The Fractal Hall Journal

What have we got for you good folks today?

• Started Warren Ellis’s Crooked Little Vein but gave up halfway through. I thought the first chapter was great (and I think it’s free online somewhere), but it went off the rails into pointlessness after that. And the main character ends up with a superhot Gothy sexpot sidekick who contributes only the discomforting sensation that Ellis was getting his rocks off while he was writing it. I don’t know, maybe I’m just not getting it. After all, there’s a similar old-man’s-fantasy sidekick in Joe Hill’s Heart Shaped Box, and I thought that book was brilliant. Then again, the main character’s a sleazy old rock star, so it does make sense in context. In Vein, the protagonist just kind of picks her up off the street.

• Mind you, Ellis is in good company because I didn’t manage to get more than twenty or so pages into Dennis Lehane’s Shutter Island either. Which is odd, because the premise is intriguing (it’s the mid-fifties, and two US Marshalls have to locate a prisoner missing from an asylum on an island isolated by a huge storm, and the staff of the asylum are more than likely up to no good themselves) and I’ve read every other one of his books over the past couple of months and really enjoyed them. Maybe I’m just not in the right frame of mind at the moment, in that I’ve been making my way through Ian Rankin’s catalogue and I’ve probably attuned myself to a different style of crime writing for the time being. Then again, the introduction seems to be promising mind games played on the protagonists by a former-intelligence agent turned psychologist, and dear God there’s more than enough of that kind of thing in the genre already.

• Also, Leonardo DiCaprio will be starring in the upcoming Scorcese adaptation of the book, and his nauseating taint has unavoidably contaminated my enjoyment of the story. You know the taint I mean. The cheesy exudation of the terminally smug.

• I can wholly recommend the DVD Special Edition of A Fistful Of Dollars. While most commentary tracks are a bit shit, this one is provided by Sergio Leone biographer Christopher Frayling, and it’s fascinating. Incidentally, Frayling is also the chairman of the Arts Council England, and his appointment in 2004 was a little controversial because he’s, frankly, a pop culture junkie. How much of a junkie? Well, according to The Independent, when he was knighted in 2000 he took as his motto the Latin phrase “Perge, Scelus, Mihi Diem Perficias”, which translates as “Proceed, varlet, and let the day be rendered perfect for my benefit.” Or, to put another spin on it, “Go ahead, punk. Make my day.”

• More doom’n'gloom surrounding the Watchmen film. I was starting to feel a little optimistic about it after a chat with Brother Paul, who remains enthusiastic about the adaptation. Then I found out who was playing the second Silk Spectre. “Actress” Malin Akerman last appeared in otherwise-inoffensive chick flick 27 Dresses (and I bet you lot never thought that film would get a mention in the Journal), and she was absolutely fucking awful. Her skill was commesurate with a rotting, maggoty length of driftwood. Actually, that’s doing the hypothetical driftwood a disservice as the driftwood is showing signs of life. Because it’s riddled with parasitic fungus. I’ll concede that one bad performance doesn’t preclude a radical improvement, but we’re talking extremely fucking radical here; when a guitarist’s having trouble with barre chords- no, when a guitarists having trouble with open chords- actually, no, when a guitarist’s having trouble figuring out which way up the guitar goes, it’s unrealistic to expect her to be shreddin’ hot solos like Steve fucking Vai six months down the line.

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And you can expect a lot more cowboy metaphors over the coming weeks, because I’ve just watched A Fistful Of Dollars and I’ve got a whole Eastwood DVD set to get through that’s been on the backburner since Christmas due to the Great X-Files Project. And yes, I have now seen Chris Carter’s big screen debut. The verdict? All in good time. Still got S9 to write up, after all.

Looks like Geoff Johns is coming back on The Flash. Perhaps if this doesn’t work, they’ll give Baron or Messner-Loebs another spin.

Joking aside, I’m cautiously optimistic about this. After all, I loved GL: Rebirth. On the other hand, that’s because Hal Jordan is my Favouritest Character Ever n’Ever n’Ever, and, as I’ve mentioned here before, I’m brimming with indifference toward Barry Allen. Also, I always felt that Johns had more to say about the Rogues than Wally West, although I’ll concede that’s more to do with Mark Waid closing off the character’s arc and leaving not much left for another writer to say, at least with that particular iteration of the character. Barry Allen is, for all intents and purposes, a brand new character, insofar as the standard techniques of superhero storytelling have fundamentally changed since they killed him off, and God knows they’ve done wonders for the Lanterns. Ultimately, all I really want is for Wally West to still be knocking round.

