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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.

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!

Maybe that’s because he surrounds himself with TRANNIES!!!

That has got to be the WORST Kubert cover I’ve seen in some time…

Adventures West Coast #2: Iron Man: War Machine

Welcome back to AWC, as I take on the classic story, Iron Man: War Machine.

Last time, I discussed Demon In A Bottle, the story where Tony Stark had to hit rock bottom in order to build himself back up. This story’s slightly different, however, as this is the story of Tony’s DEATH (*cue spooky minor chord*). Don’t get your Underoos in a knot! The story’s 15 years old, and they’re still publishing Iron Man, so you know he survives. The importance of the story lies in the fact that it introduces us to the War Machine armor, which has come to be known as the badass, heavy artillery armor worn by Tony’s pilot, Jim “Rhodey” Rhodes (Terrence Howard’s character, for y’all who saw the movie). What I found to be most interesting about this storyline, though, was the fact that many of the ideas presented are actually being used in the current Iron Man Storyline, “Stark: Disassembled” (more on that later).

As the collection opens, Tony has just returned from the latest Avengers mega battle, “Operation: Galactic Storm”. The fight took a lot out of him, and he’s suffering from the fact that his central nervous system is failing due to a techno-organic virus he has contracted. Man, does Marvel love them some techno-organic viruses! I’ll bet that sounded real cutting edge back in 1993, as all of their books seemed to have a major T-O threat. Long story short, Tony’s dying, and there doesn’t seem to be a cure. He knows he’s in his final days, but just as he’s wallowing in his pity party, he finds himself zapped to the 28th century. There, he meets The Stark: a race of aliens who worship Tony Stark as a god, due to the fact that one of his spaceships will eventually crash on their world (which is their past; stupid time travel!). In any case, the Stark’s world is on the brink of collapse, as they didn’t take good care of it. Basically, it’s an eco parable. Since Tony’s their god, they brought him to their time to solve their problems. He doesn’t want their destruction to be his legacy, he uses the rest of his days to solve their problems. There’s a final attack, and he’s sent back to his time, with no memory of the trip, plus he’s now closer to death.

Next, we see a shadowy cabinet doing what shadowy cabinets always do in this book: plotting a takeover of Stark Enterprises. They create a Chernobyl-like event, and then frame Stark Enterprises for the accident. Again, dying Tony doesn’t want this as his legacy, so he uses a remote-controlled Iron Man suit to go clear his name. He ends up fighting the Masters of Silence, a trio of techno samurai, who’ve been hired by the Yakuza to kill Stark for causing the nuclear accident. Tony convinces them that the Yakuza lied, and he and the Masters take the fight back to the Yakuza. It’s at this point that he unveils the War Machine armor: sleek and silver, with more firepower than any prior Iron Man suit.

While Tony’s fighting, he makes a very important operational change: he needs info on who may have framed him, so he charges Rhodes with using their intelligence connections to get information. When Rhodes reminds him that nobody’s gonna share secrets with a helicopter pilot, Tony promotes him to VP of Operations. With his new position, Rhodes finds out that the person behind all of this is Justin Hammer (from Demon In A Bottle) DUN DUN DUNNNN! Turns out Hammer was trying to defraud Stark Enterprises so that he, along with 5 other organizations, could split up the company for themselves. Anyway, Tony and the Masters of Silence strong-arm him into surrendering, at which point Tony gets back Stane Industries (formerly known as Stark Industries, his old company). So, it’s like Tony put right a very big wrong from his past. And then he dies.

Rhodes grieves along with the rest of the world, as word breaks that Tony Stark has passed away. As an interesting aside, the news even reports a rumor that Tony may have succumbed to the AIDS virus. Yeah, really. Anyway, remember that seemingly impulsive promotion that Tony gave Rhodes? Well, guess who’s now the head of Stark Enterprises! Yeah, Tony left a holo-will (SO futuristic!), leaving Rhodey as the head of the company but, more importantly, asking him to take over for him as War Machine. It seems that the armor was actually developed with Rhodey’s specs in mind, and the world still needs an Iron Man. Rhodey’s pissed that Tony put him in that position, but he eventually agrees. But what’s this we see, as the issue ends? Turns out Tony’s not DEAD dead. Sure, he’s got no vitals, but he’s been cryogenically frozen by his med team, for reasons unknown.

