Follow the Leader

As I was working on this review for Pop Matters, it occurred to me that lately, the Hulk has become one of the more interesting and relatable characters to me in the Marvel Universe. Just about all successful characters are one or the other, but Bruce Banner, his alter ego, and the supporting cast of the title(s) generally connect with me most often and on more than one level.

Now, in the pages of this here world-wide-web-log, I've already done the daddy-didn't-love-me bit, so I'm gonna opt out on that parallel here, even with the patricidal Skaar being a major player these days. I could also quite easily compare Bruce Banner's temper problem with my own similar lifelong struggle, but if I can be frank, that subject hits just a little too close to home nowadays. So instead I'm gonna discuss that keen rivalry between the Hulk and the Leader and what I see as the age-old battle between the jock and the nerd.

When I was in junior high and high school, I didn't really get picked on or bullied at all, and I simply don't have the words to describe how disappointing this was. I mean, c'mon, fellas, what do I gotta do? I'm runty, I wear glasses, my nose is buried in a book, and I collect comics, for chrissakes. I gotta draw youse a picture?

Nope, the jocks had better things to do, catching lateral passes and getting to third base with the j.v. cheer squad. Sure, I might get called a fag now and again, but then I'd be forgotten about almost immediately. Even though I held a grudge well into my twenties, a rivalry can't really evolve if there's only one party willing to put in the effort. It just doesn't work.

The best comics rivalries, for my money, are between characters who parallel each other. Mr. Fantastic and Dr. Doom, Wolverine and Sabretooth, Spider-Man and Dr. Octopus--these are all guys who match each other in intelligence and ability. The instigator, who is usually the antagonist, may have individual reasons for carrying on this personal war, but it doesn't take much reading in between the lines to see that each feels threatened by the very existence of their adversaries. They've got to prove they're better, and what better way to test that than against a guy who's as smart, or as savage, or as able to walk up walls?

But the tack taken is much different with the Leader. Samuel Sterns was irradiated with gamma rays, not unlike Dr. Bruce Banner, but with a nearly opposite effect. Where puny Banner transformed into the incredible Hulk, the puny-brained Sterns transformed into the super-genius Leader. What challenge to his vast intelligence does the Hulk really present? The big galoot can't even talk in first person, for crying out loud.

It is just this similarity that spawned Sterns's hatred. In their earliest meetings, back in the Tales to Astonish Lee/Ditko era, all the Leader really wanted to do was study the green-skinned
brute. Clearly, they had both obtained their power from the same source, and a man of the mind like the Leader was naturally curious as to why they had been affected so differently.

Of course, instead of simply trying to buy the Hulk lunch and having a chat, he had to send a horde of Humanoids to tackle him. But it should come as no surprise that these nerdy types are not fraught with social graces. And the Hulk isn't exactly Miss Manners either, fighting the androids off and leaping somewhere to be away from "puny humans."

Teenage boys are pretty much the same creatures. And when one becomes isolated from his peers, he does crazy stuff, like spend all his time overanalyzing the plots of comic books written fifteen years before he was born. So when nerd-boy sees a buncha football players gussied up on their way to prom, he may peer down his nose and claim he has better things to do. But he really just wants some of the action. And since we've been irradiated by the same kind of gamma rays, i.e. adolesence, what more do we need to have in common? My hormones are raging, and I wanna make out with cheerleaders, too!

And it would be a while yet before the Hulk and the Leader would even interact personally. The Hulk didn't even know Bighead existed yet. And being ignored is worse than taking a beating. As masochistic as it may seem, at least violence is a form of attention, a justification, a raison d'etre. C'mon, man, I got a heart full of rage, so will somebody please run my shorts up the flagpole so I have somebody concrete to direct it against?

Fortunately, it's looking as though the Leader may finally get his wish. For those of you not in the know, there's a new kid in town, the Red Hulk. No one knows who he is or exactly what he's doing here. He just showed up one day, shot the Abomination, pounded on Iron Man and She-Hulk, and then literally beat the Hulk out of Bruce Banner.
As of late, we've found out that the Leader and MODOK were the creators of this monster, and have recently become rivals of his as well. Perhaps, over all these years, Banner's humanizing influence on the Hulk has kept him from acknowledging the Leader as a true rival, to engage him as such rather than as a nuisance. But the Red Hulk is clearly a big enough jock asshole to finally pants the Leader in front of the girls' gym team.

Then he and I and all of us over-tensed, hot-headed, four-eyed dorks can finally breathe easier, can finally allow our bottomless hatred for the world to take over and to purely direct our actions.

Oh, happy day.

Support Your Local Shithead

I've been at this little bloggity for just over a year now, and you, dear reader, may have noticed that whenever I tell you about a comic you can't live without, I implore you to go down to your local comical book retailer and fork over your money to them rather than to a major chain bookstore or convenient on-line outlet. I've asked you to eschew the ease of Internet shopping for the hands-on touch of a live human retailer specializing in the greatest medium known to civilized man. I've attempted to appeal to your sense of fair trade by pointing out that not only does supporting a small businessperson add to the feel-good ledger of the soul, but is also less of a blow to the pocketbook. I've done all this because it's one of the very rare causes I feel is important enough to forgo complex thinking and take the black-and-white, right-or-wrong view.

But we all know how full of shit I am.

When you get right down to it, comic book stores have a reputation for being murky dens of testosterone-fuelled nerd-dom, rife with pale virgins avoiding the sunlight and employees with the customer-service skills of the DMV. And if we're being honest here, it's a reputation generally well deserved.

Back in high school, my regular comic shop was called Amazing Comix, on N. Magnolia Ave., near Madison, in scenic El Cajon, CA. The owners had a few other stores spread around the county, but I believe this was their hub store, since they themselves seemed to work there the most often. Nice enough folks, I guess, but Christ, if they'd been running any other business, they'd have starved to death years before.

Here's a f'r-instance: almost out of the gate, Image Comics began developing their iron-clad infamy for shipping books late, beginning with the sixth issue of Spawn. Nowadays, late comics are nothing to lose sleep over, especially since I've got so goddamn many to read anyways. But at 14 years old, I found the months-long delay in this continuing saga to be excruciating (as opposed to how I just find the saga itself excruciating in general at my age now). The week it finally arrived in stores, I rushed down to the shop that Saturday morn to find it not only missing from my bag, but also nary a copy to be found in the store.

