PANELGEEK

Batman is one of the oldest comic book superheroes to still reign at the top of Comic Book popularity. Nearly 80 years in the game, with innumerable writers and artists behind the cape and cowland possessing one of the most frightening and enthralling rogues’ gallery ever concieved (and their own home to boot: A haunted Asylum named Arkham) and to top it off: No superpowers whatsoever.

And as far as I’m concerned, Batman is the only Classic DC book worth reading.

Of course, that all depends on who’s at the helm. Batman in the 1960’s and 70’s was a campy joke. The Adam West TV series immortalized that foolish, goofball take on a man who was supposed to be The Dark Knight. Everything was bat-gadgets, and excessively complicated and hoky schemes to kill him, instead of just riddling him with bullets or chopping him into pieces when he’s unconscious. (Two-Face once tied him to the back of a giant coin that he flipped with a crane. And these are the people running the Gotham City criminal empire?)

In 1986, one man restablished Batman as the once and forever Dark Knight, and that man (a comic book legend in his own rite, rising in the world of film as well) was Frank Miller. In The Dark Knight Returns, Miller’s showed us his dark future in which a 50 year old Bruce Wayne, 10 years retired as Batman returns to the cape and cowl with a new, female Robin to take on the mutant-gang menace threatened his precious city.

I personally consider Frank Miller as the comic books master of violence. Real-world violence, the stuff that results in splatters of blood, bruises that swell with pus and shattered bones that never truly heal right. Decades ago he rose above the average serial scribe (a writer who’s locked in to a regular comic book serial) and produces works that are wholly his own. The most famous, mostly due to their green-screen Hollywood adaptations are Sin City and 300.

But in the spirit of Dark Knight Returns (and the heavily hyped, and thoroughly disappointing sequel: The Dark Knight Strikes Again) Miller has returned with one of the best modern Batman artists, the genius behind Batman: Hush Jim Lee, Miller has taken on All Star Batman & Robin, which is a much more complex retelling of the origin of Robin: The pre-teen circus star Dick Grayson of The Flying Graysons whose parents are murdered in a corruption scandal.

In expanding and evolving the Robin origin, Miller has incorporated other Batman characters (the original Batgirl, Vicki Vale, socialite reporter and early Bruce Wayne love interest, and other DC heroes who discuss what is to be “done” with this troublesome Batman who possesses no powers, but has the gall to put on a costume and fight crime!)

But what makes the irritatingly late-releasing All-Star Batman & Robin such a joy is that Miller, with his penchant for blood and bruises is that he sinks himself fully, trully into the most villainous edge to Batman’s nature.

His sadism. Batman is a sadist, and has no qualms about acting on that irrepressible need to cause pain and injury. This is the vow he made on the night his parents died: not to bring an end to the criminal element that took his parents lives, but to inflict unfathomable pain and anguish and crippling injury to those who choose it. In Miller’s newest take on the Big Bad Bat, he relishes, (not unlike a serial killer) in the rush of adrenaline and endorphins he gets in mangling would-be criminals:

“I took out a trio of woud-be RAPISTS and left them with enough broken-bone pain to last them a LIFETIME.”

“I fed a drooling mugger his teeth by the dozen. He’s probably still coughing them up.”

But the line that every Batman writer is forced to walk remains intact: Bruce Wayne, as Batman- never kills.

Perfect to compliment Miller’s true-to-spirit re-telling of a piece of Batman’s past is another one of the 6 great comic writer’s who I will worship and follow until the end of my days: Grant Morrison.

(Who are the other four? Mwah-hah-hah. . . wait and learn. . .)

Morrison is not quite in the same Pantheon as Frank Miller and another elder statesman of DC comics: Alan Moore (The Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Batman: The Killing Joke) but he writes with maniacal predictions of a near apolcalyptic future, often leaping into a Dark New World and forcing his audience to pick up on the clues he drops a dozen-to-a-frame and get a general idea at the story arc’s he’s applied to a pre-existing universe that seemed positively sleepy before Morrison grabbed hold.

His last grand evolution (entendre intended) toward a comic book universe with its own epic mythos was his run on X-men from 2000-2003, changing the title to New X-men and making the book much, much darker and science-fiction-rich than the recent writers who made it nothing more than an endless soap opera with predictable plotlines. He concludes his run with one of his classic post-apocalypse visions title: Here Comes Tomorrow
Now Morrison is taking a thoroughly Batty (oh yes, intended) idea to the Batman Universe: SURPRISE! The Son of Batman! born to and raised by Talia, daughter of Ra’s Al Ghul, he is the perfect human being: trained from childhood to be a fighter and assassin and heir to Batman’s mantle. Morrison’s run on Batman (the book title is Batman, not Detective Comics, or any of the Batman offshoots, just: Batman) has just hit #666, and the end of civilization is rich in the air.

News reports talk of a record-breaking 123 degree weather with talk about a dirty bomb detonating in Mecca, and a health epidemic in China claiming 18 million lives. Bruce Wayne is dead and Damian Wayne has taken on the cape and cowl. Problem is, he’s not the only one out there who claims to have inherited the right to wear the pointy ears. Another Batman out there claims to be the Anti-Christ and has teamed up with the new scum of Arkham Asylum (who we learn only by names and images, no powers, no origins) to bring about death and destruction. (Big surprise.)

