Wednesday Number Ones is a weekly feature here at Comic Pants. We take the books that are premiering a first issue from that week and give a quick opinion on them. From time to time we may also include more than issue number ones in this feature. If a noteworthy one-shot or the first issue of a new story arc is released, we may talk about it in this feature.
This week we will cover Batman Confidential #1, Friday The 13th #1, Justice Society Of America #1, Manhunter #26, Marvel Holiday Special, Meltdown #1 of 2, Newuniversal #1, Official Handbook O/t Invincible Universe #1 of 2, Spider-Man Reign #1 of 4, Ultimate Vision #1 of 5 and Welcome to Tranquility #1.
Dave Farabee Read and Thought:
Friday the 13th #1 (DC Comics/Wildstorm): I’ve seen probably six or seven Friday the 13th movies in my life. Pretty awful stuff, but passable entertainment when you’re watching with a bunch of folks treating ‘em as comedies. That said, writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti play the premise straight as a razor, and the net result is a take on the Jason “myth” that shows it can be done without camp. As befits the post-Scream era, the kids this time have Googled all the legends and true stories about Crystal Lake, so they’re very much in the know, and their dialogue is definitely a step above to boot. Jason himself’s largely in the background, but there’s a good sense of foreboding throughout and hints of rough stuff soon to come. Maybe this is damning with faint praise, but honestly, this is about as good a Friday the 13th outing as you could ask for. Fans should definitely seek it.
Batman Confidential #1 (DC Comics): An inauspicious start to the book that effectively replaces Legends of the Dark Knight. Andy Diggle, lately of The Losers and Adam Strange, sets up a passable mystery staged early in Batman’s career and also pits him, as billionaire Bruce Wayne, against his “evil opposite” in the business world: Lex Luthor. Nothing truly off here, and the incidental writing is solid as a rock, but it does nothing to distinguish itself. What actually brings the affair down is the art of Whilce Portacio. Uniquely unsuited to portraying any subtlety of expression, Portacio creates characters who all seem to have muscular faces undergoing painful spasms. Not pretty.
Spider-Man: Reign #1 of 4 (Marvel Comics): There’s no getting around it: Spider-Man: Reign is an ill-conceived rip-off of Frank Miller’s legendary Dark Knight Returns. Replace Batman with Spider-Man and you’re pretty much done. Like Batman, Spidey begins this hypothetical future story as an aging, pathetic man who’s lost his way. Like Batman, he’s facing off with fascist government forces in a world where superheroes have been outlawed. There’s even a storm that breaks when Spidey puts on the costume again. And the frozen-face newscasters of Dark Knight. I swear, Spider-Man’s even given Batman’s ultra-noir narration (would you believe the clichéd Miller classic, “stupid old man,” even makes the cut?). Writer/artist Kaare Andrews makes clear his debt by naming some characters after Miller and his Dark Knight collaborators, but it does nothing to make the awful fusion palatable. How did this derivative mess get greenlit?
David Martindale Read and Thought:
Marvel Holiday Special (Marvel Comics): This was a lot of fun. There’s an A.I.M. office party, Fin Fang Foom saving Christmas, the Watcher running through the alphabet with what each letter stands for, and last but absolutely not least, we have an Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe entry for none other than Santa Claus himself. The only real drawback was a certain Civil War Christmas ornament cut-out included in the issue. Not that I’m really surprised; I’m just disappointed that Marvel found a way to put Civil War into a holiday special issue.
New Universal #1 (Marvel Comics): An extremely intriguing first issue. The photo-realistic art really suits the feel of this story. It’s part science fiction, part alternate reality, and part mystery, but it maintains a very real world feel. I am very interested in seeing where this is going. The only problem with a great mystery setup is the letdown when the explanation fails to live up to the suspense, and I’ve been burned enough times to be wary, but I’m still onboard for issue two. This is the type of book that Marvel should be heavily promoting under its Icon imprint rather than publishing it as if it were any other Marvel book. Vertigo readers might want to check this title out. I’m guessing that if Warren Ellis were not under an exclusive contract with Marvel, that this book would have been Ellis’ pitch to Vertigo.