Of course, the absolute victory condition would be an ongoing Jay Garrick title. But I’ve probably used up my lifetime allocation of unexpected wish-fulfillment with this Summer’s cape flicks.

The latest Batman film has really brought it home how much I’ve enjoyed the recent film adaptations more than the actual comics. And this strikes me as a little odd. Firstly, The Incredible Hulk. Planet Hulk was awesome, and I enjoyed it way more than I was expecting to. But it’s not what you’d call the “classic” incarnation of the character, which is something I think the film managed to capture really well. As for Iron Man and the crazy rich guy, both comic titles have never had writing teams as good as they’ve had over the past couple of years. Ellis and the Knaufs have written some really great Iron Man stuff, ditto Morrison and Dini at the competition, but I’ve found my enjoyment seriously marred by the unending crossover bollocks I really couldn’t care less about. I guess that once again I have to conclude that I just prefer it when writers are allowed to get on with doing their jobs without interference.

That said, I’m really looking forward to seeing more of the shared universe the Marvel movies take place in. Sometimes I can’t even keep my own continuity straight.

I would be completely happy if they never made a sequel to The Dark Knight. There is just too much scope for a cock-up. But there’s going to be one, of course, because it’s now made more than eleventy-squillion Euros across the globe. The Riddler gets my vote for a grim reimagining, but absolutely not Johnny Depp. When he’s on form, he’s brilliant, but isn’t he just going to treat the role like Captain Jack II? Or, Heavens forefend, another crack at Willy Wonka?

Speaking of which, I fucking loathe Tim Burton’s Chocolate Factory, more and more with the passing years. What an irredeemable load of self indulgent wank. Comic geeks think they’ve had the shitty end of the stick over the years with disrespectful versions of beloved franchises. No one’s ever had the balls to follow through with a really nasty adaptation of Roald Dahl’s stuff.

In fact, I’ll leave you with this idea: Christopher Nolan’s BFG. Live action, with Henson’s Creature Shop doing the giants.

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It turns out that Britain really is in the grip of a UFO invasion. At least, it is according to the Torygraph (via Warren Ellis). Now, I’m pretty sure the (ahem) “quality” daily isn’t owned by Murdock. Or, for that matter, Marvel. And they’re usually pretty hostile towards the BBC. So we can rule out advertising stunts for the X-Files, Secret Invasion and Doctor Who, respectively. Strange shit is indeed afoot (or aflight), although I haven’t heard of much in the way of abductions, implantations or probings. At least, no more than usual for Cardiff on a Saturday night.

The rest of the papers are getting in on the action, too. The Guardian recently featured a ghost-busting weekend in Ludlow (Ludlow?) as a recommended activity holiday. The Indie’s ran an article on ten scary tales from folklore, and if we hop back to the Telegraph for a sec, we’ve got Civil War ghosts showing up on camera.

Man, I could eat this stuff up with a spoon. I should turn the Journal into a Paranormablog.

The Independent article is particularly interesting to me because it’s written by Jennifer Westwood and Jacqueline Simpson, who authored the absolutely indispensable book The Lore of the Land, one of the most comprehensive volumes of English folklore I’ve ever seen. It was recommended by Neil Gaiman on his site a couple of years ago, and it’s one of the best suggestions I’ve ever got from the internet. Yes, even better than instructions on how to use Mentos to blow up Diet Coke. The article includes extracts from The Penguin Book Of Ghosts, so you can bet that just jumped to the top of the buy list. Sorry, hardback collection of The Rise And Fall Of The Shi’Ar Empire.

One of my major ambitions has been to contribute to a great work of reference (stop giggling at the back, I’m being serious. You all know this site is an official nerd-haven). I’d love to tackle a book like the one above that dealt with Welsh folklore. Even though the whole lack of focus and short attention span thing may well get in the way.

The Haunting Breaks mentioned in the Guardian sound pretty cool too. Long term readers may recall a trip to Edinburgh I mentioned here last year. We actually went on one of the Edinburgh ghost tours, into one of the vaults beneath the streets. It was pretty effing scary, even for people not as easily terrified as I am.