It’s a Dark new future with a new Dark Knight. And as Damian Wayne, the new Batman lets us know early, he struggles to live up to his father’s greatness. He fears no harbinger of the devil, he has met the devil before and gave his soul to him long ago. He tells this Ant-Christ Batman, as he breaks his neck:

“If your father wants me, tell him to come and get me.”

This new Batman kills.

It’s ballsy, to introduce a son-of-a-famous character as the new heir (It worked for Spider-Girl) but if anyone can do it, it’s Morrison.

I’m very excited to see what becomes of Damian Wayne: The Batman

Here are a handful of truisms for the current state of the Classic Marvel Universe:

Civil War is over.
Captain America is dead.
Spider-man is outed as Peter Parker, and superhumans are federalized under Iron Man’s, Iron-clad, all-seeing eyes.
And, things are attempting to settle back into normality, only its a compeltely new, and unfamiliar normality.

The only way for comic books to stay fresh is to shake things up heavily while trying to stay as true to the nature of the characters and their shared history as possible. It’s the nature of comic books, and most fantasies rearrange histories, bring characters back from the dead, erase and re-write things that happened in order to take a story in a very different direction.

The problem is the sense that’s nothing permanent. And the only thing that’s more permament in the world of our readers, its death.

And as any experienced comic book reader knows, characters don’t stay dead.

It’s often been the mainstay of DC comics to regenerate dead characters more than Jesus on a bender, but in Marvel, for a long time, death meant something.

Norman Osborn, the original Green Goblin died in 1973. In the 2000 marvel shake-up, that was undone.

Same goes for Bucky Barnes, Captain America’s sidekick, dead since 1945 and Returned in: 2002 as a brainwashed Russian spy. In the case of Magneto (dead more times than Kenny it seems) they don’t even bother explaining how he comes back anymore. Same goes for the most recent return of the Avenger Hawkeye: Died during the devastating Avengers: Disassembled story arc, and now joining all his newly fractured Avengers buddies trying to catch up on what just happened.

So when Marvel has a world-changing event like the death of Captain America, complete with a 5-part “Fallen Son: Death of Captain America” funeral story-arc that follows the 5 stages of grief: Shock, Denial, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance, it’s supposed to convey a strong sense of permanence. I’m sorry to say, that considering Marvel’s recent track record of character rebirth, I don’t know of I trust them.

Anyway, Marvel’s realized that the whole Marvel U is just one big funky dysfunctional family, with characters hopping back and forth between teams and alliances like a super-powered swinger party, they’re coming back around with their NEXT big crossover story: WORLD WAR HULK!!

Which I’ll explain in Hulk-like terms.

Hulk bad. Hulk smash Las Vegas. Bad Hulk.

Big-brainy guys send Hulk away. Far, far away to bad planet, where Hulk beaten down, weakened, made into a slave and then a Gladiator, tortured by his cruel alien masters.

This make Hulk mad. When Hulk mad, HULK SMASH!!!

Other slaves like when Hulk Smash. They make Hulk General. Hulk lead rebel warriors against mean alien masters and Hulk win. Hulk fall in love with hubba-hubba alien hottie, and make her his queen.

Hulk finally happy.
Then Big-brains send Big Bomb. Smash Hulk’s new home. Bye-bye alien hottie. Bye-bye unborn child. Bye-bye new home, new throne. Bye-bye new world.

Now Hulk really mad.

Now Hulk really smash.

It’s Marvel doing their inverted morality ploy again. The Illuminati, (the big brains behind each corner of the marvel universe who decide what is and what shall be in their world) were only doing what was best for the people they’ve sworn to protect. Even if it meant slaughtering possibly over a million other livin things that stood as a potential threat.

Does that make them evil? Or just making the necessary compromises that a sap like Spider-Man or Captain America couldn’t be trusted with?

All I know is that it’s fun when Hulk Smash

Then again…I dove head first into Civil War, last thing I need is to spend all my pocket scratch on another “world-changing crossover saga.”

Marvel, I think we need to take a break. I’m sorry but. . . I’m going back to Vertigo. Perhaps we can still catch-up now and again. I’m sure you’ll be fine without me.

Bye-bye.

Following up on last week’s post about DC/Vertigo’s Transmetropolitan, I decided to write about one of Vertigo’s newer, very popular books, the harrowing masterpiece about life during wartime: The DMZ.

DMZ is quite possibly the most frightening comic book out there for very unexpected reasons: There are no superpowers. There are no amazing sci-fi advancements in technology. No forays into the mystic realms, no aliens. Just a thoroughly haunting vision of the worst aspects of U.S. militarism taken to the worst case scenario:

A second American Civil War. The forces of the U.S. Military vs. a homegrown insurgency borne out of the disgust and outrage of an international War-with-no-end that was once quaintly referred to as The War on Terror.

What makes the heartbreakingly intelligent DMZ so frightening is that it could actually happen.

DMZ is a “Day After Tomorrow” storyline, meaning a fiction based on the actual current events going on in our lives today. If I had to guess the year that DMZ takes place, I would guess 2009.

DMZ is currently in its 4th story ARC, with the first two arcs already available in TPB: On the Ground and Body of a Journalist. In the pages of the 2nd story arc, we learn how this new war on our very streets happened:

“The Wars [ie: Iraq, Afganistan etc.] were a million miles away. We had troops in four separate conflicts in three different continents. . . I remember when the Free Armies formed a government in Helena. They spread out from there. No one could grasp how it could happen. . .