Nick Budd Read and Thought:
Welcome to Tranquility #1 (Wildstorm): For an opening issue, Gail Simone’s Welcome to Tranquility is at the very least, a satisfying outing. Like some of her earlier work, it’s quirky and tends to lean more towards funny without feeling overdone. As for plot though…Well, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I wasn’t completely sold by it. The idea of a town filled with old superheroes and supervillains living out their “Golden Years” is interesting for the moment, as is the murder mystery that’s thrown in, but how far can that idea be stretched before it starts to feel a little worn-out? Worth checking out, but it didn’t blow me away like I thought it would.
Justice Society of America #1 (DC Comics): Geoff Johns’ relaunch of DC’s original superheroes may at times be dark and a bit too wordy, but compared to the relaunch of Justice League of America, it’s a relative goldmine of comic book goodness. New characters! Humor! Actual action and a story line that doesn’t stray too far off the beaten path from what a superhero story should strive to be! Unheard of, I tell you! And as an added bonus, Dale Eaglesham’s artwork seems to be the perfect fit for the book. If you’ve liked JSA in the past or if you’re just in the market for something that’s good, then Justice Society of America is the book for you.
Meltdown #1 of 2 (Image): Snazzy art, good characters and some solid story telling. All of which are good things for a comic book to have, and with Meltdown, you get every single one of them. Still, despite those positives, I couldn’t seem to get beyond the level of darkness that ultimately surrounds the story. It’s just too much and there’s very little humor or kindness to counterbalance the massive amounts of the hatred, violence and hurt that the main character deals with. If more humor or something a bit lighter had been involved in the story, it could’ve made the story something more, something that may have rivaled the likes of Invincible. As it is, Meltdown is a good book that I know many people will enjoy. It just wasn’t one for me. Read Randy Lander’s review of this issue here.
Randy Lander Read and Thought:
Manhunter #26 (DC Comics): Personally, I would have relaunched with a new number one. Manhunter #26, the first of a new (and maybe the last) arc of this underrated series, definitely feels as approachable as a first issue, with our lead character, a vigilante by night and attorney by day, taking up the case of Wonder Woman as she defends herself against the killing of Max Lord. Over the course of this issue, there’s some great interaction between two strong female superheroes in a DC Universe that’s kind of low on them, a hint of a subplot involving Cameron Chase that should be of interest to anyone who read the underrated Chase series and wants closure on one of its more tantalizing plot points and a really nice action sequence where Manhunter fights Wonder Woman. And that’s not even everything in this jam-packed (but in a good way) jumping-on point. Manhunter fans, Chase fans, Wonder Woman fans… surely that should be enough to keep this buzz book afloat, right?
The Official Handbook of the Invincible Universe #1 of 2 (Image): If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. That’s what I would say about Kirkman shamelessly ripping off the ’80s Deluxe Marvel Universe format for this beloved homage to the best universe guidebooks ever. It perfectly captures the spirit of those books and also offers up the same informative, entertaining and engaging look at Invincible’s world that the OHOTMU’s offered for Marvel in the ’80s. Original art by a variety of big name creators for the profiles, well-chosen action panels from the comic to demonstrate powers, personality and such and broken down text that is detailed enough without being boring or overwhelming. Bonus points for an appendix that goes over some of the frequent concepts of “Invincible science.” The only thing that would have made it better would have been an Eliot R. Brown tech spec breakdown of Bi-Plane’s wings.
Ultimate Vision #1 of 5 (Marvel): All I can think, as I read this book about enormous-breasted female robots, android robotic swarm world-eaters and mad scientists in floating laboratories, is that for all the imagination and big ideas going on in these Ultimized versions of Galactus, the Vision and a certain villainous Marvel organization… the originals were better, and a lot more fun. Not really the fault of Mike Carey or Brandon Peterson, who both do solid work here, but Ultimate Vision is a plot device, not a character, which hurts their cause. It also doesn’t help that the betrayal and true villain plot are the kind of thing you can spot a mile away, and the stakes aren’t high because we know nothing of real importance is going to happen outside the regular Ultimate books. Good for the Ultimate completists, maybe?
