Digital Alterity

The X-Men have always been a constantly shifting ensemble cast. Members come and go according to the whims of plot lines, editorial mandates, and authorial whimsy. Nonetheless, every fan of the X-Men I’ve ever met has a mental image of the X-Men roster that may even just be a mashup of the best parts of various teams/eras.

If I were to make an X-Men team, it would consist of these members.

• Rogue. In every medium that you can follow the exploits of the Uncanny X-Men, Rogue is my favorite character. She’s fiery. She’s Southern. She’s a girl who isn’t afraid to kick the boys’ asses. By their very nature, her powers force her to be a thief, using situational awareness more so than brute force. This makes her a catalyst for interesting story arcs.
• Emma Frost. Emma Frost is a bitch…and she likes it that way. The secondary mutation that Morrison added to her character is pure brilliance; her diamond skin makes Emmahard literally as well as figuratively. Emma, in many ways, tests the limits of Xavier’s big tent approach to mutantkind. Emma has no problem with the notion that mutants are superior to humanity, and yet she still often comes down on the side of peace. If Rogue didn’t exist, Emma Frost would be my favorite X-Men character.
• Wolverine. I would very much like to de-power Logan a bit and make him a little less like an unkillable god. Claremont did some amazing work with Wolverine, and that’s very much the characterization I would hope for on this team. Add in a little dash of the cold, take-no-prisoners leader from the latest volume of X-Force, and you’d have nearly my perfect version of Wolverine.
• Gambit. I know that most comic fans can’t stand the Cajun, but I think a team with Rogue and no Gambit can’t possibly be living up to its full potential. Gambit is a devil with a little bit of angel mixed in for flavor, a rogue who survives by his own wits more so than his mutant powers.
• Nightcrawler. Every team needs a conscience, and Kurt was always the gentle voice of compassion on the X-Men. He also has some of the best conversations with Wolverine ever written.
• Canonball. At least one of the New Mutants needs to be promoted to the X-Men, and Canonball seems like one of the most interesting options. I loved Sam on Mike Carey’s X-Men, but I always felt like that his version was more the X-Force version of Canonball than the lovable Kentucky boy from New Mutants.
• Beast. I would love to see a version of Beast that melds the super braniac from the 90s animated series with the party boy who was on the Avengers. My version of beast would be both a prankster and a well-read biological scientist.

Over and over again, I keep trying to read Justice League / JLA / Justice Whatever-They’re-Calling-It-This Year, and over and over, the book fails to keep my interest. I think that the repeated nature of my attempt to buy into the book speak to a certain desire to read Justice League stories, so I’m going to throw out the idea that I’m just not into the characters. No, I think the problem is strictly in the execution. Here’s what I want out of a Justice League book. If DC could consistently deliver this, I would buy every freaking issue.

• Emphasize the relationships between League members. You know what Claremont’s X-Men or Wolfman’s Teen Titans did really well? Exactly what this bullet point is about. I could read a comic that had zero punches thrown, zero bad guys apprehended, and zero big villain reveals as long as the team dynamic is being explored. I want to see team members with crushes on each other. I want to see tension between Batman and everyone else. I want to see Superman struggling to live up to his reptuation with newer members. I want to see Flash trying to balance the League, his solo career, and his family. Basically, give me a shoujo Justice League, dammit.
• Take some time building up plots. Yes, I understand that Justice League Unlimited was ridiculously successful. Comics, however, are not television. You don’t have to be done in one issue, six issues, or even twelve issues. Leave dangling plot threads — preferably plot threads that deal with the main characters’ lives.
• Admit that the Trinity will always and forever be in charge…and then move on. Black Canary is an interesting character, but she’s not the person in charge of the League. The whole bit where Wonder Woman, Superman, and Batman were secretly running things behind the scenes was one of the creepiest things that Meltzer introduced. Make it those three officially in charge as co-chairs of the League or something. Once you’ve done that, then you can stop trying to explain why they’re not in charge and get back to telling good stories.
• Stop trying to team up the villains. It never really works. The tropes of the genre make it really hard for us to believe an evil team-up. Evil characters in superhero comics tend to be megalomaniacs. The Injustice Society bits stretch our suspension of disbelief just a little bit too much. Just make a single villain really, really scary, please.
• Don’t worry about the larger DC continuity. Seriously. I don’t want to figure out why Superman is suddenly blue and crackling with electricity. I don’t want to know why Batman can’t make it to this adventure. I’m a big fan of continuity in most cases, but this title just begs to be quasi-standalone.

