Amazing Spider... Mouse?!

Orignal story here, via Reuters.

I've been waiting for more news to post a real follow-up announcement about this, but there's really so little to tell. Everything I've read is really idle speculation.

In fact, if its any indication from his Twitter, even EIC Joe Quesada really has no idea what's going to happen in the Disney/Marvel merger. Many voices are derisive, though some, like Stan Lee, give it a blessing.... though, Stan hasn't been with the company for years, so take that with a grain of salt.

The most interesting views on the merger have been these:

- Constant and Faithful Marvel stock-backer The Motley Fool has expressed bewilderment and sadness, claiming that Marvel could have grown by more strides alone, and that if they were going to sell, they sold far too cheaply.

- Matt Seinreich, producer of Robot Chicken (and aire to Walt Seinreich, former Disney board member) gives a more fair and optimistic view, noting that not all of Marvel's latest projects have been good, and though they brought in slim returns, a single misstep much larger than, say, Ghost Rider, could have well sunk their franchise. Disney's fat cash gives Marvel the financial freedom to be a little more creative, and hopefully find their stride.

- Time Warner is obviously worried about the Merger, having immediately formed DC Entertainment, absorbing their own Comics branch directly into TW management. The effects of this are more immediately felt, as DC EIC Paul Levitz is moved to 'Publishing Advisor' and corporate takes over the EIC position, though the promotion of Harry Potter brand manager Dianne Nelson. Also as a result, DC has announed a new slate of films including Lobo. This is cool and all, but I hope they don't feel the need to slap-dash the films together. Taking their time with Batman and, arguably, Superman Returns has worked well so far. In fact, I'm more concerned about loss of quality from this move than from Disney.

- Its pointed out that, no matter what the changes, we won't see the results for sometime. Most of Marvel's film properties are already signed over to other companies for distribution for ages. With that in mind, it makes more sense why Marvel's board would sell: 4 billion in their pocket, and they still collect paychecks from many of Marvel's pre-established contracts. Regardless, the publishing arm will be the first to show changes, if any. Marvel also just recalled its animated Spectacular Spider-Man back from Sony, so expect a new series with Disney backing soon enough. In fact, Disney is now airing the first two seasons of that show.

Everyone seems to be worried in the fan-boy community. So many are afraid that Disney will neuter their favorite characters or instill a loss of quality on their favorite titles. I have two points to refute that.

First, have a good look at Pixar. I grant you, they tend to make more family friendly fare, anyway, but since their absorption by Disney, they claim to have been able to keep their creative integrity intact with a relative minimum of corporate interference. Disney has really purchased Pixar in order to capitalize on the branding. I don't think Marvel's buyout is any exception to that.
It seems to me that this can only be an attempt by Disney to 1. Profit on their purchase through merchandising. And Disney will Merchandise the shit out of Marvel. Hell, their characters are already on everything, now Disney just gets a cut. 2. Change their image. Afterall, we're all so afraid that Disney will turn comics all kiddy (because they're SO adult, right guys? I mean, they aren't failing because kids aren't picking up books anymore, right? Right?) But perhaps Disney just wants to show they are capable of grabbing the juvenile male audience as well, and that not everything has to be tainted by Donald and Goofy.
Certainly, when we think Disney, we dont' think of anything but the themepark and talking animals. Does Disney remind you of a huge corporate empire that produces varied entertainments?
How about this; Disney owns Touchstone Pictures. They don't slap their brand on it, as it might corrput the kid-friendly Disney label, but make no mistake, the following films were Produced by Disney: Apocolypto, The Prestige, The Life Aquatic, Royal Tenenbaums, 25th Hour, O Brother Where Art Thou, 13th Warrior, Con Air, and more. Not all are gems, but they have shown a history of letting good films be produced by quality creators.
And for those afraid of Disney Marvel crossovers, I remind you that it didn't take Disney to approve Punisher Meets Archie.