Next, a gang of villains attacks Tony’s memorial service, slamming an exploding chopper into Stark HQ. Rhodey makes his debut as War Machine and saves the day. However, the Avengers West Coast (of which Tony was a member at the time of his death) end up returning to Earth at just that moment, and they realize the Iron Man they see isn’t any Iron Man they know about. So, a fight breaks out between War Machine and the AWC, as these misunderstandings are prone to occur. Both sides iron things out (hey, that’s a pun!) and realize they’re both on the side of angels. It’s at this point that we start to learn more about Rhodey.

The most interesting part about Rhodes is the focus on his interpersonal relationships. I think it’s always hard writing a romantic interest for a black character in comics. Do you give him a black girlfriend, or do you go off the grid with something “kooky”? God forbid you make her white! On twitter today, I was comparing the token blacks of the Big 2: Rhodey vs. GL John Stewart. When it came to relationships for Stewart, DC took the easy way out: he got to marry an alien. A pink alien, at that, so she’s still “colored”. Oh, and the Justice League cartoon? Another alien: Hawkgirl. She’s white, but she’s got wings; it’s like dating a sexy can of Red Bull. Rhodey, however, hasn’t had it easy, and it shows. I think, due to his position as Tony’s pilot, he felt that people may have seen him as a bit of an Uncle Tom. The character, himself, is cool as a cucumber, but whenever another black character shows up, it’s like they make a point of making him feel uncomfortable about his subservience to Tony. Even when he had his black girlfriend, Marcy, she kinda made him feel like shit ’cause she was a cutthroat executive at Stark, while he was an air chauffeur. During this storyline, he cuts her loose, due to the fact that she wants his job, but he quickly rebounds with Tony’s blond friend, Rae LaCoste. To say that Ms. LaCoste is “aggressive” would be an understatement, but let’s just say that he’s fucking her within an issue. In fact, she gets so close to him so quickly that I was SURE she’d turn out to be working for Justin Hammer or something (if that was the case, it’s not revealed in this collection). You can tell he’s uneasy about this, though, as he reminds her “this complexion doesn’t come from Coppertone”. She tells him she likes it and doesn’t care, and Mandingo Fuck Party 23 resumes where it left off.

In any case, Rhodey does a great job both running Stark and as War Machine, but something’s going on in the background that he doesn’t know about. You see, Tony’s not dead, and only his med team knows. He’s been in cryogenic stasis, and sort of reliving old memories. His central nervous system is gone, but they think they can reprogram the T-O virus to replicate his CNS into something even better than what he had before. Then, his body will reboot itself just like an operating system. Sound familiar? It should, if you’ve been reading Marvel for the past year. If not, here’s the long and short of it: Tony Stark hid the identities of most of the Marvel heroes in his head (longer story), and Norman Osborn became the most powerful man in Homeland Security (even longer story) and wanted that information. To keep it out of enemy hands, Tony wiped his mind, like a hard drive. He was near death, but left a plan for his friends to reboot him like an operating system. In the meantime, he’s kinda reliving his life in his subconscious. Oh, and he asked Rhodes to carry on the fight for him, as War Machine. Yup, “everything old is new again”. Anyway, back to War Machine.

Once Rhodes finds out about Tony, he feels betrayed and quits angrily. Tony kinda feels bad, but feels justified because he thought that the ignorance would serve to protect Rhodey in the long run. He, then, debuts his NEW armor (back in this day, Tony seemed to go through armor like clean underwear. There were only subtle changes each time), which resembled his classic red & gold suit, but allowed him to control it remotely from his hospital bed, as he hadn’t regained motor functions. Tony, again, apologizes to Rhodes and tells him that he wants him to keep the War Machine suit. As the storyline ends, Rhodey’s making a call to the Avengers West Coast, implying that he’s going to join up.

