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Not really a fan of the Sam L. Jackson Nick Fury anymore, Don’t get me wrong – when he first appeared, I thought it was an awesome idea (especially in light of the fact that he’s the result of Marvel pussying out on a decision to make Ultimate Captain America a black man). That said, I liked “Sam Fury” a lot more before there was a glimmer of a chance that there’d ever be an Avengers movie.

When Marvel Studios started making their movies, sure there was a chance that they’d cast Sam Jackson, but there are several cases of actors’ likenesses being used in comics, yet they’re not cast for the actual movie (Wanted, anyone?). We didn’t know Sam Jackson would actually get the role, but using him as the basis for the comic reinterpretation gave the character the level of “badass” that it needed.

In his defense, White Fury could be pretty badass when he wanted to be…

Now, the whole Jackson-as-Fury thing  just seems to have run its course, especially since Ultimate Nick Fury hasn’t really been a badass in about 4 years. He’s been in hiding, for events that he caused yet won’t own up to. For a while, he was even hiding out in another universe. Does that sound like Sam Jackson to YOU? No, Sam Jackson ain’t no little scaredy bitch!

Anyway, as the movies keep rolling, and the trailers keep coming, I find myself much more intrigued by the character of Agent Coulson. I think a big part of that is because I get a kick out of seeing “That Guy From The New Adventures of Old Christine” on the big screen. Plus, he backs Baby into a corner on a regular basis (he’s married to Jennifer Grey)! Anyway, it’s almost like he stumbled into his big acting break (not really – he’s been around for years, but this might solidify his place in geek legend).

Yeah, I’d be cheesin’ like that if I just slept with Elaine/Christine…

In any case, I like the movies’ depiction of S.H.I.E.L.D. because it would be some organization shrouded in the secrecy of Homeland Security. It wouldn’t be staffed by any farmboy with dedication and a dream, wearing a bodysuit, hanging out on a helicarrier. The comic depiction of S.H.I.E.L.D. is no longer relevant, as it seems like you can enlist in S.H.I.E.L.D. just like any of the other armed services, They sure as Hell ain’t highly trained, and they have the mortality rate of red shirts on the Enterprise.

Helicarrier #547, ten minutes before everyone aboard was killed by Ultron

Sure, the Marvel movies could have used Clay Quartermain, but they knew that his characteriation wouldn’t have fit the universe they were building. So, we get Agent Coulson, and that makes me very pleased. We know nothing can really touch Fury, because he’s lives forever blah blah, but anything could happen with Coulson. Hell, they could introduce him in the comic world, and make him the new Winter Soldier for all we know. Sure, comics are great at ruining ideas and characters with potential, but I don’t think he was introduced for nothing. He’s an original character, who’s being given quite a push by the guys upstairs. I look forward to seeing what’s next.

Avengers. My, my, my Avengers. It’s amazing that I held on for so long, through so much, and now that we have the big relaunches, and the band is back together, I just don’t care anymore. I love Tony Stark, and I like when he’s part of the team, but the whole Avengers Trinity means little to me. I don’t like Thor, and I don’t consider Cap to be “Jesus wrapped in a flag”, no matter how much they try to convince me that he is. I will say that I don’t consider a team to be “The Avengers” unless they have at least one of those 3 members on the roster. It doesn’t mean that I’d read the book, but I feel like that should be a charter requirement. That’s why I don’t feel that Luke Cage’s “New Avengers” deserve their name. Sure, they eventually got “Bucky Cap” on their side, but he’s a substitute Cap, like USAgent. If they had gotten War Machine, he still wouldn’t have been Iron Man. It’s not about the symbolism of the name/costume – what matters MOST is who is inside that suit (I have similar feelings about the DC Universe, but that’s for another time).

Stop playing dress-up, Dick. Don’t you have a hot alien to bang?

Luke’s team could’ve been the “Revengers”, “The Getbackers”, whatever, but nothing about them screamed “Avengers”. He kept the name because Cap had bestowed it upon them during a one-sided war, in which his side lost. Luke kept it out of symbolism, but it was clear to the world, and anyone who mattered, that Luke Cage’s team wasn’t The Avengers. There was no way in Hell they were gonna save you from the Skrulls. THAT’s what Avengers do. What did Luke’s team do? Well, his baby got replaced by an alien, and the book turned into Adventures in Babysitting, while he ended up having a heart attack. It was all like that bad season finale of Punky Brewster where she ended up back in the orphanage. Not Very Avengery.

Yeah, that’s the problem…

Now that the dust has settled, and Steveus Christ is back in action, there’s still no reason for Luke’s team. He clearly doesn’t play well with others, and his argument for not joining the “real” Avengers was that he didn’t want to be told what to do. Weren’t you in jail at one time, Luke? Aren’t you tired of rebelling against The Man? Shit could be worse! You’ve got your hot white wife and your halfy baby. Do you WANT to go back to jail, Luke? Would that be better for you?

You’re living The Dream, dude – Don’t mess this up!

Anyway, what do the “real” Avengers do? They sell him the mansion and let him run his own team. Bull and Shit. I can’t believe they’d let him have his own Avengers, in the same damn city, which allows him to do whatever he wants. That’s not how the Marvel Universe works. You want to be on your own, you move to California. Start up the Avengers West Coast again. There’s no damn way you’re gonna operate in New York City without oversight. Hell, the X-Men have been doing the multiple team thing for over 20 years and they STILL haven’t figured it out. And they’re dispatched by the same guy, from the same mansion/Alcatraz base. So how do the Avengers expect to pull it off? I feel like New Avengers, at this point, is just a money grab. Luke will eventually figure out Cap’s been babysitting him, making sure he doesn’t get in trouble. He’ll get all offended and finally walk, which will be just in time for the Super Infinity War which will bring both Avengers teams together, resulting in one canceled book, an overstaffed Avengers, and some new team spun out of it. Don’t know if I care to stick around for the ride any longer. I think I might be done.

I started this on twitter today, but it has given me enough thoughts to want to continue it on here. Basically, I was saying that I tend to forget that Professor Xavier is on the X-Men’s compound, Utopia. In the past, he was front and center, but since Cyclops has taken on the role as “Steward of the Mutant Race”, Xavier is just the backseat driver that everyone ignores. The only time we even see him is when there’s a War Council (there have been a LOT of those recently), and Cyclops gives him a dressing down in front of everyone, just so everyone knows who’s the Big Dawg. If you’re not familiar with X-Men,
though, I guess I should rewind a bit.

X-Men is the story of mutants fighting to gain equal rights and acceptance in a bigoted world. Charles Xavier opened a school for mutants, and created the X-Men in order fight for The Dream: a world in which humans and mutants could coexist. However, nothing he has ever done has really been towards achieving that goal. Sure, his aims sound nice on a business card, or on an elevator ride with the company president, but after issue #1 of the book, the X-Men have never done anything to put humankind at ease. Now, coexistence is one of those concepts where people are going to have to reach out of their comfort zones, but I don’t think Xavier stuck to the mission statement.