Second major point: have Marvel's comics been all that good lately? I grant you, I'm a bit apprehensive myself that the few MAX titles like Punisher might be censored; but I can't deny that Marvel's been mismanaging their brand for a few years now, and could maybe benefit from an outside party with a longer history of succesful business practice to have a look at what's working and what isn't.
For instance: Spider-Man selling his past to the devil to resurrect his 80+ year old Aunt, probably for a couple years at best. Nothing says heroism and love like condemning your wife to a hellish half-life and magically bringing your dead, ever-tormented best friend back from the grave to suffer again so that your Aunt, who's already died once, can get a couple extra runs around the track.
And when was the last time that X-Men was readable? Ah yes, when Joss Whedon wrote the book. Those were great issues...when they came out...perhaps once every four months.
The fact is that for all the bitching and moaning the fan-community does about their comic content being altered, Marvels sales have been slowly tanking month after month for ages. The bleeding was staunched briefly by the acts of Jiminez and Quesada, but even their decisions have been far from foolproof, and even the best selling books move at a fraction of what they did 15 years ago.
Would it be a bad thing if Disney noticed that super violent titles like Moon Knight are amongst the few still sold on Newsstands, and maybe replaced them with high-quality, all-ages titles like Runaways to try to entice some new readers? Maybe they should be looking at Shonen Jump's lower-quality, very readable format that rivals Marvel's top-selling titles, has a younger (re: longer-lived) audience, and has a far more accessible price point. One 250+ page issue of Shonen Jump costs the same as 2 of Marvel's 28 page issues.

As I said, its all speculation. I can't say I'm not a little apprehensive about the move, but then, Marvel really has nowhere to go from here but up. Marvel's movies have been doing well, but they are hardly reaching all the markets they could as fast as they could be. And the publishing arm, the core of the creative development of all those spin-off developments, has been imploding for years. Between lack of editorial guidance, higher price points for less content, high-profile creators refusing to release books on time, and generally poor productions, without help, its only a matter of time before Marvel Comics falls apart. The same could be said for DC. Perhaps this is just the shot in the arm they need.

This Week in Pop 8/27/2009

You know its the end of the Summer release schedule when Las Vegas doesn't have a wide press screening. Last weekend, the season did end with a fair bang with Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (more below) and after that... *chirp chirp*

Not to say that there aren't a couple of exciting things on the upcoming film slate: Gamer doesn't look to break any new ground, but it does follow a proud tradition of “Death Row Inmates in Game Shows” genre films including Running Man, The Condemned, and Death Race. I'm beginning to think this genre exists not as a cynical observation of our society by the film industry, but as advertising for a pretty cool idea.

The Tim Burton produced '9' could be fun as well, though Tim's films always feel a little flat to me, more style over substance. Still, they tend to be different enough that they still end up earning my matinee dollars. Aside from this, the summer ends with a decided whimper. Halloween 2 looks okay, but after the crap-fest of the first one, I think I'll pass.

Nothing really gets my pulse racing until October's first weekend, when A Serious Man is released. The Coen brothers are two of my favorites, and very consistent filmmakers, with a few exceptions. The premise is another of those that sounds meandering and plain, but the film benefits from one of the coolest trailers ever. Its got my money at least once. In fact, with that, The Road, and Where the Wild Things Are, October looks to be a good month. September, why you gotta suck?

Its a good month to go back through your DVD watch piles, or maybe finish up a video game or two.

In the meantime, here's what I took in this week:

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

A title with not one but two words, neither of which are recognized by my spell-check. Neat.
I'd like to say 'if you like QT movies, you know you'll like this one', but Tarantino's style has changed quite a bit in recent years. Not that he's even really directed that many movies, mind you. Tarantino had directed, in their entirety, seven movies. I know, only seven? And that's counting Kill Bill as two films. His name seems to get around a lot, mostly from producing shows, or directing segments in other films, like Four Room and Sin City.

Though considering Reservoir Dogs was his first feature, that's a hell of a track record. With the exception of perhaps Death Proof (part of Grindhouse), all of his films are critical and commercial successes, and Death Proof does has its fans.