The only problem with the tour was the vague worry that an actor would jump out on the tour group for a cheap scare. It didn’t happen, which I was glad for, because you don’t pay your money for a ghost train, you want to get creeped out by spooky stories, stone circles and dark rooms. The whole point of going is for the chance of maybe seeing a real ghost, and cheap tricks would have really soured the experience. Then I found out not long ago from a mate who lives in Edinburgh that some of the tours do have “jumpers” on them, which is seriously disappointing.

Returning to the Telegraph one more time, Archaeologists are planning on opening a long-sealed chamber beneath a Mexican pyramid. I don’t know about anyone else, but with all the weird shit above, is this a fantastic idea? I mean, I’m jumpy enough about the Large Hadron Collider as it is, but after watching The Mist, I’m somewhat concerned about the consequences of anything that may lead to tentacled insectile monstrocities roaming over the planet.

In other, lighter news, and as a palate cleanser to the end of the world as we know it, I caught Kung Fu Panda the other day. Damn, it’s a great film, way better than any of the Shreks or the Cars or the Monster Houses we’ve been plagued with recently. It may well be my favouritest CGI cartoon ever, although that may change as soon as this Friday, what with Wall-E’s arrival on these shores. And impressive CGI aside, I’d actually have rather seen the entire film done in the stylised animation form that the initial dream sequence was made with. The best thing about the movie, and I know it’s been said by many people before but it bears repeating, is that it’s a genuinely great action film, as well as being hilarious. Seriously, the bad guy’s escape from prison was absolutely riveting. Speaking of which- Lovejoy as the voice of an evil snow leopard? Who saw that one coming?

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So, I’ve still got the Flash on my mind. It’s just such an odd feeling dropping a title I’ve been getting for so long.

It was too much to expect the Waid stuff to be amazing, in particular considering his last year on the title being fairly underwhelming. The Flash-as-team-book idea is one way of dealing with the fact that Wally West is a grown-up now and we need to find a different character arc for him, and that Flash-Family-as-The-Incredibles doesn’t quite work.

So here’s the question: Why doesn’t it work? And how does it get fixed without (a) killing off the kids or (b) having Mephisto make them not happened?

First assertion: We have no reason to care about the junior Wests. Wally and Linda do (duh), but as their parents they kind of have too. Just because they’re kids doesn’t mean the old chestnut “show me why they’re cool/important/I should give a shit, don’t tell me” doesn’t apply. In short, we haven’t had time to get to know who the characters are.

Second assertion: The above disconnects us from Wally West. We’ve been following his life for twenty years. Like all good long-term narratives, we relate to the Flash in a way we don’t in almost any other medium. But suddenly we’re missing a huge chunk of his life, and not just in real-time; I mean, is there a time in anyone’s life that’s more life changing than their children’s early years? Wally West is not who we remember him to be, and that’s incredibly jarring after such a long stretch.

Two other examples, while I’m on this point. Firstly, Linda has become an important part of the Flash’s supporting cast. Yet her character’s motives remain inconsistent. What does she want? How does that play off the Flash’s character? First she’s a reporter, suddenly she always wanted to be a doctor, now she’s a super-scientist? How do we reconcile this?

Actually, sudden revelation. Use this as a story. Either subplot, or Geoff Johns-style single issue profile. Take her shaky character arc and tell a plausable, human story of a conflicted woman who always wanted to be one thing but was forced into being something else, yet eventually is able to choose her own destiny. Not only would you fix the character, you’d likely make her more engaging than she’s ever been, and also silence the legion of fans who never really liked her in the first place.

Secondly, and I know I keep bashing Fastest Man Alive but it’s not like the title doesn’t deserve it, Bart Allen was also taken away from the reader, changed and aged, and then returned (with a confusingly inconsistant explanation, to boot). He wasn’t the character we remembered, he made choices readers couldn’t understand or didn’t jibe with what went before. The disconnection was inevitable.

Third assertion: The Flash keeps getting new supporting players, every time a new team climbs on board. This needs to stop happening.

If we put these points together, what’s the fix? To start with, fill in all the gaps. Even if it takes twelve issues of flashback, we need to bridge the old stories and characters we remember to the new status quo. We need to see the Wests bring their children up, to understand why we as readers need to care about them. At the same time, if we bring Bart Allen back (and how isn’t that inevitable?) we need to do the same to him, to clarify how we got from Impulse to here.