Xavier was written as this Martin Luther King character, while his old friend/new enemy Magneto is set up as the Malcolm X. Xavier feels that we can all coexist and be happy, while Magneto thinks that humans are obsolete, and mutants should take their rightful place as the inheritors of the Earth. This battle is waged back and forth for the better part of about 30 years, with no one side really winning anything, while humans just start to hate mutants more and more. In fact, Xavier would die/disappear every few years, and it’s at those periods that the team was MOST effective. So, maybe Xavier was the problem.

One thing that was always interesting to me, though, is that the MLK-Xavier comparison is erroneous. You see, Martin Luther King Jr was a black figurehead who fought for equal rights for black people. Up until recent years, The World never knew that Xavier was actually a mutant. Sure, you could surmise that he was, based on his passion and the fact that he had opened a school for mutants. It’s the whole “If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck…” But he never outed himself, and I’m not quite sure why. it couldn’t have been for the protection of his students, ’cause people knew the school was full of mutants, and the place got blown up once a year. This stance set him up as a “crusader by proxy”, almost like a Jane Goodall of mutants. If I were on one of the X-teams, I think I’d probably resent him for that.

Anyway, around the turn of this century, something odd happened. It’s like Xavier was too squeaky clean. He was dedicated enough, but there had to be some explanation for how ineffective his approach had been. Forget the fact that comics are soap operas, where nothing finite can occur ’cause then the story would be over. No, it was decided that Xavier was actually an asshole the entire time. Sure, he’d done evil things before, but those were always written off as “he was possessed, so it wasn’t his fault” (look up “Onslaught” some time). This time, though, he was actually in control of his faculties, and it was revealed that he had a long trail of wrongs that he had hidden from his students. He had been manipulating people without their consent, he had sent a whole team of neophyte X-Men to their deaths, and forced an alien machine into slavery – defending everything with an “it was for your own good”. So, when it turned out that he always knew that his favorite pupil Cyclops had a 2nd brother (something that Cyclops didn’t even know), AND that he had sent the brother to his “death”, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. They kicked Xavier out of his own home, and Cyclops became the de facto face of mutantkind. To say they turned their backs on Xavier is an understatement. There’s a later storyline where he gets shot in the head, and they don’t even worry when his body disappears.

Xavier didn’t actually die from the bullet, and he goes on a soul-searching quest to figure out where he went wrong. After a year, he shows up on the X-Men’s doorstep, and they’re basically like, “So, looks like that bullet didn’t kill you after all. Pity.” In Xavier’s absence, Cyclops had moved all willing mutants to a base floating off the coast of San Francisco, due to the fact that mutants were now facing exctinction and Cyclops felt this would make it easier to protect those who remained. Humans, of course, saw this as another Mutie Threat. This makes the X-Men sitting ducks, as they fend off one attack after the other. The entire time, their founder, the man who trained them, is at their disposal, but the minute he opens his mouth, Cyclops is all like “You had your chance!” Xavier usually shrinks away with a “I was just trying to help, Scott”, but I really don’t get why he sticks around. It can’t be as a show of support, as nobody really seems to want him there. I guess it’s that he has no place to go, but he’s Old Money, so he could go join the Avengers and be their mutant advisor or some shit. He ain’t doing it for a paycheck. Plus, the last time I checked, the X-Men didn’t have jobs – they’re like a Real World cast, freeloading off someone else as they trash all the IKEA furniture and fuck in the shower. Not sure why Xavier doesn’t just cut them off financially, and say “The bank is CLOSED!”

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This would be a really good time for Xavier to go off and find himself, but he basically JUST did that. I don’t know if editorial thought that through, or what. Based on the fact that I’ve been reading this series for the past 17 years (oh, God…hasn’t it really been that long?), I know how this shit goes. If Marvel steals any of this, remember that you read it here first: Xavier’s at a pretty low point, as far as self esteem goes. This is usually when he’s most succeptible to psychic/demonic possession. So, the Shadow King will come along and possess him for the 843rd time. He’ll kidnap Hope, the young mutant who’s currently being touted as the new Mutant Messiah, since she’s the first mutant born in the past 5 years (although in comic time, it’s probably only been about 2 weeks). Five new mutants were discovered after Hope’s powers triggered for the first time. Xavier’s not much of a fighter, seeing as how he has spent 75% of his existence in a wheelchair (don’t worry, he can walk now – LONG story). Anyway, he builds teams of youngsters to do his bidding in order to make up for his own poor fighting skills. So, I say Shadow Xavier kidnaps Hope, and uses his powers to contact these new mutants and coerce them into joining him. Then, he’ll go all David Koresh and establish a Messianic stronghold on the site of his former mansion in Westchester (he does, technically, still own the property). The X-Men will go in search of Hope, and realize that Xavier took her. They won’t know about the possession angle, as they’ll just figure it as another example of “Charlie being an asshole”. It’ll be team versus team, Magneto will do something dickish to further his own goals, and the X-Men will eventually end up taking on the Shadow King. They’ll even tease us with the whole “Is Hope Actually Our Reincarnated Dead Friend” gimmick a bit more. When the dust settles, we’ll end up with X-Generation Force or whatever the Hell they decide to call the team comprised of the 5 new mutants, Nightcrawler’s ghost and Wolverine. Xavier will have sacrificed himself, but it will be in a blaze of glory. He’ll finally have his redemption. Plus, the X-Men will be all like, “Well, since we came all this way, we might as well rebuild the mansion for the 437th time”, which will end their San Francisco sojourn.

I know that comics need to have new ideas every now and then, but I’ve never been a fan of Asshole Xavier. It was already established that he was a deadbeat dad, and he basically had to kill his own son (don’t worry, he’s alive again). I mean, that’s one fucked up episode of Maury right there, so it’s not like they needed to heap anything else on him. I’d like to see him back in his rightful place, especially since it seems like Cyclops is going to crack pretty soon. I think Xavier has realized, from all of this, that The Dream isn’t as important as Survival. Cyclops did what was necessary to protect what was left of the mutant race. After all, you would need them in order to further any coexistence called for by The Dream. I think Xavier’s approach was flawed, and he might be coming around to figuring out a way that *works*. Xavier knows that he would’ve taken the pacifist route, and they’d all probably be dead. So, maybe this is the road to him becoming a badass. His way wasn’t working, but I don’t think they needed to villify him in order to prove that. Just let him retire. I just hope they figure out something soon, ’cause I’m tired of him being a doormat. I’d rather they kill him.

This week marked the release of Scarlet #1, the new creator-owned Marvel/Icon comic from Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev. While the duo were well-known for their successful run on Daredevil, I went into this book with mixed feelings. Why was that? Well, I guess you could say that it’s an example of “In Real Life Made Me Hate You”. Let’s take a step back in time, shall we?