The split comes between Jackie Brown and Kill Bill. I think I'll forever regard Kill Bill as QT's transition movie. Initially, everything Tarantino did had a huge amount of energy to it. Sure, he had a lot of dialogue and establishing shots and the niche music, all those elements were there and lingered on briefly, but there was action and violence in everything he touched. Every second of it. Even the films he helped produce, like Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn was a frenzy of boobs and blood.

Kill Bill was the turning point. Given his dynamite track record, the studios let QT do whatever he wanted with his film, and what came out of it was this tremendous, self-indulgent film, so long it was split in two, that somehow also ended up as a tremendous piece of action cinema. But while Kill Bill 1 seemed true to form, Kill Bill 2, and the two movies when taken as a whole, mark the change. The energy is gone. The tone shifts from constant, frantic energy to slow building tension, a stronger focus on dialogue and mood.

If Kill Bill 2's drastic change in pace from its predecessor wasn't proof enough, one only has to look to Death Proof, an almost painfully slow-moving film that, despite the premise of the Grindhouse label, refuses to not develop all of its characters into three dimensional beings through tremendous blocks of coffee-shop banter. The end of the film is a marvel to behold. I'm not a fan of the tedium of the character intros. But it does showcase QT's new meticulous brand of characterization, and a type of shot-building lifted from old European maestros.
This style is maintained in Inglorious Basterds. (You see how long this review's intro was? Now that's a parallel!) The movie consists of five chapters, each one building towards an explosive conclusion. If the ending of the movie is dynamite, then each scene is the slow sizzle of a spark down the fuse. Tension mounts and mounts and mounts in every moment. I can't help but feel that some people will miss it.

This isn't like Tarantino's old work. This is no Pulp Fiction. I can't help but think that many of his fans are looking for another frenetic rush of drugs and guns or samurai action like the old days. But take chapter one, for example. A farmer in the fields of Nazi-occupied France. A small troop of Nazi soldiers comes to his door. His daughters run inside, worried. The man himself obviously wears worry on his brow, but plays it cool. The Nazi commander comes to the man, greets him casually, and takes him inside and...they talk. For a solid twenty minutes, it seems, they talk. They smoke pipes. They drink milk. Each of the farmer's three daughters are introduced individually, and talked about. Then several Jewish families from the area are talked about in great detail. Hell, its halfway through this scene before the first laugh is even given to the audience.

There will be many who miss the tension in this scene until it slaps them in the face. Many will miss the nuance of the performers' expressions, and the circular patterns in the dialogue that broadcast from so far away what is going to happen in this scene. Is there a Jewish family hidden under the floor? Yes. And the only way this scene can end is explosively. But there's no movement, there's no action, there's no Basterds. Really, this movie could have been called Inglourious Guys Who Are In About Half the Movie.

But is it a little bit genius? Oh hell yes. For those with a bit of patience, this slow-burning fuse culminates in a fury of blood, fire, and violence. The audience will laugh, and wince, and have reason to cheer, but so much focus in placed on the mounting tension of dialogue... I don't want to say its over peoples' heads, but I don't think its what they expect. Still, its a damn good movie, and it will take you by surprise, especially in that aforementioned climax.

As fun as he is in this movie, Brad Pitt is not the star, at least not for me. A standing ovation for Christoph Waltz, who plays Hans Landa, probably my favorite villain of the year. At various points in this film, Landa is suave, sinister, hilarious, and genius. His dialogue is insidious and delivered perfectly in four languages, and in all those scenes where the coals are lit for a slow burn, it is almost always Landa who ignites them. There isn't a single scene this man doesn't steal, and I hope to see Waltz in many more films.

Solid work from Tarantino all around. I do find myself hoping he doesn't indulge so far as to make more Death Proofs though. There is a line that can be crossed.

FRIGHTENERS (1996)

District 9 inspired me to go back and watch the Director's cut of this film. I'm glad to have that cut of the movie to get all the cut scenes and stories behind them... but this version is weaker than the theatrical. More time used getting to know secondary ghost characters really did deserve to end up on the cutting room floor.