“They laughed at this idea of redneck armies in pick-up trucks. The laughing didn’t last long. Pilots weren’t about to bomb small-town America. It all happened so fast that the Pentagon didn’t have time to whip up a propaganda campaign to paint the Free Armies as traitors.

“There are no borders or front lines for this war. It’s completely unconventional. The Free States are an idea, not a geographic entity.”

So that’s how it happened. It started in the West, secretly moving its way across the nation so that by the time the over-extended, shell-shocked military made their way back home to fight against their own friends and brothers, it had reached the shores of New Jersey.

So the DMZ, the contested land between The Free States and the remains of The United States is, of course. . . Manhattan.

So DMZ is about life during wartime, but more specifically, its about journalism during wartime. Our narrator and protagnist is Matty Roth, na assistant to hotshot war journalist Viktor Ferguson who gets gunned down over “The DMZ”. Roth, who appears to be the only survivor, is now an extremely important commodity to the United States and soon, The Free States as well.

And in a “city” (though “territory” is a more likely term for it) in which anyone can be sniped down from any hidden gunman in any of the remaining buildings throughout the wartorn area, the most important commodity a person can have it seems is:

A Press jacket. Word of Roth’s presence spreads through the DMZ quickly. And in a divided America, with Manhattan as the fulcrum to a very, very weighted scale, the favor of the only independent journalist in the territory is very, very valuable.

To the thorough relief of the reader, Matty Roth (who looks like any other shaggy-maned, scruffy-bearded cutey-boy journalist in a black T-shirt and cargo shorts) is incorruptable. No matter how many times he stares down the barrel of a gun, (and nearly shits himself each time, like any of us would!) he refuses to let himself be used.

More often than not, he finds himself as a go-between for the U.S. forces (Which include his own military father, whom Matt despises for typical “life-during-wartime” reasons: His parents divorced for poilitical reasons), forces within the DMZ. (His friend Zee who works as an emergency paramedic, the little militias that control various neighborhoods, etc.) and the Free Armies who control the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel and try to use Matt to push their own agenda. 

And what does Matt want? Well, it seems that even he’s not sure. He’s pulled in so many directions, with so much subterfuge and so many hidden agendas, that most of the time he’s just trying to report the elusive truth while staying alive and doing whatever seems right is each circumstance.

Matt’s inclination toward heroism is never in doubt, but like any of us, he makes the wrong decisions and trusts the wrong people, and is often running all over the bombed out streets of Manhattan trying to undo the trouble that he helped facilitate. Which is one of the numerous aspects of what makes DMZ so brilliant. Through the fog of war, it’s nearly impossible to tell what the “right” thing is at the time. It’s a lot easier through the lense of history.

What also makes DMZ a thrill to read (especially for us New York-a-philes) is the streets we have come to know and love like the back of our hands transformed into an almost lawless survival-of-the-fittest society.

As New York (in the real world) becomes more and more of a massive outdoor shopping mall with luxury condos popping up like black-heads on the face of a fifteen year-old McDonalds fry-cook, there is a twisted thrill in seeing Manhattan even worse than it was in 1977. With the Thompkins Sq. militia lobbing mortars at Stuy-town and the Central Park Conservancy turning into a ghost-militia that protects the trees, animals, and grows bamboo as a cheap source of fuel for the winter.

And of course, out of this latest chapter in the unsinkable history of New York, comes a new culture of street art, street theater, at the most real, uncorrupted-by-corporate-interest urban culture that has possibly ever existed in New York’s near 400 year history. People are struggling to stay alive, but that doesn’t mean they’re not also handing out fliers for their next art-gallery showing.

DMZ might just possibly be the most serious, heart-breaking, realistic comic-book out there. And if you love New York, and fear what might happen to it if the warmongers of the country remain in power, then pick up the first two TPBs, and take a good, long look at your current living situation and the loved ones around you.

And consider what you just might be willing to do to protect it.

As I explained in my first post, I am a Marvel Comics partisan. When it comes to the mainstream of Comics, I am devoted to this very soap-operatic, forever sprawling universe, and the various storylines therein.

However, when it comes to deeper social context, darker and much more adult storylines and some of the most fascinating futurist, semi-religious and metaphysical multiverse, there’s only one place to go, and that’s DC’s adult-oriented offshoot company: Vertigo. This week:

Calling all: JOURNALISTS, ANARCHISTS, FUTURISTS and MEDIA ANALYSTS!!

Transmetropolitan (aka “Transmet” for us converts) is the book for you! The concept of Transmet is basically easy to describe.

It’s the distant-enough future. “The City” (the city’s name or location, we never really learn except that it’s the only city that really seems to matter in the world. Therefore: New York.) is an endless expanse of drugs, sex, religion, information, and absolute excess of stimulation of any and every variety. Our protagonist, massively tattooed chain-smoking psychoticly brilliant journalist named Spider Jersusalem hates it here. Which is also the name of his column: “I hate it here.”

Spider wants to live as a neanderthalic reculse in the mountains

But Spider needs drugs.

Drugs cost money. Lots of money.