Brian Michael Bendis was the first comic writer whose work I purchased solely because of the writer. In the past, I bought X-Men because everybody bought X-Men. I bought Batman because, well, he was Batman. Bendis, however, made me stray outside of that. I never really cared much for Avengers, since they were D-listers at the time, but Bendis got on the book, and I followed suit. While his overarching stories may not be consistent, he’s a master of dialogue. He’s pretty much popularized the “talking head” comic in the modern industry, much to the chagrin of many fanboys. I, however, LOVED his work. I read his autobiographical comics, like Total Sell-Out and Fortune & Glory, plus I even gave Powers a try (still don’t get the hype on that book). Based on Avengers and his Ultimate Marvel work, I think it was safe to say that Bendis was my favorite writer in comics. With that in mind, of course it would have been an honor for me to meet him.

Fast forward to 2008, at the Baltimore Comic-Con. Bendis was making the rare convention appearance out East, and I saw this as my chance to finally get to meet my favorite writer. I got in line for his table EARLY, as we knew he’d be signing, but no one seemed to know when. On top of that, he was doing back to back panels, which seemed to be running over schedule. I’d been to a handful of Baltimore shows, so I knew I wasn’t missing much on the floor. If you’ve seen Howard Chaykin once, then that’s all you need. Bendis, however, was the goal. I must’ve stood in that line for over 4 hours. Sure, I had some interesting fanboy conversations over the course of that time, but I still wasted the better part of the day in that line. When I finally got up to Bendis, he spent the time chatting away on his iPhone. I don’t think he even looked at me. He kinda scrawled his autograph on my comic (which, by the way, didn’t look nearly as good as the potentially fake autograph I’d bought at a show some years earlier. At least that one looked like it said “BENDIS”). Before I could really say anything to him, he handed it back and briefly moved the phone aside to say, “Here ya go, champ”, in the manner of your mom’s new boyfriend who didn’t care enough to learn your name.

Now, I know that whole thing sounds like I have a sense of geek entitlement, but I really expected more. A lot of people have asked, “Well, what did you expect him to do?” I really can’t tell you, but I certainly expected actually get to say something to him. I’m sure everybody says the same, trite “I love your work”, but isn’t that part and parcel of the convention signing experience? At least pretend he cares about his fans. Whenever you read these stories, someone in the comments will say “Well, maybe he was tired” or “‘Maybe he was having a bad day”. None of that seemed to apply here. He was happy and spry; he just wasn’t present. Never meet your heroes, kid. Anyway, my opinion of him kind of took a hit after that, while his star has only continued to rise. I was already grandfathered into his earlier series (like New Avengers and Ultimate Spider-Man), but I wasn’t sure I wanted to get on that horse again. Petty, I know. So, this is where I was coming from when I heard about Scarlet. Due to the buzz surrounding the book, I decided to give it a shot. In retrospect, it’s a great book that I’m not quite sure I should’ve read.

I don’t want to ruin it for you, because the story has an angle to it that should be experienced by the reader. As a quick elevator pitch, Scarlet is the story of a woman who, upon realizing that the world isn’t fair, decides that she’s going to change all of that – by any means necessary. It’s a book with a message, and it’s a potentially dangerous message. It’s almost like Falling Down, the Michael Douglas movie where one bad day pretty much sets an average Joe on a self-destructive path. I say it may not have been the book for me because of what my life has been going through as of late. It speaks to me, and it probably speaks to other readers as well. This familiarity will be good for the book’s accessibility, but do we really need to make angry people any angrier? It could almost be seen as inspirational, but what is it inspiring? It takes the notion of “The World Is Screwed Up”, but follows it up with a “So, What Are You Going To Do About It?”

Seeing as how it’s the first issue, it’s not exactly preachy, but focuses more on providing background info on Scarlet. It will be interesting to see how the book proceeds, seeing as how Bendis has said it’s not meant to be a political book. After all, this means that it will be a battle cry for a revolution that doesn’t specify the end goal. It almost sounds like an invitation to chaos, while it could also follow the notion that society has to be fully destroyed before it can be rebuilt. It’s an interesting concept, and I look forward to seeing where the book is headed. I hate to admit it, but Bendis has still got it. Maybe one day, I might get the chance to tell him that.

Going through my posts, I realized that I never really spoke much about my time in comics. On top of that, I’m supposed to be this big collector of comics and toys, yet there aren’t many posts that reflect my hobby. So, instead of being all snarky and digging up a bunch of dirt, I figured I’d try something new, by showcasing a few of the best items in my collections that most haven’t seen. You might see some cool stuff, or it might result in me having my apartment broken into. In any case, I’ll give a little rundown of its history, and voila, I’ve got a new regular column.

So, today’s item is what you see here:

Yes, that’s a first printing of the hard to find variant cover of Amazing Spider-Man #583. The first of the popular Obama Comic Cover gimmick, this book sold out quicker than hotels on prom night. Last I checked, I think it got up to about 5 printings, many of which are still being sold above cover price. Well, I somehow managed to get a copy. But wait, there’s more! If you look closely, you’ll notice that it’s signed. No, it’s not signed by Big O, himself, but by Marvel Editor-In-Chief and Chief Creative Officer, Joe Quesada. So, how did I snag this comic? Well, it’s funny you should ask…

Last year, I went to the New York Comic-Con with a couple of my Diamond friends.  Near the end of most conventions, the Marvel booth has a giveaway panel. This isn’t a nice, orderly contest, however.  No, at the Marvel booth, everyone stands around yelling for shit, kinda like those  businessmen watching Jennifer Connelly get it with that double-ended dildo in Requiem For A Dream.  There’s a guy (and I really should know his name by this point), who’s like Wayne Brady with the huckster showmanship of Stan Lee. The Marvel Minions bring him large, unmarked boxes of stuff, and he just grabs something out. The stuff ranges from big ticket items (autographed books), to dead overstock (Dark Towers hardcovers), to random licensed items (lunchbox, anyone?) on down to Saga books. That’s right – I’ve seen them give away the same crappy promo comic you would’ve gotten stuffed in your bag at your LCS.

Anyway, I’ve witnessed this thing quite a few times, so there’s generally a formula: “Wayne Lee” generally looks around to see who wants the item most. Sometimes, he might ask a trivia question or ask you to dance for him or something.  He usually goes for the cute kid, the 20-ish girl, etc. In fact, he tends to go for everyone *except* the stereotypical “fanboy”. By adhering to this pattern, the Marvel Giveaway Panel may be Marvel’s smartest initiative to reach out to a new audience; cater to the young, the women, etc. So, the trick is to save your energy for something that you really want. Nobody walks away with 2 items. Not even that  kid in the wheelchair. If you don’t want the Spider-Man sleeping bag, don’t even waste the energy to acknowledge it. Wayne’s pretty good at scanning the crowd, so he’s gauging what you really want. When everyone’s jumping up and down like they’re on The Price Is Right, you become more conspicuous if you stand still. Wayne notices that, and he knows you’re being strategic. Hell, it’s best not to even make eye contact with him. Save it for the big prize.

