Mighty Marvel Digital Comics: Issue #1

Tonight, with $50 burning a hole in my pocket, I decided to start a subscription to Marvel's Digital Comics services. The subscription sounds nice. Its $10/month, or $60/year to read Marvel's catalog of amazing comic books as they add them to the server. There are thousands of comics to browse and flip through, ranging from the original Stan Lee issues to modern day.

Now, I don't expect the library to be complete, they add about 25-50 books per week, which is plenty to read. There will be gaps, I'm not going to complain about that (though I might do some toe-tapping on a number of them). I'm sure there will be some complaints, however. I'm going to commit them here, as a kind of ongoing Beta-test/review. Now, you guys can see how it works for yourself to a degree, via the free samples available at the link above, but the full subscription service works a little differently, and I'm sure there are people who are curious about whether or not its worth the investment. Find your answers here.

Why do I use my time on this? Because I want this to be the best service offered to any comics fan.

I'll admit it, I spent some time pirating Marvel Comics. I love 'em. Love to read 'em. Gobble them up incessantly. And at $3-4 per issue, they just became too expensive. Especially to a fast reader like myself who can go through a comic in 15 minutes. $4 for 15 minutes of reading? x12 books a month (assuming an ongoing cross-over too). Yeah, not in the budget. Also, I was out of storage space. Before I sold my collection, I had 13 longboxes of comics, each with over 500 issues, eating up a ton of space in my apartment. So, the answer was piracy.

Over time, though, piracy has gotten harder, riskier (virus, ID theft, other BS), and frankly I want to keep my favorite comic artists paid; the best middle ground is Marvel's online service that keeps me stocked with cheap reads, and keeps Marvel paid to produce quality books.
Clean art, digital zooming, and no 'shit going out of print' problems like I just went through with Essential Tomb of Dracula #1.

As the 'net evolves and print continues to slowly die, this service needs to be popular and efficient in order to keep people interested, and Marvel Comics in print. So, here I am, as a service to Joey Q, giving pointers.

With no further ado: MARVEL DIGITAL COMICS ERROR #1

While the option to search through the thousands of books and isolate those that feature my favorite characters is great, even necessary in theory, its only worthwhile if the function is complete. If the search only partially works, I'm going to assume more books are missing than actually are, and miss out on some great issues.

This error took me about five minutes to find. Tonight, I started the sub, and immediately searched for issues with Darkhawk. Only 4? Wait, he was in Nova not 5 months ago. You know, Nova, one of the most critically acclaimed and consistently selling books in the stable. Lets look up books with Nova in them... Wow, looks like they only have Nova's 4 and 7-11 on file. Dang. Guess I won't try to read that whole series.

But wait, shits and grins lets go up to 'Titles' and click Nova. What comes up but Nova #'s 1-25.
So... is Nova just not in the other 20 issues?... of his own series? Since he's on the cover to Nova #1, I'm going to bet that he's there. And this means that Marvel's tagging system isn't up to snuff, which means that their search engine isn't actually pulling results for me, which means that in order to read more Nova books, I have to know which issues he appears in already.

... Lord help me when I go looking for Black Bolt. He's only in other people's comics. What issue of Thor was that Inhumans back-up strip in again?

So, there's gripe #1. Marvel, please go in and tag all of the books appropriately for the characters that appear in them. Obviously if Nova isn't even tagged in a book with him name on the cover, something is amiss...

That's it for now, by some stuff.

                

It draws near...

Well, Bloodline continues to move forward.I've just sent it out to Bold Films (Legion, now in theaters) and I'm going to get it out to a few others over the coming weeks.

In the meantime, it continues to develop simultaneously as a comic book. I've got four of the five pages I need to start submitting it to comic companies, and hopefully I can get some sort of cross-marketed comic/movie thing going.

In the meantime, I thought I'd post the first 4 pages, just to give you guys a taste of what's been done, and maybe see if I can't catch someone's eye along the way. These are the pencils of Jeff McGee, artist extraordinaire from Lawrence, KS.

I hope you enjoy, I've really dug his work so far:  (click to enlarge)

Sweet Christmas!

A quick venting:

I was contemplating today, Powerman and Iron Fist.

This thought process was brought on, I should add, by the forthcoming Heroclix set, Hammer of Thor. I'm excited as Hell to see Heroclix return after a one-year hiatus and changing of corporate masters. Even though Thor isn't exactly my bag, new clix, new excuses to hang out with my nerdy compatriots... delicious. Thinking of team concepts, I began to ponder how awesome Iron Fist is in that game, and how great he and Luke are together on their Heroes for Hire piece... but how poor Luke is on his own.

