It was initially late because I’d planned to post perhaps the most hilarious* post in the Journal’s history. Unfortunately, for that I needed a screencap from Superman: The Movie, and some copy protection thing wouldn’t let me do that. On the DVD that I paid well-earned cash to own, for a film I have bought more than once. It’s absolutely true that DRM only punishes honest customers stupid enough to act legally, and also people who want to make fun of films on the internet.

What I’m saying is, Warner Bros. and WordPress (for losing this post first time round) are to blame for today’s entry being late, and you should all write to them to complain.

Ahem.

Anyway, onwards. Finally got round to reading the final All-Star Superman, and I think I’m going to need a little time to process it. I was a little, I don’t know, not disappointed with how it ended, more that I don’t think I quite get it yet. The more I think about it the more I like it, though, and it goes without saying that it’s still packed full of brilliance, and the series as a whole is one of the best Superman stories I’ve ever written [Edit 4/10/08: read, best Superman stories I've ever read. I'm not Grant Morrison, honest. Certainly after hearing about the story Mick hints at in the comments.] But the last panel did confuse me a bit. The “2″ is very clever and all, but it seems like it should be a gimmick ending to one of the earlier issues rather than a cap to the whole series. And it looks more like advertising for a second All-Star series more than a solid ending. And Quintum may be a funky addition, but he doesn’t seem significant enough a character to be the focal point of the ending, although I suppose he’s meant to be the manifestation of Morrison himself (although, in a couple of places, I got the vibe that Lex was meant to be the Scotsman’s avatar.)

Oh, bollocks to it, I don’t really want to moan about the comic because it was great. I suppose most of my reservations come from the fact that I don’t want it to be a 12 issue series at all. I want it to be ongoing, and I want to wallow in this fantastic world Morrison, Quitely and Grant have created for a hundreds of issues.

One thing (of many) that Morrison handled perfectly was the issue with Jonathan Kent’s death, probably my favourite one of the run. Only problem is, from what I can tell, there have been hints that Pa Kent is for the chop in the main titles, too. This is a very, very bad idea. Because bringing him back into the story, post-original Crisis, added an important and interesting element to Superman’s supporting cast. By removing him again, all we’re going to get is another excrutiating death scene that’s unlikely to have anywhere near the impact his death had in the movie, or in All-Star, partly because not every writer is as good as Grant Morrison, and partly because death is so incredibly underwhelming as a plot device in comics. It has none of the resonance it used to have. In fact, far from being affected by the drama of death, these days when someone buys it I don’t feel anything more than boredom, and disappointment that the writer can’t find a single thing new or interesting to write about instead. It’s just cheap and ineffective. And damaging to the character, too; Spider-Man’s diminished supporting cast, as always, being the biggest example of this.

Speaking of the web-slinger, not reading the main title (because, as I always maintain, I don’t have as big a stiffy for rehashing the Seventies that the rest of the aging comic reading (or writing) population obviously has) I don’t know whether Aunt May still knows his secret identity, or whether she’s gone back to being a dribbling moron. In retrospect, absolutely the best thing about JMS’ run was his reinvention of May Parker as a decent character, and it’s a damn shame to lose that.

Final point about All-Star: interesting how Morrison was very clear that Superman is the character, while Clark Kent is the disguise, while latter day takes have always been the other way round. Personally, like with Batman, I’ve always been more of the opinion that there are three character elements present. In Batman’s case, the scary vigilante mask, the playboy millionaire act, and then the real personality is a third person, the one who confides in Alfred and his adoptive sons, and who never wants anyone to go through the same loss he did. For Superman, you’ve got the mild mannered reporter, the optimistic inspiring hero, and the third personality is Kal-El, the more contemplative, perhaps more alien side, the last son (ho ho, these days) of Krypton. In fact, you could make a really creepy story out the idea that he really is a cold, unknowable, Sinestro-like alien, who has to integrate into human society for his own safety, and uses the two masks as a shell to achieve this. Doesn’t quite fit with the character, mind, although I wonder if that’s how Luthor sees him.

Speaking of which, I never got the dislike some people have for the lonely alien take we saw in Donner and Johns’ “Last Son”. I quite like the idea of having the inspirational human-like take in one title (Busiek’s at the time), but the more Kryptonian take in another. No reason we can’t have both.

[*^ it may not have been all that hilarious.]