So, I knew all of the above going in, and I used all that to play my hand. I didn’t acknowledge the Wolverine baseball cap or the Eternals hardcover. Out of the gate, we knew that the big ticket item was the Obama cover, especially since this was about 2 weeks after the inauguration. There wasn’t even a second printing at this point, yet here it was, SIGNED by the creative head of Marvel. I knew they had 5 copies to give away, and those were the only things I went for.

After he had given away the 4th copy, I probably should have gotten discouraged. I mean, I’d been at this panel for about an hour and a half, watching people sacrifice their young for a Hulk pencil sharpener. One thing about me, however, is that I don’t quit. I had a good feeling. I had no basis for said optimism, but I really thought I was going to leave with one of those books. I’ve actually been really lucky in life when it comes to comic-related contests. When I was 12, I won a Batman watch from a Choice Hotels Batman Returns sweepstakes. When I was 13, I won some Avengers/X-Men Bloodties trading cards from a contest I’d forgotten I had even entered. And the list goes on. So, I felt like some of that magic might be in the cards for me for that Spidey comic. My friends were leaving to go to dinner, and some of the booths had even shut down, but I was determined to see this to the end.

Wayne got to the final copy, and made quite a showing about it being the final copy. He paced the floor with it. He’d stop and think about whether the time was right to give it away (he does this a LOT – pulls out an item, gauges the reaction, and then swaps it for a Human Torch backpack once the fever builds). He decided to ask a question: “What’s Wolverine’s real name?” This, my friends, is somewhat of a trick question. I didn’t know which answer he wanted. After all, everybody knows it’s “Logan”, yet this was after Origin had come out, so the real answer was “James Howlett”. Seeing as how he IS the guy from Marvel, I figured Wayne would want the Howlett answer. So, I jumped up and down, screaming “James Howlett!” I could hear a good deal of the crowd going the Logan route, while my fellow fanboys were chiming along with the Howlett chorus. I have to believe that Wayne noticed how I’d played the game. I think he knew that I was there for one thing, and he was determined to make me wait for it. Or, maybe he just noticed me at that point. Whatever it was, he was prepared to make my day. It felt like slow motion, as he walked over and handed me the book. In my haze, I shielded it until I could get out of the crowd, and I quickly put it in my sketchbook for safekeeping. Once I got to an empty corner of the Javits Center, I double-checked to make sure that it was real, and that I hadn’t imagined the whole thing. What I saw in my hands was the book that you saw above, and it’s been sitting on my makeshift mantle ever since.

We’re coming up on the 7th anniversary of my entry into the world of blogging. Seven years ago, I was 2 months out of college, looking for something to pass the time during my temporary data entry job. Fast forward 7 years, and it’s now something to pass the time during my unemployment. Hmm…As some of you may have noticed, I’ve been gone a while in order to work out some kinks behind the scenes.

Ya see, It all started when I found out I had to move platforms. I’d been using Blogger since the beginning, but they no longer want to waste time on anyone publishing via FTP. So, we had to move on over to WordPress (hence the new look and features). After migration, I realized that the site really wasn’t that searchable. There were things I’d think about writing, but I would find myself wondering if I’d actually already written it and just plain forgot. So, I took a LOOONG stroll down memory lane, and reread each post, adding searchable tags to everything.

Over the course of this project, certain things stood out to me. For example, I apologize a LOT. Whether it was apologizing for not writing enough, for writing too much, or just for having a public pity party, it was all pretty pathetic. So, going forward, I’m going to make a conscious effort not to do that. I don’t owe y’all nothin’.

I also deleted some posts, be it they contained dead links or they were just unnecessary. There was a time when I adopted a “write like no one’s reading” mentality because, well, no one was reading. At that point, the site devolved into a bit of a livejournal clone. A lot of “Why doesn’t she notice me?” or “Happy first day at work, baby” posts. I had honestly forgotten how some of the stuff read, but I would have people say, “So, I was reading some of your old posts…” Those relationships ended, the world kept on spinning, no need of leaving all that up there. I’ve got NOTHING against self-deprecating humor, but a lot of those posts didn’t accomplish anything. They weren’t funny, and they were usually written in response to a “Why don’t you ever write about me on your site?” conversation. So, most of those are gone, but I doubt you’ll even miss them.

I also used to make a lot of promises: “The San Diego posts are coming soon” or “I’ll get to that story later”. I haven’t gotten to my Toy Fair experience YET, and that was in 2008! If I don’t feel like writing it then, I probably won’t feel like it later. I shouldn’t tease posts, as I can only write when I *feel* like writing about something. I can’t force it. So, certain “teased posts” tend to come out 6 months later or, in many cases, never at all.

Even worse are all of the promises of an upcoming redesign or renewal of interest in the blog. I don’t do the design stuff, so I’m at the mercy of my friend, Jenn. Most of the times I posted those promises of a new layout, they happened to coincide with times when she had absolutely no time to even care about this site. The site has really only had about 3 different incarnations, yet I promised redesigns like they were annual treats. So, I made a lot of empty promises, and ended up looking like more of a huckster than a poor man’s Stan Lee.

What really stuck out to me were all of the things I’ve actually *never* written about. For example, I thought I’d written more about my time at Diamond, but I guess I didn’t want it to become fodder for comic gossip sites, so I kept a lot of it to myself. Now that I’m pretty much never working in that industry again, maybe there are some good post ideas there.

Anyway, I also notice that I do a lot of these introspective posts, like the one you’re reading now, usually on a “milestone”. As narcissistic as I may be, I really don’t like these kinds of posts. You don’t wanna read this kind of shit! In the words of Depeche Mode, “Though things like this make me sick, in a case like this I’ll get away with it”. Now that it’s all out of my system, I know why you’re here: you want to read about my love for TNBC, comics and boybands. That’s the stuff I love to write about, and if this ain’t your first time here, then you already know it’s the kind of stuff you came here to see. I just needed to get this out as a bit of a “state of the union”. To steal from a played out United Negro College Fund commercial, “We can’t know where we’re going until we know where we’ve been.” So, on with the show. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

So, today marked the 1st (annual?) DC Comic-Con. However, in this case, “DC” meant “Northern Virginia”, and “Comic-Con” meant “church bazaar”. I really had high hopes for this show. Established as a joint effort between Baltimore Comic-Con creator Marc Nathan, and the Laughing Ogre chain of stores, the show was poised to give the DC-Metro Area its first taste of a somewhat “official” comic book convention. Considering how great the Baltimore show has become over the years, this venture held a lot of promise. Unfortunately, something went wrong between idea and execution.