Furthermore, I started thinking about how much I like Iron Fist as a concept, even if his book has never been consistently worth buying. The white guy learning martial arts secrets, the focusing of his spirit into his hand... knowing a few martial artists, and how much racism there actually is in those traditions, and how hard it is for white guys to learn the most venerated techniques... well, either way Iron Fist has some story potential and is a cool idea, if not perfectly executed.

Of course, one can't think of Iron Fist without thinking of his unlikely brother-in-arms, Luke Cage, the Hero for Hire, Power Man. For years, he's been a joke of a character; yellow, flowing blowse and tiara for a costume, strange 'black' eumphemisms, and he's pretty far down on the power totem pole, strictly street level. It wasn't until the 90's Cage series that he got a decent make-over, and even then the writing wasn't anything to shout about.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I also enjoyed Luke Cage as a concept. A man done wrong by the legal system. A hardened man with a chip on his shoulder, and yet a heart of gold. A man selling his power to those who can afford it, yet refusing to serve evil masters. A man who fights to protect neighborhoods most of the Marvel-verse never even visit. Recently, Luke has become the leader of the New Avengers; here's a C-list hero, not terribly powerful, not formally educated, not experienced with team-play, suddenly being forced to step up to helm the Earth's Mightiest because only he had the Chocolate Salty Balls to do it. He's a guy who never realized he even had the potential, and he's forced to re-examine himself daily as he steps to up plate, swinging away at one of the biggest jobs in the Marvel U. None of these concepts are poor.

And yet, I can barely stand to read the character.

I have to figure, it must be because white guys write him.

Luke has always been Black. I mean, that's obvious from the colored pages of the funny books; I mean that his being black has always been the selling point of his magazine. Luke is one of the few black characters to headline his own book, he fights in the ghetto, he's an ex-con, he talks 'like a black man'. Basically Luke has always been there to fill the role of the American black man in Marvel. He's the token. Black Panther doesn't really count because he's an African citizen, Luke is America's black man.

But has a black guy ever written Luke Cage? Research tells me that his initial Inker was Billy Graham, one of the few black men wroking in comics at the time, initial writing and pencils done by the decidedly white Archie Goodwin (who's name could NOT be more white) and George Tuska. Later Roy Thomas and John Romita Sr. would assist in the book's creation. Why not Ron Wilson on pencils? One of Marvel's most prolific artists of the 70's, a black creator, and a pretty cool guy, I'm sure he could have added a little more pathos to Luke Cage.

Instead, we got a guy with a decent conceptual creation, someone beat on by 'the man' who is looking to clear his name and lives in the shitty part of town, given the power to do something about it thanks to a freak accident, (Hell, some real social commentary could have been dropped here, much like the 30's Superman who went around beating up drunk husbands and dead-beat bosses.) who basically lives his life like he's perpetually in a blaxploitation movie. The cookie phrases, the Foxy Brown ladies of interest, the ridiculous street-pimp super villains... its no wonder Luke's book faded with the glory days of Shaft, and needed to be teamed up with a white Bruce Lee.

The problem remains today. I appreciate that Brian Bendis has put Luke into a position of power, where he has to reexamine himself and his potential to reshape the world, but still, Luke comes off as a white guy trying to sound like a black man. That is, disingenuous. The fake slang, the hokey tough-guy act, the attempt to try to deliver pathos at being one of Marvel's 3 or 4 black characters (two of which were married simply because there were no other black characters for them to hook up with) without actually knowing what it is to be black, it all rings false.

Now, I realize that comics are an industry predominantly controlled by whites and Asians, but there are plenty of really creative talents from all ethnic backgrounds out there; so why can we not see Luke Cage in the hands of a black writer with some real writing chops?

I, for one, would like to see what story potential Luke REALLY has, rather than being a flavor of the week parody of Blaxploitation, or some sort of Kanye video reject. Spidey seems fleshed out because all of the writers have been in his shoes before, lets get someone behind the wheel of Luke's book who knows what it is to live in his world.

Above: Marvel's depiction of a heroic, modern black man. I guess I shouldn't expect much from a company who's depiction of Europe still revolves around Gypsies, wooden cottages, and villagers in leder-hosen chasing monsters with pitch-forks and torches.

MORE MARVEL MADNESS!!!