</Interminable Weekly Arthurian Snark>

In other news, modern design as applied to the humble drinks flask has brought the field of liquid containment immesurably further than it stood all those years ago when I had a plastic thing with a picture of M.A.S.K. on it. Speaking of which, stuff GI JOE, I want a motion picture event based around that 80s franchise, with Adam Baldwin as Matt Trakker, Hollywood’s All-Purpose Asian Guy John Cho as Bruce Sato and a darker, edgier T-BOB. Because I just can’t get enough of transforming vehicles.

And Spectrum’s got such sooh-per vih-hision. Muh muh muh muh, MASK.

My God, I think I may have found my life’s purpose; the pursuit of a faithful film adaptation of this lost gem, with Boulder Hill and everything.

But back to the flask. The heat retention ability of the Thermos® is nothing short of revolutionary, and it doesn’t leak. It’s what living in the 21st Century is all about, folks.

Anyway, I ended up bashing the smaller model and decide to upgrade. Only the 1L version is a hell of a lot bigger in real life than it looks in the box. Seriously, you could refuel a Boeing with the fucker. Plus, it means I’m getting through a litre of coffee a day. I’m not a hundred percent certain why I bring this whole flask thing up, except maybe to explain why posting is likely to get a little odd, then sporadic, then stop entirely when the palapatations assplode my heart.

While we’re waiting, let’s get our geek on.

• I’ve had a lot of good things to say about The Dark Knight, so here’s a bad thing. Comic book movies- well, movies period- aren’t really any good with their portrayal of women. The Dark Knight isn’t particularly exploitative, I don’t think, beyond Bruce Wayne’s dating habits as a cover for the Bat missions. The problem is how women are essentially an irrelevance in the film. Wayne’s mother is nothing more than an afterthought (hell, even Thomas Wayne got screen time in the first one), and Rachel Dawes is the definition of a pointless character. Or rather, a character who’s only point is to die and motivate the male characters. She’s subordinate to every man in the film, and only drives the plot by dying. They shove her right into the refridgerator, then nuke it, Spielberg-style. I know the problem’s caused mainly by faithfulness to almost 70 years worth of man-centric storytelling, but that’s just not a good enough excuse anymore.

• Battlestar Galactica, on the other hand, does far better gender-wise. A little shaky when it comes to race, maybe, but points for having a Latino lead character. Veeeeery heteronormative, though. I’ve finally started to catch up, finishing Series Two and starting on Series Three. Bloody hell, this is grim stuff. And incredibly close to the bone, what with its use of insurgents, bombings and prisoner torture. I’ll probably have more to say after I’ve watched a bit more.

• I’m just finishing the sixth Rebus novel, Mortal Causes. It looks like Ian Rankin’s comics writing debut will be happening at the new Vertigo Crime imprint rather than as a Hellblazer story, which may be for the best. After all, while I’ve got no idea whether the man can do horror fiction or not, he can write the shit out of crime stuff. I’ll probably do a round-up of the Rebus series once I’ve finished with them. As Rankin himself says in the foreword, Mortal Causes is certainly the first of the “grown-up” novels, in that there’s less of an emphasis on a good-gosh-whodunnit twist than on the lives and motives of the police officers and the criminals. Pretty grim, too.

• Incredibly, it’s been over two months since I picked up any comics, and over a month since I got the first JMS Thor hardcover (have I written about that yet? Can’t remember. Anyway, very good, very epic, fantastic art and bound to be cocked up once it stops being a self-contained series and starts getting all crossovery). I still need to plug a few single issue gaps, like the last issue of Casanova and the last couple of All-Star Supermen, but apart from that I think I’m pretty much dedicated to the waiting-for-the-trade thing. Thank you, Comics Companies, for being so crap over the past year with one thing or another and making the decision so easy.

• This post has turned all too negative. Let’s go look at pictures of M.A.S.K. toys instead.

“When Thor shows up in a comic, all the other characters should go “OH FUCK IT’S THOR RUN FOR YOUR FUCKING LIVES HE’S A VIKING WAR GOD WITH A FUCKING MAGIC HAMMER” and if they don’t then that writer and artist FAIL.” – Sean T. Collins (via Journalista!).

