Joe Straczynski finally announced the project he has been teasing for a long time -- a Babylon 5 animated movie, already completed and ready to air

There are days I don’t know what the hell to make of Rorschach. We all do the secret identity thing, but for most of us it’s just a matter of having another name to hide behind. With Rorschach, it’s like there are two different people behind the mask, fighting it out. And I wonder sometimes what’ll happen when one of them wins? And what if it’s the wrong one?

Before Watchmen: Nite Owl (2012) #2

(J. Michael Straczynski, Andy & Joe Kubert)

The Amazing Spider-Man by J. Michael Straczynski and Joe Quesada.

You've mentioned it before a handful of times, bit do you have any in-depth thoughts on JMS' tenure on Spider-Man? Were you fan of the more mystical stories?

Huge fan, it was my gateway into 616 Spider-Man. All the best and worst facets of Spider-Man, and his handling by Marvel, can be found here.

The highs are some of the best in the franchise's history. Within this run we get a Peter Parker who really does feel like an adult. He's mature, wanting to help guide the next generation by being a teacher. He solves conflicts with his brain as well as his fists, gets angry as hell, but also never loses touch with the source of compassion that makes him a hero. Drama and comedy flow smoothly together, this run has the second best handle on Peter's "voice", only beaten by the original Lee/Dikto/Romita Sr. run. Incorporating some mystical elements into Peter's origin didn't bother me as I saw it as a cool attempt at widening the scope of Spider-Man's adventures, and Ezekiel was an interesting character who stood as an example of what Peter could have been if he had never lost his uncle. We didn't get as many stories with the classic Spidey Rogues as I would have liked, but I enjoyed stories like Peter and Doc Ock briefly teaming up, or Spidery having to deal with Doom and Loki.

Romita Junior isn't to everyone's taste but he was born to draw Spider-Man, and not just because of his dad. Nobody else can capture the visuals of dudes getting the absolute shit hammered out of each other when they're fighting, an aesthetic perfect for Spider-Man. Morlun outlived JMS' run when not many expected him too partly because Romita Jr. sold you that this guy was a big deal, that he pushed Spider-Man to his limits in a way few other Rogues had ever done. Kid me reading this run for the first time was legitimately shocked and scared when I saw Spidey all torn up and bleeding after going a few rounds with Morlun. Love Romita Jr.'s art, he's as perfect a match for Spider-Man as his dad was.

Peter’s relationships with the traditional women in his life have never been better than this run either.

Both Aunt May and Mary Jane have regressed since this run hard. JMS had Aunt May outright tear apart the bullshit argument that her knowing Peter's secret would be "too much" for her, by pointing out that May has been through so much pain and loss already and kept going. I loved the mother-son relationship between the two here, May here is everything that people pretend the Kents are for Superman. She's a source of wisdom that doesn't feel hokey, a foundation of strength that gives Peter the ability to stand up again when he's been kicked down. Hate it so much that they reverted to her not knowing and only existing as a cheap source of drama for Peter again.

Meanwhile the Peter/MJ relationship? Odd as it might be to say it's never been better than it was here. The two of them are funny, constantly trading banter with each other. When they're hurt they'll cry and talk about how they feel without devolving into shouting matches or blaming each other. Two of them are sexy too, constantly flirting with each other and letting you know that these are two young people in total love with one another. There's a maturity in this relationship that I've yet to see in any other Spider-Man romance, a shared sense of history that binds the two of them together in ways that make you understand why people lost their minds when Marvel broke them up. This is the run that sold me on MJ as Peter's soulmate, ironic I know, but I'm not alone in that view I've found.

Most impactful part of the run for me might surprise you. It's not when he gets the shit beat out of him by Morlun, terrifying as that is. It's not when he travels through time and has to fight through every battle he's ever fought amazing though that might be. It's not even when he gets to meet Uncle Ben again, despite that never failing to make me tear up. Instead it's the story right before One More Day where Peter has to commit a series of felonies in order to keep Aunt May safe because his identity is public knowledge and everyone is gunning for him now. That small story where Peter is internally keeping track of every crime he has to commit, and the jail time that would come with it if he gets caught, is peak Spider-Man to me. Nothing else has ever hit as hard in terms of showing how Peter's heroic identity just destroys his personal life, but his love for his aunt and Mary Jane give him the strength to push forward.

Which of course brings us to the bad, and the bad is on par with the Clone Saga in terms of being some of the worst Spider-Man stories ever. You want to see Marvel's obsession with keeping Peter young at it's dumbest? Here's the run where he sells his marriage to Satan. You want to see some examples of Quesada letting writers take wild swings because it would grab attention? Here's the run where Gwen cucks Peter with Norman Osborn and then plans on lying to Peter that he's the father of her twins. People claim that Superman is hard to write, but the sheer volume of outright GARBAGE I've seen published in Spider-Man's books have convinced me that is a claim more true of Spider-Man than any other character. How the most popular Marvel character, and likely the most popular superhero period, is constantly suffering under terrible, regressive storytelling baffles me.

