Until death...or continuity reboot...do them part...

Rumor has it that the marriage between Peter (Spider-Man) Parker and Mary Jane Watson-Parker is about to come to an end (someway, somehow, it’s comic books they can do whatever they want to get to where they want to be.) If true, I think it’s too bad.

Spider-Man has never been my favorite character…I like him well enough but I don’t follow his solo titles on a regular basis (in fact, I rather prefer him in guest-star, team-up, and team member roles…I think him being an Avenger is extremely cool)…but I was pleased when he and Mary Jane got hitched (yep, ol’ Pete really hit the jackpot there :-) and I think the marriage…through all of its ups and downs…has made the character stronger and more interesting.

It’s been argued by some…including Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada…that the essence of Spider-Man is that he’s a sadsack loser despite the fact he has cool super-powers and a classic costume…that having a happy marriage to a gorgeous redhead (who is an actress and model to boot) is not what his life was supposed to be. I think that’s silly. The idea that the character should be in the same emotional place now that he was in 40+ years ago when Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created him seems absurd to me.

But then I’ve grown up with super-hero comics…I was 9 years old when I got into them seriously…and now that I’m into my 5^th decade I have no problem with characters growing up, growing older, getting married, having kids, yadda, yadda, yadda.

But as someone (I believe it’s attributed to Jim Shooter) once said, super-hero comics from the big 2 are not about change but rather the illusion of change so that they’re always welcoming to new readers (every comic could be somebody’s first comic after all.) I guess that would still make sense if there were hordes of kids taking up the hobby but that just isn’t the case. The audience, for better or worse, is largely adult and (hopefully) able to cope with the fact that characters age and grow…albeit VERY slowly.

Most super-hero marriages come a cropper sooner or later: Aquaman and Mera, Hawkman and Hawkwoman, Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne, the Sub-Mariner and Dorma, the Sub-Mariner and Marrina, the Atom and Jean Loring, the Vision and the Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye and Mockingbird, Donna Troy and Terry Long, Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl (pre-Crisis), the Human Torch and Lyja, and on and on. Through death, continuity reboots, or just plain “irreconcilable differences”, the dissolution rate among super-hero couples is much higher than it is out here in the real world.

Ralph and Sue Dibny, maybe my favorite super-hero couple ever, were ripped asunder in as ugly a way as possible (with having it revealed that Sue was raped by a super-villain in the past and then killed and incinerated by an insane Jean Loring and later Ralph sacrificing himself to contain a demon) and then reunited in the afterlife as ghosts (again, it’s super-hero comics so I guess that qualifies as a happy ending.)

Granted some marriages do endure…that of the Fantastic Four’s Reed and Sue being one that has survived through good times and bad (and hey, their kids are still alive…super-hero offspring don’t usually fare any better than super-hero marriages) with Clark Kent and Lois Lane as another couple that make each other stronger…but they are few and far between.

The Black Panther and Storm were recently married and they seem happy together (at least until some writer comes along and decides that Storm should be back with the X-Men full time) and the union of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones (hey give that kid a name already!) has been interesting and fun so far. Green Arrow and Black Canary are supposedly about to get married but, if it happens, that doesn’t seem like a match that will stand the test of time…though I’m willing to be proved wrong.

Maybe there’s a shift in the way comic book creators think of married super-heroes. But I rather doubt it.

And Pete? MJ? Hey, it’s been real, kids…good luck getting back into the dating pool.

Get Us Out from Under, Wonder Woman....

Hell's "Angel": Batman #666

Given constant reboots…nothing sells like a #1 after all…it’s quite unlikely that very many titles will ever make it into the 600’s, much less actually reach the so-called “number of the beast”, 666.

That said, some of DC’s most venerable titles have managed, through thick and thin, to hang on to their issue numbering and to actually reach that “dreaded” issue number (both Action Comics and Detective Comics passed that number long ago.) Superman #666 deals with the milestone by literally going to hell while Batman #666, already published, took a slightly more symbolic route.