There’s one way for Spider to make the money he needs for drugs:

Live in the city that eats away at every last piece of his maelevolent black soul, do lots of drugs and write the most scathing, hateful, truth-filled articles he can about the lies, hypocrisy and absolute idiocy of the goddam city. And lose his temper often enough to brutally maim some idiot who meant no harm, but pissed him off nonetheless.

And who wouldn’t hate living in a cesspool like “The City”. Imagine a multi-thousand square mile Times Square. Except 500 years in the future with endless distractions from any real purpose in life. (ie: drugs, sex, scientology, etc.) Every indication of our current cultural and technological trend says we’re hurtling toward this endlessly pointless existence with no sign of turning back.

(P.S. If you’ve EVER watched a full episode of ANY celebrity-centered “reality” show, you are the reason why this is happening and I fucking loathe you for it.)

What makes Transmetropolitan truly brilliant though, (other than the technicolor explosions of social satire within each panel, drawn with wild humor and utter excess by Darick Robertson) is the layers and layers of commentary about our current trend of media-saturation, easy answers by the thousand and total complicity in the face of endless corruption, yet doing it with a slapstick style humor that makes us guffaw at the sight of Spider’s steel-tipped boot smashing in the face of some evangelical pain-in-the-ass who says the only true path to salvation is to drill the evil thoughts out of your head with an 11 inch railroad spike.

(I’m aware that this is the worst run-on sentence in the history of blogging, but when reviewing Transmet, it comes with the territory.)

The imagination that frighteningly brilliant futurist and sci-fi satirist Warren Ellis applies to the technology of Transmetropolitan is staggering. Any modern apartment has a “maker.” Which is exactly what it sounds like. A box that pulls random molecules out of the air to make WHATEVER you want. Spider starts the storyline by making a full lin of black jackets and pants and begins each morning “making” a different type of coffee (Cuban! 5 sugars!. . . Arabica! No sugars!) Imagine never having to shop for anything. Ever.

Some authors might make this the focus of their story. For Ellis, it’s just a passing convenience for a much more important central plotline: That this character is a superhero; his only powers are his mastery of words, investigative skills, an unabashed need to tell the truth and his ability to spread that truth to everyone who will read it. Which is most everybody, Spider is a maverick celebrity and despises it. Or loves it and is in complete denial of his need to be praised.

The first storyline involves a police-riot brutalizing a ghetto of mutants. Spider observes this from a rooftop (like superheroes are known to do) but instead of jumping down and beating everyone up like Batman would do, he cracks open a laptop and starts writing. He stops a police riot by transmitting an article about it all over the city in real time. When word gets back to the police that the whole city knows whats going on, they put down their billy-clubs and walk away.

Spider gets his cumuppence of course, beaten to a pulp by the piggies for his interference, but he knew he had it coming and ends up sneering and practically asking for more.

Because like all junkies, Spider is addicted to his drugs of choice. And I don’t mean his “Queen of Ant extract (upper)” or his endless collection of little red, blue, black, white, green and multi-color pills that he downs by the bottle, I mean the only thing that gives him the rage he needs to fuel his writing:

The City.

I’m sure some of us can relate.

Pick up the first book: Back on the Street to see the world that Spider is part of or the second book: Lust for Life which is a more varied collection of stories with some real gems.

FINALLY! Issue #13 in the series The Ultimates 2 is finally out.

Which, to someone who doesn’t know how long we Panelgeeks have been waiting means nothing. For those of us who have been waiting for months between issues, it means. . . Well, just a little bit more than nothing.

A little backstory: The Ultimates are the Ultimate Marvel version of The Avengers aka Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. The big shots. The guys that handle the big, international, cosmic, inter-galactic and often inter-dimensional baddies with the love and adoration of the public. The original Avengers consisted of Iron-Man, Wasp, Giant Man, The Hulk and Thor, with the newly discovered Captain America who had spent the late 40’s, 50′ and early ’60s in a block of ice.

Over time, most of the heroes of the Marvel Universe spent some time on the Avengers. and like most super-groups, they’ve had more than their share of troubles and trouble-makers on the team.

The Ultimates jumps on that flawed Supergroup idea and bends it on a massively politcal angle. The Ultimates, are the U.S. government’s first line of defense. Consisting of the six mentioned above, and adding expert marksman Clint Barton aka Hawkeye, Russian spy and assassin Natasha Roumanov aka The Black Widow, and Magneto’s twin children (who have a bizarre fixation on each other) Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. All run by the one-eyed master of disaster, General Nick Fury, head of S.H.E.I.L.D. (oh, and he’s black in the Ultimate version.)

And one of the major points of The Ultimates is to see how the modern age of terror-awareness, pre-emptive striking, shoot-first-and-ask-questions-if-we-feel-like-it U.S. military tactics would work when a total of 11 people make up the majority of the U.S. defense network.

And what a rag-tag bunch of hopefuls they are!

In the first story-arc we learn that Hank Pym (Giant Man) is a wife-beater with severe inferiority issues (he makes himself bigger. Hmm, compensating maybe?) Tony Stark (Iron-Man) may be the most brilliant industrial billionaire in the world, but he also downs a quart of vodka every day before breakfast. (In classic marvel, Stark has been successfully in recovery for years) Steve Rogers (Captain America) has been in a block of ice for 57 years and likes to spend his evenings reading the paper and listening to Bing Crosby records while everyone else is at a dance club.