Unlike Demon In A Bottle, I felt that this collection provided a satisfying beginning, middle, and end. For a book called War Machine, the armor was appropriately featured in most issues, and not just at the end. In some ways, I feel that I missed out by reading this in collected form. I can only imagine how big of a deal it was to read this back when it was originally published in sequential form. This was the early 90s, and everyone was trying to one-up the next guy. If comics weren’t featuring deaths, they were featuring new armor and trading card inserts. Tony had been in deep shit before, but he hadn’t quite DIED. For a full year, Rhodes took his place. In a pre-Internet society, this must’ve driven fandom apeshit! I remember how I felt when the “Age of Apocalypse” replaced the X books, and I’ll bet this was the same for Iron Man loyalists. In all, it’s a good read, and a great resource for anyone looking to get some insight on the only man Tony Stark trusts to carry on his legacy.

Adventures West Coast #1: Iron Man: Demon In A Bottle

Welcome to the first installment of Adventures West Coast! I won’t really be covering the books in any particular order, so this seemed to be as good a place to start as any. This time around, we’re looking at Iron Man: Demon In A Bottle, a 1979 storyline written by Dave Michelinie, with art by Bob Layton and John Romita Jr.

Before we get to the book, let’s lay a little groundwork. I was telling a friend today that Marvel is the comic universe where a character is defined by ONE action, and can’t ever seem to shake that reputation. A lot of this might have to do with the fact that DC reboots their universe every 10 years, so they can just retcon any action they, in hindsight, feel was a mistake. Sure, Superman died, but that’s only part of his story. That’s pretty much been forgotten at this point. A quake ravaged Gotham City to the point where martial law was declared, and the city was no longer recognized as a part of the United States, but you’d never know it to see it now. Marvel, unfortunately, can’t seem to afford that luxury. Hank Pym hit his wife ONCE, and now he’s the official wife beater of comics (I’m not excusing the action; I’m just saying that there’s not much of a domestic abuse history to the character besides that one time). Tony Stark leads a playboy lifestyle, and all of a sudden, he’s an alcoholic. Demon In A Bottle documents the moment at which Tony realized he had a problem, characterizing him as “the character with a drinking problem”, a reputation that he holds to this day. The problem with this, however, is that there isn’t much of a history of him having this problem prior to the storyline. If anything, it feels like a poor attempt at forcing a “very special issue”, which was the goal in that day and age.

Considering that Demon In A Bottle is supposed to be all about Tony’s descent into the alcoholism, you really wouldn’t get that impression by reading the collected edition. The collection starts off, conveniently enough, with an impromptu team-up with Namor, the Submariner. Tony’s a bit worse for wear, as he’s dealing with the fact that S.H.I.E.L.D. is trying to usurp control of Stark International via a hostile takeover. To make matters worse, the Iron Man armor has been malfunctioning, so it’s a bit unpredictable. Despite all of this, Tony and Namor defeat a bunch of Roxxon mercenaries who are trying to mine the vibranium located on an uncharted island. This team-up takes place over the course of 2 issues, followed by a flashback issue recounting Iron Man’s origin story. If you’ve seen the movie, then you pretty much know how this plays out (except, in the comic, Iron Man challenges the head of the prison camp to a wrestling match, rather than using the armor to blow everyone up).

By the fourth issue, Tony’s back in New York, running tests on the armor in order to figure out why it has been acting up. Now, let me say that there are brief moments where Tony’ll pour himself a drink, and whoever’s around will make a remark like “Isn’t it a little early?” Or “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” He’s still high functioning, and he manages to take care of business, while also taking a trip to Atlantic City with his girl-of-the-moment, Bethany Cabe. Of course, the casino gets attacked, and Iron Man has to hold his own against a group of villains working for a mysterious benefactor. This all comes to a head in issue five, where Iron Man’s suit malfunctions at the worst time, causing him to kill a visiting ambassador on live television. Because cops in comics are so cooperative, they allow Iron Man to pull “an OJ”, so that he can “go search for the real killers”. Due to the shock of recent events, Tony goes on a bit of a whiskey bender, and finds himself on the Avengers’ doorstep.