Still, its a fun movie overall, worth checking out if you haven't. As much as I enjoyed its mix of horror and humor (very similar to District 9 in respect to tone, if you did enjoy that one) something has always been missing from this film, something that made it seem just a little off. I wasn't inspired to buy it until I got it for $5 if that tells you anything. Listening to commentary, it seems that, aside from tremendous cuts made by the MPAA censorship board, the film also suffered from its time-frame. The studio wanted it done fast, and Jackson didn't want to lose that studio cash, so the movie wasn't even written when it was being filmed.

Its makes me wonder how often that happens in Hollywood. Every day, Jackson and his wife would write, and review the script, and have the cast and crew help them add jokes and find continuity errors that they had to fill.

Somehow, the film came out okay, something worthy of a good Halloween romp that's a little funny, and a little scary. Historic, in film terms, as this is the film that launched WETA, and gave Jackson the green-light to make the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Michael J Fox and Jeffery Combs are both great in this one, to boot.

I miss Fox being on screen. I'm watching some Family Ties after this...

FIST OF THE NORTH STAR (1984) (TV)

At long last, I'm getting around to watching the complete animated epic from which one of my favorite anime features is drawn. Thank you Hulu.com for hosting the entire series, completely free. Their anime selection is growing nicely, if you need to go get a fix.

This series is 25 years old (27 if you count the manga), an amazing fact. Its still going in Japan, as far as side stories being written and animated. You know you've hit the jackpot, creatively, when you've made a character that can walk through the desert doing the same thing every week for 25 years, and people never seem to get tired of watching him do it. I know I don't. Buronson, the author, has basically had one story to tell, and told it a thousand times over, and in doing so has made a living and a legacy for himself.

As if that wasn't crazy enough, its based on Mad Max with Chinese philosophy added for seasoning. Based on someone else's creation? Buronson, you mad genius. As it so happens, I love Mad Max too, so I guess that's part of the attraction.

For those who aren't aware of this masterpiece, it takes place in Post-Apocalyptic Earth, where guns and most advanced weapons are a thing of the past, and the fist is now the strongest weapon. A martial artist, Kenshiro, wanders the land in search of his kidnapped fiancee, Yuria, while trying to restore peace with his deadly Kung-Fu. The gimmick? His martial art uses pressure points to blow peoples' heads apart, amongst other grisly abilities.

More recent renditions of this tale have shown Buronson to be more interested now in the philosophical points brought about by a blasted-hearth landscape, and the notion of healing the world through violence. There's depth to it. This original series is, so far (I'm at episode 37) distinctly lacking that. Ken wanders around from place to place, nigh invincible, beating the shit out of everything remotely evil. And there's plenty of evil to go around. Rape-happy biker punks seem to out-number normal people 100-1, and no matter how many Ken slaughters, there are always more to go around. Some of them havThe '86 movie e razor-blade mohawks or other such bizarre fighting techniques. And of course, all of this is set to an awesome 80's funk orchestra.

Its a lot of fun to watch, I dig post-apocalypse stories anyway, but it makes me wish there were a 'perfect' version of this story. The series is full of completely cheesy moments and a lot of meandering story arcs. is incredible, except for the completely crappy ending, a typical anime fault of coming out before the comic series was complete, and not wanting to give away the ending. New versions of the story are pretty decent, but lacking in the frenzied pace and visual creativity of the original.

All of the versions are worth watching for something (except for the terrible US live action version. Chris Penn, really?), so I guess you just have to watch all of its forms and pick the story elements you like from each and mix them together. In my head, I've compiled a truly awesome epic.

SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS (1941)

I wish I could say more about this movie. Its old. Its charming.

Sullivan, a director, wants to make a drama about the plight of depression era suffering. He poses as a homeless man, travels about, and in an odd twist, gets arrested for assaulting a rail-worker with a rock. Along the way, there's a comedy of errors, and a love story.

Its about what you would expect, but that's by no means bad. There's a lot of great dialogue delivered at break-neck pace, as was the style of the time, and a lot of optimistic naivety that is pretty endearing. If nothing else, Veronica Lake is pretty much adorable as The Girl.