It’s chock full of pop-culture references and tongue in cheek humor, but not much depth to the dialogue; they sound like a bad Hollywood script. Which is something I think subversive Marvel super-scribe Mark Millar is trying to convey: The Ultimates have a budget of billions (taxpayer money) and get paid obscenely, but seem to get things wrong a lot more often than they do right.

Their first mission is to take down one of their own (Hulk) who goes on a homicidal rampage through Manhattan because his ex-wife is on a date with Freddy Prinze Jr. (I know. . . Freddy Who? . . Thats how long it takes for these freakin issues to come out!)

The most recent story-arc brought on the whole idea of a a modern World War Three, distilled into two teams of the Most Powerful Beings on Earth. Funny, it seemed to leave as much collateral damage as a regular war. Here’s the most bitterly funny part: The whole thing begins, turns around, and ends in a single day.

It starts with The Ultimates getting more clout and attitude through the world. They help create the European Union of Superhumans (Captain Italy, Captain Spain, Captain. . . oh you get the point.) and conduct various pre-emptive strikes against growing nuclear threats around the world. (Including an anonymous Middle-Eastern State.)

But two can play at this game. . .

We see a secret meeting between military leaders from China, Russia, North Korea, Syria, Iran and, get this: FRANCE to discuss their recent biological endeavors. Many of these endeavors are perfect counterparts to each of The Ultimates. Through the help of Loki, the God of Mischeif (who looks like a black-haired Cillain Murphy in this book) helps turn the various Ultimates on each other, establish a few traitors, and in a single hour, send in their forces to take down the U.S.

Here’s the irony: They call themselves The Liberators. They call the U.S. The Modern Roman Empire and consider their first act as the new leaders of America to give us “free elections”

Of course, the Ultimates turn it around at the crucial moment and save the day. The best part of the whole story arc was Hawkeye’s escape: At just the right moment, he flicks off each of his fingernails and flings them like precision aimed blades at each of his captors. Killed eight enemy soldiers with FINGERNAILS!! That was HOT!

And, after waiting months on end for each issue, was the finalinstalment of Millar’s run on The Ultimates worth the wait? . . .

NO!!!

Bottom line is this: The book had good storylines, EXCELLENT illustration, (especially the battle scenes with massive levels of destruction, done by the illustrious Bryan Hitch) and the dialouge was, honest to god, meant for a Michael Bay film! The most recent issue, however (#13) has a brilliant 8-page fold out of the final smash-’em-up battle scene between The Ultimates and a slew of norse mythical goblins. Nice.

It was fun. And now that its all collected in easy to find and purchase TPBs, I’d say its a good read for your money. I’m just regretting all the months i spent asking

“Is it in yet? Next week? Are you sure?”

*****COMIC TIPS******

Friend, are you ready to graduate from being a simple reader into a true collector? Of all the options, comic collecting is one of the least expensive regular expenditures of the collectors world, with a grand return: A bit of pulp fiction along with phenomenal artwork and bright colors with varying levels of replay value.

Well my friend, it’s simply. When you pick up your $3-5 dollar issue, tack on another 15 cents and say: “A Bag’n'a’board.” That’s a plastic mylar bag to protect your precious issue, and a thin white cardboard to keep it straight and flat.

They’ll last through the ages, and you’ll never know when you might want to pick up that old issue of Black Panter #57 where he pours out one ounce for his hommies.

And so the PANELGEEK has finally picked up an off-the-internet bootleg of Spider-man 3 to watch in the comfort and scrutiny of his own secret headquarters and, much to his own surprise

It WASN’T BAD!!

Now its important to mention that expectations were already very low. I was somewhat unimpressed with the first two, thinking that there were mistakes in casting (Maguire is NOT PETER PARKER) and some visual and directorial choices (The super-lame Green Goblin mask, when Willem Dafoe’s face is clearly what a psychotic super-villain should look like!) Combine that with a lousy script most of the time and Sam Raimi’s undeniably campy approach somewhat soured the franchise for me.

But by the third film, the characters were established enough for some of the actors to really sink into them. Kirsten Dunst seemed, for the first time to have really grown into the womanly glamour that is Mary-Jane Watson

(in the first two, she just seemed like a pretty little girl.)

James Franco’s reprise as Harry Osborn, trying to live up to his father’s might as the Green Goblin was impressive, especially because the script team had the courage to change te course that Harry took in the comics, and in this film, turned him into the reluctant hero that I found myself (by the final battle scene) wanting him to be.

I was very skeptical about adding The Sandman to the film franchise, finding him to be a cheesy, two-bit stock villain complete with campy striped shirt. But when the Oscar-nominated actor Thomas Hayden Church, with his deadly serious expression picked up that familiar shirt in the early scenes, something struck home about the character, and the director: It is possible to portray a campy, pulpy comic book story and still take it seriously. Something Raimi has had trouble conveying in the past.

Church: perfect casting as Flint Marko (The Sandman.)

Then there’s The Symbiote Black Suit, which just falls out of the sky without explination and we find out increases the wearer’s strengths but also increases their aggressive tendencies

And there’s Eddie Brock, played with complete lack of depth or nuance by That 70’s show’s Topher Grace. Brock is The Daily Bugle’s skeevy photographer counterpart to the morally irreproachable Parker.

When the two become one, the fusion is Venom: The closest thing Spider-man has ever had to an evil mirror-image.