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“newuniversal” is a work-for-hire re-launch of an old Marvel property. That is why it isn’t in the Icon imprint, and certainly why it isn’t a Vertigo book. An Icon book by Warren Ellis would be nice to see, though.
Is Ellis under an exclusive contract with Marvel? He’s still writing Desolation Jones (Wildstorm), Fell (Image), and a constant stream of bad Avatar titles. I know that exclusive contracts often have some exceptions in them, but that seems like a lot.
06 Dec 2006 at 8:18 am
QuoteEllis is under an exclusive contract with Marvel for his work-for-hire stuff.
06 Dec 2006 at 9:36 am
QuoteI liked newuniversal better than most Warren Ellis on autopilot stuff, partly because of a fondness for some of the original material… but it still reads like Ellis on autopilot. It’s easy to spot an Ellis book, just like a Bendis one: Everybody speaks with the author’s voice, instead of their own.
Of course, as an Aaron Sorkin fan, you’d think that kind of thing wouldn’t bother me, but I guess Sorkin’s voice doesn’t annoy the crap out of me.
That said, this was a pretty good week. Ant-Man, Doctor Strange and Superman Confidential all had good issues, Beyond wraps up in fine style, The Walking Dead and Other Side provide a nice dose of horror, and while I wasn’t as crazy for Justice Society as Nick was, I’d put it about in the same camp as the Meltzer Justice League so far, but with better art.
06 Dec 2006 at 10:40 am
QuoteThe difference between, say, Sorkin and Bendis/Ellis is you have actors performing the dialogue instead of just static on the page. Ron Zimmerman had a similar dilemma; his characters were all jerks in his comics, but played by an actor they might have brought more depth to the proceedings.
On Studio 60, Brad Whitford, Steven Weber, and Matthew Perry all have different approaches to their characters, to counter with a Sorkin example.
06 Dec 2006 at 10:47 am
QuoteFair point, and I think that’s it. I also think that Sorkin’s idiosyncrasies (bleeding heart liberalism, anger at the religious right, etc.) line up better with mine than Ellis’s (hating superheroes, hating dogs, liking cats, etc.
06 Dec 2006 at 11:30 am
QuoteOh yes, but I seem to have appointed myself the comicsblogosphere’s #1 Ellis hata, so… of course, his general laziness and the increasing eliminationist streak in books like Down and Iron Man don’t help.
But onto more positive things, like Studio 60 itself, which had a fantastic episode this week. I was tearing up when Danny confessed his love for Jordan, because he KNEW he wasn’t right for her but couldn’t fight off his impulse to take care of her. It was a beautiful moment. And Jack got to be the hero this week too, which was nice.
06 Dec 2006 at 11:39 am
QuoteYeah, this week’s Studio 60 was a great episode. The New Orleans musician sequence was terrific as well. It did play a little bit like a “Well, if we’re canceled, here’s a good finale to tie everything up thematically” episode, which I liked.
Uh… comics… comics… uh… what comic would Sorkin be good to write?
06 Dec 2006 at 12:45 pm
QuoteThe Walking Dead (spoiler!)
Sure, it’s a zombie comic, but did we *really* need to see several pages of uninterrupted torture? I was *very* disappointed in this one. The best thing about the series has been the human element, but this issue sullied the storyline to the level of ‘Saw’ or ‘Hostel’ — brutality for the sake of brutality. We get it. Michonne is maniacally bent on revenge and yes, the Governor deserved what he got, but every time I see an extended torture sequence like that, all I can think of is that kid in homeroom that wears a Megadeath t-shirt every day and sits there drawing crude pictures of inventive ways to kill people. “Dude, wouldn’t it be cool if you cut someone’s arm off and then cauterized it with a torch? Whoah.”
