The Dead Shall Rise…Except Probably These Ones
Jul 13Despite my moves away from DC Comics over the past three years, I have remained a firm Green Lantern fan and, as such, am unreasonably excited about this week’s Blackest Night #1.
There’s been some hubbub over who exactly is going to get the black ring and come back all Romero-y, but I’m fairly certain that these dead notables will not, and that’s a shame, because there’s some great story potential in every single one of these Black Lantern Could’ve Beens. For instance:
1. David Knight – Between Superman and JLA: Cry For Justice, James Robinson’s stock is not at its highest among the DC faithful right now, but I would freak out over a Blackest Night: Starman one-shot featuring Black Lantern David Knight going after his brother Jack. Pallid zombie David in a black and white Starman costume would be a fitting counterpoint to Starman‘s “Talking With David” issues, in which a black and white Jack Knight has an annual conversation with his dead brother, who is the only thing that appears in color in each issue. Everybody buying those fancy Starman hardcovers would eat this up, and plenty of others besides who would love to see Jack show up to something other than a wedding or a funeral.
2. Alex DeWitt – I’m probably going to get some flack for this one, but hear me out. As the original Woman in a Refrigerator, I can’t help but think this would 1) be terrifying and 2) really mess with Kyle’s head, even more than the stuff that happened to him in the Sinestro Corps War did. And also, since Blackest Night also promises to be a metafictive tale about the permanence of death in comics, it makes a certain degree of sense.
I wouldn’t play it for a joke, either. Just picture it – a stainless steel fridge, Black Lantern insignia clawed into the door, with a clawed, ragged, ichorous hand curled around the edge of the door, black ring on its hand. You never see what’s inside, either. Maybe just a glimpse when it drags someone inside (followed, of course by noises that disturb even Guy Gardner, who has been busy up until this point making bad Indiana Jones “nuke the fridge” quips to Kyle).
3. The Red Bee – The Red Bee is a bit of a joke and gets a bad rap. But Black Lantern Red Bee (the Black Bee?) would probably attack people with zombie bees. If you map out things that I like about comics (Rann-Thanagar War = Hawkman and Adam Strange Vs. Space Zombies, as an example) then you can see how zombie bees hits the ‘fire’ button for me.
4. Power Boy – The post-Infinite Crisis Teen Titans roster was a great chance to inject some fun, kitschy new characters into the DCU. Most of them proved to vary from ill-advised to one-note, but none of them were as obnoxiously odious as Apokaliptian Supergirl-stalker Power Boy. The one good thing about the Titans East special was the murder of Power Boy, which left him with a hole through his chest analogous to the hole in his inspiration, Power Girl’s, costume. Bringing him back as a full-on ravening villain is a great excuse to kill him again.
5. Honor Jackson – Remember the ghostly hobo that sent a drug-addled Bruce Wayne on a vision quest in Batman RIP? There’s no better reminder that he still hasn’t received a case in the Batcave than another appearance.
Who would you pick to bring back from the DCU graveyard?
Stuff We Like This Week?
Jul 02In an effort to combat our occasional positivity, this week, we’re giving you a break from our regular feature full of nothing but love — Stuff We Like This Week. Appearing every Friday (but this one), SWLTW will recap the things that have set our little nerdly hearts aflame within the previous seven days.
I’ve gotta level with you, it’s tough coming up with something to not hate every week. Especially this week, with Matt gallivanting around the country like Gruenwald’s Captain America (without the bitchin’ color-changing Chevy van), Sarah and I swamped with work, and Chris perfecting his Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man cosplay outfit. So, give us a week to recharge our love batteries, and we’ll be back with glowing praise in 8 days’ time. Til then, enjoy the fireworks, watch a movie, play some video games and read some comics.
And if you still need something to get you in a good mood, I offer this:
Under The Radar: Sentinels
Jun 30Sentinels is better than it has any right to be.
The indie superhero book got a good deal of buzz from Newsarama, CBR and Ain’t It Cool around the time its second volume – “Masks” – was released, but I never got around to tracking the book down, and then it vanished under the radar again by the time I remembered. I found the entire series of OGNs at Wizard World Philly and have spent the past two weeks digging into it. I finished it up last night.