The fuck?

It seems silly now, but I was thoroughly crushed. Naturally, I expressed my disappointment to the owner lady. To her credit, she at least seemed sincerely sorry to inform me that, alas, the distributor had shorted them, and that it may be two more weeks before I could get my sweaty hands on a copy.

O, lamented Sisyphus knows not torture so grand! said I (or words to that effect).

Yeah, she says and, as if to console me, mentions how good the issue is; in fact, she herself had personally acquired five copies.

Yeah, well, at least you got--wait, what?

Yes, dear reader, this was the early 1990s, and speculation in comics futures was the latest craze. And I do mean that literally. Such a craze was it that this nutty broad could say something like that to me without batting an eye. Never mind that I, as a loyal paying customer, was to have a copy reserved in advance according to my pull-list agreement, an agreement in which I had never fallen short on my end. Never mind that I would actually read the one (1) copy I wanted to pay cash for right then and there, while (at least) four (4)(!) copies she had would sit encased in mylar, bringing joy to none. No, none of that mattered.

It never seemed to occur to her that I might take offense at this, much less take my business elsewhere. Because really, what choice did I have? I wasn't old enough to drive, and it was already an hour-and-a-half bus trek to this shop for me. What am I gonna do, beg? Yell? Pop my zits at her? As formidable as that last option now seems (how my horrible acne would have helped then, instead of hindered!), seriously, even had I done all of the above, after all was said and popped, I was still gonna come crawling back the next week and the week after that. And why? Because I was a pale virgin avoiding the sunlight. A doormat, a schlub used to being pushed around. And none of that put me in a very exclusive club amongst comic book collectors.

What's your point, Jimmy?

There's no reason--here's my point, dude--there's no fucking reason why anybody should have to put up with shit like that from any merchant. And it's my educated opinion that the reason a lotta comic shops treat their customers like this is because we're like junkies: willing to do anything for a fix, and so out of shape and jacked up that we're easily handled in case of trouble. One of the main reasons I cooled it on my comic collecting in the late '90s was the shitheel business practices within the industry. But when I started collecting in earnest again, I put a little effort, a little elbow grease into it, and researched the stores in my area and found one where the owner wasn't out to cut my throat, but was in fact as big an enthusiast as I am. And you don't have to take my word for it, just check out the San Diego Comics page on Yelp (you can even catch a glimpse of my fat head if you look close).
I've been shopping there now for just about 8 years, and working there for nearly 5, and I think you, dear reader, know me well enough to realize that I'm not gonna frivolously devote that large a chunk of my time and money to anybody or anything.

So don't go to your local comics retailer out of some bullshit punk-rock ethos of mine to support the little guy, especially if that little guy is an asshole. If your local comic shop won't order you the stuff you want or laughs at the clothes your mom dresses you in or just generally makes you feel like you're a pain in the ass, then by all means, shop on-line or at Border's. But first you need to get a grasp of the situation, find out where your money should be going. And you can't do that without knowing all the options.

And five copies of Spawn #6 in near-mint ain't worth the paper they're printed on, then or now. So fart noise on you.

Phoning It In

Well, as usual, the Christmas season has sat on my head and farted. So naturally, this piece is late, and naturally, I've been scrambling to come up with a decent topic to write about. So for this month, neglecting the sort of clever(?) framing devices I so often go in for, I'm just gonna talk briefly about a couple hardcovers I read recently that I can give my highest recommendation, before I have to get back to all the other writing I've been putting off because the day job has been kicking my ass.

Thanksgiving Day is the last day of serenity I'm allowed over the normal course of the holiday season, before the grindstone rams itself into my nose. I tend to eschew the generic family get-togethers, not becuase I don't like my family or anything, but because I'm awful goddamn selfish with my time. Happily, this year, I got to spend a lazy day laying around with a cute chick, a Band of Brothers marathon, and a copy of Harvey Pekar's The Beats: A Graphic History.

Generally speaking, I've never met a beatnik that I liked. I've never found the iconoclast-lit from the Ike years to be anything much to write home about on a roll of butcher paper while all whacked out on bennies. I think the main reason I even ordered this book, aside from Pekar's involvement, was that I've been kicking around an idea for a piece of fiction that takes place in the '50s and I thought this'd be a good piece of research. That didn't turn out to be the case so much, but I am glad I dropped the twenty-two bucks on this book, as it turned out to be the first truly unflinching look at this admittedly highly influential generation of creative-types.

My own personal tastes aside, the main reason I'd never really dug the work of these way-out cats was that their adherents are so volatile and steadfast, it's nearly to the point of mania. Nothing will put me off something quicker than a buncha other jerks really liking it. On top of that, most of the rabid beatnik fans I've known in my time have been utter morons in every other sense. Kinda guilt by association. I mean, I always liked Ginsberg. Kerouac seemed like a cool enough dude, but his work was so boring to me. And even though I've never actually read any Burroughs, my opinion of him was colored negatively 'cause he had all that nice calculator money with which to cultivate a fashionable heroin habit as well as a shooting-my-girlfriend-in-the-face habit (although he kicked one sooner than the other). Now Pekar, et al, clearly have a sense of respect for these writers and their work, but they don't let their personal feelings intrude nearly as much as I do. The book is broken down into extended chapters on the Big Three mentioned above by Pekar and artist Ed Piskor (who has a real nice, very Clowes-y style that suits the topic well). Pekar's usual charmingly straight-ahead prose style is in full effect, giving the leaders of the Beat movement their due, while far from ignoring the seamy underbelly. Drug abuse is not romanticized, but rather shown to be just as detrimental to these writers' careers as it was helpful (how did they get any writing done when they were throwing up so much?). Kerouac's womanizing is discussed as thoroughly as his contributions to world culture, not to mention his own complacent involvement in a murder. Pekar presents all these simply as facts, not wishing to influence the reader in any other way, which is such a refreshing take on this (or any) subject, that I find words are failing me now. Needless to say, I feel the urge to give some of these guys and their work another shot. The book finishes out with short sections on a number of lesser-known writers within the beat scene, guys I'd actually read before, like Amiri Baraka and Robert Creeley, to a slew of guys I'd like to read more of, like Phillip Whalen and Tuli Kupferberg. So whether you're already an avowed beatnik or merely curious about what the hell they were on about back in the 1950s, give this book a whirl. In fact, if you don't wanna shell out the cash, you oughtta go check and see if it's at your local library. And if it ain't, tell 'em I said to order a copy already.