Its just cute. If you like old-timey movies, its a good pick-up, though it can't come close to the with or romance of classics like Philadelphia Story

Two hour of my life widdled away writing all of this, but yours is now more enriched for it. Go find these flicks and benefit yourself further.

Dr Strange and the Inhumans, the first real content

( A quick note, the above image is NOT the original Dr. Strange cover! It is part of a series of wonderful reproductions by Howard Hallis. Check out his work here.)

It was some time ago that I was asked by the legendary Neilalien to take an email discussion we'd had and turn it into a blog that he might link to his page. Now that I have a new forum, here it is.

The issue at hand is the removal of the title of Sorcerer Supreme from Marvel's character Dr. Strange, his replacement in that role by Brother Voodoo, and the percieved nutering of the good Doctor. Neil is essentially THE voice of the Dr. Strange fan community, and a top authority of his heroic exploits. This replacement follows a series of events over a three or four year cycle that have essentially neutered Dr. Strange and, many argue, creating a waste of his character.

If you don't know who he is, check here. Really, he's a pretty fascinating read in the right hands, his early arcs are especially enchanting.

From the writers' standpoint, the problem has been that Dr. Strange is simply too powerful. Magic, in the Marvel Universe, is something that has no clear definition, and no certain limits. In the past 40+ years, Doc has been seen doing so many things with magic, that it seems there's nothing he can't accomplish with the flick of his wrist. Of course, perhaps the same could be said of his magical nemeses, and when they battle, mystical colored bolts dart across every panel. But Doc doesn't have his own book currently, and so the issue for the writers is the way that Dr Strange's powers work on typical superhero problems.

Because Doc has been seen warping reality in so many ways by this point, he has either two functions in a story. Either he 1: Acts as Deus Ex Machina, stepping in and quickly whisking away the problem with barely a thought and a twitch of his excellent moustache or 2: The probelm somehow is immune to magic, and Doc seems totally inept.

An interesting side note: for a character that all modern Marvel writers complain about writing for (except for, perhaps, my hero Brian K Vaughn) Strange has gotten a lot of prominent coverage these last couple years, just in very unflattering ways. As a young collector, I rarely saw Strange in any book other than his own. Now, as an orphan, he appears in every other title to, well, here's some examples...

In the highly publicized Civil War story arc, Dr Strange did a pretty cool trick where he masks the anti-registration team from detection, a trick he will continue to use for a long time in New Avengers, but when the chips are down, and they could really use Strange to teleport some bad guys, or shoot some energy blasts... his powers mysteriously leave him. Again in World War Hulk, Strange has been seen teleporting Hulk off of Earth in order to stop him from rampaging through New York, yet now that Hulk is threating to smash all of the world to assuage his fury, Strange seems suddenly powerless... because to have him use that power would abruptly end a major story arc. Rather than take the time to write in a moral delimma where Doc feels it wrong to simply banish Hulk again, the writers felt the need to cut off his powers again. A mystical castration, if you will.

Has Dr Strange gotten too powerful for writers to handle? The same question has been plaguing Superman for years: how do you write about a seemingly omnipotent character and make him seem to be in enough peril to excite your audience? Brian K Vaughn proved in his The Oath story that you can imperil Strange; his story featured Doc getting shot by an assassin with a cursed gun. But Doc is still ridiculously quick when it comes to disposing of evil doers. He can blast them, teleport them away, erase their mind, whatever, and most characters in the Marvel U are almost completely helpless against magic.

And there's what I think the problem to be. Its not the writers, its not that Doc is too powerful, its that he's being written as a part of the Marvel Universe. As a superhero. Now don't get me wrong, I love to see Doc come out and help Spider-Man once in a while. Interconnectivity has been a strong point of the Marvel Universe for...well, its kinda not now, but it once was one of the greatest things about Marvel. The heroes were friends. What happened in one book really effected the next. But with Doc, the challenges that face Superheroes are simply not his challenges. And if the writers can't get around how his powers erase that problem then he simply should not be there. Its not so hard.

