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mollyrealized · 2 months

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How Michael Met Neil

original direct link [MP3]

(Neil, if you see this, please feel free to grab the transcript and store on your site; I had no easy way of contacting you.)

DAVID TENNANT: Tell me about @neil-gaiman then, because he's in that category [previously: “such a profound effect on my life”] as well.

MICHAEL SHEEN: So this is what has brought us together.

DAVID: Yes.

MICHAEL: To the new love story for the 21st century.

DAVID: Exactly.

MICHAEL: So when I went to drama school, there was a guy called Gary Turner in my year. And within the first few weeks, we were doing something, having a drink or whatever. And he said to me, “Do you read comic books?”

And I said, “No.” I mean, this is … what … '88? '88, '89. So it was … now I know that it was a period of time that was a big change, transformation going through comic books. Rather than it being thought of as just superheroes and Batman and Superman, there was this whole new era of a generation of writers like Grant Morrison.

DAVID: The kids who'd grown up reading comic books were now making comic books

MICHAEL: Yeah, yeah, and starting to address different kinds of subjects through the comic book medium. So it wasn't about just superheroes, it was all kinds of stuff going on – really fascinating stuff. And I was totally unaware of this.

And so this guy Gary said to me, "Do you read them?" And I said, "No." And he went, "Right, okay, here's The Watchman [sic] by Alan Moore. Here's Swamp Thing. Here's Hellblazer. And here's Sandman.”

And Sandman was Neil Gaiman's big series that put his name on the map. And I read all those, and, just – I was blown away by all of them, but particularly the Sandman stories, because he was drawing on mythology, which was something I was really interested in, and fairy tales, folklore, and philosophy, and Shakespeare, and all kinds of stuff were being mixed up in this story. And I absolutely loved it.

So I became a big fan of Neil's, and started reading everything by him. And then fairly shortly after that, within six months to a year, Good Omens the book came out, which Neil wrote with Terry Pratchett. And so I got the book – because I was obviously a big fan of Neil's by this point – read it, loved it, then started reading Terry Pratchett’s stuff as well, because I didn't know his stuff before then – and then spent years and years and years just being a huge fan of both of them.

And then eventually when – I'd done films like the Underworld films and doing Twilight films. And I think it was one of the Twilight films, there was a lot of very snooty interviews that happened where people who considered themselves well above talking about things like Twilight were having to interview me … and, weirdly, coming at it from the attitude of 'clearly this is below you as well' … weirdly thinking I'm gonna go, 'Yeah, fucking Twilight.”

And I just used to go, "You know what? Some of the greatest writing of the last 50-100 years has happened in science fiction or fantasy." Philip K Dick is one of my favorite writers of all time. In fact, the production of Hamlet I did was mainly influenced by Philip K Dick. Ursula K. Le Guin and Asimov, and all these amazing people. And I talked about Neil as well. And so I went off on a bit of a rant in this interview.

Anyway, the interview came out about six months later, maybe. Knock on the door, open the door, delivery of a big box. That’s interesting. Open the box, there's a card at the top of the box. I open the card.

It says, From one fan to another, Neil Gaiman. And inside the box are first editions of Neil's stuff, and all kinds of interesting things by Neil. And he just sent this stuff.

DAVID: You'd never met him?

MICHAEL: Never met him. He'd read the interview, or someone had let him know about this interview where I'd sung his praises and stood up for him and the people who work within that sort of genre as being like …

And he just got in touch. We met up for the first time when he came to – I was in Los Angeles at the time, and he came to LA. And he said, "I'll take you for a meal."

I said, “All right.”

He said, "Do you want to go somewhere posh, or somewhere interesting?”

I said, "Let's go somewhere interesting."

He said, "Right, I'm going to take you to this restaurant called The Hump." And it's at Santa Monica Airport. And it's a sushi restaurant.

I was like, “Right, okay.” So I had a Mini at the time. And we get in my Mini and we drive off to Santa Monica Airport. And this restaurant was right on the tarmac, like, you could sit in the restaurant (there's nobody else there when we got there, we got there quite early) and you're watching the planes landing on Santa Monica Airport. It's extraordinary.

And the chef comes out and Neil says, "Just bring us whatever you want. Chef's choice."

So, I'd never really eaten sushi before. So we sit there; we had this incredible meal where they keep bringing these dishes out and they say, “This is [blah, blah, blah]. Just use a little bit of soy sauce or whatever.” You know, “This is eel. This is [blah].”

And then there was this one dish where they brought out and they didn't say what it was. It was like “mystery dish”, we had it ... delicious. Anyway, a few more people started coming into the restaurant as time went on.

And we're sort of getting near the end, and I said, "Neil, I can't eat anymore. I'm gonna have to stop now. This is great, but I can't eat–"

"Right, okay. We'll ask for the bill in a minute."

And then the door opens and some very official people come in. And it was the Feds. And the Feds came in, and we knew they were because they had jackets on that said they were part of the Federal Bureau of Whatever. And about six of them come in. Two of them go … one goes behind the counter, two go into the kitchen, one goes to the back. They've all got like guns on and stuff.

And me and Neil are like, "What on Earth is going on?"

And then eventually one guy goes, "Ladies and gentlemen, if you haven't ordered already, please leave. If you're still eating your meal, please finish up, pay your bill, leave."*

[* - delivered in a perfect American ‘serious law agent’ accent/impression]

And we were like, "Oh my God, are we poisoned? Is there some terrible thing that's happened?"

We'd finished, so we pay our bill. And then all the kitchen staff are brought out. And the head chef is there. The guy who's been bringing us this food. And he's in tears. And he says to Neil, "I'm so sorry." He apologizes to Neil. And we leave. We have no idea what happened.

DAVID: But you're assuming it's the mystery dish.

MICHAEL: Well, we're assuming that we can't be going to – we can't be – it can't be poisonous. You know what I mean? It can't be that there's terrible, terrible things.

So the next day was the Oscars, which is why Neil was in town. Because Coraline had been nominated for an Oscar. Best documentary that year was won by The Cove, which was by a team of people who had come across dolphins being killed, I think.

Turns out, what was happening at this restaurant was that they were having illegal endangered species flown in to the airport, and then being brought around the back of the restaurant into the kitchen.

We had eaten whale – endangered species whale. That was the mystery dish that they didn't say what it was.

And the team behind The Cove were behind this sting, and they took them down that night whilst we were there.

DAVID: That’s extraordinary.

MICHAEL: And we didn't find this out for months. So for months, me and Neil were like, "Have you worked anything out yet? Have you heard anything?"

"No, I haven't heard anything."

And then we heard that it was something to do with The Cove, and then we eventually found out that that restaurant, they were all arrested. The restaurant was shut down. And it was because of that. And we'd eaten whale that night.

DAVID: And that was your first meeting with Neil Gaiman.

MICHAEL: That was my first meeting. And also in the drive home that night from that restaurant, he said, and we were in my Mini, he said, "Have you found the secret compartment?"

I said, "What are you talking about?" It's such a Neil Gaiman thing to say.

DAVID: Isn't it?

MICHAEL: The secret compartment? Yeah. Each Mini has got a secret compartment. I said, "I had no idea." It's secret. And he pressed a little button and a thing opened up. And it was a secret compartment in my own car that Neil Gaiman showed me.

DAVID: Was there anything inside it?

MICHAEL: Yeah, there was a little man. And he jumped out and went, "Hello!" No, there was nothing in there. There was afterwards because I started putting...

DAVID: Sure. That's a very Neil Gaiman story. All of that is such a Neil Gaiman story.

MICHAEL: That's how it began. Yeah.

DAVID: And then he came to offer you the part in Good Omens.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Well, we became friends and we would whenever he was in town, we would meet up and yeah, and then eventually he started, he said, "You know, I'm working on an adaptation of Good Omens." And I can remember at one point Terry Gilliam was going to maybe make a film of it. And I remember being there with Neil and Terry when they were talking about it. And...

DAVID: Were you involved at that point?

MICHAEL: No, no, I wasn't involved. I just happened to have met up with Neil that day.

DAVID: Right.

MICHAEL: And then Terry Gilliam came along and they were chatting, that was the day they were talking about that or whatever.

And then eventually he sent me one of the scripts for an early draft of like the first episode of Good Omens. And he said – and we started talking about me being involved in it, doing it – he said, “Would you be interested?” I was like, "Yeah, of course." I went, "Oh my God." And he said, "Well, I'll send you the scripts when they come," and I would read them, and we'd talk about them a little bit. And so I was involved.

But it was always at that point with the idea, because he'd always said about playing Crowley in it. And so, as time went on, as I was reading the scripts, I was thinking, "I don't think I can play Crowley. I don't think I'm going to be able to do it." And I started to get a bit nervous because I thought, “I don't want to tell Neil that I don't think I can do this.” But I just felt like I don't think I can play Crowley.

DAVID: Of course you can [play Crowley?].

MICHAEL: Well, I just on a sort of, on a gut level, sometimes you have it on a gut level.

DAVID: Sure, sure.

MICHAEL: I can do this.

DAVID: Yeah.

MICHAEL: Or I can't do this. And I just thought, “You know what, this is not the part for me. The other part is better for me, I think. I think I can do that, I don't think I could do that.”

But I was scared to tell Neil because I thought, "Well, he wants me to play Crowley" – and then it turned out he had been feeling the same way as well. And he hadn't wanted to mention it to me, but he was like, "I think Michael should really play Aziraphale."

And neither of us would bring it up. And then eventually we did. And it was one of those things where you go, "Oh, thank God you said that. I feel exactly the same way." And then I think within a fairly short space of time, he said, “I think we've got … David Tennant … for Crowley.” And we both got very excited about that.

And then all these extraordinary people started to join in. And then, and then off we went.

DAVID: That's the other thing about Neil, he collects people, doesn't he? So he'll just go, “Oh, yeah, I've phoned up Frances McDormand, she's up for it.” Yeah. You're, what?

MICHAEL: “I emailed Jon Hamm.”

DAVID: Yeah.

MICHAEL: And yeah, and you realize how beloved he is and how beloved his work is. And I think we would both recognise that Good Omens is one of the most beloved of all of Neil's stuff.

DAVID: Yes.

MICHAEL: And had never been turned into anything.

DAVID: Yeah.

MICHAEL: And so the kind of responsibility of that, I mean, for me, for someone who has been a fan of him and a fan of the book for so long, I can empathize with all the fans out there who are like, “Oh, they better not fuck this up.”

DAVID: Yes.

MICHAEL: “And this had better be good.” And I have that part of me. But then, of course, the other part of me is like, “But I'm the one who might be fucking it up.”

DAVID: Yeah.

MICHAEL: So I feel that responsibility as well.

DAVID: But we have Neil on site.

MICHAEL: Yes. Well, Neil being the showrunner …

DAVID: Yeah. I think it takes the curse off.

MICHAEL: … I think it made a massive difference, didn't it? Yeah. You feel like you're in safe hands.

DAVID: Well, we think. Not that the world has seen it yet.

MICHAEL (grimly): No, I know.

DAVID: But it was a -- it's been a -- it's been a joy to work with you on it. I can't wait for the world to see it.

MICHAEL: Oh my God. Oh, well, I mean, it's the only, I've done a few things where there are two people, it's a bit of a double act, like Frost-Nixon and The Queen, I suppose, in some ways. But, and I've done it, Amadeus or whatever.

This is the only thing I've done where I really don't think of it as “my character” or “my performance as that character”. I think of it totally as us.

DAVID: Yeah.

MICHAEL: The two of us.

DAVID: Yes.

MICHAEL: Like they, what I do is defined by what you do.

DAVID: Yeah.

MICHAEL: And that was such a joy to have that experience. And it made it so much easier in a way as well, I found, because you don't feel like you're on your own in it. Like it's totally us together doing this and the two characters totally complement each other. And the experience of doing it was just a real joy.

DAVID: Yeah. Well, I hope the world is as excited to see it as we are to talk about it, frankly.

MICHAEL: You know, there's, having talked about T.S. Eliot earlier, there's another bit from The Wasteland where there's a line which goes, These fragments I have shored against my ruin.

And this is how I think about life now. There is so much in life, no matter what your circumstances, no matter what, where you've got, what you've done, how much money you got, all that. Life's hard. I mean, you can, it can take you down at any point.

You have to find this stuff. You have to like find things that will, these fragments that you hold to yourself, they become like a liferaft, and especially as time goes on, I think, as I've got older, I've realized it is a thin line between surviving this life and going under.

And the things that keep you afloat are these fragments, these things that are meaningful to you and what's meaningful to you will be not-meaningful to someone else, you know. But whatever it is that matters to you, it doesn't matter what it was you were into when you were a teenager, a kid, it doesn't matter what it is. Go and find them, and find some way to hold them close to you.

Make it, go and get it. Because those are the things that keep you afloat. They really are. Like doing that with him or whatever it is, these are the fragments that have shored against my ruin. Absolutely.

DAVID: That's lovely. Michael, thank you so much.

MICHAEL: Thank you.

DAVID: For talking today and for being here.

MICHAEL: Oh, it's a pleasure. Thank you.