The JMS era was an era where Spider-Man was moving forward only to end by regressing and freezing him into place, a status quo that has essentially held true ever since. Do I recommend his run? Yeah I do because for all the dross, this run even now contains many all time great Spider-Man moments, and this is the run that even now delineates where modern Spider-Man "begins". Whether those are enough to outweigh the negatives are ultimately going to be up to the reader, but much like Morrison for Batman, JMS and Quesada are the definitive modern Spider-Man creators for better and for worse.

So I’ve heard from people of that time that She -Ra was the better of the two MOTU shows.

Is this true if so why ? Genuinely curious. More clever episodes better plot lines?

I even heard people go a to say in terms of 80’s shoes He-Man was...kinda the worst compared to Transformers or GI Joe.

Curious to know why that seems to be the consensus

Is this true if so why ? Genuinely curious. More clever episodes better plot lines?

I would say more clever episodes, and the plot line in "The Secret of the Sword"/the first 5 eps was vastly more interesting than anything MotU had done with Adam and Skeletor. As a relationship, I mean: Alan Oppenheimer's Skeletor is a delight to watch for himself. Compare 80s She-Ra episodes like "Friendship", "My Friend, My Enemy" or "Horde Prime Takes a Holiday".

Some people disagree, and He-Man has gotten more revivals.

Transformers and GI Joe... Sunbow Productions had different staff writers, and I would say Larry DiTillio, Joe Straczynski and Bob Forward were a more talented group. DiTillio and Forward are highly regarded in the Transformers fandom for Beast Wars a decade later, while Straczynski innovated American TV with his 5-year serialized space opera Babylon 5. As for the spec writers, they were sometimes the same people (Paul Dini, Christy Marx, etc). The big advantage Sunbow had was outsourcing the animation, letting them get more fluid and flashy results for similar cash. This is more noticeable for GI Joe than Transformers, which could be absolutely dreadful with animation errors because apparently no one knew how to animate robots consistently.

Shit, I'm going to have a reblog a whole post of someone else's for the best example of that.

Exclusive Preview: Captain America #5

Captain America #5 exclusive preview. How can masters of physical and mental might defend against the supernatural prowess of an ancient evil? #comics #comicbooks #captainamerica

View On WordPress

Comic'addiction #22

Just a pilgrim [Intégrale] : Probablement marqué par ses visionnages des films du mystérieux cowboy en poncho Eastwood, Garth Ennis nous propose ici de suivre les péripéties un peu violentes d’un anonyme pèlerin, fou de dieu, dans un monde vaguement futuriste au sein duquel les océans se sont évaporés. Dans cet environnement post-apocalyptique sauce western, nous allons assister aux tentatives du…

View On WordPress

I see Joe's kicking the hornet's nest again. :) Gotta love it.

Have you by any chance accepted (or plan to accept) any new writing commissions from someone with the initials RTD for a TV show that's been on for a half century or so?

If Russell asked, I'd say yes if I could, but time is a reality, and I have things that people are waiting for and limited amounts of time to do my writing in. (I was asked to write an episode for Peter Capaldi's Doctor, but writing and making Good Omens ate all the time. Joe Straczynski asked me to write an episode of Babylon 5 when the pilot was approved, and I managed it for season 5.)

The whole thing about canon and rules seems a middle finger to fans, because there is nothing making MARVEL do this! They are only answering their own standards, so it's either weird defensiveness or a new writer(team) saying "Fuck you, we are better and smarter" to all the prior stories that built up the love for this character & role that have been so successful as to make these movies possible. Or "fuck you fans for liking our formula."

Post #4 made me both mad and sad at the same time, because it astonished me that someone could so thoroughly misunderstand the argument of movie but at the same time I was starting to believe that this was a case of someone willingly misinterpreting a film because they wanted to be mad about it.

To begin with, I don't think the critique of "canon events" is aimed at fans as much as it's aimed at fans-turned-creators. As I said in my original review, Spider-Man has been stuck in a regressive loop since the late 90s/early 00s because the editors, writers, and artists keep trying to reset him to the status quo that was the status quo when they were teeangers. So yeah, I think it's a necessary wake-up call to the industry to say that we need to start telling new stories rather than endless retreads and reboots and callbacks.