Really, think about the position Doc's mythology puts him in. He's the Sorcerer Supreme, the one magic dude among all magic dudes who defends our dimension from darkness and the tyranny of other magic dimensions. That means that Mephisto and Dormammu and every demon ever, as well as every magic user that might be a bad guy, Doc has to keep tabs on and battle. Daily.

Has Marvel's editorial staff ever stopped to consider how large of a task this is? The entire dimension. One guy. And yet they have him living in New York helping fight off something as insignifigant as a political dispute between Iron Man and Captain America. He defends the entire cosmos. So, if some demon tries to break in through a crack in the universe in a solar system 3 million light years away, guess who has to teleport out there and fight it. Yeah, Doc. Why are all the evil sorcerers we've seen from Earth? There are hundreds of established alien races in Marvel's universe. Why hasn't Doc ever had to go fight a Brood sorcerer? Sure, Doc has floated into alien dimensions to get relics befrore, but how often do we really see the scope of him having to defend every world that ever was in our universe from obliteration? If ever there should have been a cosmic hero, it is Doc.

Moreso, even, than a lack of scope on the point of the writers is a complete misapplication of tone. Doc Strange is an odd addition to a world where men dress in masks and tights and get in fist fights with bank robbers. That's not Doc's world. Doc is a man who uses ancient energies beyond understanding to battle beings made of anti-matter who would suck the brains out of the heads of all humans if they got their tentacled booties through the gateway. Yet, these spandex-wearing heroes are the contemporary of Doc, and so writers keep trying to have him don tights and join the battle against common crooks. Docs mission makes Earth crime irrelevant. His mission is horrifying in concept. Most writers are just unable to apply the feeling of awe these alien worlds should generate, the feeling of total terror these God-defying creatures he battles should truly inspire. Ditko and other early influences on Doc in the trippy 60's seemed to have the right idea, when huge story arcs would be spent off world engaged with alien intelligences, but over time, most writers seem to have simply missed the point.

Look at DC for an appropriate use of magic in story-telling. While their Vertigo line has faded from prominence now, in its heyday, magic-based stories centered around Swamp Thing, Constantine, Preacher, and of course Sandman were lighting up sales racks with their imaginative and adult oriented story-telling. Constantine (Hellblazer Comics) may be the best analog here, as he's one normal human, versed in the ways of sorcery and magic, trying to keep the forces of darkness away from Earth. Now, Constantine's character is quite different from the Doc, and the scope of his mission is more focused, but here you have a character that exists in a superhero universe and has interacted with the likes of Batman that has never lost focus of the themes of his story. In Constantine's mythos, he sees a side of the world someone like Batman would be totally helpless against, a piece of the world that no one else can see; its horrific, and he's in it to protect the light, albeit in a somewhat selfish manner. Now, Constantine's power levels are more manageable than Dr Strange's, but the real rub that had kept him in print so long is that at no point has he tried to use his powers to fight The Penguin or other mundane criminals. Constantine deals with magic, a concept that is, even to most people in our own everday life, a concept that is frightening and alien. Bunnies from hats and Mindfreaks aside, if you pull out a book of Magick in our world, even one so far removed from superstition, most will stare, many will move away from you in abhorration, and I've found from personal experience that your parents will chuck them out the window. Constantine's writers never lost focus of the idea that Magic is a frightening thing to most people, dealing with concepts and cosmic-scopes that should never fail to amaze and revolt us at the same time. Vertigo's magic series' creative teams packed every issue with images both beautiful and grotesque to great results.

Marvel tried to capture this same series with their Spirits of Vengeance, Darkhold, Ghost Rider and other occult-based stories, but those went down in flames just the same as Doc's books. Even the movie marketed Blade can't maintain an ongoing series. And it seems that its because all of those 'occult' books still boil down to the same thing: guys in costumes, fighting other guys in costumes. Villain of the week stuff. I mean, what did the Darkhold, a group of paranormal investigators, do? Fight Modred the Mystic? Even their attempts to introduce concepts such as Lillith into Marvel degenerated to a chick with a funny head in purple spandex; their magic expressed as energy bolts no different those generated by the mutant powers of Cyclops.