Oh, and there’s also Gwen Stacy, Spider-man’s other romantic interest.

And Flint Marko was also apparently Uncle Ben’s real killer.

And isn’t Peter’s frail Aunt May supposed to fit in here somewhere?

Oh, and the alien suit is vulnerable to sound waves, too!

Herein lies the problem: Too many characters and too many plot threads equals NOT ENOUGH PLOT DEVELOPMENT! Each of the scenes seem like they’re just trying to string us along on an over-worked plot (or multiple plots) while not giving any one plot the right amount of exposition it needs.

The special effects for Sandman and Venom were brilliant, and the scene in which Spider-man defeats Venom was AWESOME, but I can’t help but feel that if Raimi left the showdown with Venom for the next film, he would have had a little more leeway with other development but sometimes its hard to suppress a vision (or multiple visions) with so much money, expectation, and MERCHANDISING behind it (does everyone have their Venom figurines yet?)

But acknowledging all of its flaws, Spider-man 3 was still a great super-hero action film with just enough camp, and all the special-effects magic we could ask for in a summer block-buster.

One last gripe: Tobey Maguire, pathetically trying to be Peter Parker, pathetically trying to be “baddass” montage, with a black outfit and smiling and winking at every supermodel he passes was appalling.

His white-as-white-can-get disco homage to John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever made me physically nauseous. That entire scene knocked one star off my review. The scene in the Jazz Club was, as well, utterly stupid.

Damn you Sam Raimi for your idiotic mockery of a character I’ve loved for years.

If I never, ever saw Tobey “wide-eyes-and-pouty-lips-is-NOT-an-acceptable-substitute-for-actual-talent” Maguire mangle the insight and moral complexity of Peter Parker, it’ll be too soon.

So it’s out! SPIDER-MAN 3 is in the theaters, and. . . . . . wow, everyone says its crap.

I haven’t seen it yet, so I can’t rant quite yet (But check the ‘movies’ section soon, the review will be up in a jiffy.) but as a cross promotion for the film, all the Spider-man comics have him “Back in Black” which means Spidey has gone back to his black suit with the big white spider in the chest, meaning he’s all mean and angry and stuff.

Heck, everyone loves an anti-hero!

Personally, I don’t buy the “back to the darkside” ploy. It didn’t work for Jaime Foxx in Dreamgirls and it doesn’t work for Peter Parker. An actor friend of mine recently illuminated me to the trend that when a franchise wants to pretend that they’ve added depth to a story, they’ll make the claim that “it’s much darker.” Darker = better. Which in the case of Amazing Spider-man’s recent turn, doesn’t apply.

Here’s why Spidey’s back in the black suit:

During Civil War, Spider-Man went pro-SRA and under Iron-Man’s guidance, chose to reveal his identity to the public. Boom. In one issue (Civil War #2) Spider-Man takes off his mask in fornt of a full press corps, and says “Yep. Peter Parker. I’m Spider-Man.” Breaking a more-than-40-year precedent of the secret identity for our web-head.

The primary reason (and logically, the only real reason) Spidey kept his face a secret is because of the fragile, non-super-powered people around him. His frail aunt, his smokin’-hot wife, and every else that doesn’t stand a chance against the Green Goblin or Sandman. But under the SRA act, his most precious Aunt May and Mary Jane would be safe and protected by S.H.E.I.L.D., Iron Man, the Avengers, et al. They were SAFE!!

And then Spider-Man flipped. He joined Captain America and all the other Anti-SRA, assholes putting his precious wife and older-than-dust Aunt into mortal peril by ANY super-powered psycho that knew how to track down this guy named Peter Park whose face was on newspapers all over the city.

Of course, Wilson Fisk: The Kingpin hires an assassin to take out his most beloved, and when a bullet puts little old Aunt May into intensive care, Spidey puts on the Black suit to tell everyone. . . .

“See! I can be baddass too! I can be like Punisher, really I can!”

Bullshit. I slogged through one two lousy issues of Spider-man pretending he can acutally be a killer, talking about being a killer, dressing like an assassin, and claiming multiple times in only one issue that he’s ready to kill anyone who messes with his family. So far his body count is still zero.

We’ve been here before. During the first alien black-suit saga, during the dark periods of the late 90’s with the Harry Osborn Goblin and other haunting stories, but Parker will always be the good natured, caring, loving sentimentalist and I don’t think he’ll have it in him to take out the Kingpin. One big reason:

Spidey got the girl.

Wolverine; Punisher; Daredevil: All genuine baddasses, none of them get (or got) the girl. (Or in all three cases, “the girl” was killed in a horribly brutal fashion.)
Cyclops, Spider-man, Captain America: All upstanding, law-abiding citizen types, all got the girl.

Sometimes all a super-hero needs is the love of a fine woman.

I’m also proud to report that today was the first successful PANELGEEK GROUP! A handful of comic-heads, plus a couple of neophytes gathered at the Bowery Poetry Club to flip through some TPBs I offered to share and discuss favorite writers, storylines, and how modern war-time political climate has helped raise the bar on many series to appeal to a more sophisticated audience.

Read about it in Gothamist (soon)

The PANELGEEK GROUP will meet the second Thursday of every month at Bowery Poetry, and we hope to see you there!

What a week to be a PANELGEEK in New York!