#neil gaiman #michael sheen #david tennant does a podcast with...#good omens #aziraphale #crowley #sushi #whale #the cove #oscars 2010 #coraline #mini secret compartments #howneilmetmichael #howmichaelmetneil

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kakodaimones · 2 months

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Posted about the idea that all overlords consciously or unconsciously practice some kind of magic and thinking about what that means for Vox and while there are a bunch of influences I want to incorporate and it mainly manifests through his mass hypnotism, what immediately comes to mind is Grant Morrison's brand of chaos magick where he argues that corporate logos are like supercharged magic sigils. Every Voxtek logo branded on a product, every advertisement that he gets in front of someone's face is a means of charging himself up. The more he can build and sustain an audience, keep people's attention, the more he's able to do. Powered by clickbait.

#{vox; ic}「we can’t rewind」#{headcanons}「body count in the hundreds」

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arsenicpanda · 3 years

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Don't think it's Jugheads lines being duds or Betty being blinded by love. I just think it's how our culture responds to white male writers. White dudes can write anything and it'll get lauded like the best thing since sliced bread. Not hating on Jughead, I love my boy, but. Our culture just be like that.

So, you have a very good point there about the elevation of mediocre, cishet, white men. But also, we actually haven’t seen many reliable reactions to Jughead’s writing. Let’s go through them, in a completely random order:

1.) FP: Likes it, but also not someone whose opinion I would trust on good literature, and also not objective at all.

2.) Toni: She called Jughead’s story “very Lovecraftian,” but that doesn’t mean it’s good, just that he met the basics of that writing style. I mean, it could have been good, but it wasn’t necessarily good.

3.) The writing competition he entered: He actually didn’t win this, so we have no evaluation other than that it wasn’t the best entry.

4.) Fred: Called Jughead the best writer he knew, if memory serves, but also not someone I would go to for evaluations of literature.

5.) Mr. Chipping recruiting him: We all know now that there were ulterior motives here, so we have no evaluation of his writing.

6.) The in-class competition: Another thing he lost, actually.

7.) Bret: Considering how pissed he was and also, like, everything about him, I wouldn’t trust his opinion either when it comes to quality, but like...he did say “Your prose reads more like a pre-teen journaling about his abandonment issues than as a coherent narrative,” which isn’t wrong, but I’m still wary of it because, well, Bret.

8.) Jughead winning the contract: Another part of the killing Jughead plot, cannot be relied upon.

9.) DuPont using Jughead’s story as a base for a Baxter Brothers book: We don’t know the extent of the editing done here, so is it just a matter of a good premise but bad writing? Or maybe the writing was good and the edits were minor? Jughead said, “You really think I wouldn't recognize my own story after someone did a polish on it?“, thus implying minor edits, but DuPont said, “ We kept the elements we liked, and then, let another ghost writer try their hand at it,” so maybe it was a more thorough rewrite? Unclear.

10.) Acceptance into Yale: Due to the connections involved here, it’s unclear how much Jughead’s writing really mattered. He certainly thinks it did, but it might have only needed to be passable, considering the level of connections.

11.) Interest from the University of Iowa: Ah, finally something semi-reliable, but, as you said, the advancement of mediocre white men comes into play here.

12.) Archie?: I think Archie calls Jughead a good writer in 4x19, but like...we’ve never seen Archie reading Jughead’s writing, and also, again, he’s not someone I’d trust for opinions on good writing.

13.) Betty: I saved the best for last. Now, I would like to think that Betty wouldn’t fall into the mediocre white man trap, or at least not in this case because she sees Jughead as Jughead rather than a random entry with statistics attached. Now, on the one hand, we constantly hear her praising his writing, but on the other hand, Jughead says, after FP asks if he can make one suggestion about Jughead’s story, “That's what Betty says, and then it's about a dozen suggestions.“ So, does that mean she’s a thorough, harsh editor? Maybe, but maybe not. Betty has enough taste that Toni Morrison is her favorite author, but she’s also a teenager, and I know my standards for writing have increased since I was her age. And she’s very, very in love with Jughead, so there’s that bias as well. Of course, there’s a chicken-and-the-egg thing here, where did Betty’s bad taste in writing make her think he’s a good writer and help her fall in love with him or does Betty’s love for Jughead blind her to his bad writing? Unclear. Basically, we can’t trust her either.

In sum, we have all of one reliable suggestion that Jughead is a good writer in the entire show. Now, I would say that the show wants us to think Jughead is a good writer, despite not putting in the effort to have his writing be good prose, but I’d also say that in the show’s universe, there isn’t much proof either way.

Also? You know what, I’m going to give Jughead credit and say that I actually like what we saw of his story in 4x19. I mean, we didn’t see the prose, but I liked the dialogue, and, ngl, the line “We’re all monsters, we’ve always been monsters” isn’t a bad one, especially for an eighteen-year-old. Granted, he then threw all that away out of guilt, but still, he’s not complete garbage. And the show has given us less and less voice over from him as the seasons have gone on, so it’s easier to pretend that we mainly hear his dud lines, and, c’mon, most things have at least one dud line.

idk, idk, the jury’s out on Jughead’s writing. I do wonder if we’ll hear more of it after the time jump and if it will be any different or better. God, I would love if they found someone who’s actually good at prose to write his bits and it’d be like, “oh, damn, he’s actually good now, good for him”, and I would also be super depressed if his writing was the same cringe it is now, at which point we would know him getting published was a matter of the elevation of mediocre, cishet, white men and probably connections from grad school. I guess we’ll see.

#asks #anonymous #Riverdale #my kingdom for narration that counts as good prose #my thoughts on Riverdale let me show you them

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rumata-est · 5 years

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Michael Sheen talks about his first meeting with Neil Gaiman

I’ve made a script from David Tennant’s podcast

David: Tell me about Neil Gaiman then.

Michael: This is what brought us together. The new love story for the 21 c. When I went to drama school there was a guy called Harry Turner in my year. Within a first few weeks we’re doing something, I mean a drink or whatever, and he said to me “do you read comic books?” And I said “no”. I mean this was 1988-89.. so it was.. now I know that it was a period of time when big change, transformation going on through comic books. Rather then it being sort of just super heroes, Batman and Superman. There was this whole new era of generation of writers like Grant Morrison. And starting to address different kind of subjects through the comic book medium so it wasn’t superheroes, it was all kind of stuff going on. Really fascinating stuff, and I was totally unaware of this.

And so this guy Harry said to me “do you read them”? And I said “no”. And he went like: ok, here’s the Watchmen by Alan Moore, here’s Swamp Thing, here’s Hell Blazer, and here’s Sandman. And Sandman was Neil Gaiman’s kind of big series, sort of point his name on the map.

And I read all those, and I was just blown away by all of them. But particularly the Sandman stories cause he was sort drawing on mythology, fairy tales, folklore, and philosophy, and Shakespeare and all kinds of stuff were being kind of mixed up in the story. And I absolutely loved that. So I became a big fan of Neil, started reading everything by him, and then fairly shortly after that within six month or a year Good Omens the book came out which Neil wrote with Terry Pratchett. And so I got the book, cause I was obviously a big fan of Neil by this point, so I read it, loved it, then started reading Terry Pratchett’s stuff as well cause I didn’t know his stuff before then. And then spent years and years and years just, you know, being a huge fan of both of them. And then eventually, you know, I’ve done films like Underworld films, and doing Twilight films... and I think it was one of the Twilight films. There was a lot of veeery snooty interviews that happened, where people who considered themselves well above talking about things like Twilight: we’re having to interview, you know, me, and weirdly coming out it from the attitude of “clearly this is below you as well”. Weirdly thinking I’m gonna go: yeah, fine, Twilight... And I just used to go: you know what? Some one the greatest writing of the last 50 to 100 years is happened in science fiction, or fantasy. I mean like Philip K. Dick is one of my favorite writers of all time. In fact the production of Hamlet I did was mainly influenced by Philip K. Dick. And you know Ursula le Guin, Asimov... All this amazing people, and I talked about Neil as well, went off a bit of a rant... the interview came out, bubble. About six month later maybe: knock on the door, open the door - delivery of a big box. Interesting... Open the box - a card on the top of the box, I opened the card, it says

From one fan to another.

Neil Gaiman

And inside the box like first editions of Neil’s stuff, and all kinds of interesting things by Neil. And he just sent this stuff to me.

David: You’ve never met him.

Michael: Never met him. He’d read the interview, or someone’d let him know about this interview where I sang his praises, stood up for him and the people who are working within sort of genre... And he just got in touch.

We met up for the first time, I was in Los Angeles when he came to LA, and he said “I take you for a meal”. I was like “alright”. He said, “you wanna go somewhere posh or somewhere interesting”, and I said, “lets go somewhere interesting” he said “right I’m gonna take you to this restaurant which is called the Hump, and it’s at Santa Monica airport”. And its a sushi restaurant. I was like alright, ok. I had a mini at that time,we drive off to the Santa Monica airport and this restaurant was right on the tarmac. There was nobody else there, we got there quite early, and you watching the planes landing on Santa Monica airport. It was like extraordinary! And the chef comes out, Neil says “just bring whatever you want, chef’s choice”. I have never eaten sushi before, and we set this incredible meal when they keep bringing these, you know, dishes, and they say “this is blah blah blah, just use a little bit of soy sauce, whatever”, you know, “this is eel”... and this was one dish they brought to us they didn’t say what it was. It was like mystery dish. And yet it delicious. Few more people started coming at the restaurant at that time, I said “Neil, I can’t eat anymore, I have to stop now, this is great but” he went “ok we’ll ask for the bill in a minute”, and then the door opens, and some very official people come in. And it was the FEDs. And the FEDs and we knew cause there were jackets on that said part of the federal bureau or whatever, and about six of them coming. One goes behind the counter, two go into the kitchen, one goes to the back. With like guns on and stuff, and me and Neil were like “what on Earth is going on??” And then eventually one guy said: ladies and gentlemen if you haven’t ordered already, please leave; if you’re still eating your meal, please finish up, pay your bill, leave. And we were like “oh my god we’re poisoned?? is this some terrible thing in them?” So we sort of finished, paid our bill, and then all the kitchen staff walked abroad it, and the head chef was there, the guy who was bringing us dishes. He’s in tears, and he says to Neil “ I’m so sorry”, apologizes to Neil, and we leave. And we have no idea what happened.

David: But you’re assuming it’s a mystery dish.

Michael: Well, we’re assuming... it cant be poisonous, that terrible terrible thing! So the next day was the Oscars which is why Neil was in town, cause Coraline had been nominated for Oscar. Best documentary that year was one by The Cove... which was by a team of people who had come across dolphins being killed, I think. And turns out what was happening in this restaurant was they were having illegal endangered species flown in to the airport, and then being brought round the back of the restaurant into the kitchen. We had eaten whale. Endangered species whale. That was the mystery dish they didn’t say what it was. And the team behind The Cove were behind this thing, and they took them down that night we were there.

David: That’s extraordinary

Michael: for month me and Neil were like “have you heard anything - no I’ve not”, and then we heard it was something to do with a coven, eventually, we found out that they were all arrested, the restaurant was shut down, and... we had eaten whale that night.

David: That was your first meeting with Neil Gaiman.

Michael: That was my first meeting. And also in a drive home that night from that restaurant he said (and we were in my mini) “have you found the secret compartment” i said “what are you talking about?” Such a Neil Gaiman thing to say! Secret compartment. “Yeah, each of man has got a secret compartments” I said “I had no idea it’s secret”, and he pressed a little button, and a thing opened up. And it was a secret compartment in my own car that Neil Gaiman showed me.

David: Was there anything inside it?

Michael: Yeah, there was a little man and he jumped out and went hello! Erm, no, there was nothing in there. There was afterwards cause I started putting...

David: Sure, That’s a very Neil Gaiman story. All of that is such a Neil Gaiman story

Michael: That’s how it began, yeah.

#michael sheen #neil gaiman #ineffable husbands #good omens #aziraphale #crowley #david tennant #david tennant podcast #sandman #twilight #underworld #comics #comic books #endangered species

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aion-rsa · 5 years

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The Weird History of Friday the 13th Comics

https://ift.tt/2QaV9j1

Friday the 13th boasts some of the strangest movie tie-in comics ever made. We hit the bloody highs and lows. Mostly lows.

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Friday the 13th’s Jason Voorhees has been part of pop-culture for decades. It shouldn’t be surprising that he’s had his share of comic book adventures, what with him essentially being a supervillain in a story with no superheroes. Granted, he’s a one-dimensional supervillain with an incredibly vague origin story, but he’s been memorable enough to land him a dozen movie appearances. Many have told his tale in comic form and since the early '90s, he’s been represented by three different publishers.

The surprising thing to me is that the earliest Jason comic is only in the early 90s. For comparison, the RoboCop comics all stretched across the franchise’s entire existence. They were around for all four movies as well as the stretch where he was just about nostalgia. Jason Voorhees didn’t get the same treatment. For the most part, they missed the boat.

Topps Comics first picked up the license and Jason’s comic book debut came in July of 1993. Two comics came out this month with Jason in them, so it’s hard to say what was his very first appearance. One of the two comics was Satan’s Six #4 by Tony Isabella and John Cleary. We’re already bonkers out the gate here. Satan’s Six was part of the Secret City Saga, where Topps created a big story using a bunch of leftover Jack Kirby ideas that he never did anything with in the form of several miniseries that intertwined (think Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers). It didn’t last long enough to finish and with Satan’s Six, it’s no wonder.