Now, I was actually supposed to volunteer for the show, as I first learned about it when I was in Marc’s store a few months back. He had a really good idea: he was already hosting a Free Comic Book Day signing in his store, so he figured he would just offer those guests an extra night’s hotel stay, and have them as his guests for the show. On top of that, he was going to make sure that all of the local shops had flyers available on FCBD, so that he could take advantage of the newcomers who might be flocking to stores. Considering his guest list was going to include Frank Cho (Ultimate Avengers 2, Liberty Meadows), JG Jones (52, Marvel Boy), Jo Chen (Buffy Season 8 covers), and others, it sounded like it couldn’t fail. Of course I wanted to be on board with that! He told me to show up early, and he’d put me to work. Well, fast forward to this morning, as I didn’t get to sleep until 7 AM because I’d been up working on restoring older entries to the site (I’ll explain that situation in another post). So, considering I wasn’t getting to sleep until about 3 hours before the show started, I simply muttered “Fuck that noise”, and went to sleep.

Over the past few days, I guess I lost most of my interest in the show when it didn’t seem like anyone really knew about the thing. I was in a comic shop yesterday, where I overheard someone talking about it, but their account of the thing was riddled with misinformation. On top of it, these were the retailers, themselves, and not just some fanboys standing around. So, it was becoming apparent that those flyers hadn’t made the rounds as planned. Also, the website was only updated intermittently. By Thursday, in total, there had only been about 5 update posts – none of which contained any major information, outside of the list of creators who’d be present. The only show-exclusive item was a variant cover of Witchblade, which would benefit the Hero Initiative. That’s good for the Hero Initiative, but the whole “Show Exclusives” part of the site looked pretty sad, as nothing else was being listed alongside it. It’s almost like, “Why bother?”

The worst crime of the site, however, was that it didn’t even list information pertaining to the price of regular admission. It stated that tickets would be available at the door, and not in advance (unlike the Baltimore show). Also, admission would be $5 IF you signed up for the e-mail newsletter. What if I don’t want to sign up? Well, there’s no information for that scenario. Guess I would just have to find out at the door…

So, I woke up around 11:30, and really debated whether or not I wanted to even bother with it. I had told Marc I’d volunteer, but it’s not like he really cared. He’d be OK. The main thing, though, was that I didn’t really know how to get to George Mason University. Sure, there’s Mapquest, GPS, and all that, but I hate the thought of trying to navigate a college campus. Cornell was basically the entire town of Ithaca. I knew GMU wasn’t that big, but I didn’t want to waste most of the day wandering around aimlessly. I checked the con’s site, only to see that they had uploaded a map of the campus, showing the location of the show, as well as the lot (Lot A) which was the only one open to con guests. Nice of them to post this…on May 1st. Yeah, they did it yesterday. The day before the show.

Honestly, though, I really just wanted to go so that I could finally meet one of my twitter pals. He’s one of the few people I can actually have a tweetversation with, and I think he’d be a cool “real life” friend. I knew he was making the trip from Baltimore, so if he could do that, then I could suck it up and drive to VA.

I headed down to GMU, but I was looking at the map on my phone, as I didn’t have the chance to print it. The Zoom option didn’t want to work, so I was flying blind. Once on campus, I couldn’t, for the life of me, find Lot A. Driving around Patriot Circle, the signs about the show/lot simply ran out. I ended up parking in the lot for a shopping center across the street from the campus. I didn’t want to risk tickets/towing by parking in the wrong campus lot, and I don’t mind walking. If I had found Lot A, it would’ve been a “5-10 minute walk” to the show. I’m not sure if that estimate was for the “normal” person, or for us geek types, who don’t have much in the way of cardio training.

I wandered through campus a bit, and actually walked past Lot A. It wasn’t much closer than the shopping center, so I didn’t feel too bad about my choice. Since the main campus seems to be configured in the middle of a circle, it wasn’t too hard to figure out the general direction of central campus. That said, all of the buildings, while nice and new, all pretty much look the same. Every now and then, I’d see a fat kid carrying a bag of comics, coming from the general direction in which I was headed, so that was an encouraging sign. Eventually, I just had to suck it up, and ask some kid where the Student Union was. Luckily, it was right around the corner from where I was. Keep in mind, this whole walk, which was in the CORRECT direction, contained NO signage to imply that I was headed in the right direction. I couldn’t have been the only one to experience this. Sadly, I arrived just in time to receive a tweet saying that my twitter pal had just left.

Anyway, once at the student union, there was nothing outside to indicate what was going on inside. No “DC Comic-Con Here!” sign. The only clue was that there were more slovenly kids with bags of comics, and a line at the ATM. Once inside, I realized that it wasn’t exactly a well-oiled machine. Admission turned out to be $5, so I guess the newsletter tactic was a bust. The problem was that, after I paid the money, the guy manning the table was more concerned with me filling out a raffle ticket than with giving me my wristband. People were bunching up around me, so once I was done, his partner tried to charge me another $5 before he’d give me the wristband. I told him I’d already paid, and the 1st guy co-signed it, so I got my wristband. That’s when I entered the “ballroom” where the show was being held…

You know your grandma’s church? The one that’s old and drab ’cause only old people attend? The one where they hold bazaars in the drab auditorium? The same auditorium which has a stage up front, as they sometimes use it to present the Christmas Cantata? Well, that’s exactly what this venue was like. It had a very “flea market” vibe to it. The entire room was filled with vendor tables, while something seemed to be happening onstage. I started to make the loop, but people were just in the way. This is a common problem with conventions, as everybody wants to bodyblock the longboxes until they’re done looking through them – very territorial.

As I’m walking through, I realize I recognize a lot of the vendors. After all, I used to frequent those little comic shows they hold at the Crowne Plaza in Tysons. Yup, there was the guy with one arm. There was the jerk from Columbia. There was the dude who always gives me the stink eye. The gang was all there. As I continued around, something became VERY apparent to me: the vendors had only brought their older comics OR their junk. So, if you were new to comics, your only options were overpriced yellowed books from the ’70s or a bunch of $1 bin books from the mid ’90s. I was kind of offended by this, as it implied that none of the vendors had taken the show seriously. Just as the place looked like a church bazaar, they were treating it as one. As I walked around, I overheard a lot of grumbling amongst the vendors, as the show clearly hadn’t met their expectations. Now, I’m not sure if they were unhappy with the turnout, or the lack of sales, but I have to lay some of the blame on the vendors themselves. Outside of the shitload of unnecessary Deadpool variant covers released over the last few months, the vast majority of vendors didn’t have any books published within the last five years. On top of that, it was a great show for anyone looking for cheap trade paperback collections, but the single comic offerings were piss poor. One guy was selling “new comics”, one of which was an issue of Amazing Spider-Man that came out six months ago. Now, considering that series comes out thrice-monthly, that book is basically a year and a half old, when compared to other comics. That’s not NEW.

I made about 5 loops around the room, and couldn’t find ANYTHING on which I wanted to spend money. It was all junk. Hell, I was so disgusted that I passed up the FCBD books that some guy had leftover from yesterday. I bought the DC Comic-Con exclusive Witchblade because it was the show’s ONLY exclusive, and I wanted to have proof of the show’s existence in case it’s never held again. It helped out the Hero Initiative, though I’ve never exactly been sold on that organization (look up its guidelines some time – there’s a a VERY narrow pool of creators who even qualify for its assistance).

