LOST Opportunities

I’m certain this headline will be used all over the blog-o-sphere this week because it's just so fitting.

So it’s all over and everyone is dead. Or always have been dead. Who the hell knows.

Here is the ultimate lesson of the television phenom LOST: If writers and producers of intricate or challenging new television series don’t come to the table with a solid beginning, middle and end of a story, don’t waste anyone’s time and money. Shows like HEROES and FLASH FORWARD just learned this painful lesson the hard way this year. Everyone thought LOST was the only exception to the rule and had it all figured out.

Turns out they never did. It's one thing if a network pulls the plug on a series but there is no excuse when you've had over three years and seasons to map out where and how the series ends. Think about this...in three years the writers and producers could not figure out how to answer key questions.

This was a wasted season for LOST and proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the men behind the curtain never knew where they were ultimately going. Oh, they had the images and vision for production (Jack closing his eyes) but zero idea how to resolve key plot points or many character's issues. And it was evident from the get-go in this last season. I'm not even talking about the sideways world. The writers floundered all season long and wasted so much precious screen time with the madnening and rediculous first six or so episodes of season six with our castaways trapped, sitting around in a temple set with the other 'Others' of the island. And to prove that storyline and all that screen time was a waste, it was never even recounted in the two hour recap that debuted before the finale. Nothing that happened in the temple was important to the main characters or the island's storyline.

The last episode of the series aptly titled “The End” was the best single episode of this final season and that’s saying a lot. Yes, there was great emotion, character reunions, action, humor and suspense in this final show. But answers? Not so much. And the producers, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, have been claiming in the recent media junket that they intend to leave some mysteries unanswered or up to viewer interpretation. They should have been men enough to mention about 95% of the mysteries would remain unanswered.

I’m sorry, but that kind of claim is nothing but a pure cop out. The writers had painted themselves into so many plot corners over the years that they simply gave up trying to figure out how to tie it all together. I’m not going to bother to list all the issues that remain unanswered. Other fans sites and forums have such laundry lists nicely compiled. Google ‘em up if you still care. Plus it’s too much work and if the series creators can’t summon the energy to tackle them, why should I at this point?

A quick spin of the web on the Monday morning after the cry fest shows the mainstream media thought the final episode was satisfactory and yes emotional or are content to concede the finale went out in a LOST sort of way.

Dig deeper around the ‘net, check out the real fan sites and you’ll find a very different response. Once the emotion and feel good moments of the cast together at the end of the finale fade and you start to think about what we didn’t get out of ‘The End’ or this entire final season for that matter, a flood of frustration and realization will overcome any fan that we, the week-in, week-out viewership of this series (not even those who only watched this series via DVD sets or repeats) were left in the dust. Much like the tragic character Ben Linus, the hardcore, devoted and long suffering viewer was ultimately ignored and passed over by the creators. So it's fitting the one image that plays over in my head out of six seasons of episodes of LOST that best sums it up for me is when Ben finally confronted the island's protector and ultimate manipulator, Jacob.

Loyal devotee: “What about me?”

Jacob/ Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof: “What about you, dear viewer?”

“They are all just dead…you figure it out from there.”

Ben's reaction to that kind of response is how many of the fans feel today.

Fucking Piece of Shit

It’s almost the end of the month and I’ve only posted once in October, not because I haven’t been writing, but because nothing has seemed pressing/exciting enough to spur me to post.* Until today, when I read the most pathetic excuse for a Marvel comic since the original Clone Saga dragged on and on for months and months. In this book, a top-tier Marvel character, The Punisher, is put through a ridiculous plot twist that is so ill-conceived that it is likely to destroy his popularity.

Let’s be clear; I’m a Marvel guy before a DC guy, and I’ve been pretty happy with Marvel in the Joey Q era. I’m really happy that Marvel has recognized their latest event is interminable, and they’ve decided to shorten their events in the future, as well as confining them to fewer books. It’s a very good sign, because as strong as some of these event premises have been, they’re spread so thin on the ground that issues are designed to be nothing more than placeholders reiterating statements that all readers already have accepted as gospel (“Norman Osborn is bad” being the main one).

Bendis has been running loose over this editorial for a while and I’m a tired of the self-congratulatory tone he’s been taking lately, but in his defense, his books are largely above average and his predilection for praising BMB, while unflattering, isn’t entirely undeserved.