News worth every exclamation point.


First off, Christoph Waltz of Inglorious Basterds (which I saw again this week, and it still rocks balls) is getting some more than deserved attention on US screens. He's been signed as Nick Cage's replacement as the villain of the upcoming Action/Comedy remake of Green Hornet starring Seth Rogan. Not sure of the viability of a Rogan superhero movie, but its great to see Waltz utilized in a more widely commerical venture, and he's a welcome replacement for Cage.





Seriously, has Cage tried to act since The Rock? Every film its the same lack of emotion and the stupid crazy eyes.


Why has Cage left? Its all speculation, but it could have something to do with the pre-production beginning on a new Ghost Rider movie. Ugh. As if the first one wasn't shitty enough. Prep yourself for more of Cage's brilliance. A man being stung to death by bees, or mildly annoyed by a lack of whipped cream in his latte? Perhaps he's singing a jaunty tune? You decide.






In other crazy-assed news, and this is what all the exclamation points were about, more shit hits the fan in the general direction of Marvel Comics. It seems that, following the footsteps of the Siegel and Schuster families (complete with same lawyer), the decendants of Jack Kirby are trying to re-claim the copyrights he might have held on 45 key Marvel characters.


Now, who is Jack Kirby, a few of you (like my girlfriend) may ask? While everyone knows Stan Lee, Stan the Man only put the words in the mouths of his characters and gave them shit to do (and then market the holy hell out of them), he didn't draw anything. Jack Kirby is the legendary artist and costume designer of all those amazing characters. And while Stan sold away his rights to Spider-Man, The X-Men, Hulk, Fantastic Four, Thor and all those costumed-cats years ago, Jack Kirby just never did anything with his part of the copyright, and it was forgotten. Now his family has realized that, and has come to collect.


I can't really sum it up better than the LA Times so far as the legal jargon, but I'll give it to you in brief.

-Does his family have rights to the characters? They actually have a good precident for their case, yeah. Work for hire laws were very shaky back in the 60's, and Kirby appears to have worked all those years without any sort of contract at all. Since its public knowledge that Kirby helped create the characters, the lack of paperwork might well screw Marvel. Creators have the rights to reclaim their works 56 years after acquisition by another body. The effects of these suits won't be felt for another 7-10 years.


- What characters does this affect? Fantastic Four, Spider-Man (loosely, Steve Ditko is credited with his creation, generally), Thor, X-Men, The Hulk, Iron Man, The Avengers, and all of their ancillary characters and villains. Captain America was created under different circumstances, and is owned squarely by Marvel.


- How does Disney feel about this? Disney responded very cooly saying they were prepared for this. Seems Marvel knew this was a possibility and let Disney know about it ahead of time. In fact, looking at it now, its possible Marvel couldn't afford the litigation required to defend their position, or buy out the Kirby family in a loss, and NEEDED Disney's finances to protect the line. It might also explain why Disney got Marvel for so little, a fact that has some shareholders threatening to sue for mishandling of their stock properties. It seems if this buyout does become final, Disney already has a plan.

- What will happen to the Marvel Universe? If the Kirby family wins, Marvel will go on, but with a large portion of their profits going to the family. That is unless someone with deep pockets, like Disney, buys out the rights after the case. One interesting thing that could happen, is that the Kirby family could use their ownership to pull the film rights for Spider-Man and X-men back from Sony and Fox respectively, who would have otherwise held them in perpetuity, and then re-sell them back to Marvel Films/Disney, who would then be able to profit off of their own in-house movies.

In fact, one might even see this as part of some sort of larger plan...


Regardless, the comics universe is being shaken to its foundations, and I have to wonder where it'll all end.


While Marvel might greatly benefit from its new ownership, DC seems to be sweating under the reconstruction under the WB. Warner has squandered its comics treasuretrove for years, but seeing action by Disney, they seem to have noticed what kind of value their properties have. Their answer: add another layer of corporate beuracracy to the mix.


As a result, long-standing editor of DC Paul Levitz has decided to retire from his post. Rather than take his advisory position, Levitz is leaving for greener pastures where his many great decisions won't be shat upon by a corporate giant. Levitz did some great things for comics and for the industry as a whole in his time, and often fought for the rights of independent creators and small shops. His loving efforts on the part of the DC Universe will be missed.

More on Paul's story HERE.


Of course, thanks to NeilAlien and Bleeding Cool, who will probably forever scoop me on this stuff.


A final thought:

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.