The comic is a comedy about the demonic Odious Kamodious, who has his own team of agents out to create chaos in his name, only they always screw up. In the very beginning of this issue, Kamodious gets in an argument with one of his demons Frightful and threatens to replace him. He summons Jason Voorhees, who proceeds to talk like Rorschach and try to kill anything nearby.

Anyone else find randomly and casually tossing Jason into a superhero universe’s continuity really weird?

Frightful and teammate Bluedragon go after Jason, but he responds by throwing them a couple times and saying, “HRMM,” a lot. Despite only appearing for a couple of pages, Jason says that six times. Kamodious summons him back where he found him and starts making a blatant reference about Jason going to Hell. The angelic Pristine interrupts and calls out how this was a pointless cameo to justify advertising Jason on the cover, which came at the cost of continuing their very story. And at that point, readers stopped caring.

As Kamodious referenced, Jason was at the time starring in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, otherwise known as Friday the 13th Part IX. Based on the screenplay, the comic is written by Andy Mangels and drawn by Cynthia Martin.

That’s how far down the pipeline we are. By this point, the movie franchise was in dire straits. By the time any comic company thinks of doing anything with Friday the 13th, we’re already at the ninth movie, which was the last Jason movie for eight years. The really bizarre one.

If you haven’t seen it or don’t remember, Jason Goes to Hell is the movie where the FBI finally decides to do something about Jason and blows him to kingdom come in the first few minutes, onlit turns out that he can’t be killed unless stabbed in the heart by another Voorhees (though the comic keeps spelling it “Vorhees”). So Jason’s heart hypnotizes the coroner into eating it and he goes around vomiting the heart into people’s throats to change hosts until he can find and kill the rest of his bloodline.

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It’s an example of knowing that you have to do something new and fresh, yet still driving way off the road. Also, if you’re all about drawings of bare asses, this is the comic for you!

But really, all anyone remembers Jason Goes to Hell for is that cameo at the end when Freddy Krueger pulls down Jason’s mask and cackles. That was the original “Nick Fury asks Tony Stark to join the Avengers” moment. It just, you know, took ten years, is all.

Topps didn’t want to wait to give us a big slasher icon crossover and while they didn’t get the rights to Freddy, they got the next best thing. Okay, they didn’t get Michael Meyers, but the next best thing after that. No, they didn’t get Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof, but—Listen, they got Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, okay? More specifically, we got Jason vs. Leatherface, a three-part series by Nancy Collins, David Imhoff, and Jeff Butler.

Despite being released in 1995, the chronology is very choosy, ignoring the history of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre stuff to make sure Leatherface and his brothers Cook and Hitchhiker are both alive. As for Jason, this takes place after Part VI, where he’s chained to the bottom of Camp Crystal Lake. Some corporate types have the lake drained of all the toxic grossness and Jason goes with it. He kind of wanders around, kills a bunch of people on train, and eventually comes across Sawyerville, where Leatherface and Hitchhiker are stalking some poor soul. Jason ends up getting in a scrap with them, where he disarms Leatherface (not literally for once), kills their victim, and then – in a surprising act – hands Leatherface his chainsaw.

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There’s this feeling of acceptance between the two parties, leading to Jason being practically adopted into their family. This leads to a really awesome moment where Cook asks him his name. Since these guys need to start calling him Jason and he doesn’t actually speak, Collins goes about it in a clever way.

Through this partnership, we see the differences. While Jason is a ruthless murderer, he isn’t so much a sadist, at least not as much as the Sawyer family. He’ll kill the victims, but Hitchhiker will get on his case for doing it too quickly and not torturing anyone. Mainly, Jason gets along with them due to the way he sees his younger self in Leatherface. For once, he feels sympathy and it drives him to hate Hitchhiker for constantly being such a dick. From there, it becomes Jason vs. the three brothers, where Leatherface will protect his family, even if he does show appreciation for Jason standing up for him.

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There wouldn’t be any more Jason comics for a decade until Avatar Press picked up the license in 2005. I had a lot of bad stuff to say about Avatar in the RoboCop article, but here, the ugly, mean-spirited, blood-and-chunks-covered style is a perfect home for Friday the 13th. If anything, it’s a fitting response to how most of the Friday the 13th movies were edited to oblivion by the MPAA to hide all the gore. Now we can see Jason punch a guy in the head so hard that it comes out his ass!

Avatar mostly released a bunch of one-shots, starting with Friday the 13th Special by Brian Pulido and Mike Wolfer. The Avatar Friday the 13th comics have some actual strong ideas mixed in there, but they also rely on doing the same thing over and over again...much like the movies, but in a different way. While every single comic of theirs has at least one softcore sex scene, there’s also a constant theme of the 1% screwing things up for everyone. Like in Friday the 13th Special, it’s about the children of the man who previously owned Camp Crystal Lake. The daughter, a shrewd businesswoman, insists on not letting that land go to waste despite the piles and piles of dead bodies showing why that’s a bad idea.

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To be fair, she goes about it the right way. If Jason’s hanging around the woods, just hire a ton of military guys to take him out. That basically took care of Jason in the very beginning of the ninth movie, didn’t it? Too bad being in a comic book has caused him to go through a major power creep, and he’s now able to power through having a huge chunk of him blown off by a grenade launcher, as it just heals up in seconds. Jason’s way too overpowered and that continues on for the next year of comics.

Pulido and Wolfer would get back together to do a three-parter called Bloodbath and it’s easily the best thing to come out of the Avatar run. It has some serious dialogue issues, but the basic idea could have been the basis for a Friday the 13th movie and I would be totally okay with it. It actually comes across as a prototype for Cabin in the Woods.

It has to do with Camp Crystal Lake being opened yet again, this time with ten teen counselors brought in early to get acquainted a day or so before the campers are said to show up. Their boss is Kevin Carny, a kindly southern guy who appears to be really laid back about everything. He wants everyone to be responsible during the daytime, but at night, they’re welcome to enjoy the hot tub, an excess of beer, and each other’s naked company. The counselors all hit it off and immediately pair up with no problem. In fact, they pair up a little too easily, like they were handpicked. Discovered through some really unnatural dialogue, they all come to realize that all ten of them are orphans and have no families. Strange. It’s almost like if something were to happen to them all, nobody would really care enough to look into it.

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Naturally, there’s more to Carny than meets the eye. Much like in Jason X, the military and corporations are very into the idea of bringing Jason in for the sake of studying his healing factor and weaponizing him. The camp is nothing more than bait. It helps that the protagonists, Violet and Rich, are actually fairly likeable and relatable compared to every other human character in Avatar’s comics. You end up getting a story of the would-be victims vs. the military vs. the unstoppable killer. It actually has a really good ending too, which will be ruined months later.

Around this time, Avatar released the Jason X Special by Pulido and Sebastian Fiumara. Yes, a Jason X comic. The movie is already a few years old at this point and I don’t think anyone cared about it enough to clamor for more Jason X in any form, but here we are. As it turns out, when Uber Jason was blasted to a lake on Earth Two at the end of the movie, he was really back on the original Earth. A woman named Kristen, one of the few remaining humans on the planet, tricked the ship into turning back to Earth for the sake of getting her hands on Uber Jason.

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Kristen’s boyfriend Neil is dying and she needs some Voorhees DNA to potentially cure him. Even though she is able to capture Uber Jason with some nanites, you can imagine that this is a bad idea. It becomes a big, confusing mess, where Pamela Voorhees goes from being a voice in Jason’s head to being a machine ghost able to control all the nanites, leading to lots of human-like androids being slaughtered. Uber Jason is shot into space, where he stumbles across a party-based space ship.

That leads us right into the two-parter Jason vs. Jason X by Mike Wolfer. Really? Is that even a contest? That’s like having the regular version of the Hulk fight a super-pissed off Hulk. The story of this one is more contrived than even the beginning of Jason Takes Manhattan. So there’s a piece of Jason’s skull and hockey mask from the Jason X movie that wasn’t part of the regeneration process that created Uber Jason. When that ship was blown up, the chunk of skull floated around in space until – TOTAL COINCIDENCE – it now drifts into the very party ship where Uber Jason is currently slaughtering everyone. The ship’s cloning machine builds a new body out of dead victims and Jason is reborn! Fully clothed too, which I suppose I shouldn’t be complaining about. I can live my entire life without seeing his hockey stick.

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It takes the whole first issue for the two Jasons to meet up and the entire second issue is them fighting while anyone who crosses paths with the brawl gets chopped up. The fight brings them to Earth Two, where, big surprise, Uber Jason wins. He tears Jason’s brain out, shoves it into his own brain, and reminisces about his mother. He’s also chilling out in the woods near a lake, so even though the Jason X Special changed up the movie’s ending, this comic puts it back the way the writers found it. You know, just in case they were to ever make another Jason X movie.

The last book from Avatar is Friday the 13th: Fearbook by Mike Wolfer and Sebastian Fiumara. It’s a direct follow-up to Bloodbath and is especially pointless. It’s basically about killing off anyone who survived Bloodbath without any real drama. Sure, it makes sense to have the government people behind the events of that story taken out, but there’s no actual plot. Jason just effortlessly kills everyone for two dozen pages.

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Also, the art is really bad in the sequential sense. It seems to go from point A to C from panel to panel with no sensical movement. For instance, in Bloodbath, they were able to stop Jason by freezing him. The only reason he was able to escape was Violet’s doing. Makes 100% perfect sense that they’d just try that again, right?

And now Jason is able to shrug it off completely to the point that there’s no sign of him being frozen one panel later. What’s up with that?

The ending suffers from the same problem. Violet is backed up to a window and Jason is coming. She decides to take her chances and makes a leap of faith, hoping the trees will break her fall. She jumps and the perspective makes it look like she’s at least ten feet away from the window. Suddenly, Jason has her by the neck and drags her back in.

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Anyway, Jason would then move on to the next publisher, Wildstorm, in 2007. Wildstorm mainly gave us a bunch of two-parters, but started it with a six-issue miniseries simply called Friday the 13th by Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, Adam Archer, and Peter Guzman.

For the most part, it’s a basic, by-the-numbers Friday the 13th story in comic form, just handled competently. They’re reopening Camp Crystal Lake again. A handful of teens are brought in to clean up the cabins. Sex and drugs and beer are had. Jason shows up and starts killing people. Same old shit.

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At least the cast of victims isn’t so bad. They aren’t great, but they at least have more personality and dimension than the characters in the Avatar Press comics, easy as that is to do. The drawback is that for the sake of conflict, they’re almost all over-the-top in terms of being assholes. Like there’s a nerdy hippy guy who looks to be potentially psychotic and everyone shits on him for zero reason. For one of the characters it makes sense, since it’s established that she’s had to put up with his company for years and she’s a terrible person, but everyone else snaps at him like he’s Donnie from Big Lebowski.

The comic plays up the supernatural aspects of Friday the 13th more than just Jason surviving taking a machete to the neck. Not only do they establish that the lake is haunted by the ghosts of a hundred murdered children, but the final issue even explains that the area is literally cursed due to some settlers murdering a Native American shaman.

Otherwise, it’s nothing special.

Marc Andreyko and Shawn Moll give us Pamela’s Tale, a two-parter where Pamela Voorhees explains her life story to a camp counselor while giving her a ride to Camp Crystal Lake. Naturally, she also murders her, but still keeps telling the story, mainly about raising Jason and how she’s been out to kill anyone she feels is responsible for his death.

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We also see Jason’s father depicted as a drunken wife-beater and massive dude (he had to inherit it from somewhere) who is killed because Pamela’s afraid that if she tells him she’s pregnant, he’ll beat her so badly that she’ll have a miscarriage. Oh, and she’s also whispering conversations with “Jason” much like she does at the end of the first movie.

Jason’s birth defects are explained both between his father’s treatment of his mother and the fact that Pamela is constantly in places filled with cigarette smoke. It hits comedic levels once we see the doctor smoking a cigarette while delivering the baby. That’s dark as hell but I had to laugh.

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Jason Aaron and Adam Archer team up for How I Spent My Summer Vacation, another two-parter. I’m not sure if this is the best Friday the 13th comic, but it’s definitely the most fun. It’s about a little boy named Davie Falkner who is at summer camp. At Camp Crystal Lake. They opened the goddamn thing AGAIN! CRIPES! Anyway, Davie has a bone disorder that gives him a malformed head and will likely kill him in five years. While he has normal intelligence, he looks an awful lot like Jason’s young self, albeit with hair. He’s constantly teased for his looks, but that’s a picnic compared to having Jason Voorhees show up to kill everyone.

After lots of campers, councilors, and cops are killed, Jason picks up Davie and drags him away, kicking and screaming. The only other survivor is the sheriff, who was so hopped up on meth that he accidentally shot up two councilors, and then hacked them up with a machete to cover his tracks and blame it on Jason. Finding out that Davie’s still alive makes him want to make sure he can kill the last witness.

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Meanwhile, we get what is essentially a Batman and Robin origin story with Jason and Davie. It’s awesome and I wish it was longer. Jason never speaks or makes any gestures, but he keeps Davie safe out of feeling like a kindred spirit. Jason would go kill people having a picnic, wrap their food in a blanket, return to Davie, and throw it to him. Davie goes from being dragged around against his will to following his new hero.

Davie idolizes Jason for being like him, only able to not take shit from anyone who would bully him. That Jason is an even bigger bully than anyone else is lost on Davie, but it’s nice to see Jason make a connection for once in his after-life. Plus with the comedic psycho sheriff, Jason gets to actually play the role of anti-hero here. Granted, he still kills so many undeserving people, but the book is still sort of cute.