One of the failures of the current Dark Reign storyline is the breakdown of the overarching story into smaller arcs, like the current one “The List”. The premise here is that now Norman is firmly in charge, he’s made a list of things to do to super people.

Really?

He’s a few months into taking over Marvel Universe and NOW he’s making a list? Everything up to now was just winging it? I have a list of things to do every day and I’m no evil genius planning to take over the Marvel U. Of course I’m not a homicidal lunatic either, and maybe homicidal lunatics don’t make lists unless they get really, really crazy. Let’s be frank, the conceptual glue that’s holding this “List” arc together is ill-conceived at best, and a shining example of dragging a storyline out too long by creating & labeling arcs within arcs.

The List arc started a few weeks back with a typically strong Daredevil issue and since then a few more have come out, including this week’s “Wolverine: The List”, which, while nicely drawn, feels exactly like the kind of placeholder one-shot that adds nothing to the overall story, but meets some sales threshold requirement.

I referred earlier to the 90’s Clone saga in the Spider-man books, widely regarded as the most ridiculous, sprawling and pointless story in modern memory. Fanboys were so upset about its diabolical length and incoherence that they made a stink that hasn’t been rivaled since. The only thing close has been the hubbub over “One More Day”, which seemed to me like the best way to resolve a lot of plot incoherence that had built up in the Spider-man books over the prior ten-plus years. If we all had to take a spoonful of nasty tasting cod liver oil to purge our system and improve our overall health moving forward, the result was worth the cure.

Like the Clone Saga, this is a bad idea that is completely out of control. If this had happened during the aforementioned 90’s Punisher tailspin, we all could’ve written it off as a fitting end to a well-conceived but horribly mishandled character whose time had seemingly come and gone.

In the wake of an amazing (and long) Garth Ennis run that returned the character to his roots AND made him a major player in the MU, followed by the completely unexpected (and almost unheard of) successful handoff of Frank Castle to new writers who respected the core material and maintained the quality readers had come to expect, it was inevitable that Punisher fans were living on borrowed time. Since what had come before was so well-done, this issue is even more of a travesty.

Rick Remender has been a fine writer in my book and his Punisher writing to date has been fine stuff, if not quite up to Ennis standards. But here he has completely lost the plot.

You may have seen the ads for an upcoming Punisher arc called “Frankencastle”, which depict a sewn together and presumably reanimated Punisher. It looks intriguing, but I assumed the image was a non literal “shock” image designed to portray a psychological state rather than a physical one.

Nope.

In this miserable trainwreck of a comic, Daken, the ridiculously overused “son of Wolverine who is posing as Wolverine”, is sent to get Castle (presumably so Norman can check an item off of his list) and in the ensuing battle the Punisher is literally cut to pieces. Not in the “I literally shit my pants” use of literally that drunk college kids use, but in the “holy shit I can’t believe they cut the Punisher into chunks of flesh & bone (including decapitation), so they can do this stupid Frankencastle story”. Yes, they are going to take the pieces of the Punisher and sew them back together, resurrecting him as a reanimated corpse, complete with stitches and tubes, etc, etc.

How do I know the Frankencastle story will be stupid? Besides the obvious, there’s a preview of a good chunk of the first issue of the Shelley-inspired arc. It’s even worse than this one-shot story would indicate.

The art is by John Romita Jr., whose typical clear, blocky style is compromised here by an uncertain and perhaps disinterested Gene Colan-esque whispy-ness. The styles don’t mesh well, leaving the colorist to hold the art together.

I am baffled as to how this story got approved by editors. It’s unimaginable to me. This is the first sign that the second wave of Punisher popularity is over, a real tragedy for Marvel considering he’s one of the few post- Stan & Jack era characters that has resonated with the general public (and is something of a licensing powerhouse as well).

The Punisher is not a superhero in the traditional sense; he has no powers, he doesn’t really wear a stereotypical superhero costume. He isn’t designed to be rebuilt as a monster anymore than he is to join the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Yes, he has died & returned before - Ennis brought Frank back from the dead with fitting gruffness and brevity, forsaking a drawn out multi-issue storyline that teases and depicts the method of his return, opting instead to explain it all with a couple of deft, in-character lines of dialogue. From there the Punisher dove headlong into action against lowlife mobsters, drug dealers, rapists, slavers, etc. It was if years of headbands, Marvel Edge issues and angelic/demonic (re)incarnations had been washed away in just a few panels.