I hit Midtown Comics this wednesday to check the latest releases and was elated to see that the latest Astonishing X-men was on the shelves. Astonishing X-men is, as far as I’m concerned the only X-men comic worth reading these days, turning away from the depressing M-Day phenomenom (in which most of the mutant universe woke up one morning with no powers, making mutants an endagered species) and follows up on the staggeringly brilliant run on “New X-Men” written by the incomparable Grant Morrison (whom I worship as one of the greatest writers of the Modern Comic Age)

The Astonishing team is made up of Cyclops, Wolverine, Beast, Emma Frost, Shadowcat, Collosus, and a handful of “Xavier Institute” students, some of which are on their way toward graduating into bona fide X-men.

The main selling point on Astonishing X-men is it’s new writer: Joss Whedon, of Buffy fame (a demi-god of geekdom in his own, very earned rite.) Drawn by the very realistic and emotionally expressive John Cassaday,

Whedon applies his snarky dialouge we’ve of course seen in his TV work to characters we already have known and loved for years. Also, in traditional Buffy fashion he juxtaposes awkward romantic and sexual situations alongside life-and-death situations with blissful hillarity.

The current AXM storyline is a little weak. It involves an off-world trip to a warrior planet and the issue this weak seemed mostly like filler leading up to the grand finale. Whedon’s tenure at AXM was from the beginning, understood to be temporary, and so grabbing one (0r all!) of his AXM TPBs (Gifted, Dangerous and Torn) would be a good buy. Dangerous was my favorite.

In other news, it’s Spider-Man in New York Week! Of course with the premier of the 3rd instalment of the phenomenally successful Spider-Man franchise hitting theaters tomorrow, NYC & Company, the city’s tourism bureau has all sorts of special promotions related in some way (and in some cases very loosely) to the ultimate Web-head of New York.

Spider-man has always been an essentially New York character for a number of reasons, the most obvious of which being his webslinging between buildings. Spidey thrives on skyscrapers, and in many ways, I believe he derives much of his spiritual energy from the ambitious vibe that exudes from the man-made towers of glass and steel all over our fine city. Come on, can you imagine trying to web-sling across Montana?

Combine that with his perpetual level of stress, and the endless wisecracks coming from behind that mask, and you get the ultimate New York Super-Hero. Too bad Tobey Maguire has that perpetual head-in-the-clouds doofus/douche-bag look on his face, and couldn’t wise-crack with a Queen’s accent if his life depended on it! (which Spidey’s often does.). . . Sorry, I never thought Maguire made a good Peter Parker. I lke the movies, but hate Maguire.

Next week I’ll write a little something about some of the SM in NY stuff, but in the meantime, be SURE to hit the comic shops this upcoming Saturday for FREE COMIC BOOK DAY!! The first Saturday in May you can load up on free comics! PERFECT for someone who wants to get into the wonderful word of comics.

This is all leading up to the first PANELGEEK meeting and discussion group at the Bowery Poetry Club downstairs room (retitled: The PanelCave) This upcoming Thurday May 10th at 5pm.

See you there! And bring your favorite books!

Yesterday was Wednesday, and for all you neophytes to the comic world, Wednesday is NEW COMICS DAY.

So, I rifled through the new releases and picked up what looked good this week.

The latest in the endlessly unfolding saga in Wolverine’s origin was nothing special. (So it turns out he was descended from an ancient line of Lupine Werewolves. How fascinating.) So I was glad that the post-Captain America assasination saga was so good.

The Loss of “Cap” is being felt all through the Marvel Universe, and they’ve been exploring each of the most important characters’ mourning in a series called Fallen Son. this week it was The Avengers, the team that Cap led for many years (34 years in real-world time.)

In the wake of CIVIL WAR, the Avengers were split in two: The Mighty Avengers, organized by Iron Man and led by Ms. Marvel were the pro Super-Human Registration Act team (referred to from here on out as the SRA). The anti-SRA team, which have now gone underground go by the title The New Avengers, and are protected by the magics of Dr. Strange and are led by Luke Cage.

In Fallen Son: Avengers, we have a split story: following the Mighty Avengers on a run-of-the-mill super-villain beatdown and following the New Avengers to. . . a top secret poker-game. (During which we learn the secret of The Thing’s favorite drink: An ice-cold PBR!! Heh.)

The writing, by super-hero comics and TV series powerhouse Jeph Loeb was clever, cute, and fun, exploring first and foremost, the relationships between these heroes, and how the Marvel Superhero community really is just like a disfunctional family who are now dealing with the loss of a loved one, and every so often, misplacing their anger.

My favorite scene was a minor scuffle between Spider-Man and Wolverine, who really represent the two poles of Superhero compassion. (Wolvie being the cold-hearted cad, and Spidey the hopeless sentimentalist.) Definetely a good read, even for those who don’t follow the Marvel continuity.

My last accquisition was Ultimate X-men #81, which after a very mediocre 20 or 30 issues (perhaps in their lead-up to big, bad #100) is FINALLY getting back to basics and quality storylines. Which leads into my exposition of:

ULTIMATE MARVEL

In 1999, Marvel undertook a very ambitious project. Recreating their greatest characters storylines inside their own pocket universe. Starting with a whole new Spider-Man and X-men stories that stay true to their basic themes, but exist now in a wholly 21st century continuity.