Disclaimer: I don’t really flinch at gore. I have shelves upon shelves of Fulci, Argento, and Romero dvd’s. This was just juvenile.
As for Sorkin? Ummm . . . I got nothin’.
06 Dec 2006 at 2:18 pm
QuoteMurph: agreed on WD. Remember when Kirkman could write? It seems like he’s going in circles these days.
So, newuniversal was a lot of fun, even the pages of “Hey, here’s the research I did!” weren’t boring. Definitely his strongest work since Red and the first half of “Extremis”.
This is, as they say, what I want.
Although it’s funny Jim Shooter and Archie Goodwin don’t get ANY credit on the issue…
Beyond! catapulted from “Damn, this is a fun book” to “One of the best of the year.”
Spider-Man: Reign is inane but in a weirdly compelling way, as if J.M. DeMatteis and Rob Liefeld tried to do DKR with Spider-Man.
06 Dec 2006 at 2:38 pm
QuoteDefinitely with you on Walking Dead, Murphy. Now I’m sorta given to dread pronouncements - “I’m dropping this book!” - but even so…I might be dropping this book. I was recalling how even Frank Miller, no stranger to violence, knew enough to cut away for the two most violent scenes in the original Sin City: Marv “disarming” Kevin and Marv getting payback on the priest. At a certain point, it just becomes gratuitous.
Now, to play Devil’s Advocate for a sec, I can see the argument that following an extended torture sequence more thoroughly dehumanizes the torturer. You certainly get to see how persistently inhumane they are. And it also builds a certain level of sympathy for the victim. Even the worst person on earth will invoke a sort of gut-level pity if you see them in extended agony over time. Still, at a certain point you’re turning the audience into a voyeur, which can maybe work as the point of a standalone feature, but as a single chapter of an ongoing story? Feels like an odd, fourth-wall breaking experiment.
I noticed in skimming the letters page Kirkman saying something about not having planned to write the extended torture sequence. It just sort of happened, and when I hear stuff like that, I think the writer’s actually letting the characters take over too much. Long-form serials can meander, but still need structure to ground them.
By the way, of the current crop of torture flicks, I’ve only seen Saw and its sequel. Actually liked the first one, which is surprising, since I AM a little squeamish when it comes to torture. I liked the “puzzle” aspect and the “what would YOU do?” hook. In a weird way, it felt like one of those PC adventure games, maybe even one of the old all-text ones.
“You wake up in a dimly lit washroom, handcuffed to a bar on the wall. There is a corpse in the center of the room.”
Saw 2 seemed more like that standard Friday the 13th sadism-lite, though, so I wasn’t into it.
06 Dec 2006 at 4:30 pm
QuoteI’m still making up my mind on this one. I’ve been enjoying it throughout, but the various reveals of the last issue fell a little flat for all the build-up. And I don’t know quite what to make of the 11th hour sacrifice. If it’s exactly as it appears to be, it sure seems wasteful, even hasty. If, as the narration implies, there’s more to come, I sorta feel like Beyond just becomes a prelude. I felt the same way about the Drax mini, which was disappointing by the end anyway, but also lost massive points by closing on a last-minute cliffhanger that lead into the whole Annihilation event.
Tell ya one thing, though: I really like how Scott Kolins draws Marvel’s giant, humanoid aliens. They retain their early-Kirby weirdness, but incorporate Kolins’ Euro influences quite nicely.
06 Dec 2006 at 4:50 pm
QuoteFarabee: Andy Schmidt claims that Earthfall was supposed to end with that and not be the prelude to Annihilation, but it’s really hard to buy that now that it’s been packed in with the first HC. I thought Drax the Destroyer was excellent. Very creepy. But I tend to tolerate Giffen’s idiosyncracies more than most people.
As for the “11th Hour Sacrifice…” I don’t think it’s so much a prelude to an upcoming event but that it will cause a ripple effect, like most of the events in Beyond!- the Pym/Firebird romance (which jibes with rumors that Pym will switch sides in CW), and how the sacrifice affects Mac Gargan and his behavior in Thunderbolts.