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Yet another two-parter comes in the form of Bad Land, which is by Ron Marz and Mike Huddleston. It’s about two different stories from different times that run parallel. One is a present-day story about a trio of hikers who come across a cabin in the middle of a huge storm and become victims of Jason. The other takes place a couple centuries earlier, where three fur trappers enter a teepee to escape a similar storm and come across a Native American woman and her baby. Horrible things happen to the woman and her child, shortly before her husband arrives. They blow his face off with a rifle shot and he runs off, only to plot his revenge.

Yep. We have the Proto-Jason. It isn’t outright said whether he’s just super pissed enough to fight through the wound or if he’s a full-on murder zombie, but considering he lacks the wound when we see his rampage, it looks like the latter.

Huh. Wonder whatever happened to that guy.

The last normal type of Jason comic released by Wildstorm is The Abuser & the Abused by Joshua Hale Fialkov and Andy B. Andy B’s art makes this easily the best-looking Friday the 13th comic by a landslide. Lot of great expressions and action in there.

The issue is kind of an alternate take on How I Spent My Summer Vacation. It deals with a girl who is constantly abused. Her boyfriend beats her, her classmates make fun of her, her father and stepmother bully her, and no authority figure will help her in any way. She takes it upon herself to strike back against anyone who’s wronged her and part of her plan involves luring her boyfriend to Camp Crystal Lake (which is not open for once. Thank God). Then when Jason appears to do what Jason does best, the girl gets mad because this is her kill and the two murderers throw down. Totally worth checking out for the fantastic fight scene.

Now we get to the grand finale in the form of two six-issue miniseries. Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash started in early 2008, based on a script treatment for a sequel to the Freddy vs. Jason movie that brings the Evil Dead hero into the mix that would never come to be. The Jeff Katz screenplay is adapted by James Kuhoric with art by Jason Craig. It’s generally okay. It’s nothing especially great or especially awful. It comes up with a satisfying enough story that brings together the three horror icons, has them play off each other, and gives us a big enough body count.

Freddy is able to convince Jason to do his bidding by banging his mother. At least, that’s what Jason sees in his nightmare, where Freddy acts like his new step-father and has “Pamela” tell Jason to listen to his authority. Freddy wants him to fetch the Necronomicon and wouldn’t you know it, Ash Williams is working at a nearby hardware store for the holidays.

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What’s great about it is that we actually have a real protagonist to cheer for, who we know has enough plot armor to stay alive. The Freddy vs. Jason movie didn’t have anyone nearly as likeable as Ash. The main drawback is that Jason is the third wheel, mostly overshadowed by the other two co-stars. This becomes a bigger problem in the sequel, which I’ll get to in just a bit.

Sorry, I was wrong. The main drawback is that despite Jason Craig’s art starting incredibly strong, it becomes rushed to hell by the time he hits the final issue. That’s too bad, since the final battle between the two is excellent outside of that. Freddy is pumped up with power from the Necronomicon and Jason is maskless and replaced his dismembered hand with a machete. Ash is bemused, noting the lack of originality.

By the end, Freddy and Jason are both defeated for the time being, but the Necronomicon opens to a page that’s very reminiscent of the movie poster for Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors, only this time, Ash is leading the siege.

That leads us to Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: Nightmare Warriors by the same creative team, though with Cruddie Torian doing a bit of fill-in work. Sadly, Jason Craig’s art takes a huge dive, even worse than before. Really, the whole comic is a gigantic mess, making it a perfect Friday the 13th comic bookend to whatever the hell was going on with that Satan’s Six issue.

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It’s a real shame too, because I absolutely love the setup. It’s such a brilliant concept for a climactic finale to Freddy and Jason’s respective series. See, Ash is invited to join a support group of sorts made up of those who have survived encounters with Freddy and/or Jason. So you have a group made up of Maggie Burroughs (Freddy’s Dead), Dr. Neil Gordon (Nightmare on Elm Street 3), Steven Freeman (Jason Goes to Hell), Stephanie Kimble (Steven’s baby daughter from that movie all grown up), Alice Johnson (Nightmare on Elm Street 4 and 5), Jacob Johnson (Alice’s son, also grown up), Tina Shepard (Friday the 13th Part VII), and Rennie Wickham (Friday the 13th Part VIII). Then waiting in the shadows is maverick survivor and quasi-hero of the Friday the 13th franchise, Tommy Jarvis, who wants to take out Jason on his own terms.

Also awesome is Jason’s redesign. For the first half, at least.

After all the bullshit he’s been through fighting Freddy and Ash in the last book, Jason is barely holding together. He’s got so much battle damage that even if he’s freakishly strong, he looks like’s seconds away from falling apart. Between his jaw being completely fleshless and the bottom part of his hockey mask before destroyed, he’s got this badass skull goalie thing going on.

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Then Freddy ruins it by making Jason his general and using the Necronomicon to amp up Jason's appearance, cleaning him up and fixing his disfigurements. He also gives him long, black hair, making him look like a generic 90s vigilante. This also allows him to speak for once when he has his final battle with Tommy Jarvis.

Certainly better than, “HRMM!” at least.

As I said, the book goes completely full-on nuts, especially when it comes to Maggie Burroughs. She is actually Freddy’s daughter and killed him in the sixth Elm Street movie (the last canon one before Freddy vs. Jason). Here, she’s secretly evil and is working for her father. I guess they can get away with it because she’s the hero of the most hated Nightmare on Elm Street, but it’s never explained why she’s suddenly evil. Then not only does she start dressing like a sexy X-Men supervillain, but she starts making out with her father. And he puts his hand down her pants while grabbing her boob with the other. What. The. Fuck?

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Anyway, she’s crushed by a tank a couple of issues later while fighting Jason in the Oval Office. Strange, strange comic. The book has a lot of big ideas, but it’s completely incomprehensible.

What I find interesting is the ending. Freddy’s attempt to cause Hell on Earth via the Necronomicon goes sour and they give him the most final death possible. He’s stripped of his powers, leaving a naked human form, begging for his life. Ash shoots him with his boomstick, killing him. Then some really ill-explained and badly-set-up time-travel happens where the warrant for his arrest from decades ago is now correctly signed, meaning he’ll never become the dream demon and so many deaths are negated. Not only is Freddy done, but he never really started in the first place!

Jason, on the other hand, is stabbed through the chest by Stephanie (which is supposed to be the one thing that can totally kill him for good) and Tommy chops his head off, but his body is missing anyway because one day he’s going to go to space and God forbid we mess around with continuity!

Gotta protect the sanctity of Jason X, man.

That was the last we’ve seen of Jason Voorhees in comic form and there’s no sign of him coming back any time soon. Despite being such a cinematic icon, there’s only so much you can do with the character. He’s a walking plot device who isn’t allowed to be anything more, nor should he ever be. He’s just an excuse for shock value and mainstream comics have already gotten to that level of mean-spirited violence, making him nothing but obsolete.

Poor guy. Finally DC Comics is about constantly tearing people’s arms off and Jason doesn’t get to play.

Gavin Jasper thinks it’s fitting that Jason is a goalie, considering he's constantly out to stop people from scoring. Follow him on Twitter!

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Feature Gavin Jasper

Sep 13, 2019

Friday the 13th

Horror Movies

from Books https://ift.tt/2AevHhN

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davidmann95 · 5 years

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Two questions! 1: what should I read if I want to read a good Nightwing comic? And 2: I just re-read Multiversity and enjoyed the hell out of it! But were any of its concepts/themes/ideas/universes revisited later on in other books, and was it any good? Also, 2B: is Venditti’s Freedom Fighters continuing the story of Mastermen or is it its own thing?

1. Nightwing: Better Than Batman, or alternatively the full Grayson book.

2. Sadly, the only substantial Multiversity followup thus far has been in the form of Superman: Multiplicity, which blew so hard in proportion to the radness of the base concept it was frankly offensive. However, if you’re curious about exploring the individual Earths further, I do have recommendations for you! (I mean, maybe this is silly recapping of stuff you already know, but if you’re asking about good Nightwing comics I figure there’s a chance some of these will be new to you)

Prime Earth/Earth 0: Uh, DC Comics in general.

Earth 1: Mostly don’t pursue this because these books are terrible, but Wonder Woman: Earth One is…interesting, at least, and I’ve heard good things about Green Lantern: Earth One.

Earth 2: This Earth had essentially its own mini-line for several years there in various Earth 2 books, though they seemed to largely be tepidly received. If you’re curious about the Justice Society in general though, I’ve heard very good things about Geoff Johns’ runs with them, and absolutely check out Starman by James Robinson.

Earth 3: Was at the center of numerous Justice League stories recently, but they were all terrible, so just check out JLA: Earth 2 (I know, I know, but this was during a period where the multiverse wasn’t a thing so that was the only parallel Earth).

Earth 4: Based off Watchmen, so that.

Earth 5: The old Captain Marvel comics this springs from are I understand in the public domain and largely available online, but if you want something more contemporary in that spirit I’d recommend Jeff Smith’s Shazam: Monster Society of Evil or Jeff Parker and Doc Shaner’s Convergence: Shazam.

Earth 6: This is the home of the characters from What If Stan Lee Created The DC Universe, which I believe is all collected in a single trade.

Earth 7: Seemingly based off of Ultimate Marvel and Marvel Zombies, so I guess go for the better stuff from those (i.e. Bendis/Bagley era Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimates & Ultimates 2 along with Hickman’s run, the Ellis Ultimate minis, the first Marvel Zombies mini and Dead Days, and I understand Marvel Zombies Return as well as I have to assume Marvel Zombies vs. The Army Of Darkness).

Earth 9: The Earth of Tangent, a line that I also believe was collected in a one or two trades.

Earth 10: I’ve heard conflicting word as to whether or not the new Freedom Fighters mini is set in this world.

Earth 12: Totally watch all the DCAU cartoons if you haven’t. If you already have, know the then-contemporary Superman Adventures and Batman Adventures tie-ins were also excellent, and DC did a number of Batman Beyond books set in this world from around 2010 to 2015ish.

Earth 13: The superheroified John Constantine of this Earth made his first appearance way back in 1993′s Doom Patrol #53 by Grant Morrison and Ken Steacy, a Silver Age Marvel pulpfest diversion from the usual somber mindfuck tone of the title that gives a bit of a glimpse at what the tonally-reversed Earth 13 might be like in certain corners.

Earth 17: Loosely based off of Atomic Knights, one of the most ruthlessly bonkers titles of the Silver Age that’s absolutely worth your time.

Earth 18: I understand this Earth was loosely based off of 1997′s Justice Riders.

Earth 19: This Earth pairs the Victoriana settings of Batman: Gotham By Gaslight and Wonder Woman: Amazonia, both of which I understand featured their leads battling Jack the Ripper.

Earth 21: The world of DC: The New Frontier, which you should read.

Earth 22: The world of Kingdom Come, which you should also read.

Earth 23: This world’s President Superman starred in Grant Morrison and Gene Ha’s Action Comics #9, which rules.

Earth 25: Some interpreted a throwaway line recently in The Terrifics as indicating that Earth 25 is home to the characters of ABC (America’s Best Comics), so you should read all of those. Heck, you should read them anyway!

Earth 26: The Zoo Crew had their own title, which I’ve frequently seen available cheap as one of DC’s Showcase black-and-white collections.

Earth 29: This world starred in the wonderful Action Comics #40 by Greg Pak and Aaron Kuder, and I know awhile ago DC put together a collection of their Silver Age backup feature Tales of the Bizarro World.

Earth 30: Superman: Red Son.

Earth 31: I understand this riffed on Batman: Leatherwing.

Earth 32: This lightly spins out of Batman: In Darkest Knight, and a similar mashup story was in Superman/Batman #60-61, a debt acknowledged by the main team of this Earth being dubbed the Justice Titans as in that story despite being an entirely different lineup.

Earth Prime/Earth 33: Open up a window, go on a stroll, catch a movie, eat something nice, get laid, write a poem, cuddle your pets, call your friends or your folks, then once all that shit’s out of the way get back to this list and back to comics.

Earth 34: Based on Astro City, which you should definitely read.

Earth 35: Based on Awesome Comics, mainly known for Alan Moore’s run on Supreme; sadly the collections of that are old and crappy but still very much worth tracking down, and the recent Supreme: Blue Rose is also wonderful.

Earth 36: Based on Big Bang Comics, which I’m afraid I haven’t read. However, this Earth in particular leans hard into the idea of heroes being inspired by comics of the adventures of heroes on other Earths, so might be worth looking into The Flash Of Two Worlds! and the old-school Earth Prime stories.

Earth 37: This is based off several Howard Chaykin DC titles, specifically Batman: Thrillkiller and Twilight.

Earth 38: The world of John Byrne’s Superman & Batman: Generations; I’d say the first two books are very much worth your time but I’ve heard to steer clear of the third.

Earth 39: Based on the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, whose adventures I’m afraid I’m unfamiliar with.

Earth 41: Based on the vaguely defined Image Comics shared universe, the best example of which I’d say was easily Invincible even if he seems to lack a direct analogue here.

Earth 42: This chibi Earth seems to reflect the L’il League story in Superman/Batman #51-52 (with an epilogue in #75) and directly acknowledges Batman: L’il Gotham, both of which you should read.