Ultimate Spider-man is, back to his roots, a 15 year-old high school student, still dating Mary-Jane on and off , still struggling to keep up with school work, is still a brash and hot-headed teen, and best of all, is the “web-maintainer” for the Daily Bugle. Writing by Brian Michael Bendis, a top-notch writer and drawn by Mark Bagley, who drew a phenomenal run on Amazing Spider-Man in the early 90’s. I heavily reccomend the first Ultimate Spider-Man TPB: Power and Responsibility

Next came Ultimate X-men, a much more media-savvy, much more complex introduction to the band of rebel-outlaw teenage mutations and their relationship to the human and mutant world around them. Their costumes are more militant than the bright colored spandex of “Classic X-men” and the characters’ demons seem to haunt them much closer to the surface. Though the recent issues have been a bore, the first Ultimate X-Men TPB: The Tomorrow People is considered one of the best X-men storylines of all time.

Much later came Ultimate Fantastic Four, which seems first and foremost, just a chance to tell the FF storyline from the point of view of excited and inexperienced teenagers. Its fun, but so far, nothing special.

Lastly, is the perpetual enigma that is The Ultimates. This is the Ultimate Universe version of the Avengers, which is being undetaken as an “event book” with heavily political plotlines, extremely detailed war scenes, and issues that come out (FRUSTRATINGLY) maybe once every 3 months.

Fortunately, The Ultimates team often appears in the other books, led by Nick Fury, who in this Universe, is black and looks just like Samuel L. Jackson. (Jackson even gave written consent to model the characters looks and attitude after him.)

Go get ‘em, comic fans!!!

NOTE: SPOILERS CONTAINED WITHIN!!!!

I know it’s not right to speak ill of the dead. . . but Captain America was an asshole.

Okay. At this point, I’ve already pissed off thousands of Cap fans, and I’m not sure where to begin on my assessment, so I think the start of Civil War is a good place to start.

And Civil War began with the deaths of 612 ordinary, non-superpowered American citizens in the town of Stamford Connecticut.

And suddenly, all the inner dramas, all the nit-picky little soap-operas between all the super-heros, super-villains, and all the kinda-sorta half-way between-the-two sociopaths like Wolverine and The Punisher, who would be considered serial killers if they weren’t just so darn sexy, NONE OF IT MATTERED!!!

What mattered was that regular people like you and me died so that a group of amateur living weapons could get publicity.

These man-made Gods on Earth began at the dawn of the second World War, and the oldest one to persist to this day was a government-funded, government-produced Super-Soldier project performed on a flawlessly devout American patriot who commited himself to the service of the American Dream ever since.

But the American Dream never planned for mutants, radio-active animal-human hybrids, cyborgs, telepaths, alien symbiotes, et al. And if I had to choose between the safety of maybe 250 million non-powered American citizens and the rights of a few hundred walking WMDs to wear masks and fight/commit crimes at their own discretion, then there really is no choice.

Super-heroes are constantly asked to make sacrifices to protect the “mortals” around them. Now, that sacrifice is revealing themselves to, and working for the U.S. Government. Apparently for some, that was too much to ask.

Captain America (who led the anti-Super-Human-Registration resistance) has always had the problem of living in the past. When the only Super-human was a stalwart, loyal soldier fighting against the greatest evil of the 20th century. Even then, super-humans were a Government Sanctioned Project

Now, in the 21st century Marvel Universe, With so many super-powered beings all across the globe, regulation has become a necessity. And there are no two people I would trust to manage that task then the two greatest minds of the Marvel Universe: Tony Stark (Iron Man) and Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic.)

Noted, Stark and Richards had their share of mistakes, the biggest of which was the absolute hubris of cloning Thor. That was unforgivable. Otherwise, I felt most of Tony’s decisions were if not right, then at least justified

Cap may be the Ultimate Soldier and Patriot, but he’s no genius. He’s simple. He thinks with his gut, and in this case, his gut-instinct may have been pure, but it was wrong. And at the end of Civil War, he finally realized it at the hands of the heros of the real world: Firefighters, Police officers, and EMTs finally made Cap realize the pointlessness of his stand.

And without Cap, there was no real resistance. Luke Cage and Daredevil are the paranoid brute thugs of the superhero universe who will always thumb their noses at authority. They can’t help themselves.

The Young Avengers are a bunch of amateur punks who would jump on to any bandwagon lead by the Living Legend of WWII, and the rest of the resistance (aka The Secret Avengers) were just sucked in by their guilty consciences. (Spider-Man’s decision to change sides halfways through Civil War are the most tragic and regretable example of Cap’s charisma leading to others making bad choices.)

I could rant forever about this, but instead, lets discuss it at the first PANELGEEK discussion group, TBA for early May.

In the meantime, for the more human side of the Civil War saga, I reccomend you pick up Civil War: Frontline

Which explores

A. the mission of two journalists to explore the details of each side of the war and

B. the story of Robbie Baldwin aka Speedball, one of the “heroes” “responsible” for the Stamford tragedy, and his transformation through guilt into a much darker, much more haunted anti-hero.

Written more intelligently than most of the other battle-driven comics, and concludes each chapter with a vignette alluding to a different war. One linking Spider-man’s internal conflict to the Japanese internment of WWII, and Iron Man’s consolidation of power to the rise of Julius Ceasar at the Rubicon in 59 B.C..

Smart stuff.