06 Dec 2006 at 4:56 pm
QuoteI loved the first issue with all the prison break stuff, but the more the series lingered on earth, the more I felt the loss of the cosmic scope I dig for Drax and company. Drax with knives was just a little too down-to-earth for me. Maybe if he had one’a those big Final Fantasy swords done up Kirby-style, it woulda been different…
Oh, and snarky little girl (”bored now”) wasn’t my favorite either. Sometimes I fear the influence of Whedon.
06 Dec 2006 at 5:11 pm
QuoteAaron Sorkin on Ultimates.
06 Dec 2006 at 5:17 pm
QuoteMurphy said:
Sure, it’s a zombie comic, but did we *really* need to see several pages of uninterrupted torture?
No, we really didn’t. Thing is, the Governor’s treatment of Michonne already went too far in my estimation, so in one sense, I wanted her to get this kind of gruesome payback. On the other hand, I didn’t really want to read an entire issue of it. But really, this whole arc of Walking Dead, basically ever since the “we feed them strangers, stranger” cliffhanger has been disappointing and meandering.
Dan Coyle said:
Murph: agreed on WD. Remember when Kirkman could write? It seems like he’s going in circles these days.
I’d agree with you, except that I’m kinda digging the old school vibe of Ultimate X-Men (although it runs hot and cold, and his ’90s love mystifies me), enjoying Invincible on and off (although it is also hot and cold) and really enjoying the first three issues of Ant-Man (although it doesn’t live up to my Marvel favorites like Runaways or Beyond).
Basically, I like Kirkman, but I can’t call him a favorite writer. He does have an unusual voice in comics, though, particularly with his unashamed love of the ’90s, something that not even most creators who *worked* in the ’90s have.
Beyond! catapulted from “Damn, this is a fun book” to “One of the best of the year.”
Interesting. I’m uncertain where I come down on Beyond. Some nice twists, beautiful art as usual, and I’ll definitely pick up the hardcover. But… the 11th hour sacrifice (as Dave non-spoilerly terms it) worries me, because it was well-written, but I really think there was a lot more life in that character, and I’m not sure the sacrifice really adds to him, or if it just adds more unnecessary baggage. This all assumes that those hints left at the end are actually leading to a return, of course… if it’s a permanent status quo change, I’m going to be pretty upset with it. But there’s every indication in the story that that is not the case.
Spider-Man: Reign is inane but in a weirdly compelling way, as if J.M. DeMatteis and Rob Liefeld tried to do DKR with Spider-Man.
So you mean it’s compelling in the way that a car crash is compelling?
Alec says:
Aaron Sorkin on Ultimates.
So we’d see a lot of walking and talking sequences?
06 Dec 2006 at 8:50 pm
QuoteDefinitely with you on Walking Dead, Murphy. Now I’m sorta given to dread pronouncements - “I’m dropping this book!” - but even so…I might be dropping this book.
Yeah, I wish it wasn’t the case, but this issue of Walking Dead was a major turn off for me too. Twelve pages of straight torture and nothing else? Doesn’t work for me and I don’t see myself returning to the title any time soon. I’ve always been a bit on side-lines with this book. The first arc was fantastic and after that, there were a few other stories that also kept my attention. Still, there have been times where like any other ongoing book, it started to drift and the story seemed to feel a bit…I don’t know…Done to death. : )
Strangely enough, the best outing for me this week came from the Marvel Holiday Special. With it, you not only get Fin Fang Foom, you get an A.I.M. Office Party that’s comical and sports one of my favorite characters: M.O.D.O.K.! And NO ONE can deny M.O.D.O.K.’s awesomeness.