Jason Aaron & Steve Dillon have another Punisher series in the works. No doubt it will be fine and (I assume) will consist of more traditional Punisher stories, but how can it avoid being tainted by this storyline, the resolution of which is destined to be a cop-out? I don’t want to hear about the different iterations of the Punisher on various Marvel Earths – that’s fine for an FF story or a DC continuity reboot, but it doesn’t work for a dark and gritty character that is best rooted in reality.

I’m not sure how this vile Punisher One-Shot will be rationalized away in the future, but if I were the editorial and creative teams, I’d get working on something yesterday, because this is far and away the worst Punisher book ever published, and that’s saying something in the wake of some really evil shit cranked out during his slide into overexposure back in the 90’s.


* I’ve been working on a long piece about how Mattel, DC Direct and Hasbro are killing American Superhero toys that will go up sometime soon, I promise/hope.

Review: Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited

While attending the San Diego Comic-con in July, I signed up for Marvel Comics ‘Digital Comics Unlimited’ online membership. Marvel had an exclusive trial membership offer available only during the event that was too good to pass up. With a paid three month subscription, you also received an exclusive Hasbro Nick Fury action figure and an exclusive variant edition of Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth issue 1. So I signed up, came back from the show, sold the two premiums off for a substantial profit beyond the cost of the subscription fee and after playing around with the service online for the past month I have to say…it’s totally worth any comic fan’s money and time.

It’s a very straightforward service. You are paying for access to Marvel Comics digital library online, anytime you wish. I was really surprised at how deep the catalog is at this stage. You can select to read comics books as far back as the golden-age (‘40s, ‘50s), just about all the favorite classics from the silver-age (‘60s), then onto each decade since up to just a few months ago. Every comic book cover and page available is reproduced in beautiful high quality resolution. Even the titles from the golden-age have been re-colored and look even better than they did originally published. Basically any series of older titles that have been reprinted in the Marvel Masterworks series of hardcovers, can be found in here. The online service is a great way for the publisher to re-use the digital files they already had to produce in order to print up any volume of the Masterworks series…why not offer them to fans for a fee online as well?

Once you log in you have many library browsing options available to you.


You can search by new releases.







You may search by series.







You could choose to search by a creator’s name. This includes the writer, artist, inker or even colorist.








More search options than you’d need really.





Once you select an issue to read, simply click to open it and a new screen will open. This is the patented Marvel Digital Comics Reader.

Once the digital reader is open you will find several viewing options. You may view the book as a two page or single page spread with the added features of magnification, moving the open page up and down or (my favorite) viewing via ‘Smart Panel’. This feature allows for single panels at a time to open nice and big in the viewer and eliminates the need for magnification.

With a click of the mouse anywhere on the screen, the next panel of the book slides into view. It’s very cool but there is a slight drawback to this mode. When in ‘Smart Panel’, the viewer can get confused on the really oddly laid out pages with panels that are very large or cut up and down vertically on one side of the page or the other. When this happens, some of those more odd shaped panels will get cut off or in a few cases for me even skipped as the viewer just moves onto the next page. A minor issue only found in some cases.

One of the best advantages of viewing any Marvel Comics online even compared to holding the actual printed publication is the elimination of the center crease and staples of the comic’s binding that hinder the impact of a great two page spread!

I think Marvel is really ahead of the game here with this service. Especially ahead of DC Comics which offers nothing close to similar in a service to date. Instead of watching TV reruns this summer, it’s been a blast to take my laptop out onto the patio on select nights and re-read how Spider-Man first tangled with the Hulk back in the ‘60s or discover how Thor has been revamped in recent years.

You won't find every single comic book Marvel has ever printed in this online timecapsule. But there are thousands of issues here already with more added nearly every day of the week.

Worth a trial for any comic book fan old or new.

Wednesday Comics: Noble Experiment or Another 52?

Obviously DC Comics is a business; they release product that they hope will make money. Why they fail to market it is beyond me, and why they think some of the trash they release will generate a dime is a mystery as well, but I digress....