Next up is Josh Cotter's Driven by Lemons.
I am an unabashed fan of Cotter's work, considering his previous book, Skyscrapers of the Midwest, not only the best book of 2008 (along with Jeff Lemire's Essex County trilogy) but also probably the most important comic book of my generation. For his next outing, Cotter decided to go for something a little more experimental. Apparently, he just started doodling in a sketchbook and then just kinda let it go from there. According to some interviews I read (my memory may not be doing Cotter service here, but I think you'll be able to follow me), Cotter said he wasn't gonna go back and edit or "fix" anything, that he wanted the narrative to evolve naturally. Now, as much as I like to put up a kinda artsy-fartsy pretense (even if with a façade of macho-ness), this sorta talk made me as nervous as anybody. Skyscrapers was not only hilarious but heartbreaking, and although he often went into the symbolic and the sublime, Cotter never jumped the narrative track so totally that it became opaque or came off as pretentious or obtuse. Running the risk of that now had me worried, especially at the cost of a double sawbuck, MSRP. But I kept the faith, and reasoned that something like this would probably much more likely succeed right out of the gate, like if I took the plunge right along with the guy, I wouldn't regret it, rather than if I hemmed and hawed. And turns out, I was right (I know, I could scarecely believe it myself). Driven by Lemons is not conventional by any means. But not only is it aesthetically lovely, doing things in a format not entirely unfamiliar yet markedly different, also the story isn't as hard to follow as I had worried. Granted, a lot of it went right past my head, but not unlike a Pynchon novel, it's hilarious and exhilirating even when I don't know what the hell is going on (not unlike life itself either, now that I think about it). For twenty bucks, I got plenty to chew over and digest, leaving plenty left over for multiple re-reads, so the book even pays for itself. How often does that happen? So do yourself a favor and pick this book up. If nothing else, you'll look a lot smarter to foxy art school girls. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about.

No, I don't.

The Only Crime Is the Cover Price.

I was as excited as anyone, if not more so, at Vertigo's announcement of its new crime imprint, Vertigo Crime: a line of original hard-cover graphic novels specifically within the noir/mystery/crime genre. And despite uncharacteristic optimism on my part, right up until the first two books were delivered to my store, I was pretty damn disappointed.

Crime fiction comes a very close second to comical books when it comes to my personal favorite media (rounding out the list are cave paintings and smoke signals). And probably the very best part of the super-hero speculation market bottoming out in the late '90s is that other genres began to thrive. Yes, superheroes still are king, but the spate of quality horror, sci-fi, western, and crime comics over the past ten years is proof that this is not an unchallenged monarchy. Yes, yes, a lot of it is crap; 90% of everything is. But guys like Brian Azzarello and Ed Brubaker have helped to truly blaze the trail of crime comics today (I'm not gonna cram 100 Bullets or Criminal down your throat now, although your throat would certainly thank me later).

At one time, I was a registered Communist. But then I figured out that people really pretty much suck, and that put the kibosh for me on any notion of workers (or anybody) uniting. But Marxist theory still manages to color a lot of my thoughts on art and artists, particularly (and naturally, I'd say) as concerns the business aspect. I really wish I could ignore all this stuff and just accept the creation for what it is, but sometimes what it is truly seems to me to be a cynical jab at a genre I dearly love strictly for the sake of a buck.

This is not to impinge the creative impulses of the writers and artists involved, as much as it may sound otherwise. I like to think of it more as a calling on the carpet of Vertigo and its editors and what I see as a concession to their parent company that they make all too eagerly. What do I, an industry outsider, know of the machinations of Time/Warner's editorial policy? Fuck all. But I'm the one plunking my hard-earned money down to read this stuff, and I am well able to tell you just how worth it I think it is.

Here's what all this babble boils down to: Vertigo are a buncha pussies. I've said as much before, but right now, I don't feel like I can belabor this point. Back when Vertigo was just starting--before it was a specific imprint even, but really just a "Mature Readers" warning on the covers of Swamp Thing, Sandman, Animal Man, et al--they were really taking some risks, hiring these heretofore relatively unknown writers and artists to tell some realistic, oftentimes discomforting stories. Now, they hedged their bets by generally relegating these creators to characters that had no real following, that were B-list at best. It would still be most of a decade before DC or Marvel let guys like Neil Gaiman or Grant Morrison near their real money-makers. But in my opinion, this kind of editorial limiting turned out to be a plus because by kinda forcing (and hell, I'm not altogether certain these nutty European dudes weren't queueing up for these also-ran characters) these guys to work with unpopular characters, they had a lot more room to explore, a lot more stories to tell.

But now here we are today, in a much unfriendlier economic environment. I will allow that Vertigo is already an imprint of DC Comics, which is itself a subsidiary of Time/Warner, which is conglomerated with whichever faceless, soulless corporation it's conglomerated with these days. Therefore, I'm well aware that the bottom line is always gonna be profit, and so creativity is often (if not always) going to take a backseat to this motive.

But do they have to be so fucking obvious about it?

The only realm wherein Vertigo is getting any real trouble from Marvel MAX (its direct rival) is in the crime genre. Criminal is an obvious feather in Marvel's cap, and I would argue that Incognito acts in much the same way, even if the story premise is fairly different. Also, the gravy train that Garth Ennis made of The Punisher puts much of Vertigo's output to shame. But that's about it, that's almost the entirety of Marvel's muster on this front. Vertigo, though known for more of the mystical magical Gaiman-esque stuff, has also produced some masterful crime/crime-related comics, 100 Bullets not being the least of them. But there was also the Gary Phillips-penned mini Angeltown, Andy Diggle and Jock's The Losers and Peter Milligan's revamping of Human Target (both woefully cancelled a few years ago), and the fortunately still rather successful Scalped. So clearly, Vertigo is capable of making some good creative decisions.

But I would say upon launching this admittedly ambitious crime imprint that now is the time to take some real risks. Publish some classic noir stuff. And not classic in the sense of the same ol' thing, or anything like that. But classic in the sense that 100 Bullets was a classic almost from its initial pitch: tough guys, bullets, tits, and swear words. How hard could that be?