You can’t tell me the above quote doesn’t sum up the character perfectly. Sean Collins also mentions Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant’s Song, and if Black Sabbath get an airing on the Iron Man trailer then Matthew Vaughan should keep the former in mind for his Marvel feature. Either that, or something indistinguishable from Queen.

Speaking of Queen, has there ever been a better matching of band to soundtrack than Highlander? Epic pomp covers both music and film. And damn, Highlander was a great film. I always thought the whole sword-fighting immortal thing was so mythic that it’s almost impossible to believe it wasn’t actually a pre-existing legend. I think maybe what I’m getting at is, if Thor gets his own film then they wouldn’t go far wrong with stealing vibe and atmosphere from Christopher Lambert’s finest couple of hours.

Thor’s a great character, both in myth and Marvel. Although I felt it ended up going off the rails a bit, Dan Jurgens and John Romita Jr’s first year on the Heroes Return title was absolutely awesome, the perfect mix of Kirby cosmicness and human soap opera. I haven’t picked up any of the Straczynski run but I plan to at some point. I know there’s been some negative reaction online, but when is there not? And besides, while I understand that JMS’ style isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, I’ve always really rated him.

Babylon 5 is still the best spaceship series I’ve ever seen, even beyond the mighty ST:TOS. Maybe better (and whisper it, lest Paul C’s head explodes) than Who. Sure, it has its flaws (many, many flaws), but it’s rare that any series, spaceship-based or otherwise, has engaged me as much. And part of it is due to JMS’ idiosyncratic writing style, one that’s individual enough that I can see why it rubs some people up the wrong way.

I really enjoyed his Spider-Man stuff, and despite all the controversies and the interminable Civil War/One More Day bits, he was exactly the kind of writer the title needed when he came on. Yes, I know the Gwen Stacy stuff did to the hardcore fan what my previous paragraph is currently doing to my mate Paul, but for fuck’s sake, before JMS came on the Spider titles hadn’t been any good for about fifteen years. Maybe more. They weren’t even barely competent during the 90s (then again, what at Marvel was?). Besides, no other writer (apart from Ultimate Bendis) has ever written Aunt May half as well, or the sadly-missed Spider-marriage.

And I’ve never understood the fanguish about the “mystic” spider stuff, either. Even JMS pointed out in the story that a possible “mystic” explanation doesn’t need to contradict the “scientific” (and come on, you’re telling me “bitten by a radioactive spider” isn’t a mystical explanation?) origin, any more than the scientific origin of the Sun can’t coexist with its religious significance. If anything (and I’ve touched a little on this some time ago), it offers the option of seeing how the cosmic science of the Marvel U is perhaps reflected in the Astral Plane, and how Ditko and Kirby’s vision may just be two sides of the same coin. Besides, as has been proven time and time and time again, there’s nothing one writer can do that can’t, or won’t, be changed by the next writer on the title, so everybody chill (and I guess that goes double for me, in re: Tony Stark).

Got a bit side-tracked there, actually, as this was meant to be a post about the Thunder God. But then again, there really isn’t anything to add to the initial quote, is there?

A couple of things prompted this post. Firstly, J. Michael Straczynski coming to DC has prompted speculation as to what he’ll be working on. The Flash has been a big topic round here recently, and JMS has mentioned his preference for the Barry Allen version, so that’s got be a possibility. There’s Aquaman: a big name is about the only thing that will save the character at the moment, and if you think the New Avengers turnaround was big, imagine the craziness of an Aqua-title selling over 100,000. How about JLA? Is Dwayne McDuffie a permanent addition, or there for just 12 months? Is James Robinson going to be on Superman for the forseeable future, or just as long as he was on the Bat titles?

Secondly, I mentioned in comments not long ago that I’d like to see an Ed Brubaker Green Arrow title. Which has led to this question: given the chance, who should switch companies and work on a different title?

Brian Michael Bendis and Leinil Yu on Blue Beetle: Nope, not Batman. I’m not sure why Bendis seems to be a lot of fans’ choice to take on Gotham based stories. I can kind of see Miller’s 80s Daredevil being a good fit for 80s Batman, but not Bendis’ take. Good grief, can you imagine what the dialogue would be like? But he wrote the book on 00s era teen superheroes with Ultimate Spider-Man, and this kind of star power on the title would save what is probably my favourite current DCU ongoing. Even if it meant the main character inexplicably swearing in Hebrew. Second choice: Joss Whedon and Michael Ryan. Would be choice #1, but it would never ever come out.