So despite the arty/retro facade of DC’s tabloid sized weekly, this is clearly expected to be a money-maker, and at 3.99 for what is the equivalent of your local Sunday paper’s comics section, it most certainly must be.

I’ve just finished working my way through the first five issues, and, while some of it was quite a pleasure, much of it was a chore. Although many of the features share the same faults, it’s probably best to address each individually.

BATMAN: This is the only strip in the entire book that works every week. Azzarello, who I sometimes find an awkward superhero writer (see his Superman story with Jim Lee), gets the right mix of atmosphere, character and plot advancement in each page, and Risso’s black-heavy art works great on this (slightly upgraded) newsprint pulp. Nearly everyone else on this book should be looking at this work and reflecting on their own output.

KAMANDI: While it’s great to have the character back in an anthology that will support it, Gibbons’ script is a mess – with the result that issues 2-5 have seemed like a re-telling of the same events. The creators seem to be after a Prince Valiant vibe, and by following the stylistic trappings of Valiant they have managed to slow the action to a crawl. This brings up a larger issue that infects much of the work in Wednesday Comics, which is the creator’s attempts to overlay someone else’s style over their own, in order to make the format work or to pay homage to classic strips. There’s a certain economy of writing and a sense of momentum that needs to be used in single page installments and it’s missing here. I daresay that Gibbons would not include these five pages in sequence in a standard format book, so let’s hope he addresses this as the story continues. Sook’s art is great, and well-suited for Kamandi.

SUPERMAN: This is just boring. Bermejo’s art is nice, and Arcudi’s writing is servicable, but the story is dull as dishwater and we’ve seen it a million times before. A waste.

DEADMAN: Nicely done, but again, the outside artistic influence – in this case, Darwyn Cooke – is overwhelming the strip. The writing is acceptable, but the storyline is conservative, resulting in warmed-over Deadman 101.

GREEN LANTERN: Although not as immediately obvious in the art, Darwyn Cooke’s considerable shadow looms over this strip as well, particularly his New Frontier take on Hal Jordan/GL. It’s so obvious as to be embarrassing and adds nothing to the content of the strip or the New Frontier mythology.

HAWKMAN: Kyle Baker is doing great work here – although he, too, is utilizing conventions of old comic strips. The story is solid and he seems to understand better than most involved how to move a single page story forward week after week. There are some nice subtle touches here, too, but the art is suffering in the reproduction in that Baker’s fine line work seems to be filling in as the ink soaks into the more absorbent newsprint. Oddly, this doesn’t seem to be the case elsewhere in the book, so maybe it’s a deliberate effect generated by Baker in homage to the newspaper comic strips. If this is the case, he should drop it – it’s not doing his art any favors.

METAMORPHO: I think we all expect more from Gaiman and Allred. Both are sleepwalking through this and it shows. There is nothing on the printed page that shows me either of these idiosyncratic creators had a hand in this except the masthead (unless you count the annoying sub-strip at the bottom of the page, which seems like the best example of the worst of Allred’s indulgences). This is also the slowest moving strip in the book, which is really saying something.

TEEN TITANS: Pedestrian story & script saved by Sean Galloway’s art. To be fair, the art suffers in this format – everything prints too pastel, which is like adding a layer of dullness over the whole thing. After Superman, the least interesting thing in the book.

STRANGE ADVENTURES: DC made a point of showing this strip when they were hyping the book. Good thinking as it’s one of the top strips, and a perfect pairing of creator and character. Pope is really getting the tone and pacing right, and his art, as always, rules.

SUPERGIRL: As a whole, this will be a delightful trifle and perhaps the perfect intro to superhero comics for a pre-teen girl. In this context, however, it feels like nothing. Each installment is cute and well-crafted, but at a page a week, it fails to get any traction. The Aquaman stuff in week 5 is priceless, though.

METAL MEN: I hate to give DiDio credit for anything good at DC (luckily for me, he makes that easy) but this is a fun strip to read, with great art from Garcia-Lopez and a goofy, well-paced story that serves the characters well. It’s a perfect example of the kind of strip that should thrive in this format – beloved second string characters in a thoughtfully executed revival - in other words, a property that wouldn’t garner the necessary sales to thrive in a stand-alone book.