Well, instead the first two releases were boring rehashes of Vertigo's flagship character and of its top-selling crime title, respectively. Dark Entries, written by Ian Rankin and illustrated by Werther Dell'Edera, is toted to be a classic haunted-house tale (as espoused on the cover by Warren Ellis, if memory serves)(I've already re-sold my copy, so I don't have one to hand). Yeah, that sounds good, I guess. But couldn't I just read one of the million fucking other classic haunted-house tales Vertigo has published in its nearly twenty year history? Do I really gotta cough up twenty bucks for a hard-cover that I finished over lunch?

Oh, but it's a Hellblazer story, you say, with that John Constantine character. And I say, re-read the last paragraph, but substitute the phrase "classic haunted-house tale" with "John Constantine story," and I'll meet you in the next paragraph.

Filthy Rich, Vertigo Crime's second offering (which came out the same week as the first--thanks, Vertigo! I didn't need to buy groceries this week anyways!) was a bit more satisfying, but I still felt a bit cheated. It was written by Brian Azzarello, whose stuff I will probably always read. The guy knows his crime, and he writes cracking dialogue. But the art by Victor Santos...I dunno, I feel like I may be going out on a limb with this, but I'm gonna do it anyways: Santos is a fine artist in his own right, and his style certainly fits well with this genre. But for my money, his similarity to long-time Azzarello collaborator and co-creator of 100 Bullets Eduardo Risso is simply too close for comfort. It could most definitely be argued that the use of negative space, black-and-white, and a lot of pictures of guys lighting cigarettes are simply part of noir-comic art, of which Risso has done tons. So naturally, there's gonna be some areas of comparison. But if you also factor in the notion that since 100 Bullets concluded not too long ago and Vertigo has lost a major money-maker in that book, it's also completely possible that they're trying to recoup that loss by proffering up this substitute, that I would at my most charitable describe as weak.

And the future does not look too bright. The next offering from Vertigo Crime is a book by reputed crime novelist Jason Starr. This may raise some eyebrows amongst my fellow crime cronies, but I really haven't liked anything I've read by Starr so far, so I fear no end to my trepidations with this line of books. The next two books, though, are written by two of my favorites, Peter Milligan and Christos Gage. But at twenty bucks a pop? My comics budget is stretched thin enough. Had I reason to believe that my investment would be worth it, I'd find the money somewhere. But so far, I've been disappointed in this line, even if not with the works of Milligan or Gage. So it seems I'm not immune to the profit-motive either. Thing of it is, I don't have the backing of one of the wealthiest entertainment conglomerates in the world.

And that's my base-line complaint: can't Vertigo afford at least some balls? Yes, I concede that the business of business is business, but with this business, isn't the smart investment quality product as opposed to tired "legacy" characters and in-house rip-offs? Especially from a line that has thus far produced some of the highest quality output of the past two decades, and with the money and marketing to get those books into the hands of folks who'd never cross the threshold of a geeky-ass comic shop, am I asking too much of them?

Believe it or not, dear reader, I'd rather light a candle than curse your darkness.
Fortunately, there are other books out there worth your time and money. Just a couple weeks ago, Dark Horse Comics released the anthology Noir. For a mere $12.95, you get stories by such heavy-hitters as David Lapham, Jeff Lemire, and the team that brings you Criminal, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. That story alone is worth it as introduction to that fine monthly. There's also The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics. I'm not a hundred percent on the availability of this tome at your local shop as it is at least a year old, but I'm sure the magical internets can produce you a copy if you simply ask. I haven't had a chance to dig into this giant myself, but it's on the TBR stack as we speak, and its beautiful Jordi Bernet cover beckons me daily, as do promises of stories by Alan Moore, Will Eisner, and Dashiell Hammett, author of what I consider the finest crime novel ever, Red Harvest. This book has a cover price of $17.95, yet easily outweighs both the twenty-dollar Vertigo Crime books put together.


So be a good Commie, and only buy crime comics with the Jimmy the Worm hammer-and-sickle seal-of-approval. And I'll see you all down at the Hugo Chávez rally this weekend.

In My Corner

NOTE: I wrote this a couple months ago, but didn't post it because it was too whiny. I still think that, I just don't care as much. I hope you gag on it.

After so many years, I finally got fed up pissing and moaning about my childhood, particularly my relationship with my father, so I more or less knocked it off. The old man and I actually get along okay these days, although I only talk to him twice, maybe three times a year. Even less, come to think of it. There's still a lot of that bile simmering beneath the surface, and it tends to come out in my writing more often than not. I don't fight that, because at least it's a creative way to deal with that sort of shit, much moreso than going on Dr. Phil and crying about it. But I still tend to avoid talking about it directly, if for no other reason than it's very un-Dude.

Worry not, this still has to do with comics. But I've had a couple things knocking about in my head that I've been wanting to write about, but have been lacking a (somewhat) interesting way to go about it until today. Today, I read Ultimate Spider-Man #133, and there's a really nice interview in the back with writer Brian Michael Bendis. If you've read any Marvel comic at all over the past ten years, chances are Bendis either wrote it, or a major story-arc that he wrote had a large editorial influence on it. The guy has more or less become the Stan Lee of this current generation, and in no way is this more obvious than the fact that he re-started the whole Spider-Man saga and saw it through to its timely end (well, sorta. I guess the book will continue, but the Ultimate universe as we've come to know it so far is pretty much nixed). So the interviewer made sure to address this, and Bendis talked about not just how much of an influence Lee was on him as a writer, but as a person. And he said something that I can certainly relate to, and is a subject I've given considerable thought over the years: in regards to how emotional he got over Stan Lee's gracious acceptance of him as Lee's title-bearer, Bendis says, "So I didn't have a father and then Stan Lee is nice to me and I act like he's my father."

This type of psychology should be no stranger to those of us fellows immersed in comics. Comics, particularly super-hero comics, are largely escapist. As young lads, what we're often trying to escape is dissatisfaction with our home lives. I'm painting in broad strokes here, but I've noticed that most of us fall into three categories: we had no friends, we had no fathers, or our fathers were total shitheads. I've read where Ed Brubaker has said, since he was an army brat and was moved around constantly, comics were the one constant in his life, as he was never in one place long enough to form any lasting friendships. Bendis, according to the aforementioned interview, dearly loves his mother and has no problems with how she raised him and his brother, but he definitely felt the absence of a male role model.

