-Man.

In the mid-60s D’Agostino began contributing to Archie Comics and Gold Key Comics, and by the ’80s he was working primarily for Archie and for Marvel.

During the ’90s he inked exclusively for Archie, including work on Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Sonic the Hedgehog, and was still working for them as recently as 2006.

News Roundup: Comic Theft Solved, Aimee Mann Goes Graphic, ‘Middleman’ Debuts

Here’s what’s been going on in the world of comics over the past few days to give you some Monday afternoon I-don’t-feel-like-doing-any-real-work reading.

In an interview with the Toronto Star, Shooting War illustrator Dan Goldman talks about why he doesn’t draw Spider-Man:

"I could be doing that kind of stuff, but … I feel like you’ve got a microphone; if you’re going to step up, you really should have something to say."

Goldman is concerned with what he sees as the degradation of the United States. "I have my days when it’s tough to look over at my desk and see my little American passport and I feel ashamed."

You may have heard about the sad news out of Seattle, where a man’s collection of about 6,000 comics was stolen from a friend’s house. The case is now closed. The original owner tracked down the thief, got back his books, and no one was arrested. Priceless quote from the police spokesman: "We didn’t want to spend any more time on it,"

Buried deep in this CNN story about singer/songwriter Aimee Mann (you probably know her from the Magnolia soundtrack) is the news that she’s slowly become a graphic novelist: "I take a sketchbook and I bring it out at dinner … and I’ve got this one friend who always says something ridiculous, so I’ll try to write it down and put it in [graphic] form, and it kind of amuses everyone at the dinner table," she says, while saying it’s "kind of a long-term project."

Lastly, Lost writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach reveals to Comics2Film that Paul Dini is responsible for Grillo-Marxuach’s The Middleman going from proposed TV series to comic (and now it’s set to be a TV series again): "Of course, I was a huge comic book fan already, but something about talking to Paul and realizing here’s a guy who’s doing it sort of inspired me to say, ‘Here I have a property that, in a comic book, without the constraints of budget, would be spectacular.  So why not go in that direction and try to fulfill this creative need that I have to see this thing made?’"

Marvel’s Top 10 Hulk Villains, More ‘Incredible Hulk’ Video

As part of "Hulk Month" on Marvel.com, the publisher’s online crew recently put together a list of the Top 10 villains to test the Green Goliath’s mettle throughout the character’s long history.

While I disagree with the assertion by Marvel.com’s "spy on the wall" blogger Agent M that the publisher does Top 10 lists "better than other feeble comic sites," I did enjoy this list of Hulk villains. If nothing else, it reaffirmed my belief that the Jade Giant (yes, I’m trying to use every possible nickname for Hulk in this article) has one of the most bizarre rogue’s galleries  in comics.

Case in point: Bi-Beast

"You know the old saying, ‘two heads are better than one’? Nowhere is that more true than in the case of Bi-Beast. With one head containing knowledge of warfare and combat, and another head containing knowledge of history and culture—stacked on top of a body containing immense power—this android packs a formidable one-two punch. Though defeated by Hulk time and again, he remains one of the Hulk’s toughest sparring partners to date."

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