The saddest part of the convention was the lone Joker who was skulking around the show floor. This dude looked terrible! I mean, his costume was good, but he just looked depressed, and I’m not sure if it was part of his cosplay. I think he just felt out of place, as he was the ONLY one in cosplay that I saw. They were granting free admission to anyone who showed up in full costume, but he’s the only one who looked like he may have taken advantage of that offer. In any case, I eventually saw him hiding behind a pillar, fervently texting someone. Maybe he was asking Batman to come and take him back to Arkham. After all, that HAD to be a better option than where he was at the moment!

Oh, remember the commotion onstage? Well, that’s where those big name creators were set up. It was so awkward, however, as they were elevated over the rest of the show floor. To add to that, any fans wishing to get signatures & sketches had to wait off to the side of the stage. When it was their turn, they went up, as if they were about to receive a diploma. I’m being overly dramatic, but it really looked like an elitist setup, as we were all waiting to “pay tribute”. I already had signatures from all of them, so I didn’t even give it a second thought.

While on Loop #5, I noticed one vendor, who also happened to be the only vendor who was even remotely friendly to me, had a bunch of old toys for sale. Really old toys. That’s when I saw them: the Hasbro figures from the Stargate movie. Kurt Russell as Jack O’Neill, James Spader as Daniel Jackson, and nary a trace of likeness rights between them. Despite looking nothing like the actors, I LOVE Stargate, and I couldn’t shake a stick at the price tag of $3 each. As I took Daniel and O’Neill to the vendor, he laughed and told me he would cut me a deal for all of them. There were 6 figures, and he said he’d give them to me for half price. Now, I’m normally a sucker for a deal, but I really had no use for Lt. Kawalsky and Horus figures. I mean, Kawalsky looked just like O’Neill, but had a different color shirt, and I don’t care about grunt soldiers from a defunct toy line. I could’ve had them all for about $3 more than I spent, but I just didn’t want more junk in my apartment. I’m gonna hang Daniel and Jack on the wall, like the kitsch that they are. I simply had no use for the others.

The very second after I completed that transaction, I headed for the door.  I didn’t care about the raffle, or the door prizes, or spending another second in that place. I walked out the door, and didn’t look back.

While I had major problems with the venue, I think my main disappointment came from the fact that I had held such high expectations. It’s really a matter of semantics: this was not a convention, but a show. A comic convention is an experience. There are vendors, panel discussions, and it provides fans with the chance to meet their favorite creators. A comic show, however, is simply about selling. Vendors bring their backstock inventory, and hope to unload some of it to people who are trying to fill holes in their collections. Shows don’t always have guests, and when they do, they don’t tend to be “marquee”. This show definitely fit the latter definition. It was geared toward the collector, and the older collector at that. It didn’t serve as a proper introduction for the new fan, nor as encouragement to the casual fan. I’m a collector, and it didn’t even fit my needs, so I’m left to wonder what was the target audience for this show. It’s got some reputable names behind it, so maybe this was a case of “1st year mistakes”. I didn’t exactly have an amazing time, but fanboys are gluttons for punishment, so I’m not giving up on it completely. After all, there’s always next year…

Adventures West Coast #11: Marvel Zombies HC

Oh, Marvel Zombies! The series with the punny title that just wouldn’t die. I’m not sure if it’s still common today, but there was a time when fanboys only supported one of the Big 2. You were either a DC guy or a “Marvel Zombie”. “Marvel Zombie” had a bit of a negative connotation, as it implied that you would mindlessly consume anything that Marvel put out, regardless of quality. Well, just like when minorities want to “reclaim” slurs, Marvel decided to have a little fun with the name themselves.

Created by Robert Kirkman and Sean Phillips, Marvel Zombies is the story of an alternate Marvel Universe where a plagued has broken out, turning everyone into zombies. The story actually began as a Mark Millar-written arc in the low-selling Ultimate Fantastic Four. I’m not sure if it was designed to bring readers to the book, or if it was felt that they could get away with something so weird since nobody was reading the book anyway. In any case, that story arc shows Ultimate Reed Richards discovering a gateway to all universes, and he receives a distress call from Reed Richards of yet a different alternate universe. It’s all a trick, however, as distressed Reed was just trying to summon more food for him and his fellow zombies. As odd as it sounds, that was one of the more successful storylines in the Ultimate Universe – so successful, in fact, that Marvel decided to spin the zombie universe off into its own miniseries.

As the story opens, the events pick up where the Ultimate Fantastic Four story ended. Magneto had sacrificed himself in order to destroy the portal that the zombies might’ve used to travel to other universes. Unfortunately, he finds himself at the feet of the zombie Avengers. Magneto puts up a good fight, but he’s simply the victim of teamwork and zombie-level hunger. The zombies tear him apart in gruesome, panel-by-panel manner. Since there wasn’t exactly enough to go around, the zombies are still hungry and start bitching at each other. That’s pretty much how the rest of the story goes: the zombie Avengers are hungry and comically bitch at each other while in the pursuit of food.

Every now and then, the heroes’ humanity will shine through, as they express disgust at what they’ve become. Otherwise, it’s a different take on what qualities the Marvel characters would retain if they somehow suddenly became monsters. Cap’s still a leader, Spider-Man’s still a smart-ass, oh, and Hank Pym is still a wifebeater. In fact, he does one better by biting off her fucking head and then spits it out. I swear, that guy needs a new agent. The “Hank Pym as misogynist” thing happened ONCE, but he’s never been able to shake it. If he were a real celebrity, he’d go to Wife Beating Rehab and we’d be expected to forget all about it. Not in the Marvel Universe, I guess. In any case, the zombies notice the Silver Surfer high in the sky, and he becomes the new target of their hunger.

Meanwhile, there are some human survivors. Magneto had been a survivor of this world, and we find out that Hank Pym has Black Panther stashed away. Since food is scarce, is been snacking on BP gradually, unbeknownst to the rest of the Marvel Zombies. Unfortunately for Black Panther, he’s still alive while all of this happens, under the influence of a mild sedative.

Silver Surfer finally deigns to speak to the zombies, telling them to prepare, as the coming of Galactus is near. In case this is your first time here, or you’re not a comic person, Galactus is a big ass alien who eats planets. Silver Surfer is the guy he sends to the planets beforehand, just to relay the message that their asses are about to be eaten. The zombies don’t really care what he has to say, as they only see him as food. So, just as with Magneto, they assemble and try to take him down. Finally, zombie Hulk bites off the Surfer’s head, while the other zombies feast on the body.

While that fight was going on, Black Panther managed to escape capture, along with the Wasp’s head. He feels that there’s some piece of his friend left, even if she’s just a zombie virus-riddled head. They encounter Magneto’s old disciples, the Acolytes, who are searching for their master. Black Panther tells them that he’s been killed and, following a fight, convinces them to take him and Wasp’s head with them to Asteroid M, Magneto’s space base outside the range of the virus.