Guess which category I fall under. Boo-hoo, I know. But if you'll humor me, I'll explain why Stan Lee, as much as I love the guy, isn't my father, nor is Steve Ditko or Harvey Kurtzman or even Alan Moore or Chris Claremont or Frank Miller or any of the hundreds of other comics creators who began molding me into a man from the tender age of 11.

When I was 13 years old, me and Ryan Moore (no relation) were playing Butts Up after school. The plan was to hang out, go back to my house around the block and hang out for a while, and then come back for some lame-ass 8th grade dance. Only Ryan thought it would be more fun to pull the fire alarm while I wasn't looking. Ooops. So naturally, as the klaxon sounds and the day-care kids are lined up out on the softball field, I panic, hop on my bike, and book it home. Only thing is Mr. Reinike had seen me and Ryan down there on the handball courts just a few minutes earlier. So Dr. Quiocho, the principal, calls my house just as I pull huffing and puffing into the driveway. Man, was my dad pissed, so pissed he barely said a word as we drove back. Dr. Quiocho, bless her, a woman I'd always found to be fair even if kinda scary, waited until Ryan had been hauled onto the carpet as well before accusing me of anything. And Ryan, being in general an all-right guy, 'fessed up immediately and made it clear I had no hand in any of these shenanigans. Dr. Quiocho then excused me before she ripped Moore a new asshole in front of the firefighters who had been called down there erroneously. I followed my dad out as Quiocho blamed Ryan for the hypothetical deaths of orphans as their house burned down because the fire department was busy down at Joan McQueen Middle School because of him.

We weren't two steps out the door before my dad turned to me and said, "You probably dared him to do it, didn't ya?" Now, I'm a little guy, physically, and I was a little kid then. Yet never, before or since, have I ever felt smaller. I looked up into the face of the man who had sired me, and I saw there the disappointment that he would be denied giving me a whipping, as well as the utter surety that my worthless snot-nosed ass was the brains behind this operation. There was no way I was not culpable in any, if not all, of this because I was a miserable piece of shit, all overwhelming evidence to the contrary be damned. I looked over my shoulder at a couple of the firemen outside the office. They'd heard what my old man said to me, and I swear I saw the pity in their faces: "Man, tough break, kid."

I certainly don't believe this one incident led me and/or my self-esteem down the road to wrack and ruin. But it is, I think, pretty indicative of the environment I was raised in, and that environment had a profound effect on me. I've spent the rest of my life feeling like I never really have anybody in my corner, that the only person who gave a fuck about me was me. This is an exaggeration: I'd take a bullet for any one of my friends, and feel certain they would say the same. But when I talk with people who are close with their families, the one saving grace those families seem to have, even when they're driving you up a wall, is that "they're always there when you need them."

Yeah, well, I'll have to take your word for it.

But let me tell you another story now, a much happier one, as far as I'm concerned. This is a story I first read about in Gerard Jones' excellent Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book. Back in the late '30s, Will Eisner, creator of The Spirit, was running his own "shop," as they called it--basically, an office where comics artists could rent out space (that's really simplifying it, but I digress). Now, at this building, there was a towel service that was run by some Mafia goons, and they were constantly jacking the prices up, as Mafia goons will do. So one day, Eisner demands to see a representative about these price changes, and up comes a guy straight from central casting: big, broken-nosed, black shirt, white tie. Eisner says he's gonna find another towel service, and the guy lets him know, subtly but firmly, that that would not be a good idea.

Just then, in walks one of Eisner's fellow comics artists, a little five-foot-two guy. Before Eisner can even say anything, his buddy knows just what's going on: this is a goddamn shakedown. "Is this guy giving you any trouble, Will?" he says, ready to fly headfirst into the shit. And Eisner's like, No, hey, it's all under control. "Do you want me to beat him up?" the artist says, and at this point, I can only imagine the expression on this mobbed-up dope's face: here he is at a 'business meeting,' and in walks this sawed-off Jew threatening to beat him up. "Who is this guy?" he asks Eisner. Eisner says this guy is one of his best artists, and nothing had better happen to him or nobody's gonna be able to pay for any towels anyways. The goon says, "We don't want no trouble; we just want to do things business-like." And that was it; the price hikes stopped (for a while, anyways).

Who was that guy, Eisner's best artist?

Jack fuckin' Kirby, that's who. The guy who would go on to pretty much co-create the Marvel Universe as we know it with Stan Lee: the original artist of Captain America, The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Iron Man and The X-Men, just for openers. The guy whose name is probably more closely associated with comics than any other.

"Let me know if he comes back, Will," he says to Eisner, "Tell me if you want me to beat him up." This little half-pint was ready to start swinging before he even knew the play; all he saw was his buddy Will Eisner getting bullied, and that was that. Didn't matter that the guy was probably twice Kirby's size. Eisner's his associate, and ain't nobody fucking with anybody associated with Jack Kirby.

Nobody.

I've not always been the biggest Kirby fan. I don't buy The Jack Kirby Collector. I went to one of Mark Evanier's Kirby panels at WonderCon '08, and those guys are far more familiar with the man and his work than I'll ever be. And if you wanna get technical, the guy was far from the best artist ever, with no formal training at all. But I'll tell you one thing for sure: Jack Kirby's always been there when I've needed him.

Always in my corner.

No Fun to Hang Around

Greg and Bert down at the shop seem to prefer the days when comics were fun. When I rolled my eyes at the Fantastic Four movie, Bert defended it as being a "fun movie." And yeah, I guess I may be a little on the cynical side. Sure, I still get a boyish thrill from a lotta comics, books that I grew up on, books that I probably wouldn't care less about had I not been reading them since sixth grade. But many superhero books, especially from the Silver Age, are really cornball, moreso than even nostalgia can overcome. So, generally speaking, I find that fun just ain't no fun.