I sympathise with Neilalien on the matter, as I think a similar problem persists for my favorite series of Marvel Characters, The Inhumans. Orignally introduced in 1966 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby as Fantastic Four supporting characters, The Inhumans immediately became popular, and were regularly occuring guest stars in that title, among others. The FF were constantly brought in to ally themselves with Black Bolt against the forces of his tyrannical brother Maximus in their battle for the throne. Human Torch's love affair with Crystal of the Inhuman tribe assured that they would appear at least once a year for the duration of the Kirby/Lee cycle.

But when given their own title, the Inhumans flopped, cancelled after only one year. Marvel kept trying with new Mini-series and regular stings in the back of What Ifs and Marvel Comics Presents, but the Inhumans never really picked up until the late 90's when Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee seemed to come across a solution to the Inhuman publication problem.

You see, the Fantastic Four, in their Golden Era, were not just superheroes but explorers. Jack Kirby was a pretty high-concept creator, and the FF fought not only superpowered bank heisters and Megalomaniacal scientists, but they also sought out and explored new dimensions, new alien worlds, new societies, and Mr. Fantastic's superior intellect is often what allowed the team to adapt to and survive interaction with these new peoples. (Reed's ability to intelligently converse with people and socialize seems to have vanished over the last 40 years) And this is what the Inhumans were in those books, a new and interesting society.

New artists tried to take the Inhumans into their own book, they didn't look at the concept, they saw a bunch of super-powered guys in crazy costumes; they saw superheroes. And so the Inhumans, generally isolated from the rest of the world, would somehow always be plagued with giant robots or snow monsters, or something ridiculous like that, to fight every month. Why did that happen? The creators would just shrug. Don't overthink it.

But they failed to look at the concept of the Inhumans as a whole. The Inhumans are an isolated species of genetically advanced humans. Their leader, Black Bolt, is supposedly the 'perfect man', a leader without flaw. Theirs is an elitest society, too good to mingle with our own, that practices eugenics and has a slave-race made of their own people who were deemed genetic dead-ends. Eugenics and slavery? Last I checked, these were pretty abhorrent ideas in our own culture, and yet, here they are, presented as part of the 'perfect society'. Jae Lee and Paul Jenkins looked at this concept, and realized the probelm. The Inhumans are not superheroes. They might call the FF friends, but they are not the same ilk. These guys aren't going to stop bank-robbers or fight Dr. Doom. Why would they? Human squabbles don't come near their Himlayan home, and they are a soveriegn nation unto themselves. The story of the Inhumans is that of a society. Its the story of a group of people led by a perfect man, whose moral beliefs and far-sighted visions for his people are far beyond our own. Its the story about an alien society trapped in a world run by lesser beings while political struggles generated by Maximus threaten the throne. Its the story of a family awash in political intrigue and failed attempts at diplomacy.

Since Jenkins, a few writers have picked up on this theme and used it to great success. The Son of M and Silent War stories are probably the best examples of how the Inhumans should interact with the rest of the Marvel Universe. The recent War of Kings story takes them into the Cosmic Pantheon and makes fair use as well.

The trick is that Marvel, and comics in general, seem to be so super-hero based that most writers don't know how to write for anything but. Where once there were hundred of comics of different genres, war, western, horror, mystery, romance, there's now just thousands of guys in tights, duking it out. So now, when you get a new concept that is a little more literary, such as a man who uses occult powers to battle Lovecraftian demons or a society that practices Eugenics defending themselves from a world that doesn't understand... how do writers apply those concepts to the same world where Spider-Man is webbing up bankrobbers? It seems too daunting a task for some.