In a dystopian future, Gotham City is protected by a new, more brutal Batman: Damian Wayne, the son of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul, who has taken up the mantle after the death of his father. The world is turmoil…global warming has the city baking in 120+ degree heat, millions are dead in an epidemic in China, Mecca has been irradiated by a dirty bomb, and criminals are meeting grisly ends at the hands of a false Batman who thinks that he’s the Anti-Christ.

Batman, who is at odds with the Gotham Police Department and Police Commissioner Barbara Gordon (who bears considers Damian a “monster” who is somehow responsible for the death of a “good friend” of hers), lives a solitary, almost ascetic, life with only a cat…archly named “Alfred”…as companion.

Grant Morrison’s story is taut and fast-paced even as tantalizing threads are left dangling (perhaps to be picked up at some point in the future) and Andy Kubert’s art is kinetic and engrossing (the redesign of the Batman uniform with an overcoat…rather than a flowing cloak…as its focal point is an inspired idea that works very nicely.)

Batman #666 is…if you’ll pardon the expression…one hell of a comic book.

A Comicbook Orange: Frank Miller Time

Gone Too Soon

Mike Wieringo, the extremely talented artist who had memorable runs on (among others) Flash, Fantastic Four, and Tellos, has died of a sudden heart attack. He was 44.

One prays that his friends and family find themselves surrounded by peace, love, and light (“Ringo” was by all accounts an extremely affable and loving man) even as the dark, inevitable shadows of grief and loss attempt to overwhelm them.

Go West, Young Comic Book Fan...

Like a lot of Americans of my generation I have always had a certain fondness for Westerns. I’m not a aficionado or anything but I have liked some Westerns very much. Both movies…High Noon, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Searchers, The Wild Bunch, Unforgiven…and television offerings…Gunsmoke, Rawhide, Bonanza, Maverick, Lonesome Dove…but, strangely enough, not so much when it came to comic books.

I never warmed much to the western comic book genre…perhaps because many of them (especially Marvel’s characters like the Rawhide Kid and the Two-Gun Kid) just came off as super-hero stories transposed into the 19^th Century and that held no interest to me.

It’s a bit odd to me then that I’m currently buying and reading (and quite enjoying) 3 western-themed comics. The books in question…DC Comics’ Jonah Hex, Dynamite Comics’ Lone Ranger, and Vertigo Comics’ Loveless…are disparate in tone and theme but each is enormously engaging in its own way.

Jonah Hex is not a character I was ever very interested in…though I did give the strange futuristic Hex series a chance…but his new series is a little gem. Writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti tell taut, flint-hearted morality tales in which their scarred bounty hunter wades through hunting human prey, getting paid, and occasionally meting out brutal justice (as defined by his own personal and decidedly inflexible code of what’s right and what’s wrong.)

Except for a 3-part origin story, we don’t really get into Hex’s head very much…he is very much like Clint Eastwood’s “Man with No Name” from those classic “spaghetti westerns” from the 60’s…and that’s fine. Aided and abetted by a stellar array of artists (including Jordi Bennett, Luke Ross, and Phil Noto), Gray and Palmiotti are (again with the exception of the origin story) able to tell their gritty, satisfying stories in one issue, which is a delightful change from the so-called decompressed storytelling that too often is the norm at both DC and Marvel these days.

The Lone Ranger is a more straightforward heroic adventure as we follow John Reid, the only survivor of a team of 6 Texas Rangers, in his quest for vengeance, justice, and, most importantly, the building of his friendship and partnership with the enigmatic Tonto, the stern taskmaster who nursed him back to health after he and the other Rangers had been ambushed and he himself had mistakenly left for dead. Unlike Hex, the Ranger makes a decision not to kill, a decision honored…albeit a bit reluctantly…by Tonto, who is very much his partner’s equal in this version of the legendary masked man’s adventures.