The rise in popularity of the anti-hero during the '80s was a backlash to this notion of fun, and can be traced back to Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. That book is nothing short of genius, and it was so huge that its aftereffects are still felt in the genre today, what Wayne down at the shop refers to as a "watershed moment" in comics. In Comic Book Confidential, Miller himself talks about how the Silver Age Batman stories became so trite and goofy that no kid could really relate to him, y'know, there was no depth to the character. Kids may be dumb, after all, but they're not idiots; if you give them stories with depth and meaning, they're going to respond to them. Plus you'll have stories that grown-ups can enjoy as well. So Miller brought this notion into his work by making Batman darker, more of a tortured soul, and the world of crime and depravity in which he fought more bleak. This way, when the hero wins at the end, he's overcome something more meaningful than second-rate Bond-villain-type traps, resulting in a much more satisfying kind of story.

The Dark Knight Returns truly did save the character from the Adam West-type goofball crap, but unfortunately, the trend took off and just went too far. In this, comics are really no different than any other mass media: hey, everybody, jump on the bandwagon! Soon, Batman became a parody of himself in the other direction, this brooding, mopey sad sack. Anti-heroes like the Punisher, Ghost Rider, and Wolverine skyrocketed in popularity, guest-starring in more books in the late '80s/early '90s than Barack Obama does today. Embarrassing attempts at making characters more relevant to the times abounded--the Black Knight went from being a medieval man-at-arms to a mullethead in a leather jacket, complete with five o'clock shadow and earring. Yeesh. I tried to no avail to find visual support of this goofy move on Marvel's part, but trust me, he looked like how your uncle might dress if he was trying to fit in at a Zeros show. It's really a shame that the comics industry perpetuates this follow-the-leader mentality that is so prevalent in movies, TV, etc., especially since the medium is superior to any and all of these other forms.

But that's nearly twenty years ago now, and this current generation of creators seems to be instilling a trend of its own, a trend one would hope won't get hammered into the ground like the Vision in Incredible Hulk #300. As I've been drafting this piece in my head, I've been trying to come up with a term to describe this trend. These aren't traditional super-heroes by any stretch, but they're not quite anti-heroes either. They share many traits with that latter, but like Frank Miller's Batman before they both became cartoon versions of themselves, there's more depth, more character, more for the reader to chew on and digest. So, until someone comes up with a better name, I'm gonna call them the no-fun heroes (cue the Stooges).

There are already a number of titles out there that well exemplify the no-fun hero, so I thought here I'd give you the quick skinny on a few that are available at your local shop right now, and then a short list of others you can dig out of the back-issue bins. So first up, we have the latest book by one of the writing-est motherfuckers in the biz these days, Absolution by Mr. Christos Gage. The main character is John Dusk, one of a small band of superheroes (or in the parlance of the book, "enhanciles") who work with the police department to combat super-powered crime. In his nearly ten years on the job, Dusk has seen some terrible, terrible things, humanity (super or otherwise) at its very worst, defilement of human beings that haunts him. He can't sleep, he hallucinates, he's generally more miserable than when he started this do-gooder business, and the cracks begin to show. First, he uses excessive force on a supervillain. Hey, no big, the guy had it coming, right? So if Dusk covers it up a bit to keep himself out of trouble, we understand that. Later, Dusk arrives on scene at a domestic disturbance where a guy has bashed in his old lady's head. Pushy and loudmouthed, the guy keeps needling Dusk. And needling him. And needling him.

What really strikes me about what Gage and artist Roberto Viacava are doing here is simply how exhausted Dusk is. Dusk doesn't sit in his cave and look stalwart. He's not menacing or brutal; he doesn't even have perpetual stubble. He's just a guy doing his job, and nothing will tire a guy out quicker. When anybody gives in to the temptation to sit around and navel-gaze, even so-called heroes, it's understandable, but it's also a form of giving up. A guy like Dusk is like that tree that won't bend in the wind. Eventually, it breaks. He begins to utilize his powers, not to strike a blow for justice and ensure the safety of all, but just to try to get some fucking sleep without the victims of horrible rape and disfiguration pervading his dreams.

As far as I know, Christos Gage has created the first story about a superhero/serial killer. Stories about either one are a dime a baker's dozen, but to combine the two, I mean, shit, that was probably the entirety of the pitch. Gage: "Hey, I wanna do a book about a supe who goes John Wayne Gacy." Avatar: "Where do we send your check?" And it's a topic simply overripe for a superhero book. Take any one superhero--Spider-Man, let's say. The guy is indirectly to blame for the death of his beloved uncle, his best friend's dad throws his girlfriend off a bridge, an alien tries to possess him and then later eat his brains. Hell, the shit Carnage did alone would be enough to send anybody around the bend. Yet, Spidey's still out there fighting the good fight, cracking jokes all the while like an agile Henny Youngman. And it just doesn't fly with me anymore.

The superhero as a model of morality in the face of extreme adversity is not a trope that must be done away with. I'd say it still has some relevance, even in these modern times with their modern socks. But hey, why not explore some other avenues? The days of white hats and black hats are long over. It may not be much "fun" to not have a good guy to root for or a bad guy to boo and hiss. But I think it's plenty of fun to read about a truly conflicted character, a character divided against himself, and losing moral ground in this battle by the day. So go down to the shop and by issues 0 and 1, or however many are out by the time you read this. Absolution ain't no fun, which means it's tons of fun.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. That's the Machiavellian sensibility that the old-timers like Siegel & Shuster and Stan Lee were working against. Those guys wanted a world where those in power accepted that power as a responsibility, not a burden. Sure, it's a lofty concept, but never mind the fact (or, if not fact, at least high probability) that it is unrealistic, it more importantly just gets really boring when it's the only idea being bandied about.

So what happens (if and) when that corruption takes place? Irredeemable, Mark Waid's current no-fun monthly over at Boom! Studios with artist Peter Krause. Not unlike what Alan Moore did with Supreme a while back, Waid is using the recognizable archetypes from the Superman diegesis to tell a Superman story that DC would never publish in a million years. Here's Waid's own basis for the book: "How do you go from being the greatest hero in the world — someone that everybody knows, and everybody loves, and everyone recognizes — to the greatest villain in the world? What is that path? It's not a light switch, it's not an on-off switch, it's not something that you wake up one day and just become evil."