If DC could deliver this consistently on a monthly basis, I would gladly pack four bucks an issue. Seriously.

Technorati Tags: Justice League of America, Justice League, JLA, comics, DC

Iron Man is the best comic book movie to come out since Spider-Man. I’ll admit my bias right up front; Iron Man was one-third of my holy trinity of favorite comic characters as a kid, so I’m naturally predisposed toward absolute cinematic adoration. Nonetheless, both of the folks I watched the movie with (including my wife Allyson, who thinks that “Tony Stark is a penis.”) were raving about the film just as much as I was when we left the theatre.

Tony Stark is not an insecure teenager. He’s not a haunted knight out to avenge the phantoms of his loved ones. He’s not an idealist out to recreate a new better world. Tony is a genius who gets caught up in the military industrial complex and then tries to climb back out of the rabbit hole. Unlike Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark doesn’t have to play at being a billionaire playboy because he actually is an over-the-top billionaire playboy. This film is the perfect gateway into an Ultimates-style take on the Avengers — a possibility strongly hinted at in the post-credit epilogue with Nick Fury.

Robert Downey, Jr. is the perfect Tony Stark. I have been saying this ever since the initial casting announcement, and the film fully bears out my faith. If you were one of the doubters, prepare to be proven wrong.

I don’t really like special effects as done in most Hollywood films. Too often, they seem like strange additions to the narrative of the film just to amaze the people who are fans of said special effects. The effects in this movie, however, seemed like natural and integral pieces of the plot. Every one of Stark’s gadgets and aerial feats as Iron Man served to help paint a picture of the character without getting bogged down with a drawn out origin the way that nearly every superhero movie of this decade seems intent on.

Iron Man is an excellent movie. It’s sci-fi enough that even non-superhero fans will find something to love. And if you don’t love it, then you will break my heart. Because this movie made me squeal with unmitigated delight like a nine-year-old girl.

Last night, right before I woke up, I had a dream in which I met Joe Quesada, Marvel’s Editor-in-Chief, in a hotel lobby. I explained to him that I saw him at Mega-Con in Orlando, and he kept trying to place who I was. I told him that I was going to work for him someday. I explained to him that I was a published author but that I just recently got back into comics. I told him that I was working on some things now but that it was only a matter of time before I was working at Marvel.

And then I was inexplicably moving into a dorm room at college.

I may not look exactly like Quentin Quire, but I think I at least captured the “disaffected mutant youth” vibe.

I made that “Magneto Was Right” the night before we left for MegaCon. I made my own stencil with a piece of poster board and an exacto knife, and then I carefully filled it in directly on the t-shirt with a Sharpie. For the lettering, I used my lightbox. It only took a couple of hours, and I was really happy with the end result.

Last weekend, Allyson and I went to MegaCon for the first time in several years. We hadn’t gone in a while because we were really underhwhelmed the last time we went, but these days I’m really into comics again, making a trip seem way more exciting than it had seemed in years. When you add in the fact that the half of the Comic Geek Speak crew was going as well, it made a trip pretty close to mandatory.