John Rogers and Rafael Albuquerque on Runaways: Whedon’s run has been brilliant, of course, but oh so very delayed. His run was always meant to be short, so why not replace him with the team behind the other awesome teen-hero title? Just a damn shame Rogers is likely to be tied up with TV work for the foreseeable future (and also a damn shame he won’t be getting a crack at the Flash. He may very well be the perfect match for the title with his science background).

Brian K. Vaughan and Mark Bagley on Batman: I really like the current writing team on both Batman titles. It’s just a shame about all the bloody fill-ins. So the only guy I’d like to see take over would be Vaughan, who’s probably my choice for best current comic writer behind Morrison. And I know that Bagley’s already at DC for the new weekly; I’d just rather not have awesome and consistant on a Bat-title (something that they currently have a little trouble with) than burned out on Trinity.

Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch on Superman: Oh, come on, they’ve been begging to have a crack at it for years. Let’s see what they’ve got. Millar’s not going to screw up the chance by Ultimatising Superman. Sure, his last Superman run was uninspiring (way back during Loeb’s tenure on Superman, Millar either plotted or dialogued one of the other titles- Adventures?) but he was hardly left off the leash to do his thing. Besides: (a) his Swamp Thing run was brilliant, (b) Aztek and the Flash with Morrison were also brilliant, and (c) he’s already proven he knows what makes Superman tick by deconstructing then reconstructing the character’s conceits so brilliantly in Red Son.

This is fun. I’ve got something queued up already for tomorrow, but I think I’ll carry on with this on Friday.

The bankruptcy was the best thing that happened to the company.

For a while during the early 00s, it seemed that Marvel were willing to do anything, no matter how nuts, to their characters. Daredevil was better than it had been since Miller, Priest’s Black Panther was (and still is, to this day) the most intelligent political thriller ever to be written in a superhero title; maybe one of the most sophisticated runs of any comic ever. Bendis’ Ultimate Spider-Man was just brilliant, and with Ultimate X-Men first and the Ultimates later Mark Millar was about to define what became Marvel’s house writing style for the decade.

I was a massive fan of Babylon 5, so you can imagine how much I was looking forward to the Great Maker’s Amazing Spider-Man. But hands down the craziest, and best, decision was to get Grant Morrison on New X-Men.

I’m not a Chris Claremont fan. So it’s incredibly easy for me to say that Morrison’s X-Men is head and shoulders above every other attempt to write with those characters. It seemed that he was willing to do anything with the title, an exercise in sheer imagination and possibility. Never mind Millar on Fantastic Four: Kirby’s legacy was carried forward in this title.

I’m not sure whether, from a creative standpoint, Marvel learned the right lessons from their successes. Jemas-era Marvel shows the incredible possibilities of writers left to do whatever they want. Instead, it seems that interesting elements of the Ultimates, New X-Men and Straczynski and Bendis’s work have been cherry-picked and then applied to years of interminable “events”. I can’t fault the marketing/business side of things; the sales figures say it all, and who’d have thought that the Avengers would become a brand to dominate even the mighty X, and without a film to back it up?

Like I say, I like new and fresh perspectives. It’s even important that the “industry” is more switched-on in business terms (Christ, I remember when the X-Men movie was a huge, global success, yet the comics of the time not only ignored it, but went out of their way to be hostile to any possible new readership that may have happened along). I’m not sure that the correct way to exploit this is to just overlay a style that was interesting five years ago on every fucking title that’s released.

Because what we have now, once again, is editorial-driven comics. Civil War/Secret Invasion dominates everything, and stifles the creativit of the individual titles that are meant to support it. To my mind they just aren’t enjoyable to read, or at the very least nowhere near as enjoyable as Morrison’s X-Men or JLA, or even Bendis’ first hundred Ultimate Spider-Man issues.

If I’ve got any conclusion to arrive at, it’s this: DC and Marvel have both chosen to stick to editorially mandated paths, the only difference (and the heart of why one company is doing better than the other) is that DC chose their path ten years ago rather than five, which makes it appear less “fresh”. But it’s only relative, because God knows Marvel’s approach started to look stale before World War Hulk.

Damn, I’ve gotten all pessimistic again. But one thing cheers me no-end. There’s never been a better time to be a Transformers fan.