Irredeemable is the complex story about what would happen if Superman (in the personage of the Plutonian) figured he'd had enough and decided to take over the world. He slaughters millions, destroys whole cities, and generally terrorizes the human race. When his former teammates attempt to track down Modeus (the Plutonian's Lex Luthor) to help stop this, the Plutonian, in his omnipotence, begins picking them off along with his rogue's gallery. The guy's had enough. He's been toying with humanity for too long, and their petty bickering amongst themselves and their underlying intense fear/hatred of him and his power finally pushes him over the edge. A guy tries to do his job, and it just wears him out. Like with Absolution, we can see that superhumans ain't so super sometimes. Now in fandom, I get the feeling that guys who still look to their superheroes as models of behavior seem to think there's something wrong with this idea. But shit, fellas, you're grown men now, and I shouldn't have to qualify this by saying you don't have to agree on any kind of moral level with these stories. I mean, I happen to, and quite a bit in fact, but I can still remain objective, so that really has little bearing on the discussion here. And one thing anyone would be hard-pressed to argue is it's at the very least an interesting concept, one that's been flirted with but rarely so directly addressed.

Mark Waid, unabashedly the biggest Superman fan on the planet, really shows a lot of balls in taking this subject on. But what pushes the parallel with Superman all the way home for me is Krause's very John Byrne-esque style. To tell this story in the style of the guy who a lotta people think fucked Superman up is pretty telling, indeed. That's a bit of speculation on my part, perhaps, but clearly Waid and Krause are interested in the exploration of other themes within superhero comics rather than just good guys versus bad guys. Also, notice how in none of these are we departing from the other earmarks of superhero comics: there are still super-powered beings and plenty of slam-bang gee-whiz action. But enough already with the high-handed morality of the Golden Age, the Silver Age with all its goofy trappings and greasy kids' stuff, and none of this bad-assery of the 1980s and 90s covering up for a severe lack of real depth. Let's tell some fucking stories here, yeah? That's my idea of a fun time.

Waid and Krause may love the subject of their criticism, but Garth Ennis hates superheroes. Always has, it seems, and even though he writes like a maniac, he really hasn't written that many super-hero books. Probably his most well-known book, Preacher, was basically a modern-day Western that decried the existence of an omnibenevolent God. Heady stuff, to be sure, but these days Ennis is going after a much more sacred lamb. The Boys is about a black-ops CIA team formed precisely to keep super-humans in line. For in this comical-book universe, the most common super-power is corruption itself.
Here's where the cynicism train pulls into the station, so have your tickets ready. Super-hero comics are escapist not only because these characters can perform feats of unbelievable strength, thereby giving vent to daydreams of power for the average reader, but also because they tend to be idealized personifications of high morality. In kind of a Platonic way, a character like Superman, or Captain America, or whomever, represent the capital-"G" Good that we all aspire to, the Form of Good (man, it's been awhile since I've read The Republic, so I hope I'm not fucking this up too bad). Now, never let it be said that I'm somehow against escapism. But on the other hand, I tend to lean more towards existentialism and nihilism than I do idealism, and pretty much believe in nossing, Lebowski. It'd be great if there was an ideal form of Good to aspire to, especially if that form was written by John Arcudi and drawn by Lee Bermejo. But there isn't: there's just people. And people, to the extent of a vast amount of my experience, are miserable pieces of shit. So if any of most the people in the world were actually to acquire super-powers in real life, I don't believe they'd become anything more than super-powered pieces of shit.

And I think it's pretty safe to say Ennis feels much the same way. With Darick Robertson, he's populated a world where the "super-heroes" all look great for the cameras and their books sell like Thanagarian hotcakes. But in reality, these heroes exploit their powers for their own personal gain, more worried about the bottom line of their merchandising deals than they are in dealing with the public they're supposed to be protecting, more worried about where their next piece of pussy is coming from than in rescuing cats out of trees. These supes are, to a one, over-sexed, drug-addled, and cash-obsessed. There is truly no level of depravity they won't sink to. On top of that, there is also an analogue Bush administration that works hand in hand with the attendant arms manufacturer (which, of course, manufactures supes), and with this, Ennis drives home the fact that there are no heroes, no pie in the sky. In the aforementioned Comic Book Confidential, Stan Lee talks about how during the early '60s, superheroes enjoyed a renaissance because Kennedy was in the White House and there was a feeling of heroism in the air. But clearly, those days are long behind us (I mean, the new guy is working out, but a lot of damage has been done). If the Bush administration proved anything, it's that there are no heroes, that people in power will utilize that power only to fuck more power out of those with less than they. The only ones who can save us are us.

My words cannot begin to describe the world of unbridled hedonism and pure unadulterated amorality Ennis has set up for these characters. But honestly, it's nothing less than anyone in the real world has sunken to. The Boys themselves, being of all different backgrounds and motivations, represent how each of us as individuals are responsible not only for ourselves, but also to keep the assholes out there in line by denying them the power over us they so need. Sadly, Mighty Mouse is not in fact on his way. But fuck the superheroes--we can do it ourselves. That may not be the most fun message, the one most enabling of escapism, but that's kinda the point, isn't it?

As I said, all these books should be well available at your local comic shop. Absolution should just about be up to issue #2 as I post this. Boom! has got a great deal going right now: the trade paperback collecting the first four issues of Irredeemable is now on sale for a mere ten bucks (less than I paid for the individual issues--not a complaint at all, they're well worth it, but just so you, the discriminating consumer, knows), and the 5th issue has a cover price of a mere 99 cents. So get on top of that. The Boys is now up into the 30s, but there is currently a spin-off mini-series, Herogasm, which would be a good jumping on point while you're waiting around after your shop orders you the four trades already in print. Then, while you're down there, you can dig around for some other titles that fit this no-fun bill: No Hero and Black Summer, both by Warren Ellis and Juan Jose Ryp for Avatar; The Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe by Garth Ennis and Dougie Braithwaite for Marvel (obviously); The Pro by Garth Ennis and Amanda Conner (see a pattern forming?) for Image; and of course, the book you all should have read by now, the book that really opened this discussion and proved what super-hero comics were capable of, Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

Until next time, I'll maybe go out, maybe stay home, maybe call Mom on the telephone. Well, c'mon.

Distinguished Competition

I like the Beatles more than the Stones. Mostly, I think, 'cause I grew up on them more, but also 'cause, like Rev. Norb once said, "Oh, sure, the Stones are bad boys, but the Beatles were better because they were funnier and smarter." These kinds of simple distinctions are kinda annoying when people lob them at you--Beatles or Stones, Raw or Delirious, Joel or Mike--but that doesn't change the fact that they're true sometimes.