Galactus finally arrives, and the zombies just see him as a big-ass meal. The zombies still seem to have some intelligence when focused on a goal, so Tony Stark develops a weapon that can actually hurt Galactus. At this point, it’s revealed that the zombie villains have stuck together just as the heroes had. It then becomes as battle as to who should get to dine on Galactus, and the scene turns into a classic throwdown between zombified “heroes” and “villains”. The heroes have the upperhand, however, as all of the ones who had eaten a piece of Silver Surfer acquired a portion of the Power Cosmic. This is what they use for their final assault on Galactus, which ends in the same gory panel-by-panel evisceration as the Magneto scene at the beginning of the story. As the story ends, the Acolytes and Black Panther return to Earth 5 years later, finding the planet deserted. They don’t know where the zombies have gone, but all planetary scans indicate that no one is left. That’s when we see the zombies, floating through space with the powers they’d acquired from Galactus.

I was surprised at how quick of a read this book was. I mean, when you get down to it, it’s really just Fight-Eat-Bicker-Repeat. It also helps that most of the groundwork had been laid in the Ultimate Fantastic Four arc, so there wasn’t much of a need for set-up. Even if you hadn’t read that story, all you needed to know was that this world was filled with hungry zombies. That’s it. At last count, they were currently up to Marvel Zombies 5, so this has been quite a moneymaker for them, even if many folks tired of the concept some time ago. After all, this led a bit of a zombie renaissance, where EVERY company jumped on board with projects, none of which were as well-executed as this one.

My own personal bone to pick is the exposure that this gave Arthur Suydam. One of the selling points of the series was that each issue issue featured a cover by painter Arthur Suydam, where he reimagined a classic Marvel cover in a zombie motif. Remember the cover for Iron Man: Demon In A Bottle? Well, now see it ZOMBIEFIED! It was a concept that got old FAST, considering the multiple printings on the issues and collected editions. He even started making zombie variants for books that weren’t even tangentially related to the zombie phenomenon. There was a period between 2006 and 2008 where Suydam was unnecessarily EVERYWHERE, and I got to a point where I wanted to punch him in the face should he ever cross my path.

Anyway, it’s a fun book. That’s really all I can say. It’s a good way to kill 45 minutes, and it’s nice to see Marvel poking fun at itself, which isn’t something that its Distinguished Competition would feel comfortable doing. Marvel looked to all of those people who laughed AT all the little Marvel Zombies, and gave them something to laugh ABOUT. Ain’t nothing wrong with that!

Adventures West Coast #10: World Without A Superman TPB

World Without A Superman is one of those books that had a time and a place. For me to review it now is almost unfair, as its resonance and importance is dependent upon the death of Superman, an event that took place about 15 years ago. While this could be considered the beginning of the death/resurrection gimmick (sure, it had been done before, but it wasn’t nearly as prevalent as it is today), we currently live in a comics world where “dead” simply means “We don’t really have any stories to tell for that character right now”, or better yet “We’re finalizing our editorial and marketing plans for 3rd quarter 2011″. Seeing how the death of Superman was such a major production, this trade focuses on the downtime between the death and the road to resurrection. Before I can really get into the story, let me take a moment to explain how things got to this point.

Death of Superman is one of those stories that meant a lot more to me as a young fanboy than it does now, as a former member of the industry who knows a bunch of the backroom dealings. Of course, it would be easy to look back and say that they killed Superman because they knew it would make a shitload of money, but that wasn’t exactly the case. I’ve often said that licensing is the worst thing to happen to comics. In the old days, licensing only extended as far as putting Superman on a backpack, or Batman on a t-shirt. In a more modern sense, however, licensing has come to mean those same lunchboxes, slot machines, and, most importantly, movies and television. The latter is where problems can occur. You can’t keep Steve Rogers dead because there’s a Captain America movie coming, and the man on the street is more familiar with Steve Rogers than this Bucky Barnes fella. Sometimes there are misses: the X-Men comics were more of a mess than usual when the first movie came out, and Marvel missed out on a lot of potential new readers, due to lack of accessibility. Well, the death of Superman was another case of licensing governing storylines.

DC had planned to have the wedding between Clark Kent and Lois Lane, only to find out that the TV show, Lois & Clark: The Adventures of Superman, was building up to the same thing. Due to licensing, the comic couldn’t get to that point BEFORE the show (even though they were only related “in spirit”). This created a problem for DC, as they had to come up with some way to stall, seeing as how the TV wedding was about a season off. Killing Superman was just an idea that had been thrown around during a brainstorming session, but nobody really expected it to stick. As they tossed it around, they began to develop it, but they never expected it to be such a blockbuster, as there really hadn’t been a precendent for that sort of thing. So, the word got out and media outlets just ran with it. You were always seeing interviews with some old codger born in the 40s who couldn’t believe they were killing his childhood hero. He’s not real, Cletus! Anyway, it was decided that Superman would fall by the hand of a mysterious threat named Doomsday. The Superman books were weekly at that time, so Doomsday got closer to Metropolis with each passing week. The final battle occurred in Superman #75, where Superman died in Lois’s arms. To really capitalize on things, there’s even a collectors edition of the book, bagged with an obituary, black armband, etc. Considering this was just a gap-filler, DC went ALL OUT once they realized what they had on their hands. Once Superman was dead, what next? That brings us to World Without A Superman.

At its core, World Without A Superman is really an exploration of what Superman had meant to the world around him. The actual banner on the books was “Funeral For A Friend”, as the world tries to get back to normal after losing its greatest champion. Nothing really happens, as it’s just a bridge between the death and return, but there are some great character moments, as well as emotional beats. For example, Action Comics #685 contains a moving scene where Superman fan, Bibbo, prays to God, asking why Superman had to die instead of someone who wouldn’t have matter as much, like Bibbo himself. It also dealt with a lot of questions that would naturally arise from such an event: Who would get custody of Superman’s body? Who would fill in for Superman as the hero of Metropolis? Should Lois and the Kents go public with the identity of Superman? We also see the public funeral, complete with a cameo by Bill and Hilary Clinton – one of the rare times that DC has acknowledged that the DCU has the same sitting President as the real world.