Here’s where things get interesting: in today’s comic world, we take secret identities for granted. We tend to think everyone knows Tony Stark is Iron Man, just as everyone knows Steve Rogers is Captain America. These revelations, however, are recent events. At this time in the comics, Tony Stark is just the Avengers’ financier. They live in his mansion, and his “bodyguard”, Iron Man, is a member of their team. So, Tony shows up to the mansion, to inform the team that his “bodyguard” will no longer be effective as their team leader. He also takes the time to get Cap to teach him some hand-to-hand combat skills, since he’s going to have to go after his enemies as plain ol’ Tony Stark.

Next, Tony, and his pilot, Jim Rhodes, find themselves in Monaco, on the trail of Justin Hammer, the man behind the casino attack. Once they track him down, they find out that Hammer’s a Stark competitor in the industrial sector, and he sabotaged the Iron Man suit because he was upset that the ambassador’s country had granted Stark an important contract. Anyway, long story short, Tony’s got a spare suit, he kicks some ass, and Hammer’s believed to be dead, as his island estate sinks to the bottom of the ocean. Once Tony gets back home, he finds that the public still fears him, seeing as how they watched him kill a guy on TV. With his company’s reputation in shambles, combined with the fact that S.H.I.E.L.D.’s still trying to buy controlling interest in his company, Tony goes on another bit of a bender. This time, he brings some floozy back to Avengers Mansion, and berates trusty butler, Jarvis, in the process. He passes out on his desk, only to be awakened by Jarvis tendering his resignation. “I’m so excited! I’m so excited! I’m so…scared.”

The final issue is where Tony actually faces the titular demon. A drunken Iron Man ends up making a bad situation worse, when he botches a rescue concerning a derailed chemical train. Finally, Bethany (remember her?) decides that it’s intervention time, ’cause she apparently had an ex-husband who was a pill popper; he ended up driving over a cliff. She tells Tony that she’s there to help him, and Tony proceeds to go cold turkey, kicking his alcoholism in 1 week. ONE WEEK. Sign me up for THAT rehab! That’s almost as impressive as the time that Jack Bauer kicked heroin in ONE DAY.

Anyway, Tony gets his shit together and goes to apologize to Jarvis. Oh, and remember how S.H.I.E.L.D. was after Stark Industries? It appears the only thing stopping them was the fact that Jarvis owned 2 shares, which had been a gift to commemorate his years of service. Well, guess who just sold his 2 shares of stock? So, Tony throws on the armor, tries to shakedown the loan shark, but it’s too late. The shares were already sold to a government rep that morning. So, it looks like S.H.I.E.L.D. is gonna end up with Stark Industries. That’s enough to drive a guy back to the bottle! Tony, however, doesn’t need that. He realizes that he’s got the power of…friendship, and that he’ll win in the end. Meh.

So, there you have it. That’s the whole reason we think of Tony Stark as this raging alcoholic. The Man was trying to stick him for his papers, and he resorted to some liquid medication. I get that he was on the highway to the danger zone, but I don’t think there was enough evidence that he was an alcoholic, per se. You’ve got to understand the era. The character was created in the 60s. Now, I don’t know if Mad Men‘s lying to me, but that’s what men did back then: they drank. All of a sudden, we get to the 70s, and everyone’s expectations are changing. Too many drinks, and you’re an alcoholic. Comics in that day were always preaching about the dangers of smoking, shootin’ up, and, apparently, drinking.

If this storyline highlighted a one-time thing, I’d say “That was a good story”. Unfortunately, this 9-part storyline only contains 1 issue of pseudo-alcoholism, and has been responsible for the past 30 years of Tony Stark’s characterization. If you’re going to introduce something that major, you can’t just have him kick the habit in one issue. It’s like they changed their minds once the story was approved. It’s still that elephant in the room, when writers run out of stories. “Uh-oh, Tony’s kinda stressed. Wonder if he’s gonna hit the bottle.” Ya know what, considering all the stuff Tony Stark has to deal with, he DESERVES to hit the bottle. Most of the villains he fights are either created by his own stolen tech, or are the direct result of some mistake he made in the past. I think that’s enough to drive a person to alcoholism, but I don’t feel that this storyline realistically portrayed that happening. Yes, I just used “realistically” to describe a comic book, but we’re talking about something that’s had a lasting impact for the past 30 years! For that, I feel this book’s bark is a lot worse than its bite.