I went into the con really excited to do some “dumpster diving” in 50-cent back issue bins. You see, Gainesville has a really terrible selection of back issues. The only comic shop that specializes in older back issues is only open twice a week and isn’t really guaranteed to be open even during its posted hours.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Uncanny X-Cast episodes here lately, and Brian had me interested to give the 1980s New Mutants series a try. I decided to put together a run of as many of the first 55 issues as I could while I was at the con. This was my project and my quest. In the end, I managed to put together a run of issues #1 through #55 for $36 — only about 65 cents per issue.

• CGS convention tour t-shirt
• Ultimate Fantastic Four TPB Vols. 2 and 3
• Wolverine: Enemy of the State TPB
• Wolverine: Agent of SHIELD TPB
• Essential X-Men Vol. 4
• Emma Frost: Higher Learning Digest
• Marvel Knights 4 TPB Vol. 1
• Son of M TPB
• Young Justice TPB Vol. 1 (Can’t describe how surprised/thrilled I was to find this one)
• X-Men: Children of the Atom TPB
• A couple of nifty (non-superhero) prints
• Haunted #1, an indy comic about kids trapped in a haunted house
• Wildstorm Revelations (2008 Con Exclusive)
• Killing Pickman #1, an indy comic about a cop who decides to hunt down a satanic serial killer

In addition, Allyson picked up…

• Wolverine: Origin HC
• Daredevil Movie Comic TPB
• Revolutionary Girl Utena: Perfect Collection Vol. 2 DVD set
• Some assorted cute anime buttons, pins, and postcards

I noticed that my Renee Montoya question made it into the Newsarama coverage of the DCU panel. I thought that was pretty nifty.

Overall, we had a great time. It was great to meet some folks that I only knew as names on Internet message boards, and it was awesome to buy so many comics for so little money. And, hey, staying in a really nice hotel is almost a vacation in and of itself.

Ultimates 3 #1 disappointed me more than any comic ever has. This is intended a statement of fact more so than an attempt at hyperbole. I didn’t like the characterizations, and the writing style wasn’t working for me. The art was serviceable but not to my tastes. I knew that I shouldn’t expect Millar and Hitch, but I was left with a terrible feeling of disappointment when I finished reading it.

Ultimates 3.2 showed up in my DCBS shipment on Monday, and I finally got around to reading it yesterday. I feel like this comic is personally kicking me in the balls over and over again. All of the things I loved about the old series is just gone. Thor speaking like a reasonable human being? Nope. Political tension and drama? Nope. Lots of downtime to let the story build? Nope.

Things that took the shizzle out of my nizzle:

1. Captain America getting onto Sabretooth about saying “Suck it!”
2. “I thinketh it cuteth.” Tee hee, indeed.
3. Why was Spider-Man even in this issue?

I’ve already ordered up through #4, so I’ll almost certainly go ahead and order #5 for $1.79. I’ll stop publicly complaining about the book from this point, but I have to say that I’m going to either skip or trade wait Jeph Loeb and future Ultimates titles unless something drastically changes my mind. This comic is just plain not written for a reader like me.

Technorati Tags: Ultimates 3, Jeph Loeb, Comics, Marvel

Counting Down To Frustration

I’m getting really sick of Countdown crossovers. Both stories in JLA #16 were some kind of DC Event tie-in. I stopped reading Countdown after a couple of months because it just wasn’t working for me. Do I need to drop Justice League for the same reason?

50% Off? Here’s My Spending Money

Florida Book Store II had a 50% off sale on a whole bookshelf full of trades. After spending at least fifteen minutes looking through the whole rack, I ended up picking up X-Factor Visionaries: Peter David, Vol. 1 ($8) and the first Christopher Priest Captain America and the Falcon volume ($5). In addition, Allyson filled in our collection a bit with two volumes of Bendis’ run on Daredevil (which we had previously only read (and loved) at the library.

The Great Spider Controversy

No, I’m not thrilled about the events of Amazing Spider-Man #545, but I have no intentions of dropping Spider-Man. In addition to my love for the character, I’m still really excited about the creative teams for Brand New Day. The preview pages look absolutely beautiful, and frankly, after the funeral dirge that has been everything since Back in Black, I’ll overlook nearly any grievance if my Spidey becomes fun again.