06 Dec 2006 at 8:51 pm
QuoteI don’t get Kirkman’s 90s love either. I suppose it’s an ego thing more than he’d care to admit- people always admire you if you successfully revamp something or polish a particular turd. The ugly truth was, though, Sleepwalker (to cite a particular favorite- there’s even pages from a MAX revamp he pitched on Tim Seeley’s site) was an ill-concieved character and his series was dull, dull, dull, dull, and the one good idea Bob Budiansky had for it wasn’t revealed until issue #25, and even then he didn’t go anywhere with it. Editors at Marvel just threw character designs without a character out there. Nightwatch? Blackwulf? Tom Brevoort’s recent true tales of bad comic terror on his blog illustrate just how creatively bankrupt and out of control Marvel editorial was back then.
Darkhawk is a marginally more exciting character (he certainly has a design that still works) but Danny Fingeroth stumbled with issue #25 (actually, things kinda stalled after “Heart of the Hawk”) and the book never recovered.
Now, I happened to like the “League of Losers” arc a LOT. And it features the one “Loser” that has metric tonnes of potential- Terror, Inc. But comparing Liefeld to Kirby is truly insulting, especially when you consider the hours of his life Kirby poured into his work and the professionalism he brought to the table. Liefeld has left a string of broken promises and screwed creators in his wake.
But hey, if he can make that turd shine brightly…
As for the 11th hour sacrifice… if we didn’t think there was more life in the character, we wouldn’t miss him/her then, would we? The important thing was the lives he/she touched in this adventure. I’d rather it be a permanent staus quo change, but hey, there’s a New Warriors revival afoot. I think with all the childish, We’re-just-doing-this-to-clear-the-decks or We’re-just-doing-this-to-piss-off-fans deaths and resurrections, it was nice to see something that actually hit me in the gut.
06 Dec 2006 at 10:25 pm
QuoteUltimates by Aaron Sorkin- well, let’s see, at least he’s a prima donna who is able to cough up a script eventually. Unlike other Ultimates writers I could mention.
I can see Peter Krause as Giant Man, Amanda Peet as the Wasp, Matthew Perry as Tony Stark…
06 Dec 2006 at 10:30 pm
QuoteHate to be a hater, but I want nothing by Aaron Sorkin.
That includes TV shows.
Aaron Sorkin is the 2nd most overrated creator in the TV business, right after Whedon.
{ducks to avoid injury}
07 Dec 2006 at 12:58 pm
QuoteYaoi manga. It’s what Sorkin was born to write.
I’ve never read a single issue of Sleepwalker, but I have to confess - the idea always seemed fun to me, and I liked the visual. What is it about the concept that’s ill-conceived? I just figured it was brought down by mediocre or subpar execution.
It’s tough to say what I’m about to say without revealing the sacrificial lamb’s ID (can we get inviso-text in this joint?), so if anyone reading this hasn’t read Beyond, stop reading here. Go read Beyond or something.
And, still tiptoeing around the name bit…for me, the character actually hadn’t been around long enough to really feel his loss. So my lament isn’t so much for him as he was but for what he could have been. It’s a meta-contextual regret: the character hadn’t really come into his own yet and needed more time. Knocked off this early…it’s really just a waste, not the loss of someone who had truly endeared himself.
But, y’know, he’s probably not actually gone anyway.
07 Dec 2006 at 2:01 pm
QuoteWell, the way Budiansky described his own creation, it seemed that he had only the visual for years (calling it “the alien”, but then dismayed by the fact that Ridley Scott’s Alien stole the name) and then came up with the whole Mindscape and Rick Sheridan character around 1989 or so. The thing is, what he had, essentially, was a Peter Parker type who fought crime by going to sleep. There’s not much you can do with that. By issue #3 Rick knew who Sleepwalker was and was going to sleep to bring him out. Budiansky mined little drama from this other than the standard Parker-esque “you’re never around!” cliches.
By issue #25, however, he hit on a seemingly neat idea: Sleepwalker was revealed to be the leader of an invading force of his own race in the Mindscape. Sleepwalker had amnesia, you see! Ah, but that was quickly brushed aside by having Sleepwalker turn out to be a good guy after all. It just amazes me that Budiansky was able to play out this tune for Thirty-Four Issues. The series really defines mediocre execution.
So, of course, I own nearly all of it.