If you like the Chris Claremont run on Uncanny X-Men, you’re probably going to dig Sentinels. It delivers a page-turning combination of angst, romance, aliens, demons, government conspiracy, daddy issues, Bronze Age-style ass-kicking, frequent costume changes and a long form plot that spans three generations of heroes and manages to pay off satisfyingly, something that few Big Two titles can accomplish these days. Things happen in Sentinels – death, resurrection, betrayal, sex, sacrifice, et cetera.
The most entertaining part of Bernatovich’s magnum opus, though, was watching the evolution of the creators in elapsed time. Much like J.K. Rowling, Bernatovich and Vecchio’s early work is still entertaining and engaging, but becomes much more polished and craft-aware from volume to volume, especially Vecchio’s pencils, which gain added depth over time without sacrificing his Marvel-meets-manga style.
Like I intimated above, Sentinels is very easy to recommend to 80s X-fans, and to superhero fans in general.  The book may be a harder sell for Golden Age/DC die-hards, however. It’s the most competent and interesting superhero project I’ve read from a nonmajor publisher since Rising Stars.
Wizard World Philadelphia
Jun 25“So, did you see any wizards there?” I’m asked last night, causing me to miss a very important minigolf putt. Let me put this one to bed before I say anything else about this particular con: although some of the participants may tell you differently, there are no real wizards at Wizard World Philadelphia.
As the lone Alert Nerd in the northeast, it is my lot in life to attend WW Philly instead of Heroes Con, which was in fact haunted by a vast majority of our internet friends.
There is a marked difference between Philly and the Reed shows that I cover each year – NYCC and Baltimore Comic Con - a larger focus on retailers, retired professional wrestlers, and what erudite nerds consider to be the detritus of our collective consciousness than on the big four publishers, none of whom had booths at the show despite some heavy hitters appearing on the Marvel and DC panels. This is an accurate criticism, but it undeniably caters to a large section of the fanbase. As someone that primarily attends cons to catch up with friends, browse Artist’s Alley for new talent/things to buy/people I want to work with, and watch the panels, this is easy to forget despite the truthiness of the statement. Wizard World is still alive and well and still giving a certain segment of the fans something they want.
However, it would be unfair to dismiss the reports that WWP is a con in decline. It clearly is. While I didn’t do a headcount, the Saturday crowd was slighter than last year, and some of the standout artists on the Alley – Kevin Maguire, J.G. Jones and Khoi Pham enjoyed moments of relative solitude (only once did I see Jones with a substantial line). One of the lower-profile artists there affixed a sign reading “Desperate For Your Attention” to the top of his head. Another called out, all carnival-barker-y, “Don’t you want to know more about [NAME OF COMIC REDACTED]?” when they saw my press wristband. The answer, unsurprisingly, was no.
The other unfortunate news about the Philly con was the snub it received from Newsarama. As a former Newsarama contributer, I was asked by several parties (who I will not name) if I was indeed going to be covering the show for the ‘Rama this year.
I sat in on Marvel’s Dark Reign panel and DC’s DC Nation panel on Saturday, and the two panels perfectly denote the contrast between the publishing giants in terms of tone and fan interaction.
Marvel’s panel was standing room only. Former CBR correspondent and current Marvelite Arune Singh moderated the panel, which featured cosmic editor Bill Rosemann, Spidey author Dan Slott, the Incredible Hercules writing team of Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente, Agents of Atlas assistant editor Lauren Sankovitch and Molly Lazer (the former assistant ed. on Thunderbolts, who left Marvel last year to pursue graduate school). The panel focused on some upcoming Dark Reign tie-ins, including War Machine #9, which Greg Pak joked would be 1,000 pages in length, feature the return of Jean Grey, and incorporate every major storyline in the Marvel Universe. At least, I think he was joking. Also upcoming is a fill-in issue of Thunderbolts penned by Rick (Fear Agent, Punisher) Remender that will strain the friendship between Iron Fist and Luke Cage as it examines what happens when Osborn uses his clout to force heroes to work alongside his team of villains. The tone of the panel was jovial, due mostly to Slott and Van Lente being absolute smartasses (Slott once again asked the crowd if they wanted to bring back chromium covers – which actually garnered what I think was non-ironic applause amid the throngs of boos).