Moving on, I do find this description of the spider-fandom somewhat ironic because they're kind of notorious for being some of the loudest and angriest fanbase in comics and incredibly resistant to change. I stay the hell out of the Spider-Man comics space, because people are being incredibly toxic about Zeb Wells' run...and those same people were toxic about Dan Slott, and Nick Spencer (although fuck that guy for other reasons), and J. Michael Straczynski and Joe Quesada, and on and on.

So I think there's something of a necessary wake-up call to the fans as well, because spending your life being mad that the comics aren't sticking to the old hits is a good way to get bad comics, because Marvel's instinct when it gets hit with fan anger is to stay in the loop where it's relatively safe.

I'm moving into the modern age, replacing all of my MAC tech after nearly 15 years. My original graphic art set up was a gift from the incredible, amazing, and generous J Michael Straczynski.

I was going through a rough patch, making an attempt to learn digital art (which is especially difficult when your only access to lessons is on dial up,) and Joe helped me out big time. That investment in me and my work paid off over the years, and I credit Joe with helping me stay in the business.

There was no way I could afford all that equipment back then. There is no way I would have been able to do the art on Neil Gaiman's TROLL BRIDGE or SNOW GLASS APPLES.

After nearly fifteen years of carefully maintaining the equipment, with full appreciation of the generous and kind faith JMS placed in me, now I am able to afford to update everything on my own and move forward with my work.

I will never forget Joe's kindness and generosity. Having him as a friend is one of the high points of my entire life. I owe him a big chunk of my art and my art future.

Thanks, Joe.

DS9 trivia from IMDB - Part 5

- The number 47 pops up an inordinate amount of times on computer screens, serial numbers, dates and so on. This tradition was started by Writer and co-Producer Joe Menosky and was soon picked up by the rest of the production team. Menosky said that he chose that particular number because when he was a college student at Pomona College, Professor of Mathematics Donald Bentley proved as a joke that all numbers are equal to 47. Interestingly, Alias (2001) also featured the number 47 many times, and incorporated it into its on-going storyline.    

- References are frequently made to Starfleet "ground troops", and some Starfleet characters have different uniforms (a black uniform with a small colored stripe across the middle). Fans generally accept that these characters are part of a Starfleet Marine Corps; this was an idea which Gene Roddenberry conceived for Star Trek (1966), but never found an opportunity to use until the movie Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) where the men accompanying Kirk and crew down to Nimbus III were later confirmed to be marines. There was a Starfleet Colonel West in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), who was most likely a Starfleet Marine since the rank of Colonel doesn't exist in naval organizations. Colonel West was played by Rene Auberjonois, who played Constable Odo on this show. The existence of Starfleet Marines was finally explicitly shown and stated on-screen in Star Trek: Enterprise (2001), indicating that they have been around in the Star Trek universe since at least 2153.    

- The Jem'Hadar were described in the script as tough warriors who were almost impervious to phaser shots. Make-up Supervisor Michael Westmore immediately thought of the thick skin of rhinos and reptiles when he read that description, so he designed the Jem'Hadar to look like dinosaurs, specifically triceratops, complete with horns.    

- The role of Jadzia Dax was initially offered to Famke Janssen, whose character make-up from Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) season five, episode twenty-one, "The Perfect Mate" inspired the change in Trill character make-up from a forehead prosthesis. She turned down the role in order to remain available to appear in theatrical movies.    

- The U.S.S. Defiant was first envisioned to look like a beefed-up version of a runabout. When that didn't work out, they used an existing design for an alien cargo ship as basis, and developed it as a battleship. It was first called the U.S.S. Valiant, but Producer Rick Berman vetoed any name beginning with letter V, since he didn't want to create confusion with Star Trek: Voyager (1995), which they were setting up at the time. Defiant was chosen because like Enterprise, it was a name that had been used for a ship in Star Trek (1966) as well.    

- There was a level of friction between fans of Babylon 5 (1993) and this show. Babylon 5 (1993) fans felt that writers for this show had stolen many aspects of Babylon 5's premise (occurring recently after a war or occupation, episodes taking place on a space station not located in Earth territory, the cast discovering an ancient malevolent race that would become a major threat, the overall story of the show being less reliant on story-of-the-week episodes, and more of an overarching story arc, et cetera), asserting that Paramount Pictures had rejected J. Michael Straczynski's proposal of Babylon 5 to them in the late 1980s, but used certain details of the pitch by inserting them into the story and premise of this show. There was a concerted effort to bury the hatchet, especially by having Majel Barrett (widow of Gene Roddenberry) appear on Babylon 5 as an alien prophetess who spoke on behalf of her recently deceased husband (a nod to Roddenberry, who had passed away a few years before her appearance).    