Personally, I don't lament for Dr Strange's current plight. In the world of Marvel Comics, no change is permanent. Oh, sure, there were changes back when Lee was writing, but everything established by the original creative teams cycles back over time. Serial characters have to keep the status quo. Given another year or three, I imagine Dr Strange will regain his title of Sorcerer Supreme with great fanfare, and he'll be deemed 'Better than EVER!' I know that I had once submitted a story to Marvel's proposed and failed EPIC line that involved Doc dying and eventually being resurrected by a boy who would become his apprentice (and seriously, shouldn't he have one? If Doc dies, Dormammu pretty much has a free shot at our dimension). It seems that sometimes you do have to tear a character down before people are paying enough attention to build him back up. Kind of a 'don't know what you've got till its gone' thing.

But Marvel is an infinitely resetting machine. Doc's return is already written in stone. We can only hope that upon his next relaunch, his new writers are paying attention to what works. The last few years are surely filled with enough examples of what NOT to do.

Lets Start This Party With a Bang!

The sad news: poparistocrat.com is gone. It wasn't very expensive to run it, but I don't have the funds right now.
The good news: I've started this thing, which is nearly the same thing, in many regards. This simple blog is now the home of my modest writing.

A personal entry to start things off: I've moved to Las Vegas. This move represents a lot of changes in my life, but so far, I have to believe that it is a step in the right direction for me. I've come out here to help one of my oldest and dearest friends retain his sanity as he battles the instituion in law school at UNLV, and also to pursue my own writing career from a vantage point that is closer to the media hub that is California, and find better work in a bustling metropolis.

The hard part, as ever, is the loss of friends and companionship. While I have my good friend and roomie, the lawyer, with me, I've left hundreds of friends back home. Its a shock to the system to exchange so many excellent connections for one, and the larger a city, the more overwhelming it often feels when trying to meet new people. Maybe its true that the human mind cannot handle too many options, and that choice can be as daunting as its unnamed antonym.

Regardless, in the last few weeks, I've managed to gather a writing assignment for the Nevada Film Alliance, putting together a new comedy script for them. I've also just gotten a dayjob working as a middle manager for Godiva Chocolate. Just in time, too, my travel funds are just about gone. And so, my main task remains: wrap my head around the change from modest and conservative Kansas to the most oppulent city in the United States.

A few things are obviously different, the city is more aggressive, the city is more active and less subtle in its plot to seperate you from your money, despite the aggression of the populace its the tourists who really bring the sleaze to the city, the strip is at once beautiful and disgusting. You essentially cannot make a u-turn in this city, there's too much traffic and, again, aggression. There are surprisingly few local eateries, the city is immensely crowded with food and shops, but most of them belong to chains, probably to add a sense of familiarity for travelers. Still, if you want food thats a local invention, you're going to want to go for chinese, or maybe mexican, neither have been very good so far.

One major disappointment has also been the real lack of nerds and nerdy stuff in the area. There is only one real board-game shop in town, and its fair selection can't begin to compete with that of Hometown Games in Lawrence. Most of the comic stores aren't worth writing about with the exception of Comic Oasis, which is the best I've found so far, and has been nominated for an Eisner Award for Best Comic Shop this year. There is a film-watcher group here, but their schedule is too far behind my viewing schedule. I'll have to slow down a lot to join them.

Generally, the town has been pretty good to me, and there's lots of entertainment about. But the charms of home, or even of my one-time stomping grounds Seattle, are missing. There aren't many places to meet worthwhile people, and there aren't many home-grown shops that display local pride. Instead, there's a series of McDonalds and fat poor people running excitedly through their doors to grab burgers and lose all of their savings on slot machines. Its an odd town, built around bilking tourists, and then being bilked yourself, while pumping out new generations that will do the same. And in the midst of it is, well, me.

I did give a homeless lady some cookies today. That made me feel good... no matter what, that option is still there; people always have the ability to do constructive things, even in the sleaziest of environments. We can defy the call of the nihilistic roulette wheel, and follow a path that makes us feel...enlightened.

Its a city of contradictions; gas stations that don't sell gas, and topless pools that are endorsed by the city but ONLY if no one there is celebrating anything. That's right, let those girls hang, but SO HELP ME if I find anyone having fun...
A city of contradictions, but for now, its home.