And on that death… I think you just proved my point. He died before his time. But yeah, there’s the New Warriors book coming up and he’s a prime candidate to fill out the roster, especially if it’s true that McKeever’s writing it.
07 Dec 2006 at 4:36 pm
QuoteAh, Sleepwalker. I never read his book but I had a friend, not at all a comics reader, who bought his first issue because he wanted to dabble in speculating. For a couple of years there he would occasionally ask me what Sleepwalker #1 was going for and I kept disappointing him by saying, “Uh, I dunno. Maybe cover price, I guess.”
07 Dec 2006 at 6:32 pm
QuoteDan Coyle:
And on that death… I think you just proved my point. He died before his time. But yeah, there’s the New Warriors book coming up and he’s a prime candidate to fill out the roster, especially if it’s true that McKeever’s writing it.
Actually, I think you’re missing a subtle point here, Dan. “He died before his time.” That *is* what you’re both saying. But you’re viewing it from the point of view as if the character were a real person, and that his death was the act of random chance, fate, what have you. Dave is saying (and I agree with him) that he died before his time from the point of view of a character potential standpoint, and this was a decision by creative forces, not some random whim of fate or a butterfly flapping its wings in China 30,000 years ago.
If *spoiler* is really dead, it’s a waste of a character. Well-written death, dramatically appropriate, whatever, it still seems a foolish choice in a fictional universe and genre that has shown a lot of difficulty coming up with interesting new characters, and really can’t afford to squander any of them unnecessarily. And however well written the scene was in Beyond (and it was), I would argue that it wasn’t *necessary* to the story, and that the heroism didn’t need the sacrifice to be impressive. We saw that the character was willing to die to save the others… we didn’t need to see that potential followed through on to make the act seem heroic.
07 Dec 2006 at 10:06 pm
QuoteAndy wrote:
Ah, Sleepwalker. I never read his book but I had a friend, not at all a comics reader, who bought his first issue because he wanted to dabble in speculating. For a couple of years there he would occasionally ask me what Sleepwalker #1 was going for and I kept disappointing him by saying, “Uh, I dunno. Maybe cover price, I guess.”
Heh. Andy, this is the correct thing to do to folks who want to speculate on comics. Disappoint them at every turn, with malice if possible.
They helped crush the industry during the ’90s, and they are the market that makes it possible for things like variant covers and inane events to thrive. Speculators are the enemy of the comic book reader.
07 Dec 2006 at 10:08 pm
QuoteThat reminds me of what John Romita Jr. would say about Star Brand; Shooter would tell him, “It’s gonna be HUGE! It’s gonna be Marvel’s Superman! You’ll be a star!” Well, that wasn’t exactly the case…
I guess I understand both your and Dave’s point about… the guy. I just chose to view it as something it probably wasn’t.
07 Dec 2006 at 11:08 pm
QuoteFunny thing about the hush-hush finale to Beyond…
David Martindale was skimming through the responses, and having only read the first few issues of Beyond, he turned to me and asked the natural question:
“So, I take it Sleepwalker bites it?”
We don’t need no stinking inviso-text!
07 Dec 2006 at 11:14 pm
Quote“Aaron Sorkin is the 2nd most overrated creator in the TV business, right after Whedon.”
That’s funny, because my second pick for Sorkin would have been Astonishing X-Men.
08 Dec 2006 at 12:30 am
QuoteSleepwalker (to cite a particular favorite- there’s even pages from a MAX revamp he pitched on Tim Seeley’s site) was an ill-concieved character and his series was dull, dull, dull, dull,
Well, I guess that I’m the odd man out then. I was and still am a fan of Sleepwalker. His concept is interesting…Superhero tied to a human host but can only come out when the guy’s asleep. Not brilliant or anything but you compare it to getting bit by a radioactive spider or having your parents get killed before your eyes, and it really isn’t that bad. I’ll also agree with Dave on his overall look. It’s pretty darn cool if you ask me. http://tinyurl.com/yc6wdo
Now, as for his series being dull…Okay. I’ll concede that it wasn’t great. It was the 90’s and everything. On another note sort of on the same lines, I’m going to throw a thought to the masses and maybe I’ll be devoured or you know..whatever for its stupidity. I was talking with David Martindale the other day and I brought up that even though most of the 90’s were ill-concieved (Sleepwalker, Ravage, Kane, Maverick), new characters were being created. Yes, they weren’t the best but they were there, and they were new. What have we gotten lately in the new character category? Yes, the Runaways are cool and all (actually, they’re one of my favorites at the moment) but has there really been anyone else?