WONDER WOMAN: Although a nice idea that’s executed by a clearly talented artist, this is the epic fail of Wednesday Comics. Just because you have a large page, there’s no reason to overcrowd it with tiny, overwritten panels. The strict use of a pastel color palette only serves to mush it all together in a hard to follow and headache-inducing mess.

SGT ROCK: Joe Kubert on Sgt. Rock? I’m happy to see it in any circumstance, and the WC format really allows Kubert’s art room to pop. The story could pick up the pace a bit, but even so, this is a delight to behold.

THE FLASH: The rare case where playing off old newspaper strip conventions is utilized to try something new. The Flash page is split into two strips, with the main Flash strip is joined by an Iris West or Gorilla Grodd strip that informs the Flash content. It’s hit and miss overall, but kudos to the creators turning conventions of the newspaper strip around.

DEMON/CATWOMAN: Walt Simonson has a nice premise going here and Stelfreeze is doing fine work, but after a promising start it’s feeling stagnant.

This underlines the problem with the book and indeed, any criticism of it. The series is scheduled to run for a finite number of issues and as far as I know, all the strips will be in every issue, so the creators are bound by constrictions – different than a standard comic book, which some creators seem to find freeing, but not given the full freedom that a daily or weekly newspaper strip artist has in allowing a story to find its natural length.

If the book survives to be an ongoing, it stands to reason that creators could find that kind of freedom with features rotating out when stories are completed. Anchor features (like Batman or Superman) could rotate creators and this could take the place of the old “Tales of the Dark Knight” concept, where top creators have an unconventional format in which to tell that one Batman story they’ve been dying to tell.

If that can happen, Wednesday Comics might become something more than a mixed bag of features that are bound together by format.

Bustin' makes me feel good!

The new Ghostbusters video game is a blast. Best movie sequel that wasn't actually a movie. The game won't break new ground in technology or take the place of your beloved Halos or Wii workouts. It's just F-U-N. Simple as that.

Just about everyone from the original cast in BOTH Ghostbuster films lend voice to their characters. The whole bustin' crew is here of course, Murray, Aykroyd, Ramis and Hudson but so is Annie Potts as Jeanine, William Atherton as Walter Peck and my God even Max Von Sydow as Vigo! ("HE IS WIGO!") The game also stars familiar talent such as Alyssa Milano and Brian Doyle Murray to name a few. The acting crew is amped up (especially Aykroyd) and you can tell they are having fun. The banter between the main characters back and forth or while roaming the halls paired up with one of the 'busters is great to listen to. Peter Venkman insulted me! Awesome! The character models in both the PS3 and Xbox 360 are stunning especially considering each likeness had to be crafted from photos and film by the game artists and not a 3D scan of the actors as it is typically done these days.
The player gets to tag along on the crew's latest adventure as a new recruit, an experience I'm sure many dreamed of as kids growing up on this franchise. The storyline is no better or worse than either film actually but the overall experience of the game is like welcoming old pals into your home to hang out for awhile...and capture lots and lots of Ghosts, Spooks, Specters, demons or other paranormal abnormalities.
Here's hoping this game generates enough buzz and interest in all parties to spur on the long rumored film sequel.

A look at the new Wonder Woman Cover Girls of the DCU Statue

Received my first Cover Girls of the DC Universe statue this week. This is a new line of 10" Superheroine babes designed by famous babe illustrator, Adam Hughes. Here's a look at her.

I have to say, this piece looks better in person than I thought it would based on the early images from DC Direct. The sculpt of the face and body is very faithful to Adam's artwork. The paint deco is also very impressive. The DC Direct sculptures can be hit and miss in paint application but this case, I found the deco very tight especially around the face and the edges of the costume.

If you like Adam's art, this pickup is a no brainer. Even if you aren't this piece is a solid investment. Most of the Women of the DCU busts Adam also designed over the years go for some big bucks on the secondary market. There are already five pieces offered by DC in this line, by the time the collection builds, the early pieces typically escalate in value.

This Wonder Woman is limited to 5000 pieces, which is a decent production run for any collector statue but you can still expect it to dry up over the summer at retail. Average retail currently is about $90. The next piece in the line is Zatanna, due in Aug/Sept followed by Catwoman and Black Canary in the fourth quarter, then Power Girl early in 2010. Would imagine we'll likely see a couple more for 2010 introduced at the San Diego Comicon in July.