Then we need to separate the Flash from the rest of the DCU for a while. He needs to be re-established in his own world, and not sharing enemies and crossover events that muddy the new direction or the theme of the work. And for God’s sake, bring Jay Garrick in. Of all the Golden Age characters he’s the most likeable and relatable. I doubt there’s a better everyman character to use as a reader stand-in, not least because he’s so visible in JSA, one of DC’s best selling titles.

And while we’re at at, let’s build a solid supporting cast from the large supply we already have, and use them to define and bring out the characteristics of Wally West and his family. Characters are the best theme- and world-building tools available. Just look at Starman, or the first hundred-odd issues of Amazing Spider-Man.

Also, and this may be the most counter-intuitive thing considering what I’ve just been saying about the supporting cast, keep the Rogues out for a while. They’ve been thoroughly analysed, explored and over-exposed between Johns’ run and Countdown, and like Wally West we’ve probably run out of decent stories to tell for the moment. Let’s get inventive and crazy science-fictional with our scenarios, real Grant Morrison level concepts, and leave the classic bad-guys for a couple of years down the road, when they can be reintroduced with a bang.

Finally, the most important thing, employ a writer with a cutting edge view of future tech. Doctorow/Ellis type shit. The Flash shouldn’t just be on-par with the rest of the DCU. He should be several steps ahead. He should be lapping every other title. Bleeding edge advanced stuff, taking the Silver Age legacy and making something absolutely nuts and ultra-modern.

The Flash shouldn’t be a pedestrian title. It should hit you like a bolt of lightning.

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The first Authority paperback is still the only comic collection I’ve ever picked up on the strength of the artist alone. Although it eventually won me over to Warren Ellis’ writing, I’d bought it specifically due to an interview Bryan Hitch had done for Mark Salisbury’s book Artists on Comic Art.

Hitch’s style is incredible. He defined “widescreen” comic art, and to paraphrase from the above book: while the typical 90s style artwork would have a huge guy flying up away from the Earth filling a full page splash with the planet a small circle in the background, Hitch’s style would be to draw a the curve of the Earth filling up a double page spread, with a tiny figure flying out of it. A far more majestic way of suggesting something huge and epic.

While his Ultimates work is probably his best to date, I think I prefer the Authority stuff with Ellis, in particular the sense of scale he brought to the Shiftship invasion in the second story arc. I don’t think anyone’s ever pulled off the size of an alien armada quite so well. It’s this that makes me think his upcoming work on Fantastic Four has mind-blowing potential.

The only real weakness, I think, could be in the writing. Hitch’s time on JLA was unmemorable, but I’ve read that’s likely because he and writer Mark Waid didn’t quite mesh. I think he needs a huge idea or image to play off, something Mark Millar was able to provide in Ultimates. I don’t think a vague direction to draw something cosmic works with any artist who isn’t Jack Kirby. I hope Millar’s able to give his artist something to get his teeth into. Something we’ve never seen before. And maybe a little less of Reed Richards as an autistic supervillain.

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Excluding Daredevil, there are three Marvel titles on top of my reading list every month. They aren’t ones that I would have expected to enjoy, but they’re some of the most consistently well-written comics on the stands.

Runaways

I didn’t pick up any of the original first run. On the surface, it wasn’t the kind of thing I’d pick up – I can take or leave teen soap opera, or super-teams. But good word of mouth, cheap manga-sized reprints and a growing respect for writer Brian K. Vaughan got me to hop on, and I haven’t regretted it. It’s got a great hook (the runaway children of super-villains) and consistently great art from co-creator Adrian Alphona and fill-in artists like Takeshi Miyazawa. The characters are memorable, well-rounded and mostly female. The latter is rare and welcome, not least because they aren’t sexualised.

Joss Whedon’s recent run has been brilliant, and I wish he and artist Michael Ryan weren’t leaving after six issues. I’d even put up with continual delays, because it really is a book that’s worth the wait. I’m a little worried about the next creative team: Terry Moore is a good writer, but I’m not a hige fan of Humberto Ramos. It would be a real shame to cock up what’s probably the longest continually awesome run of a Marvel title ever.

Iron Man

Speaking of consistently good runs, I don’t think Iron Man’s title has ever been this good, not least considering the backround to which it’s been taking place.

If we include Joe Casey’s Iron Man: The Inevitable miniseries, which practically was the monthly series during Warren Ellis and Adi Granov’s much delayed run, and hell, I’ll chuck in Adam Warren’s Hypervelocity mini because I actually enjoyed that more than I thought I would, then we’ve got 35 really good issues over the past few years.