The creators took turns hinting that Jean Grey would come back in their respective books, discussed the rising price of single issue comic books, and revealed the second half of the Dark Reign: The List one-shots due in shops this fall. The Philly List included Wolverine, Spider-Man, Daredevil and Hulk, each by their respective regular creative teams.
In comparison, the DC panel seemed to consist of Dan DiDio leaping on grenades for about an hour, especially when a fan cried out that Battle For the Cowl was “the worst comic book” he’d ever read. “If you don’t like it,” DiDio said, “it’s my fault.” It’s a sentiment that the Executive Editor has expressed before; Dan once told me that part of his job was taking the hits for his creators’ unpopular decisions. But Dan continued to needle the fan for the remainder of the panel and deflect criticisms of the mainstream DCU with similar generalizations. The panel had a much more confrontational tone than the Marvel panel did. Some tidbits were revealed, like Sam Kieth working on a new Lobo story, the possibility of a Freedom Fighters backup story should the co-feature initiative perform well, some intriguing teasers about the new Doc Savage project by Brian Azzarello and Rags Morales (which Rags is incredibly enthusiastic about, so much so that it bears italicizing), and an intriguing nonanswer by Shane Davis to a question about a possible White Lantern: “Technically, black, white and gray aren’t colors.” Bob Wayne also showed off Issue #1 of Wednesday Comics, which looks absolutely gorgeous.  Still, the thing that leaves the biggest impression from the panel is the defensive snit that the EE had with a disgruntled fan. I guess this is why DiDio asked that nobody Tweet or blog the panel.
While I agree that Philly is a con in decline, I think the mock funeral held for the show is a bit premature. Though not as large as last year’s (a rarity in the cons I’ve seen this year, where there’s been a booming ‘shadow economy’), there was still a lot of foot traffic and, despite not having the megabooths that they do at other shows, the DC and Marvel presence was bolstering. Whether it continues to get the nurture it needs from Wizard in light of its recent acquisition of NYC’s Big Apple Con remains to be seen, however.
The Zombies' Guide To Comic Con
Jun 19[Yes, yes. I know. Blood from a stone and whatnot. – Jeff ]
This July in San Diego, when there’s no room in the hotels, the dead will walk the earth at the 2009 Comic Con International. For four days, the undead and the nerdy unwashed will shamble from panel to panel, comb through back-issue bins for the last crucial piece of their Darkhawk collections and clumsily assault cosplayers. Can’t tell the difference? Neither can we, but in case you’re a Romero-friendly con-goer that doesn’t know Tom Peyer from Tom Brevoort (Brevoort is plumper and therefore slower, wears a pork-pie hat) and can’t tell the difference between the Shield and the Fighting American (honestly, we’re stumped too, but Jack Kirby created one of them), our interns have created a handy guide to help you get the most out of your SDCC experience.
1. BRAINS
No matter what kind of comics or movies you like, zombies, there are plenty of braaaaains to be had. Delicious braaains. Argh. Those sheltered fanboys and insecure fangirls won’t know what to do when you start tearing into one of their friends’ juicy skulls to eat those delicious braaaaaaains.
2. BRAAAAAAINS
While the geeks are debating what kind of zombie you are – fast or slow – you can get the drop on them and suck out their delectable gray matter. You might even be able to eat a celebrity’s brain (If they have one, LOL M I RITE?!)!
3. TWILIGHT
Robert Pattinson is simply dazzling. And he’ll be there. If you’re close enough, you might be able to touch him, and what about Taylor Lautner? I’m not sure if he’ll be there, but he probably will. Team Jacob represent! More like hungry FOR the wolf, if you take my meaning, and I think you might. Rawr! They are probably going to show some footage from New Moon and then everybody will freak out a bit.
4. BRAAAAAAINS
Argh. Urr. Brains. Braaaaaains. Urk. BRAINS.