The second half of the book is where the action occurs, as Superman’s body goes missing from his tomb. Who has it, though? Is it archenemy Lex Luthor? Is it super secret science agency Project Cadmus? Supergirl eventually reclaims the body, which had been taken by Cadmus for cloning experiments. Before the story ends, Jonathan Kent suffers a heart attack, where he is seemingly reunited with Superman in the afterlife. It’s here that Jonathan’s war memories seem to shape the landscape of the afterlife, as he’s forced to fight for the spirit of his son. Superman tells Jonathan that he has to go back, it’s not his time, yadda yadda, but Jonathan’s not leaving without his son. As the story ends Jonathan comes out of his coma, just as reports of Superman sightings begin to surface. Lois visits the tomb, only to find it empty again. Where’s Superman? Is he really back? Well, that story takes place in Reign of the Supermen, and I don’t have that book

Growing up, I was on the edge of my seat for the death, as well as the return, but I had missed out on most of these issues. One only has so much disposable income at the age of 12, so I had to make some sacrifices! Looking back, however, I can see how this really served to compliment the saga as a whole. Unlike comics today, it didn’t jump right into another big event, which could lead to “event fatigue”. Sure, you were probably interested to see where things would go, but you didn’t HAVE to read these stories. As far as anyone knew, Superman was really gone, so a lot of people took this as a jumping off points for the books. After all, why read a book called Adventures of Superman when that character isn’t even present? For those who stuck around, this was a great ramping up point for Reign of the Supermen, which was not only nonstop action, but also led up to the actual return of Superman, albeit with a mullet. Don’t worry, though – he loses the mullet when he becomes an energy being, and splits into two people. Huh. Guess it was all downhill for a while after that death…

Adventures West Coast #9: Witchblade Vol 1

Can I be fair to this book? That’s the ultimate question here. You see, as my girlfriend, family, and enemies will tell you, I don’t forget anything. As I result, I have a hard time grasping the notion of “forgive and forget”, as I don’t see them as mutually exclusive. This also carries over to the realm of entertainment. For some reason, I can never forget an actor’s first role, and if it’s a bad performance, I can’t forgive it, either. For example, I don’t care how sexy and successful he may be, George Clooney will always be the guy from The Facts of Life. Some days, I might let that slide, but he’s still Booker from Roseanne. In any case, it took him a bit to get his career on track. That’s a lot like Witchblade. It seems like it’s on the right track, but I can’t forget what came before. This is ultimately going to be more a review of packaging and presentation than the actual plot itself.

The cover might say “Volume 1″, but that’s a lie. You see, Witchblade existed for about 80 issues prior to those collected in this volume, and that’s not counting all the one shots and miniseries. At launch, it was really just a mystical T&A book, which describes most of the early Top Cow output. I mean, this is a company that had a headlining character named Sexbot. That’s just who they were, and I can’t really shake it. It tends to cause problems, as I consider the current publisher of Top Cow to be friend. That said, I don’t think he likes me very much in an online capacity, as every bit of PR he puts out about a Top Cow product triggers some snark on my part. It got to the point where I simply unfollowed him on Twitter because I felt that it was probably for the best. I commend them on the desire to take the book in a less cheesecake direction, but it’s such a guerilla tactic to just act like those prior years never happened. I almost wish they had just cancelled the original series and relaunched with this. Sure, this is all just numbers and things printed on covers, but it would’ve seemed more…pure to me. You just can’t collect a storyline that takes place at #80 of a 13 year old series and just decide, “OK, this is gonna be Volume 1 from here on out”!

I had actually read some earlier Witchblade issues, published during the brief period in the mid ’90s when Top Cow broke away from Image in order to be their own company. That didn’t last long, and I was done with the book by the time they returned to the Image fold. Back then, at its best, it was a tits & ass book set against a supernatural backdrop. It never quite knew if it wanted to be NYPD Blue or Poltergeist: The Legacy. It followed Sara Pezzeni, a New York City detective, who finds herself in the possession of a mysterious weapon known as the Witchblade. She doesn’t know why she has it, let alone what it means. She’s a cop, but when she “witches out”, she looks like this:

Yup, just a regular old cop who kills demons in a thong made of supernatural thorns. Apparently, the Witchblade also provides good cup support! Well, that art made a household name of the late Michael Turner, who went on to create his own company, Aspen Entertainment. In any case, that’s the gist of the character for the first 80 issues or so. That’s YEARS worth of comics. Then, a funny thing happened: as is common with comic properties, Witchblade was turned into a TV series for TNT. Yancy Butler (Drop Zone, Brooklyn South) starred as Sara, in a weekly series where Sara tries to get to the bottom of the mystery of the Witchblade. Despite the fact that Yancy didn’t run around half-naked, the show was actually a success. The only reason production stopped was because Yancy went to rehab for substance abuse. Anyway, during the run of the show, Sara/Witchblade looked like this:

Pretty conservative, huh? Well, in a lot of ways, the TV show was ahead of its time, as it was the first appearance of what Sara would come to look like after the bold new direction of issue #80:

As this story opens, Sara wakes up in a hospital bed, with little to no memory as to how she got there. At her side is her partner (work, not banging), Jake McCarthy. Anyone familiar with prior issues know him as the other half of the “will they, won’t they” dynamic of the book. In walks Special Investigator Patrick Gleason, who’s been sent to getthe details on what happened to Detective Pezzini. Immediately, this sets off a dick measuring contest between the 2 guys, seemingly setting up a potential love triangle.

Patrick Gleason’s a really good character. Not only is he fairly likeable, but he also serves as “the eyes” for new readers. Once Sara comes out of the coma and jumps into her investigation, Gleason’s right there at her side, trying to get answers. Whenever something supernatural happens, it’s old hat for Sara, but it’s all completely new to Gleason. It’s a pretty nice dynamic, which also helps for a bond between the two characters.

So, the plot. Well, the only real witness to the events surrounding Sara’s coma was her childhood priest. Upon further investigation, she finds out that he’s part of an ancient sect of the Catholic church that dabbled in the dark arts. An event is coming that would allow some pretty major demons to pierce the veil and destroy our world. The sect wants this event to come to pass, but they want Sara dead, as the Witchblade has the power to stop them. She was to die the night she ended up in the coma, and the prist was ordered to finish the job. Instead, he’s killed by the Witchblade, but partner Jake gets injured in the process. Sara and Patrick team up for the final act, as he creates a diversion, while she uses the Witchblade to give those priests the old what for! In the end, Patrick and Sara find their relationship changed by the experience, while Jake clings to life in a hospital bed.

My biggest gripe of the collection comes down to packaging. You see, it was offered at the low, introductory price of $4.99. I’ve been working around comics long enough to know that some corners may have been cut in order to pass savings along to the consumer. In my case, the binding was shit. The pages just started falling out near the end of the book. I’m not sure if this was a common problem with the print run, but it certainly marred my experience.

Prior to reading this collection, I’d been sampling Witchblade via more recent issues, especially those leading into the Broken Trinity event. It’s at that point that Sara and Patrick are first entering into a real relationship, so it’s nice to see how they first met. I like what Ron Marz has done with the series, and it seems like the book had just been waiting for him to come along. He seems to have a plan, and it’s not the same old stories of “Sara goes undercover as an escort and poses a lot” that we seemed to have in the ’90s. Stjepen Sejic’s art is pretty nice, and quite reminiscent of Clayton Crain (X-Force) before his work got all muddy (Necrosha). I can be a cruel man, but I also believe in giving credit where it’s due. Witchblade may have a bit of a checkered history, but I think this collection signals the beginning of a promising future.