I actually like that these 90’s characters are getting some screen time these days. Kirkman had a bunch of them in Marvel Team Up…Dwayne McDuffie is using The Hood…Vaughan’s using Darkhawk. Maybe if these guys were used more, and used well, we wouldn’t see them as ill-concieved or morts of the Marvel Universe.
All in all, I really just wanted to say I was a fan of Sleepwalker and then all that came out. Who knew? : )
08 Dec 2006 at 1:19 am
QuoteSleepwalker fans are coming out of the closet right and left!
And I agree with Nick’s sentiment that it’d be fun to rescue some of the 90s characters rather than dispensing with them completely. They’re not icons by any means, but a good number of them had at least a few years in the spotlight, so fandom’s got some latent familiarity that could be tapped. I mean, to me Bishop is one of those characters that calls to mind all the 90s Marvel comics I was completely ignoring at the time, but when Morrison used him for a murder mystery in New X-Men, I found myself liking him.
With Sleepwalker, I like the unusual passivity of his powers only working while the dude is asleep. It calls to mind a favorite 80s movie, the action/horror/suspense outing Dreamscape. My fear is that if the character were revived now, Marvel would go the Hellstorm route of Vertigo-ing him up and losing his more colorful trappings, but if a happy medium could be found between a grim ‘n’ gritty take and the superheroic aspects, I think you might have the makings of a cool revival. At the least, maybe the character could be made viable as a guest-star; that’s often the role that works best for mystic heroes like Doc Strange, Phantom Stranger, and the Spectre. Say you’ve got a mutant in the Mastermind mold dream-stalking a member of the X-Men - I think it’d be a fun use of the Marvel Universe if a character like Sleepwalker were brought in to advise and take the fight to the bad guys on the dreamscape.
08 Dec 2006 at 2:02 am
QuoteI Kinda get the 90s love. I loved what Terror inc might have become if they had not bent over backward to make a grave robbing hit-man the good guy A lot of the big two in the 90s seemed to be about giving really vile charcters their own comic and then finding reason they were not that bad Marvel had LOTS DC had at least Deathstroke demon and LOBO
With Terror I THOUGHT “Screw it there’s no way this guy’s in the same unverese with luke cage it needs to be a horror book
08 Dec 2006 at 4:49 pm
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09 Dec 2006 at 2:37 am
QuoteRob: That’s what Dan Chichester wanted, for it to be an Epic ongoing outside of the MU, but that didn’t happen. He said in an interview Marvel kept pushing him to make it more superheroic, and he decided to end it at #13 instead of watering it down.
Joe Q did recently announce the MAX office has been getting Terror proposals, so you never know.
09 Dec 2006 at 2:56 pm
Quoteproposals? with an “S”? I heard “proposal” singular if you have any more info please e-mail me!
10 Dec 2006 at 5:29 pm
QuoteEr, no, I checked again and Joe only said “Proposal”.
10 Dec 2006 at 10:51 pm
QuoteSorkin on Deadpool. Who better represents “walk fast-talk fast” (stolen from Runaways), than the Merc with a Mouth? Although watching Studio 60, I’d find it amusing for 3 issues to see him take on Blue Devil & Zauriel teaming up.
Or do I want to see him on Wolfpack, just to see the property revived in any shape?
10 Dec 2006 at 10:58 pm
Quotedamit to heck I’D LOVE TO Write Terror! In fact evreybody write to Marvel and say you want ROBert L McCarthy on TERROR INC!
11 Dec 2006 at 12:48 am
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