I love Iron Man. He was probably my favourite Marvel character as a young ‘un. But Christ, I’ve read some awful stories featuring him. Every time it’s looked like his title was picking up, it got shit again. The early 90s isn’t worth thinking about, Heroes Reborn was awful, Heroes Return started well but got crap, don’t start me on Mike Grell… Since I’ve been old enough to collect comics, the quality on the one title I really, really wanted to get was too poor to consider wasting my money on.

What makes this recent run even more of a triumph is the Civil War background it had to run against. Warren Ellis did a brilliant job of breaking the character down to the essentials, shoving out the ridiculous crap of recent years. The Knaufs’ writing has been intriguing and interesting in the way it ran with Ellis’ new status quo. In the meantime, New Avengers and Civil War ran off with the current questionable take on the character, leaving the main title essentially irrelevant, while still having to deal with the fallout of starring a character who is for all intents and purposes the Marvel Universe’s main super-villain.

Like I said, it’s a testament to the skill of these writers that they’ve made something so good out of something I dislike so much.

Iron Fist

I have zero interest in this character. I don’t care about Marvel’s 70s kung-fu cash-ins. I have no emotional connection to Danny Rand, Luke Cage, and whoever those Heroes for Hire women are. If anything, I’m inclined to dislike these characters and the way they’ve been shoe-horned into importance by the writers who did grow up with them.

Despite all that, I love this title. The art is gorgeous, the story has the perfect balance of backstory, momentum and action scenes. I have no prior knowledge of anything to do with Iron Fist, but I have no problem following along. Matt Fraction and Ed Brubaker are easily Marvel’s most valuable assets at the moment.

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Don’t know about you, but I’d certainly pay to see the film.

Last Christmas, the highstreet record shops all decided to clear out the Bowie back catalogue at less than a fiver a pop. I binged like a politician at a half-priced cocaine festival. At one point I had five discs queued up in the car, and brothers and sisters, that is far too much Starman for any one human mind to cope with.

A David Bowie hangover is brutal.

Listening to these albums (these many, many albums) makes me realise how they really are complete works, in the sense that every track fits together as part of a whole. The major songs stand out of course, Changes, Sound and Vision, Golden Years and so on, but while these tracks have a seperate existence outside of the album they also take on a different significance when played as part of a larger piece of work. Not even necessarily in terms of an ongoing narrative, like the story thread that runs through The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, but also as thematically complete albums, like Station to Station or “Heroes”.

Even accepting that Bowie is a one-off, it’s difficult not to descend into old-fartery and moan about the lack of consistency over modern albums. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve heard plenty of brilliant singles over the past couple of years , but they rarely come from an album worth listening to in its entirety.

It isn’t surprising. We’re in the iPod era now. It won’t be long before the album concept will be the exception rather than the norm, when the need to buy physical objects to gain access to music becomes irrelevant. Entertainment becomes fragmentary, bite-sized downloads making up what Warren Ellis described as ‘burst culture’.

Blogs, mp3s and webcomics are all part of this culture, but monthly comic books and collections are not. Individual issues may have been the forerunner of this type of culture, but with a few exceptions the days of standalone issues are long gone. I don’t mean it as a criticism as I far prefer multi-part stories myself, but God knows the increasingly convoluted continuity and never ending multi-part crossover have long outstayed their welcome.

My biggest problem with these swollen and bloated stories is their lack of coherence. There are too many broken links and inconsistencies, and the more titles that crossover, the less you feel you know or understand. The more information you’re given, the more information you feel you lack.

Every issue should act like a track that builds to a complete album. They shouldn’t all be attempts at a barnstorming single, because that gets old quickly too. All the seperate parts should fit. There’s no doubt this approach works, inevitably in titles that are either completely seperated from an external continuity (like All-Star Superman, or Y: The Last Man), or at best only minimally affected by endless crossover (Green Lantern or Blue Beetle, while not completely divorced from the DCU, to date have had very little interference in the main run, i.e. we haven’t been expected to pick up seperate titles to get a full story, and even when we have the issue’s remained relatively self-contained. The exception of course being the recent Sinestro Corps, but even that stays pretty much within the GL titles).

Which brings me to Tomb of Dracula.