I grew up on Marvel way more than DC. But for a while there, when I came back into collecting full force again after my little on-leave a while ago, DC piqued my interest a lot more than it ever had. Maybe it was 'cause I didn't really have a history with those characters. Like, after not reading any books steadily for about five years, I couldn't enjoy a Marvel book because I was just too anxious worrying about all the continuity I'd missed or (even worse) forgotten. But right around when 52 ended, my interest in DC all but waned entirely, while Bendis has pretty much insured that I'll buy every major Marvel crossover until it actually is 2099.

That being said, I'd like to talk about some of the things DC does right, stuff that Marvel never seems to be able to do. For openers, DC's current weekly Wednesday Comics. If you haven't seen these, do yourself a favor and go grab 'em up. I believe the fifth issue should just be hitting the stands as I write this. Just buy one so you have something nice to look at. What these books are, see, are over-sized newsprint comics, the format of the old Sunday funnies where comics got their start back in the Golden '30s. Unless you're gung-ho, the creators' names won't mean much to you, but heavy hitters like Azzarello & Risso and Kyle Baker were enough to get me to pre-order them. The format is kinda awkward (don't try to read them in the park on a breezy day), but I'll tell you, and not to sound cornball, but they are simply beautiful works of art. Big, lavish splash pages; intricate sequential plotting; it's enough to make my mouth water just thinking about it. And they're on actual newsprint! I don't care what a cranky old man I normally sound like, I'm not nearly old enough to be nostalgic for the radio days, but newsprint was used for comics almost exclusively up until the mid to late '90s, when everybody started using that higher stock paper that's still just way too slick, especially for my punk-rock sensibilities. So hop on down to the shop and grab these up.

The western is a genre on a whole that DC has all over Marvel, always has and always will. I've raved about Jonah Hex in these pages before, but that's really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the vast and colorful western back-catalog DC has. El Diablo, the Jekyll-and-Hyde of the Old West. Bat Lash, the pretty-boy ladies' man who can blow your guns out of your belt at fifty paces. Scalphunter, the baddest redskin to ever wield a tomahawk and, now that I think about, at least a distant relative to Scalped's Dashiell Badhorse. What does Marvel have? The Rawhide Kid? Hey, I love Kirby as much as the next guy, but c'mon. Plus, Marvel had to go and try to make that character more relevant recently by making him gay, and we all know how well attempts like that work out (Northstar, anyone?). Sure, it was done tongue-in-cheek (ahem), and the book was still worth it for the Severin art, but I dunno. Just kinda gay, you ask me. Who else? Two-Gun Kid? Kid Colt? I dunno, these characters are to DC's stable as the corny oaters of the old days are to the spaghetti westerns of the '60s. Two-Gun Kid and Kid Colt are like Gene Autry: boring in their stark morality, that bullshit "good guys always win" routine. Jonah Hex is Clint Eastwood; there ain't no morals in them thar hills, and it ain't always the best man who wins. Usually the opposite, in fact. When you wanna a good western, go to DC.


And finally, there's Gail Simone. It's rare that I follow the works of any women writers. I say this just as a statement of fact, not to further any kinda misogynist agenda (I can do that later, if you want). But there it is, and this is not just in comics, but in pretty much all other media I enjoy. Why that is, I don't really know, or at least I don't have a really good reason. But when it comes to writers like Gail Simone, then I notice how much I could be missing by having my comic collection be such a sausage-fest. I'd seen her name around a bunch and I'm sure I must have read a thing or two by her, but the first thing I remember really grabbing me was her opening run on the current Atom series. I began picking that book up originally because Grant Morrison had had much to do with it editorially, kinda setting the book up and then letting Simone run with it. But after a while, you could really see how much was his and how much was hers and how grateful I was for it. Normally, that kinda disjunction would be really off-putting, but in this case, it was really nice to see the story come into its own on its own, and pretty much under Simone's own power.
If I wasn't so lazy, I could go dig those out, re-read them and let you know where exactly that happens, but there you go. You oughtta just go down to the comic shop and pick up the first couple trades of that series, and also her Secret Six, also on DC. And as far as I know, she's never done anything for Marvel, not anything of as much significance anyways. Maybe she will at some point; I mean, hell, it's not like the old days when you had to sign a loyalty oath or anything. But until then, Gail Simone is another feather in DC's cap, one that Marvel is sorely lacking.

Of course, there's Vertigo, which is still DC's strongest asset, and WildStorm puts out some good stuff, but I still think of that as Jim Lee's company, I don't care where the money's coming from now. Marvel doesn't really have much in the way of direct competition there in the way of (for lack of a better phrase) smaller press-type stuff, although what they do have is pretty significant: Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' Criminal and Incognito, and of course, Garth Ennis' pure-genius run on The Punisher. The strength of those three books alone is almost enough to fairly well eclipse DC. Still and all, Vertigo has alone put out some of the most important comics of the last couple decades, and WildStorm continues to open doors for a lotta unknown guys (notably here, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips). So that's technically another win in their column.

But DC still sucks. Their characters have been around a whole lot longer than Marvel's and therefore are way more overused, even compared to how overused characters like Spider-Man and Wolverine are. Both companies have pretty equally painfully embarrassing eras, but Marvel still manages to come off as the younger, hipper publisher, the Pepsi to DC's Coke. I mean, to any non-collector, a passing glance at books from either company from any era would look about the same, so an argument like this is mostly intellectual (so to speak). But then, internally, within the comics industry, I think DC has fucked up way worse and way more often than Marvel. We can all agree Quesada's pretty much a putz, and Stan Lee's high visibility these past few years has been more embarrassing than the Invisible Girl's costume from the '90s. But! DC has thoroughly angered Alan Moore and his giant snake-god, and that's just not cool. WildStorm sent Ennis and Robertson's The Boys packing, which is incredibly short-sighted and immature of them and definitely Dynamite's major gain. They killed Vic Sage, but that's more of a personal complaint, since The Question was actually one of the very, very first comics I read that really grabbed me. Need I mention the Tim Burton Batman movies? Oh, and the current logo from since about '05 is still lame.

So I'm still a Marvel zombie, through and through (ironic, since I think Marvel Zombies is one of the lamest books out there right now). But that doesn't mean I can't tip my hat when the Distinguished Competition comes along and shows me a great comic book. And maybe if they keep it up...

Well, let's not lose our heads here.