Earth 43: Based on the Batman: Red Rain mini and its followups.

Earth 45: Features again in Action Comics #9, as well as Morrison’s final arc in #14-18.

Earth 50: As well as its original appearance in the Justice League cartoon, this Earth appeared in the aforementioned recent Batman Beyond comics.

Earth 51: Home to Jack Kirby’s wonderful Kamandi and OMAC titles.

#Multiversity #Nightwing #Opinion

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wits-writing · 5 years

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DC’s Nuclear Winter Special (Comic Book Review)

There are plenty of reasons to not feel like getting into the holiday spirit, many of them valid and more apparent in the world at large this year in particular. So in the spirit of a time where it can feel like the world is ending, I’m going to recommend DC Comics’ 80-page holiday anthology special for this year, the Nuclear Winter Special. Featuring ten different stories focusing on some of the DC Universe’s greatest heroes from across time dealing with struggles in varied post-apocalyptic environments and connected to the holiday season in some way.

The ten stories and creators are the following:

Rip Hunter (writer: Mark Russell, art: Mike Norton, colors: Hi-Fi, letters: Daron Bennett)

Batman 666 (writers: Collin Kelly & Jackson Lanzing, pencils: Giuseppe Camuncoli, inks: Cam Smith, colors: Romulo Fajardo Jr., letters: Clayton Cowles)

Superman One Million (writer: Steve Orlando, pencils: Brad Walker, inks: Drew Hennesy, colors: Nathan Fairbairn, letters: Clayton Cowles)

The Flash (writer: Jeff Loveness, art: Christian Duce, colors: Luis Guerrero, letters: Tom Napolitano)

Supergirl (writer: Tom Taylor, breakdowns: Tom Derenick, art/colors: Yasmine Putri, letters: Deron Bennett)

Aquaman (writer: Mairghread Scot, art: Dexter Soy, colors: Veronica Gandini, letters: Steve Wands)

Firestorm (writer: Paul Dini, art: Jerry Ordway, colors: Dave McCaig, letters: Dave Sharpe)

Kamandi (writer/pencils: Phil Hester, inks: Ande Parks, colors: Trish Mulvihill, letters: Steve Wands)

Catwoman (writer: Cecil Castelucci, art: Amancay Nahuelpan, colors: Brian Buccellato, letters: Josh Reed)

Green Arrow (writer: Dave Wielgosz, art: Scott Kolins, colors: John Kalisz, letters: Alex Antone)

[Full Review Under the Cut]

I’ll mostly be going out of order for how I discuss the stories in this anthology special. However, the first two in the book are worth grouping together for discussion, the Batman 666 and Superman One Million stories. Both expansions on characters from alternate futures presented during Grant Morrison’s runs on Batman and JLA, respectively.

The story of Damian Wayne as the future Batman wandering the frozen wasteland while pondering if his dedication to his father’s ideals still means anything in the remains of the world, when he’s one of the people who ruined it. Multiple stories in this special play on the idea that time stopped really meaning anything in the post-apocalyptic landscapes the characters are left in, so they’re made to focus more on the essence of what the holidays represent. Kelly, Lanzing, Camuncoli and Smith bring in the idea of family togetherness by introducing Damian’s grandfather, Ra’s Al Ghul, into the story with the way the fight between the Bat and the Demon resolves coming down to the end of the world helping Damian put where his values are in perspective.

Superman One Million’s story focuses on togetherness as well, but from another perspective and adding in the idea of the importance of memory. While Kal Kent, the Superman of the 853rd century, is highlighted in the table of contents for this issue, his segment of this issue absolutely belongs more to J’onn J’onzz, the Martian Manhunter. If this issue indicates Orlando’s approach to writing J’onn, then his upcoming miniseries focusing on the character is going to be something special. How canon anything in this special is meant to be taken loosely at best, but I like what this short story adds to J’onn’s character history when Kal Kent goes back in time to stop a time travelling villain from destroying the Superman Dynasty before it starts. The sequence where Kal gives J’onn back the memories of their past encounter the were removed for the sake of preventing paradoxes among the most heartwarming moments in a book full of them.

On the topic of stories that add interesting new details to the featured character’s background, the Kamandi story by Phil Hester does this by way of tribute to the character’s creator, Jack Kirby. It takes the already heightened world that Kamandi inhabits and places this adventure within a framework that calls back to the stories of both Hanukkah and the Nativity. The Hanukkah elements are mostly in play as something Kamandi recalls from his time growing up in a bunker with his grandfather telling him stories. As far as I know, this is the first story in the character’s history to feature the idea that Kamandi is of Jewish decent. In addition to that neat detail, there are ways that this story feels more complete than a couple of the others within this issue as it manages to set up all its necessary elements quickly and executes paying them off in a satisfactory manner within the limited page count.

Another story that makes effective use of its short page count is the Firestorm story, “Last Christmas.” The brief tale of Ronnie Raymond and Professor Stein having a final confrontation with the android Nuclear Family as they face their last Christmas ends up weirdly poignant and heartwarming. Dini and Ordway work together to balance the tragedy of the supervillain family with them still being a genuine threat. That tragedy also reflects on the kindness of Ronnie and Stein as they figure out how to save the day while letting the Nuclear Family’s final Christmas be a merry one in the end.

Two more stories that contain some interesting parallel structures are the Catwoman and Supergirl stories. Each one puts the focus heroine in a parental role and shows how that keeps them inspired to action, even in the face of a world that’s falling apart. Catwoman’s story starts with Selina in a position where she mainly seems to be using her role as guardian to the daughter of her longtime friend, Holly Robinson, as a reason to remain self-interested in the dystopian Gotham. In a time when people are forced to stretch whatever resources they manage to get their hands on for as long as possible, Selina debates her charge about whether they should try to help others when their own supplies keep running low. Eventually, Selina gives into her better nature and it inspired to play the role of Santa Claus by way of Robin Hood.

Writer Tom Taylor went to Twitter to ask people not to read the table of contents of this anthology, so they wouldn’t spoil his Supergirl story for themselves with its title. Since this easily makes the strongest contender for best story in the book, I’ll oblige by not giving away the ending either. The older Kara Zor El in this story looking after her adopted daughter in the “Not Distant Enough Future” journeying across the blighted Earth to find some place she can charge up her powers again is a compelling start to the story. The ending of the story builds up to Kara reflecting on a simple idea. In the face of the end, she has a choice to either perpetuate the cycles started by those who came before her or do something better. If you know anything about the Super-family, what her final choice ends up being won’t come as a surprise.

While I don’t think any of the stories in this special are bad, there were three I felt fell short of the standards of most of this issue. The Flash and Aquaman stories, while playing on the same themes of hope in the face of a hopeless existence that permeate the rest of this issue, are the ones that stretch the holiday connection the most. Though both still serve as pretty good highlights for their focus heroes. The choice of focus hero was my main issue with the Green Arrow story. I’ve never particularly liked or disliked Oliver Queen as a character, but this story seems to require some type of investment in him to get something out of him being grumpy at a future Justice League’s Christmas party. Though the actual weakest part of the book is the framing device with Rip Hunter, which doesn’t seem to serve much purpose related to the other stories beyond being a framing device.

DC’s Nuclear Winter Special showcases the present creators pulling some great material for the featured heroes within the setup of the titular motif. There are certainly people reading this who will get more out of the stories I was dismissive towards and the average quality of the ones I’ve highlighted is strong enough to give this 80-page special a strong recommendation as a way to get into the holiday spirit with some exemplary superhero storytelling.

If you like what you’ve read here, please consider throwing some support my way at either Patreon or Ko-Fi at the extension “/witswriting”

#DC Nuclear Winter Special #Wit's Writing #Comic Book Review #Christmas #Christmas comics #comic books #comics

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motherboxing · 6 years

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Who would you say are your top 5 fave comic book writers? :)

Umm! I don’t know, really, I mean - I don’t know that I’ve thought about comic writers in those terms a lot, really, because sometimes I’ll love something that someone has written but then hate another project of theirs, and of course with DC and Marvel and etc it can sometimes be hard to judge writers accurately given how many creative decisions end up being influenced or made by editorial mandate. AND, there’s stuff that I love that I will readily admit is maybe not especially well-written. Also there’s just like, a lot! There are writers who I respect and writers who I don’t respect?

Some of the writers I respect the most include: Colleen Doran, John Ostrander, (grudgingly) Grant Morrison, Junji Ito, Lynda Barry, Paul Buhle. Writers who have written things I like who I still do not necessarily, uh, respect, include Keith Giffen, Ryan North, Alan Moore, and G*il S*m*ne (don’t @ me). Writers who I respect, like, As Professionals even though their work isn’t (or is no longer) my exact cup of tea include Larry Hama, Rumiko Takahashi, and Greg Rucka. Writers whose work is not my cup of tea AND whom I do not respect include Warren Ellis, John Byrne, and Neil Gaiman.

That is mainly just from a pool of like, recognizable (or, recognizable in certain genres/fields) writers who are still alive; I’m not getting into writers who are dead or writers who are so early in their careers I feel bad judging them on this kind of scale.

(I always feel a little weird judging/ranking authors because like, I am very much a small fish, like, the smallest smallest fish in the biggest pond here, as a writer, and I don’t wanna come off as smug, so, I mean, to be clear, this is my response mainly As A Fan.)

#ghoulchantsister

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lazyfartbouquet-blog · 5 years

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Read It For the Pictures 35: Books of Magic by Tom Fowler and Kat Howard

NK: Welcome to Read it For The Pictures, the comic book Blog where we read it for the Politics! I mean, pictures. What did I say?

DC: Happy Halloween everyone! In the spirit of the holiday we'll try to avoid talking about the slow corruption of our world by ghouls and goblins like we usually do.

NK: In the spirit of the holiday we’ve got something tangentially supernatural to review: the recent Books of Magic relaunch, written by Kat Howard, with art by Tom Fowler and colors by Jordan Boyd!

DC: Before we dive in, what was your costume this year?

NK: I dressed as Hank Hill from King of the Hill, mainly because it was cheap, but also because I wanted to take a strong and principled stance against Charcoal.

DC: Whuaah?

NK: Are you on the marijuana? Why would anyone do drugs when they could just mow a lawn?

DC: My costume this year was going as the David Clarke who’s a sheriff. (And yes, I’m Australian, so of course I did the blackface ).

NK: I'm sorry your name is common enough for that coincidence

*disclaimer: Dave did not actually do blackface *

But before we get lost in Gribbleposting, why did you suggest we do this book?

DC: Very few number ones this week, fewer still anything that could be said to be Halloweeny. It largely got in on default, but thankfully it’s a Good Comic (tm).

NK: Well I was wondering why you picked a relaunch of a 1990s sequel to a graphic novel by Neil Gaiman about a boy wizard .

Tired: DC American Superhero Franchises

Wired: DC European Vertigo Fantasy Franchises

DC: Yeah, apparently this is one of the 40 million Sandman spinoffs. Do you have any deeper familiarity with the series.

NK: Not really. It's the story of Tim Hunter, a high school boy with glasses and a destiny to be the greatest wizard of all. That's where the similarities to Harry Potter ends because A.) Tim goes to an ordinary school and interacts with the ordinary world, and B.) its creator hasn't told us Tim had a genderfluid Mongolian cousin we'll never hear about again.

DC: Harry ...Potter? I’ve not read that comic

NK: At least tell me you've seen the movies and the recent resurgence of shit being milked from a perfectly decent ending.

DC: Movies?

NK: They're like comics with infinite panels that flash before your eyes. they also have sound and an actual audience

DC: Sounds exhausting. Unlike this comic, which had very nice art :)

NK: Fortunately, this comic recaps everything you need to know about the Books of Magic in a short and inventive sequence.

DC: Yeah, there a neat trick at the beginning where they overlay a bunch of different illustration styles. I imagine it’s a very cool allusion to the previous series but it mostly went over my head.

NK: Unless I'm wrong that's all Fowler doing different styles for the different artists of the Books of Magic series, which I always love to see. Very few artists can master their own style, let alone several others. JH Williams is the only other one to come to mind at the moment in comics.

DC: Every time I can’t get a face consistent from panel to panel it’s me adopting different styles deliberately. More seriously though... this book handles lighting in a super interesting way. The first thing that sticks out about the art, to me at least, is how it has super bold black brushstrokes.

NK: Surprisingly few masses of spot blacks though, beyond hair and cast shadows

DC: It looks nice, but it presents its own challenges, namely that the solid blacks look weird if not clearly separated from the color. This book manages to work within that restriction but still has a constant motif of the sun setting and time passing.

A solid black shadow is being cast which would suggest that the front of his body’s should be almost completely covered in black too. It’s quite a deft touch evoking enough of a shadow without actually having to go that black

(Like mine was at the Halloween party)

NK: Got dang it Dave I'm gonna kick your ass if you make another blackface reference, I tell you what.

DC: I imagine a less talented artist would have opted for safer, more flat lighting.

NK: Color is used effectively throughout by colorist Jordan Boyd; not just to create sense of place and time, but also mood The one page with Tim's depressed dad whiling away on the couch following Tim's mom's disappearance is well done in its melancholic haze.