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Just a few follow-up points to yesterday’s post:

• I rank both Warren Ellis and Garth Ennis highly as writers, but I liked neither of them about ten years ago. As a teenager, I found their work far too mean-spirited, but as with Sandman, I’ve found myself appreciating them more now I’m older. The turning points for me were Preacher round about the time Alamo was released, towards the end of the run, and Ultimate Fantastic Four. Unsurprisingly, I first understood the strength of their writing when they weren’t tediously reiterating why they hate superheroes so much.
• Regarding Neil Gaiman, while I’ve only begun to appreciate Sandman recently, even at the time they were originally released I loved The Books of Magic, Good Omens, and Neverwhere (both the novel and on the telly). With the other two writers, I didn’t seem to like anything they did.
• It’s really difficult for me to describe Ennis’ strength as a writer. I keep going round and round on this point. I will say he’s better read in collected form than individual issues, where you’re able to immerse yourself in his somewhat skewed worldview. There’s a lot of substance to his characters, considering how cartoonish the violence is on the surface.
• It’s a credit to Ennis that I’ve started to enjoy his Punisher run as much as I do, because I fucking loathe the character. Really, really fucking loathe him.
• With indescribable fucking loathing.

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Garth Ennis and Darick Robinson’s title The Boys came as a surprise, to me at least (see also Ennis’ stint on Midnighter). Considering his views on superheroes, I wouldn’t have expected him ever to write another one.

Along with Warren Ellis, Ennis has been vocal in his contempt for the genre, and the premise of The Boys (covert agents beat, humilate and/or kill anyone with powers) plays to this. It’s easy to get impatient with both these writer’s superhero work, as the disdain is obvious in every issue, and the comment had been made time and again that if they dislike the work so much, then why don’t they do something else? The simple answer is that Marvel and DC is where the money is, and ultimately you can’t begrudge anyone a job.

With this in mind, Warren Ellis in particular has developed a coping mechanism for his superhero writing: try and make it about something else. In the same way Frank Miller wrote Daredevil as a crime comic because that’s what his interests went towards, Ellis has written a high-tech thriller (Iron Man), prisoners-on-a-mission (Thunderbolts), even young-adult style SF (Ultimate Fantastic Four). The latter in particular is a great direction to take, and really should have pointed Marvel’s talent search towards the many authors who write teenage science fiction (Stephen Baxter, to name an example off the top of my head).

Ennis, on the other hand, can’t help but have a go everytime he deals with the underpants crowd. His writing is dark- very funny, but very dark- and it’s in this vein that he writes his superhero stuff. Problem is, it can get a little tedious.

But when he’s on form, he’s one of the best writers in the business. His and Steve Dillon’s Preacher is one of the best complete runs of a series ever. His character-defining run on Punisher, with Frank Castle as an unstoppable death-bringing machine was actually able to make the character interesting, examining the heart of Castle’s psychopathy as well as that of the criminals he eliminates. The master stroke was in making Castle more understandable, perhaps even in some twisted way easier to identify with, by removing every last shred of his humanity. But really, Ennis’ heart is in his war stories.

His work on Fury and (to a certain extent) the Punisher emphasises their military roots, with a number of strong flashback stories. But his best work is done in straight military titles, like Battler Britton, or Garth Ennis’ War Stories. The latter, in particular, are absolutely riveting, a number of single issue stories that focus on various soldiers and battlegrounds, from the Spanish Civil War, to the Italian campaign of WWII, to the Naval convoys in the Baltic sea. Every single one is an excellent study of humanity under extreme circumstances, of the resilience of the common soldier, and the devestation of war. All have an authenticity to them, whether through deliberate research or simply because this is an area the writer knows a lot about.  It’s a testament to the strength of the stories that they need very little of Ennis’ trademark black humour to prop them up, in the same way that work like The Boys would collapse without it.

The Boys itself is a good enough read, by which I mean sickeningly hilarious. You don’t have to read much to realise why DC got sqeamish publishing it, and let the title switch publishers to Dynamite. By all accounts, it’s a hit by the usual creater-owned standards, and I can see why as Ennis out-Ennises himself with every issue. While I doubt anyone could have expected the level of success the title’s achieved, I think its creation was a deliberate attempt to give Ennis’ fans what they want, and to that extent he was willing to write about superheroes again. Again, you can’t begrudge someone a living and the comic book market is a business like any other. If anything, clever marketing with creators playing to their strengths is exactly what’s needed.

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