I’m also being driven absolutely insane by the emotional response to the issue on nearly every comics forum on the Internet. If you’re upset, stop buying the book. There’s no need to tear up your copy or set the issues on fire. Just don’t buy the books. Take the nine bucks you were going to spend on thrice-monthly ASM and use it for something else that you might enjoy. I’m keenly aware that comics are a leisure pursuit for me. At the point I stop enjoying a book (cf. Moon Knight and Countdown), I drop it and just ask folks over at the CGS Forums to recommend me a book to try in its stead. I understand caring about your hobby and being passionate about your interests, but at a certain point, you have to worry about your blood pressure and ulcers.

• The X-Men. A few months ago, I started picking up all of Marvel’s X-Books as an experiment. I’ve never been much of an X-Men fan, and other than Joss Whedon’s current Astonishing run and Morrison’s New X-Men run, I had never really gotten into the mutant side of comics. After becoming acclimated to the fictional history via Wikipedia and The Uncanny X-Cast, I’ve really started enjoying myself. This month, I’ve switched to mail-order comics through DCBS, so I’ve been dying to read the next few chapters of Messiah CompleX, the first X-Men line-wide crossover in years.
• Golf. Every few years, I get an urge to take up golf. In middle school, my uncle gave me an old set of clubs that were rotting away in his garage, and I dutifully thwacked little white balls around random grassy fields near my house. In high school, I nearly joined the golf team but opted for a bench-warming basketball career instead. Since getting my Xbox 360 back from Microsoft, I’ve been obsessed with Tiger Woods 2007 again. Today, I bought a copy of Golf for Dummies and even got a quote for lessons with the local PGA professional. I think this is some sort of bizarre call of the wild that white men all experience at some point in their lives.
• Of Montreal. Borders had a crazy sale last week where they sold all of their CDs at 40% off. Allyson and I picked up The Sunlandic Twins and Then Who Will Protect Big Oil, and they’ve basically become the soundtrack of our lives since. I can’t get enough.
• My brand new PSP. I’ve been ripping shows from my DVDs and watching them at lunch. I’ve been playing X-Men Legends II at every opportunity. I even gave the new Warhammer demo a try (and loved the holy shit out of it). I’ve got a metal hard-shell case for it, so that I can always just have it hanging out in my purse.
• Thor, Norse god of thunder. If you’re not reading Marvel’s latest Thor series, you’re missing out on some great comics. They’re just as good as the stories JMS was doing early on in his Amazing Spider-Man run. In just four issues, JMS has been exploring the role of godhood in contemporary humanity’s crises and pondering the role of belief in existence itself.

There’s no way around it. Read More Comics in Brandon, Florida, is awesome beyond words. This store has given me a reason to be happy that my in-laws live in Brandon because, if they didn’t, I would never have found this store. I first set foot in Read More Comics because I was being forced to go to Brandon on Free Comic Book Day. Rather than miss out on some free comics, I hopped online and found the best rated store in the area. The store was well-run with knowledgeable staff. Every employee was friendly to every customer. They had computer printouts to set up pull lists, and they gave a 25% discount on trades/hard covers every single day they were open.

But wait…there’s more. You see, every time I walk into the store, I find something that has been virtually impossible for me to find in a brick-and-mortar store(1) in my area. Last time, it was some back issues of Grant Morrison’s current Batman run. This time, it was the only New Avengers issue that I don’t have in some fashion, New Avengers Annual #1. I have come to rely on trips to Brandon to fill in hard-to-find gaps.

If you live in the Tampa area and you’re not getting your comics at Read More Comics, drop in and set up a pull list. You’ll be glad that you did.

Technorati Tags: Comics, Stores, LCS, Read More Comics, Brandon, Florida

Footnotes

1. I think we all understand that virtually anything can be found on the Internet if you’re willing to pay a premium and have it shipped to you.