DC: Also, it sometimes distorts color for emotional effect. I especially liked that sequence because of how it creates a separation between the outside, the hallway and the lounge room through color. The way this all work so well I imagine at least the inlet and colourist have to be working fairly close together

NK: A lot of these shifts are just subtle enough to be seamless in the narrative if you aren't actually looking for them. This is an introductory issue where Tim is out of the magic game and can't get spells to work and yes, is having problems with his wand.

DC: Yeah, I suppose we have to talk about the plot in this one too. Let’s just say the coloring does a lot to make people talking in rooms dynamic.

NK: There's the origin recap and the opening narrative problem, like in the first 1/12th of a movie, so it's good that the art has enough depth to make these subtler emotions sing. There isn't enough plot so far for me to judge where it's going but I expect that Tim will be able to cast spells again at some point.

DC: I fully expect there to be magic, books and some relationship between those two concepts. Man we were spoiled with the 60+ pages of “the new world”

NK: " I don't want consequences. I want magic. "

DC: If I had heard of a book series about a boy wizard I might say that this, despite being a reboot, manages to feel fresher than it is.

NK: It very much reads like the first chapter in a longer story but it's extremely effective at that. Would you want to read more of it?

DC: If it had the same art team I’d read a trade or two of this. As much as this is just people in rooms having feelings the opening with the cross cutting art styles is a bit of a promise this will get my dynamic

The DC new titles needed to have a completely random cut to a random future action scene for that. Good on books of magic for having it actually connect to the narrative of this issues.

NK: Next time we'll be going back to our old rabbit hole with Grant Morrison and Liam Sharp's debut on Green Lantern So we're back from wired to tired, sorry.

DC: Yeah, hope you got your fill of politics free comic talk Next week we’re tackling an icon of the underground punk scenes return from pure creator owned stuff to a big 2 book about cops Also I may find a way to be bitter about how happy! Got to be a Netflix series but we still don’t have a we3 movie

NK: STTTIINNNNK

DC: We’ve had a lot of fun here tonight, but what’s not fun is blackface

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regretadayagain · 6 years

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DAY 134: Doomed from the Start Patrol???

I already regret the queasy, uneasy feeling I’m getting in the pit of my stomach surrounding this recent announcement:

That’s right. A 13-episode live-action series about DC Comics’ Doom Patrol has just been ordered, based on the yet-to-be-released Titans series.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m actually a fan of some of the other Greg Berlanti series:

Not ALL of them, but some. And you know what? That’s enough for me. The strides this dude’s made with these DC characters is fucking phenomenal.

Thanks to HIM, we got a live-action JSA for Christ’s sake.

That’s a MASSIVE achievement in my book. And yeah, some of the writing is a little hacky & tweenish.

But as a geek, I’ve been happy with what we’ve gotten from the good, old CW.

I mean, this is still DC we’re talking about. As a DC fan, I’m used to NOT getting my hopes up. Because in this universe, if you get too nit-picky, you get butt-hurt.

I’m sure (like me) every DC fan on the planet is appreciative of the baby steps the TV series seem to be taking.

Because otherwise, we get served THIS:

But I digress.

Admittedly, I was a late-bloomer when it came to Doom Patrol. I only discovered Grant Morrison’s wonderfully twisted run a few years ago.

It’s like reading a comic on acid. With a peyote chaser.

Morrison’s run put a serious zap on my head & made me rethink EVERYTHING I thought I knew about comics. A serious exercise in the untethered potential of storytelling in this medium.

I’ve even been collecting Gerard Way’s recent run.

And let me tell you something: it does NOT disappoint. Mainly because it does exactly what a revamp of a series does: provides an easy gateway for people who never read the original, while giving subtle winks to those who have.

All that said, I regret the trepidation I’m feeling toward Berlanti’s upcoming series.

Sure, I want it. More than ANYTHING.

And yet, I’m worried that any patina or edge will be stripped or smoothed away. Which I’m sure will happen, since I hear Berlanti’s sticking to the original team,

rather than the effed-up 90′s shit I love.

I guess I’m too close to Morrison’s source material.

Well, maybe it’ll be fine. Maybe I’m worrying over nothing.

'Cause if they do it right & go all Legion on this series, it could be fucking EPIC.

#RegretADayAgain #regrets #Doom Patrol #Titans #Teen Titans #DC Universe #Greg Berlanti #CW #Grant Morrison #Gerard Way #Legion #DAY134

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segadores-y-soldados · 7 years

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Overwatch: Companies and Corporations

“And she learned that people were just as easily manipulated. Now she understood how the world worked - information is power. So she kept hacking: politicians, corporations, governments…It was an addiction.

“But for the first time…someone noticed her.” - Sombra: Origins Video

Mainly doing this for myself but here’s a list of the major companies and corporations - along with a description, a list of people affiliated with them, those who oppose them, and reasons why you should be suspicious of them - for resource purposes. I have tried to limit speculation to only the major ideas or theories, so the majority of this is just straight facts or descriptions.

[Why]: If you’re a fan of Overwatch’s storytelling, characters, or world-building, understanding the companies and corporations that make up the fictional world is, quite frankly, the most important aspect aside from understanding the organization of Overwatch itself. Almost every major company has a connection to a playable character in some way, and many have ties to the much larger story being told about a massive conspiracy and secret “group” trying to control the world.

This is not a comprehensive list, but hopefully should be a major starting point. All companies and corporations are listed in alphabetical order…

Except the first one.

[Omnica Corporation]

More under the cut

[Omnica Corporation]

[Who]: The Omnica Corporation was a major robotic company that helped begin a global robot manufacturing craze sometime within the next “thirty years” of the Overwatch timeline (between 2015-2016 and approximately 2045-2046). They started producing robots the world over in massive factories called “omniums” - known locations include Krasnoyarsk, Russia, Detroit, United States, “the Outback” in Australia, and somewhere in Nigeria.

[What]: Sometime after production began, it was discovered (through means or mediators unknown) that the Omnica Corporation was rife with fraud, corruption, and breakdowns. The omniums could not sustain production, and when the fraud was investigated and pursued, the company was shut down. (source: https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/blog/20130523).

Sometime after the shutdown, roughly around 2045-2046, the Omniums revived themselves, and the “Omnic” robots inside them began a massive military campaign against humanity. This is known as “the Crisis.”

[Those Against]: Pretty much every one of the “older” characters fought against the Omnics in the Crisis. Specifically, at least five playable characters formed a group known as “Overwatch” and created a strike team task force on behalf of the United Nations to wage unconventional warfare against the Omniums. These characters are: Reaper/Gabriel Reyes, Soldier: 76/Jack Morrison, Ana Amari, Reinhart Wilhelm, and Torbjörn Lindholm. Speculated playable characters who may have fought against the Omnics: Roadhog/Mako Rutledge.

[Why]: Besides being the corporation that created a whole new “group” of sentient, intelligent, perceptive robotic beings called “Omnics,” the Omnica Corporation literally sets up an major thematic issue underlying the entire story/world of Overwatch:

Corporate greed, mismanagement, and corruption led to a massive global crisis and nearly the end of life as we know it.

This is a thematic issue that we will see repeat itself time and time again - that corrupt companies and corporations are undermining global stability and peace, whether directly or indirectly. We do not know the specifics of what fraud or corruption Omnica actually engaged in or went through, but the implications are that - had Omnica been a more ethical, more honest corporate entity - they could’ve prevented the Crisis from happening, or could have managed their Omniums better. And, if you squint real hard, you can maybe - maybe - see the implication that someone within Omnica started the war (source: https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/blog/20130523)

“What came next is well-documented. The omniums began to break down. Independent analysis showed they would never come close to meeting the corporation’s promises of growth and output. Omnica was investigated and forcibly dissolved after evidence of fraud was uncovered, its omniums shut down.

“That is why it came as such a surprise when these defunct, dismantled omniums woke themselves back up and immediately launched a military campaign against all of humanity.”

The question we should be asking here is: how did the Omniums wake themselves back up? Was there specific human involvement? Or was it merely human oversight and error that “missed” something when the Omnica Corporation was shut down?

[Axiom]

[Who]: A company that appears to specialize in producing electronic and/or robotic parts. Not much is known about them.

[What]: Axiom appears to have a branch in Numbani and Sydney.

[Why]: Axiom is still a relatively minor company within the Overwatch universe (as in, their relationships and roles have not been fully explored yet). The biggest issue is that Efi Oladele purschaed a vocal processor from them as she was building Orisa.

[Affiliated characters]: Orisa and her creator Efi, but only loosely affiliated.

[Helix Security International]

[Who]: a private security/military company that specializes in enforcing and maintaining order, or preventing conflict (conflict suppression).

[What]: Helix is one of the more “developed” companies within the Overwatch world - not only is it the direct employer of one of the playable characters (Pharah), but it is referenced multiple times across several articles and at least two comics.

The summary: Helix is the main corporation managing defunct Watchpoints and other “Overwatch bases” such as the Temple of Anubis in Giza, Egypt. It also manages what we know to be for-profit prisons, retaining individuals like Akande Ogundimu (Doomfist). It is not known if it “inherited” these prisons from Overwatch, or developed the prisons on its own.

An extremely rough timeline of Helix-based events (or events in which Helix is involved) goes like this:

Soldier: 76 steals the new, experimental heavy pulse rifle from Watchpoing: Grand Mesa, which Helix is managing (source: https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/blog/19809235/).

Sometime around “Recall,” the artificial intelligence, colloquially called a “god program,” named Anubis (currently being confined by Helix Securities in the Temple of Anubis in Giza, Egypt) attempts to break out of its confinement. Pharah’s team is sent in to stop it (or destroy it) (source: comic “Mission Statement”).

Shortly after this, a Talon-associate named Hakim has information on the event (or claims he does). In conjuction with Reaper (and a small reference to Sombra), they act like they are trying to get access to information about Anubis’ near-escape, but in reality, they are trying to lure in a bounty hunter called “the Shrike.” In the “Old Soldiers” comic, it is revealed that Hakim and Reaper were actually trying to trap “the Shrike,” but instead caught Soldier: 76 in their trap. However, “the Shrike” - revealed to be Ana Amari - assists Soldier: 76 and eventually unmasks Reaper (source: comic “Old Soldiers”).

Approximately around the time of Carnival the following year, Akande Ogundimu (Doomfist) breaks out of a Helix-run maximum security prison (source: https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/blog/20877886).

[Affiliated characters]: Fareeha Amari (Pharah) - currently employed by Helix to man one of their Mark VI jet suits.

[Those against]: at the very least, Doomfist and Reaper have been seen fighting Helix Securities members. Anubis is also a background character who wants to escape Helix’s confinement system. Lastly, Sombra also expresses interest in accessing Helix’s information.

[Why]: Pharah is undoubtedly a morally-good character, representing ideals such as hope, justice, and safety. She appears, however, to have gotten these ideas from people like her mother, and the “heroes” she grew up around, such as Reinhardt and the rest of the original Overwatch team.

On the flipside, Helix Securities itself is morally ambiguous. It is heavily implied that Anubis - though dangerous - is having strange or unethical experiments being conducted on it, and the most recent article involving Helix throws some slight shade on the company for its for-profit prison system:

“Questions have been raised about the effectiveness and methodology of Helix, which in recent years, has greatly increased its profile as the world’s security force. But after a number of high profile incidents, including the breach of a similarly top-secret facility in Egypt, those who have objected to the increased privatization of security following the shuttering of Overwatch will have been dismayed that Helix has requested, and been granted, additional funding by the UN to cope with rising threats.”

Another thing to bear in mind is that we are constantly being shown that the post-Overwatch world is both being “protected” and “preyed upon” by private military-type securities, Helix being chief among them, but other background details show that there were escalations for privatized armed forces as early as pre-Fall of Overwatch.

At the same time that people were questioning Overwatch and its covert operations division Blackwatch’s effectiveness, there were small signs about the privatization of “peacekeeping” going on in the background.

[Lucheng Interstellar]

[Who]: a China-based space industry company ranging in space-travel or space-habitation technology that operates out of Lijiang Tower. They are at least partially responsible for founding and operation the Horizon Lunar Colony.

[What]: there isn’t much “story” behind the King of the Hill map in Lijiang Tower within the game, but with the newest release of the Horizon Lunar Colony, we have a little bit more to go off of. Lucheng appears to helped found, supply, and operate the moon colony for some time.

Before things went a little…apeshit.

“But I loved my time there. The scientists were my family. I learned so much from them. I have so many great memories! We were working together to build humanity’s future amongst the stars.

“…But it wasn’t to be. Not everyone liked life on the moon. All the tests…and the rules… The others hatched a plan - no more injections, no more experiments - and the doctors, my friends -

“…They were all gone.” - Winston, Horizon Lunar Colony Preview Video

With the narration by Winston in the video, we have a better understanding of the unethical, probably inhumane treatment of the gorilla troop that lived in the moon colony. The gorillas were subject to injections that gave them the intelligence of at least humans, and they were seemingly subject to some harsh rules. Emails in the “New Details Emerge About Possible Fate Of Horizon Lunar Colony” article (https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/blog/20812209) show that the gorillas (or “specimens”) were often put in “in their rooms” when they acted up. At the very least, one “speciment” (Hammond) was put in a cage.

Lucheng is suspicious for their probably unethical treatment of animal test subjects, the “genetic manipulation” of them, and their radio silence on the issue for what is apparently several years.