Writer Brett Matthews makes the Ranger and Tonto viable for a 21^st Century audience while not compromising the ethos of justice, honor, and righteous vengeance that is the cornerstone of their adventures. He is ably aided with artist Sergio Cariello’s sterling storytelling and art director’s John Cassaday’s evocative covers.

Both Jonah Hex and The Lone Ranger are grand comics indeed…even for someone who thinks they don’t like comic book Westerns.

(I’ll cover the challenging, thought-provoking Loveless in a future entry.)

Those Were the Days, My Friend...

A promo video for Justice League: The New Frontier, an adaptation of Darwyn Cooke's delightful DC: The New Frontier series, a charming and heartfelt paean to DC's immortal Silver Age. The DVD will be out in 2008.

Everybody's Talkin' at Me...

Superman…Wonder Woman…Batman…Green Lantern…The Flash…the Justice League of America boasts a membership featuring “the World’s Greatest Heroes”.

With the firepower that the JLA can muster the comic is, to borrow a movie term, most often a big, widescreen action-adventure blockbuster of a comic. And that makes sense…why else gather a powerful team of heavy hitters who are already formidable on their on except to tackle something so overwhelming that even Superman would need partners to watch his back?

Brad Meltzer’s Justice League of America team is as powerful a lineup as the team has had: Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Black Canary, Black Lightning, Red Tornado, Red Arrow (it’s literally and figuratively a colorful lineup), Vixen, and Hawkgirl (with Geo-Force hanging around as an apparently unofficial member and the newly-returned Flash (Wally West) having been invited to join the club.) But instead of feeling like a big action blockbuster (to continue to flog the movie metaphor) Meltzer’s run has felt more like a navel-gazing “indie” movie filled with more talking (and talking and talking and talking) and not as much action as one might have expected from the JLA.

It’s an…um…interesting way to go.

The arc has been more about nostalgia (the fact that the team has two clubhouses…a “Hall of Justice” like from the old cartoons and an orbiting satellite like from the team’s 1970’s days) and relationships (everybody is chummy, which is cool, but I’m still having working on accepting the fact that the teammates call each other by their civilian names even when they’re in the field…hearing them call Superman “Clark” and, especially, calling Batman “Bruce” is still kind of jarring.)

But too often during Meltzer’s run, the team seems to spend a great deal of its time standing around talking (and talking and talking)…the crossover with Justice Society of America and the Legion of Super-Heroes just added more guys to spend a lot of time standing around talking (and talking and talking).

The most current (as of this writing) issue, #11, is a prime example of this. The claustrophobic story features just two members of the team, Red Arrow (an awkward name I think…he had a perfectly workable codename in Arsenal and I’m not sure that changing it to honor “the family business” was necessary) and Vixen (who is the subject of a plot curve ball that Meltzer won’t be around to resolve), trapped under a collapsed building trying to get out. That’s the whole story. Is it a suspenseful character study? Yep. Is there a lot of talking? Oh yeah. Does it work? Yes it does…but it’s not a Justice League story, it’s a Red Arrow story (Roy is shown as the focused strong one, Vixen, who’s been doing the super-hero thing for a while, is presented as panicked, insecure woman who needs to be bolstered up by her partner’s resolve.) Nothing wrong with that, I guess…but as the whole run has been on this same “small screen” vibe it doesn’t have the same impact it would have had if it has been a change of pace from some more expansive JLA adventure.

And leaving after setting up...but not resolving...mysteries and subplots is, to my mind, uncool...but there you are.

Meltzer’s run…bolstered by some sweet artwork art from Ed Benes and, in #11, Gene Ha…has been kinda okay (not great by any means, to be sure, but kinda okay) but I do hope that incoming JLA write Dwayne McDuffie will take the foundation that’s been laid down and craft some adventures worthy of a team with the scope and power of the Justice League of America.