- Regarding season seven: after Terry Farrell's departure from the show, a replacement had to be found to play the new host for the Dax symbiont. The showrunners were adamant not to cast a man in the role, as they wanted to maintain the running joke where Sisko refers to a young female Dax as 'Old Man'. It was decided that 'Ezri Dax' would be a young person, fresh from the Academy, who would display some adjustment problems because she had become stuck with an old Trill soul without going through the standard Trill training first. Numerous fans were initially reluctant to accept Nicole de Boer as the new host for the Dax symbiont, rather derisively referring to de Boer as "Ally McTrill", due to her slightly neurotic personality resembling Calista Flockhart's Ally McBeal (1997).    

- It is frequently stated that there are 285 official Ferengi 'Rules of Acquisition', although only 44 were ever mentioned in Deep Space Nine and subsequent Star Trek series. Because of fans continuously asking for a complete list, and knowing that someone would otherwise make one sooner or later, Ira Steven Behr finally took it upon him to write 'The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition' (ISBN 0-671-52936-6), credited as "By Quark as told to Ira Steven Behr."    

- Executive Producer and co-Creator Michael Piller said that when coming up for an idea for the series concept of this show, there were initially three ideas considered: another starship adventure, a space station concept, and a remote frontier colony. The frontier colony idea was briefly considered, with the idea that since Star Trek (1966) was compared to Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951) in outer space, the new series would be compared to Gunsmoke (1955), but on a remote planet. The frontier colony idea was eventually dropped since it would've required a lot of on-location shooting, and the space station idea was ultimately developed instead.    

- On occasion, sets from Star Trek: Voyager (1995) are used as other Starfleet locales. (For example: a holosuite grid in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Inquisition (1998), the entire U.S.S. Bellerophon (which was an Intrepid-class starship, same as Voyager) in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges (1999).    

“Maybe this is just your way of saying you need someone watching your back.”

“Unnecessary. Have eyes in the back of my head.”

“Seriously?”

“No. Joke.”

Before Watchmen: Nite Owl (2012) #1

(J. Michael Straczynski, Andy & Joe Kubert)

The Amazing Spider-Man by J. Michael Straczynski and Joe Quesada.

Captain America #4 Review

Written by: J. Michael Straczynski Art by: Lan Medina Colors by: Espen Grundetjern Letters by: VC’s Joe Caramagna Cover art by: Jesús Saiz Cover price: $4.99 Release date: December 13, 2023 Captain America #4 pits Cap against Asmoday’s Emissary in a fight to the death as part of the demon’s plan to prevent beacons of hope from interfering with humanity’s downfall. Is Captain America #4…

View On WordPress

Here's an interesting thing from J. Michael Straczynski about his opinion for writing characters in franchises. This was from an interview several years ago, and the relevant part is from the start of the clip until 1:28:17. Any emphasis is mine. TW: Mild profanity.

Here's my transcript of the clip:

Interviewer: So, quite apart from stealing, can we talk about, uh, working for licensed characters? So, you've created a lot of original material. You've also written characters like Thor and Spider-Man. Uh…what-what are the challenges of working in someone else's sandbox?

JMS: Well, I think I have an obligation, to when someone says to you, "here's this character who is a trust of ours, and…been around for fifty years…and don't screw him up," you have an obligation to treat that character fairly. And to--and to hand it back to the company as good a condition as he was when you first got him. With your own characters, there's more of a freedom to experiment, to do different things, to screw him up a little bit more. Fiction, when done properly, is about putting your character up a tree and throwing rocks at them.

(audience laughs)

JMS: And when there's a franchise character, the rocks are very small.

(audience laughs)

JMS: And they don't leave lasting marks. When it's your own character, you can cut off an arm, who gives a shit? So, that's probably the biggest differences in the amount of creative freedom. Um…and to know that you're working in, on hollowed ground. Hallowed ground. Could be hollowed, too, if um…if it's the Mole Man, then it's hollowed!

(audience laughs)

JMS: If it isn't the Mole Man, then it's hallowed! (grimaces) So, and then you have to respect where you are. And, and there's lots of people who come into a book and say "I will put my fingerprints all over this." Screw you! It's not about your fingerprints. It's about respecting the character and trying to find some corner of them that no one has explored before. That's cool. But you don't remake the character just because you can. You have to respect what goes before you.

(end clip)

And yes, this is the same JMS who is associated with "One More Day," one of the most infamous storylines--which JMS says later in the clip that it was Joe Quesada's story, not his. He was forced into leaving his name on the story, which he highly disagreed with. He left Marvel Comics shortly thereafter.

He's not perfect; but he genuinely tries to be a decent person. He does not mess with the reader/viewer out of sheer, malicious glee (*coughcough* Whedon). He serves the story, one that must make sense.

I just wish that more writers in the Big Two or even other pop culture outlets took this advice. At times, it feels like fanfiction writers do more research and put more care into their stories than what we're seeing on the big or little screen.

--Doc