[Affiliated characters]: Winston

[Those against]: If he does ever become playable, Hammond is likely top of the list. Hammond is the only specimen listed alongside Winston as being “missing,” and it is heavily implied that he: 1) escaped his cage, 2) used the ventilation systems of the colony to move about undetected, and then 3) damaged one of the airlocks, causing all the scientists to be launched into space.

[LumériCo] (longest sigh ever)

[Who]: An energy company based in Mexico offering “fusion-based” technology to power whole cities or regions. The sources of their technology are not known. They are known for their massive, pyramid-like power plants. The company originally had Guillermo Portero as its CEO.

[What]: …I almost don’t want to write this. It’s just…so much.

Here’s the summary:

Waaaaaay back when, Guillermo Portero fought during the Omnic Crisis and became a national war hero for Mexico. Sometime after, he was elected to be president. You can see his statue on the Dorado map, and the Castillo map.

In more recent years, Portero stepped down as president, and either founded or became the CEO of a partially-state-funded energy company called LumériCo. The company promised to deliver on better, more sustainable energy for the country.

In an unknown amount of time, the “girl” who eventually became Sombra began investigating LumériCo, but was “caught” by some sort of…group. The “girl” had to “upgrade her hardware,” and became Sombra. Sombra dedicated her hacking efforts to investigating LumériCo.

During this time, LumériCo unveiled its plans for nationwide powerplants. At roughly the same time, Soldier: 76 (leaving the United States) enters Mexico (source: https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/blog/20119620). Besides Sombra, Soldier: 76 implies through his in-game line “I wanna know what LumériCo is up to” that he is aware that some sort of corrupt activity is going on with LumériCo.

The extensive and long Sombra ARG takes place. Everyone is overhyped.

During the Sombra ARG, it is revealed that Portero has connections to Sanjay Korpal of Vishkar (more on this later). It is also revealed that Porteo is engaging in fraud and other corrupt activities.

The ARG culiminates in an in-universe article about Portero stepping down as CEO, and the reveal of Sombra as a playable character (source: https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/blog/20353652)

[Affiliated characters]: many non-playable characters such as Guillermo Portero and various LumériCo employees.

[Those against]: Obviously, Sombra opposes LumériCo’s efforts. It is implied that Soldier: 76 does as well. Lastly, non-playable characters in opposition are members of the Los Muertos gang.

[??? affiliated characters]: at the same time as the final Sombra email leaks were “occurring” in-universe, Roadhog and Junkrat were robbing the Bank of Dorado. Sometime after (occurring during the “Reflections” comic), Jesse McCree appears at the Calaveras bar in Dorado.

[Why]: so besides being the “corrupt corporation” in the present Overwatch universe, LumériCo factors heavily into Sombra’s background, being her main motivator to investigate corrupt “politicans, corporations, governments.” LumériCo also represents a massive story that perpetuates the “tale” told by the Omnica Corporation: being “innovative” and “powerful” without ethics or honor is not necessarily a good thing. Perhaps LumériCo’s power plants were a good, productive, helpful thing for Mexico, but doing things “the wrong way,” even with the best intentions, is not acceptable (at least to some characters). “The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” “two wrongs don’t make a right,” etc, etc.

“Documents indicate that Mr. Portero used the company’s funds as his own piggy bank, that he was personally involved in bribing public officials and creating a system of kickbacks and payoffs beneficial to LumériCo, and finally, that he proposed a plan to seize privately held land via government expropriation to expand LumériCo’s facilities throughout Mexico.”

LumériCo also provides us with a very stark picture: a war hero like Portero can slowly be corrupted by the same “temptations” and “greed” that affected the world prior to the war. “You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

…Right?

Which rolls right into our next one:

[Vishkar Corporation]

(another long sigh)

[Who]: Vishkar is a “megacorporation” specializing in constructing buildings and other large-scale structures through a pioneering technology called “hard light.” They are based in a fictional city called Utopaea (yes, really) in India. They employ technicians who are extensively trained (many from childhood) in using hard light technology called “architechs” (no, I did not spell that incorrectly).

[What]: Like Helix, Vishkar is a direct employer for a playable character - Satya Vaswani (Symmetra). LumériCo and Helix are heavily implied through articles and comics to be shady as all hell -

But Vishkar is outright shown to be shady as all hell.

The Symmetra “A Better World” comic does not beat around the bush: Vishkar, or at least several people within Vishkar, are pretty goddamn immoral and unethical for the sake of “building a better world.” It should be noted that the idea of a “better world” is one which is extremely hierarchical, organized, orderly, and restrictive.

The Symmetra comic ends on an uncertain note, with it being heavily implied that Satya’s boss, Sanjay Korpal, is the one who gave the order to blow up a rival construction company to remove their competing bid to build a new city center in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The explosion damages not only the rival company, but destroys the nearby “favela” community and hurts several members.

It is not known what Satya herself does afterwards, but the rest of the “Vishkar problem” is told in another character’s story:

But Lúcio’s close-knit community was thrown into chaos when the multinational Vishkar Corporation secured a contract to redevelop large tracts of the city. Lúcio and his neighbors had been told that the development would improve their lives. However, that promise never became a reality. Vishkar imposed controls on the residents in the name of building a more orderly society: enforcing curfews, cracking down on what the company perceived as lawless behavior, and exploiting the populace as a cheap labor force.

Lúcio wouldn’t stand for it. He stole Vishkar sonic technology that had been used to suppress the people, and he converted it into a tool to rally them to action. In a popular uprising, they drove Vishkar out of their neighborhoods. - Lúcio’s hero profile on Play.Overwatch

[Affiliated characters]: Satya Vaswani (Symmetra), Sanjay Korpal

[Those against]: Lúcio Correia dos Santos, other members of Lúcio’s community

[Why]: Between the LumériCo parts of the Sombra ARG, the Symmetra comic, and Lúcio’s profile, it is becoming increasingly clear that there is an interconnected network of “corrupt” corporations working together. Ostensibly, on the surface, they are collaborating to improve their projects and combine their strengths (e.g. Vishkar using LumériCo’s energy technology to power their construction projects and cities), but beneath the surface, things get dicey as all hell. With LumériCo’s CEO stealing funds and possibly seizing land, and Vishkar’s management literally blowing up their rivals - as well as the implication of using/training children to become laborers (Symmetra’s story) and using low-class economic populations as cheap, exploited labor (Lúcio’s story) - these “slick, innovative, impressive” corporations are looking more and more like familiar, ugly mirrors to many modern, present-day companies and corporations that engage in unethical and illegal activities to further their profits and businesses.

More importantly, at least some of these corporations are connected to each other.

It’s difficult to tell what their exact goal is, but with each messy, entangled connection, we get a few more pieces of the puzzle.

Which brings us to:

[Volskaya Industries]

[Who]: a Russian mech company that is currently creating military and war mechs to fight against the newly revitalized Siberian Omnium. Their newest mechs are called “The Svyatogor.” Production for these mechs can be seen on the playable map.

[What]: Volskaya is apparently the only company currently producing war mechs for the Russian armed forces to use in the “Second Omnic Crisis” that has broken out in Sibera, Russia. It is not known what their exact profits or objectives are, but the CEO Katya Volskaya at least appears to be patriotic, or genuinely motivated to help her country. Aleksandra Zayranova (Zarya) speaks highly of her, calling her “a hero” and a statue of Katya (or her predecessor) can be found atop a war memorial on the map.

However, during the Blizzcon 2016 reveal of Sombra, it is shown that Katya Volskaya is actually getting some her new “tech” from “the enemy” - Omnics associated (according to Sombra) with Numbani, a city that represents harmony between humans and Omnics (and a city implied to be hated by most human Russians).

“Okay, listen - I’m here to make a friend. And show you something I found… Tell me, what would happen if the people of Russia learned that their ‘defender against the Omnics’ was actually getting her tech from ‘the enemy?’“ - Sombra, to Katya, in “Infiltration”

[Affiliated characters]: Katya Volskaya, Aleksandra Zaryanova (Zarya)

[Those against (???)]: Sombra, Reaper, Widowmaker, a Talon leader named Vialli

[Those supportive (???)]: Akande Ogundimu (Doomfist), Sombra (?), Reaper (?) (hell, just throw all the question marks in there)

[Why]: Well now

We’ve reached the part where it gets really interesting.

Arguably…there’s nothing…wrong with what Katya is doing - at least not in terms of stealing funds, blowing up rivals, exploiting lower-class workers, injecting animal test subjects with unknown genetic manipulative “stuff,” confining A.I., running for-profit prisons, the works. In fact, Katya’s stuff seems pretty tame compared to everything else - if the only thing she’s doing “wrong” is getting technology from an Omnic group, then really, the argument lies in how her country perceives her. The only “wrong” part about this is that it is implied that Russia would not take kindly to the news that she’s using Omnic technology in her new mechs. In a twisted way, one could argue that she is a patriot for doing “anything” to fight the Siberian Omnium (and boy howdy, this doesn’t even begin to cover the fact that some Omnics in Numbani apparently want her to defeat the Siberian Omnium).

So why is she even important in the grand scheme of things?

We return to Sombra’s web, which implies that Volskaya actually does have ties to LumériCo, who in turn has ties to Vishkar, etc, etc. And more importantly, at least a group in Numbani (we don’t specifically know who) has ties to Doomfist, represented here by his gauntlet.

Corruption isn’t a corporate hierarchy that “trickles down.”

Corruption is a circle of CEOs, all of them exchanging power with each other.

[Ogundimu Prosthetics] (official name unknown) and/or [Talon]

Yeah, alright, here’s the speculative part. I’ve put these two together because we simply don’t know enough about either, but we can do some analysis and lay down some guesswork.

“Akande Ogundimu was born into a well-regarded Nigerian family, heir to its prosthetic-technology company. A highly intelligent and charismatic figure, Ogundimu helped to expand his family’s business and position it for the future while dedicating his free time to his first love: competitive martial arts.”

“But when he lost his right arm in the aftermath of the Omnic Crisis, it seemed his martial arts career was finished before he had reached his prime. His company’s cybernetic prosthetics allowed him to recover from his injuries, even making him stronger, but these enhancements rendered him ineligible for competition. He tried to devote himself to his business with the same zeal that he had for fighting, but he found nothing that could fill the void… until he was given a new opportunity by Akinjide Adeyemi, better known to the world as the second Doomfist, the Scourge of Numbani.”

“Eventually, Adeyemi brought him into the Talon organization. Talon’s belief that humanity would be made stronger through conflict resonated with Ogundimu’s personal experiences. Moreover, Talon’s power struggles presented a new challenge that allowed him to use his talent in the boardroom along with his cunning as a combatant.”

What Akande Ogundimu’s profile shows us is that his “business sense” and skills as a corporate leader are significant not only to his personality and background, but to his abilities as a Talon leader. Talon itself is compared to “a boardroom” - specifically, its cutthroat “power struggles” are compared to a corporate climate.

And it isn’t just limited to Akande’s profile: his in-game dialogue frequently has him focusing on power struggles, conflicts, and, more specifically, the Crisis.

“The world changed after the Crisis. It is overdue for a new test.” - Doomfist on Eichenwalde

Remember what caused the original Crisis?

A corporation that got caught up in fraud and corruption.

Doomfist’s goal is to bring about a global conflict that will drive both humanity and Omnics to be “stronger.” His ideology is a twisted form of Social Darwinism, but if you’ve read some of my other stuff, you’ll know that he’s not “wrong” in the sense of history. Forcing conflicts helps a very select group of people:

The Military-Industrial Complex.

This is a term to describe the people, groups, corporations, technologies, and industries that “profit” off of war. Typically, these are weapons manufacturers or defense companies that produce the supplies needed in wartime endeavors, but in a future like Overwatch that could be:

The power needed to create and sustain technology.

The technology needed to build structures and buildings quickly and cheaply.

The mechs required to fight against giant robots.

The prosthetics to “repair” wounded human combatants.

New forms of armor, and new types of security investments required to fight against massive A.I.s.

The money needed to fund all this.

And an organization to put it all in motion.

And who do we spy in the background of the Talon “boardroom” council?

He looks like a familiar figure.

As I wrote earlier:

This is a thematic issue that we will see repeat itself time and time again - that corrupt companies and corporations are undermining global stability and peace, whether directly or indirectly.

Corruption and the misuse of power are not “structural, hierarchical ladders” in the world of Overwatch.

Corruption and the misuse of power are circular, connected, linked together -

into a spider’s web.

And where does it all go from here?

(source: https://twitter.com/guzhenn/status/888537238300053504)

Hopefully we’ll find out soon.

#overwatch lore #overwatch #talon #overwatch theories #long post #references #companies #corporations #resources #akande ogundimu #doomfist #sombra #zarya #aleksandra zaryanova

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bringbackwendellvaughn · 7 years

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I saw you post pics from it, so what do you think of Grievioux's New Warriors?

I hate it a fair bit.

The Night Thrasher stuff seems insincere and mostly motivated by race (he’s black therefore he’s basically better than Batman) and, believe me, I’d be all for a book starring a bunch of awesome Grant Morrison X-Men characters stuck in limbo but it did not do a good job of that. They were tertiary to Night Thrasher and none of them have any personality, this is all about Night Thrasher - which poses the question; why bother having all these X-characters in it? Especially since some of them like Chamber and Jubilee, are character’s that people would buy the book to read about. And some of them were butchered or just not in character at all. I love Beak but the character, which everyone else hates, should’ve been retired after his “happy ending” in Exiles. Bringing him back and making him a bland uncharacteristic sub-Darkhawk was utterly pointless. Likewise, he’s pretty happy to just kill any of them off, I mean, Stacy X and Redneck’s death didn’t seem to serve anything at all (and the former was brought back without explanation anyway). Why not just use New Warriors characters (there were plenty available - Firestar, Darkhawk, Turbo, Silhouette, Cloak and/or Dagger) or viable New Warriors characters (Gravity, Carmilla Black, Sleepwalker) instead of just doing an pretend X-Men book? I think the team of de-powered mutants could’ve been their own team with a better writer who was interested in them (because I am interested in most of them). This was neither a New Warriors book or an X-Men book.

I don’t mind Donyell as Night Thrasher at all - but I think that’s mainly because I literally have no attachment to Night Thrasher. Dwayne was always the least interesting/most boring in Nicieza’s New Warriors and I didn’t feel he was a loss at all in Civil War. But it looks like everyone loves Night Thrasher all of a sudden, so I’m of the minority. So Donyell can just stay as Night Thrasher, I don’t think he’s necessarily a trade-down. As you’ll see in a few days, I’m not saying “no” to Night Thrasher or all his fans just because I don’t like him…

The art was amazing.. Paco Medina is great. It’s a shame he keeps getting a lot of weak projects (I will say this is definitely not the worst thing he’s had to draw). I don’t quite understand why he hasn’t ever been upgraded to A-List books, he easily deserves it.

I think a big problem was conversely the New Warriors in The Initiative - as well as the new young heroes in that book - were much more interesting and better a team. To the point where thinking up New Warriors rosters is hard because there’s so many decent characters in The Initiative who could be tagged onto New Warriors (Thor Girl, Cloud 9, Prodigy, etc.). Arguably the best part of this New Warriors run was when those New Warriors showed up. I don’t think you can make a legacy team book with only 1 associated character (who turns out to not even be the character he appears). I honestly think most people are going to be disappointed with any New Warriors book if it doesn’t have at least 4 of the originals there. When people think of New Warriors, it’s almost unanimously the original 6.

While I’m at it, Blue Marvel is genuinely one of the most disgusting characters in the Marvel Universe, he combines everything I could possibly hate about a character (bad retcon character who is the most powerful person yet and his whole story is based around the evil white man). I liked it better when no-one was using the character and everyone was moaning about how nobody is using him and how he should be on every team.

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mohartproductions · 7 years

Text

The Real Problem With Damian Wayne

As those of you may know, Damian Wayne is the estranged, biological of Bruce Wayne/Batman and the fourth Robin, and since his creation the character has endured mixed reception, mostly leaning to people hating him for basically being a jerk, yet other people seem to like him because he's a jerk; either account is subjective, after all opinions are opinions.

Now here's where I stand in this trilemma, I don't hate Damian, I don't even dislike him, sure he's aggressive, and can be pretty rude, but I kind'a see him as a reflection of his father the Bat himself, in how he's brusk but not heartless, callous and pigheaded but not barbaric or unethical (for the most part) so in concept there should still be a genuine sense of humanity inside of him... if not for one unredeemable factor... after I deviate a bit and go into other people's fixation with the jerk archetype first.

Now, it's no surprise, we do have this strange fascination with jerks; whether we enjoy them for how malicious they are in being an antagonist, laugh at them for their comedic slapstick misfortune, or even cheer them on as the protagonist, there's always something so interesting, and even endearing about the jerk archetype we can't help but be allured to, perhaps mainly because they're an escapist reflection of ourselves in how they do things we want to do but chose not to due to our conscience, yet some still have their own sense of humanity to make them likable, with the case of protagonists here are some examples--

Garfield BoJack Horseman Squidward Mr. Krabbs Daffy Duck Bugs Bunny Tom & Jerry Donald Duck Chip & Dale Helga from Hey Arnold Moe, Carl, and Lenny from the Simpsons Professor Farnsworth and Bender from Futurama Rick from Rick and Morty Jessica Jones John Constantine Deadpool Wolverine Jason Todd Lobo Vegeta Rigby, Vincent, and Muscle Man from Regular Show Dan from Dan Vs. Peter Veckman from Ghostbusters Grim and Mandy Invader Zim Rainbowdash Discord (a reformed antagonist turned ally) Raphael of TMNT fame Norb and Dagg from the Angry Beavers Nick Wylde from Zootopia Eddy from Ed, Edd, & Eddy

These examples as listed represent characters who we should hate, yet can't help but feel praise, empathy, or even sympathy for, or generally like because there is something about them we find interesting or even relate to, so by that extent Damian Wayne should fit right in, right?

Well... here's a revelation I had, Damian Wayne is not a character-- let me repeat that-- Damian Wayne is NOT a character!

Here's a theory I just recently had, in that Grant Morrison basically created Damian not as a character, but a plot device, a walking, talking, butt-kicking plot device sure but a plot device never the less. Damian does not truly develop as a character, he gains no maternal experience under the superhero wing, he acts basically the same through the entirety of his arc. I mean don't get me wrong, there have been plenty of good stories told with him like being the brood to Dick Grayson's preppy light hearted nature in their own Batman and Robin dynamic; and there are bits in the comics where he is... kind of a bad-ass, but for the most part this only works in Damian's favor not as a character but as a plot tool, that's why Damian never truly changes since he became Robin.

And that's the major problem with Damian AS a character, Damian for a lack of a better term is essentially a NAAWB; what the heck is a NAAWB you ask?!

Non-Interesting Average Adolescent White Boy

There's nothing really interesting about Damian, there's nothing unique about him, we've practically seen this kind of character a million times before even in superhero comics, and it's not even a different take on Robin; (Jason Todd anyone?) we have seen this character type before, the snarky, sassy, butt-headed tough guy who acts all stern and crass and makes insensitive comments when they're rude or even inappropriate; and it's not even done properly!

The important key to writing a likable jerk, or any good character in general is that there must always be something interesting, likable, or redeemable about them, that's why everybody else loves Jessica Jones, but not Damian; Damian is just a shell of what makes other jerk characters likable, and fails to execute in how that archetype works well.

Never the less though, I still see potential for Damian, I do see sometime in the future Damian can develop as a character and achieve something to make more people appreciate him as a character, and that's why I can't hate him, because he's not really a character, but he can still evolve as a character, a character more people can like.

Or at least that's my input.

#DC comics #batman #robin #damian wayne

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davidmann95 · 5 years

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This week's comics? Specifically, new Tom King Batman/Green Lantern?

Hoo boy, this week was a hefty one. Tackling your requests at the top, and no spoilers this week:

The Green Lantern #2: It’s surprising how non-action-driven this has been for the first couple issues - it really is space cop stuff first and foremost, in this case an interrogation. I see what Morrison meant in interviews when he said people would take Hal’s voice as odd in this, and I hope he’ll follow though when he said the core of his take’ll be a little clearer soon, but even so I’m liking him well enough as the traditional straight-take superhero anchor to the 2000ADness of it all. The Oa spread on page 7 is absolutely jaw-dropping, and the guest villain of the issue explaining his name is the best thing in superhero comics this week, and possibly this year.

Batman #60: I’ll admit the last 5-6 issues or so haven’t been tremendously doing it for me, but it certainly looks like it’s about to pick back up. And good lord, Jorge Fornes had better be getting any assignments he pleases.

Justice League #13: Grisly at it gets, the best word I can think of for this issue is a romp. It’s total old-school superhero adventure and villainous monologuing, just minus the hero part of that. Honestly, I’m almost worried about these Legion of Doom one-shots’ role in terms of the integrity of the run as a whole *as a Justice League run*, because it’s this side that feels so much more vibrant and fleshed-out. Granted Snyder and Tynion get full ownership of the villains involved so there’s more room to play, but I almost feel like this team would rather just be doing a Legion of Doom book period, because this is where the whole thing sings, great as the regular League stuff in here always is too.

Adventures of the Super Sons #5: I rag on Tomasi, but he’s not a bad writer, he’s a writer with specialties. And Super Sons is hitting all of those specialties, and I love it.

Shazam! #1: I checked this VERY tentatively on a recommendation and from how great the premise sounded, and unbelievably, it’s good. Not the next big thing by any means, but great superhero stuff that takes a modern bent on the material but maintains the warmth and wonder that defines Marvel at his best. It reads for all the world like a writer doing a very deliberate course-correction from how horrifically Geoff Johns fucked up the character top to bottom…except it’s actually Geoff Johns, essentially pulling a 180 on his own reboot? Whatever, Johns somehow rules (though there’s one or two lines in the backup that feel like notable Johnsisms), Dale Eaglesham rules, Mayo Naito rules on the backup, and this book, on the whole, rules.

Archie Meets Batman ‘66 #5: Feel like it’s lost some steam, but on the whole it remains a delight regardless.

Border Town #4: Everyone should still be reading this.

DIE #1: Kieron Gillen is a writer whose craft I can always respect, but usually it isn’t until reread that I truly get a kick out of his work. Don’t know what the difference is here - Stephanie Hans, the premise, the tone, the small core cast - but this seems to be the one that’s gonna grab me right off the bat.

The Wicked + The Divine #40: On the other end of the Gillen spectrum, I’ve been lost here for awhile, so I appreciate this issue essentially reestablishing the fundamentals of what’s up as we head into the finale.

West Coast Avengers #5: Digging this! Quietly one of Marvel’s upper-tier titles at the moment. Still wanna grab Thompson’s Hawkeye run someday.

Marvel Knights #3: Fine. Exactly good enough for me to stick around for 3 more issues, knowing Cates is coming back for the end.

Shatterstar #3: I’m not convinced this shouldn’t have just been a one-shot about him as a landlord, but it’s still fun and it’s easily got me for the two remaining issues.

Killmonger #1: Top-tier shit by two creators I already loved but still underestimated. Hill has a remarkable talent for switching up his style with each project, and Ferreyra is going to be The Next Big Thing.

The Merry X-Men Holiday Special: Initially more miss than hit for me, but the ratio improves over the course of the book. However, while I was glad to see Hanukkah represented a fair deal, I can’t help but wish they called it the X-Men X-Mas Special.

Venom #9: Issa ittle-bittle Venom pupper! Otherwise solid but mainly left me more looking forward to the immediate future than getting much from what we had here (even if it laid the foundation here for what makes said future worth looking forward to).

The Best Defense: The Immortal Hulk #1: Rules. It’s Ewing Hulk (or really in this case Ewing Banner, the first story where he’s truly taken center stage other than kind of #2, making it in my opinion fairly indispensable to Immortal Hulk thematically if not plotwise), of course it rules.

The Best Defense: Namor #1: Also rules! I knew Zdarsky more than had the chops for heavier material, but this still came as a surprise that excites me for his Invaders, and Carlos Magno was a name I don’t believe I’ve seen before but quite liked. Kind of dislike though that each of these is a #1 when the recurring sequence and checklist in the back really does give this an implicit reading order; it’d definitely confuse readers who didn’t go in already knowing how this was gonna be structured.

The Immortal Hulk #10: Still the best comic on the stands, though there’s an ad placement at the end I really feel detracts from the big moment. And someone asked about the title, and I’m pretty sure it’s the mythic reference rather than an SCP one, even if I could imagine Ewing having seen that at some point.

Martian Manhunter #1: Absolutely brilliant on every level, more than carrying me through a startling premise I’m not at all geared to accept by default. Keep an eye on this one, I can’t imagine it not being one of DC’s most acclaimed books for the entirety of its run, and J’onn’s definitive story pretty much by default.

The Unexpected #7: Sharply picks up as it screams into the finale, but it’s still in every way a pale shadow of what it should have been.

Doomsday Clock #8: Well, it’s certainly still fascinating. At the 2/3rds mark Superman finally takes his place as the advertised co-lead, and while it’s probably the least technically ambitious issue so far (on that note, for a series as meticulous as this tries to be, it’s very noticeable and distracting that Superman switches between the plain red cape and having the yellow s-shield on the back), it’s probably the most thematically interesting and true to the described premise of the whole thing, showing Superman at his best trying and failing to function in a DCU that’s had its narrative underpinnings usurped by Watchmen. This is definitely on the better end of Johns’ treatment of him, with the whole issue anchored by a genuinely wonderful scene between him and the other major hero taking point for this specific installment,* and that’s what makes it work when everything goes to hell.

* It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out why Johns picked the character he did here, even if ‘long time’ in this case means ‘actively thought about it for literally seconds’: (rot13.com) ur'f gur Ahpyrne Zna. Trqqvg? Nyfb, juvyr fbzr crbcyr unir ernq vg gung jnl, V qba'g guvax gur vqrn ng gur raq vf fhccbfrq gb or gung Sverfgbez vf Znaunggna, whfg gung gur raretl fcvxr orsber gur gryrcbegngvba ng gur raq orybatrq gb uvz engure guna Ebaavr. Nyfb, Puevfg V ubcr gurl qba'g ernyyl chg gur WFN onpx nf choyvp urebrf cerqngvat Fhcrezna naq gur erfg ol qrpnqrf. Jbefg ynetr-fpnyr ergpba QP rire chyyrq, yrffravat yvgrenyyl rirel punenpgre vaibyirq.

#Green Lantern #Justice League #Shazam #Doomsday Clock #Captain Marvel #DC Comics #Marvel #Week's Comics #Opinion

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