More NonSense: 10th Anniversary Edition

The Pixel Project

February marks ten years of this blog's existence. Unfortunately, I won't be able to sustain it for much longer. Computers cost money, which is in short supply right now. And my present machine is in desperate need of repairs I can't afford. So I don't know how long before I can get things sorted out. This could be the occasion where I decide it's just not worth the effort to carry on. But let's get on with this month's news before I go, for now.

DMG Entertainment has purchased Valiant. Strangely, I can't seem to care given the publisher's relatively small profile.

Forbes has an article on longtime Marvel scribe Brian Michael Bendis and his move to DC, a deal which also includes the transfer of his creator-owned titles to the new publisher.

"It just so happened I was back in Cleveland for the first time in years for my brother's wedding, when the offer was put forth [by DC]. I went to visit my friend John [Skrtic] who runs the Cleveland public library — we grew up together — and he had a Superman exhibition. And I walked in there and it was like the universe was speaking to me, telling me 'Oh you've got to do this!' And it flooded back to me in the biggest way possible, and here we are." ... 

"Number one, DC is going to be hosting Jinxworld as a whole," he said, "so everything I've ever done in the creator-owned world will be coming to DC. And on top of that, we’ll be debuting brand new material, brand new series that I think will be exciting for the marketplace and for fans, stuff I haven't tried before and stuff people have been begging us for. We'll be debuting that all this year." 

"And number two," Bendis continued, "separate from Jinxworld, is that I will be hosting and curating an imprint, a custom imprint not unlike what Gerard Way is doing with [DC imprint] Young Animal. It's going to be a select series of special comics, and we'll debut what those are later in the year. I'll be writing some of those and curating the others, but they'll all be under this imprint and add a very special flavor to the DC Universe. I'm happy to say it will star some of my all-time favorite DC characters in unique situations, and that I could not be more excited for."

Jules Feiffer profiled by Michael Cavna.

The Dora Milaje, from Black Panther (2018).

As the latest entry from a Marvel Cinematic Universe currently celebrating its first decade, Black Panther is more than just a superhero film. Its impressive box office numbers have shattered Hollywood conventional wisdom that blockbusters staring people of color can't succeed financially.

But as the first film in a successful franchise fronted by a powerful black man and a phalanx of formidable and inspiring women, Black Panther came in with higher expectations than simply making back its expenses. And in this regard, it also succeeded. The MCU has dealt with politics before, notably with terrorism and imperialism. However, politics is at the heart of this film. Black Panther tackles an array of issues with surprising poignancy: Pan Africanism, the African diaspora, slavery, racism, isolationism, Afrofuturism, even as it leans hard into Stan Lee's and Jack Kirby's goofy sci-fi ideas. This results in a film where the primary antagonist Erik Killmonger isn't your standard world-conquering villain, but a revolutionary backed by justifiable grievances, even as his toxic masculinity obviously undermines the very legitimacy of his extremist methods. Given that Wakanda, a fictional nation possessing the most advanced technology in the world, chose self-imposed isolation when it had the power to stop the colonization and enslavement of Africa at its very inception, he has a point.

Black Panther's emotional impact is reminiscent of last year's Wonder Woman in its presentation of an empowering tale when the communities it addresses are under renewed assault from longstanding reactionary forces. But as befits an MCU film, the final product is funnier and more generous.

An interview with Reginald Hudlin.

Evan Narcisse recommends 30 Comics You Should Read for Black History Month (including Black Panther).

Abraham Reisman on Don McGregor's run on Black Panther.

Tucker Stone and David Brothers on McGregor's classic Black Panther arc "Panther's Rage".

James Whitbrook lists Black Panther's most memorable comic book moments. But including the annulment of his marriage of Storm? That's cold.

Abraham Reisman recommends 5 Black Panther Comics to Read.

Tegan O'Niel explains how Green Arrow became a jerk.

Heidi MacDonald praises the top 20 selling graphic novels of 2017 for its diversity.

DC unveils new imprints aimed at younger readers.

A guide to the work of the late Ursula K. Le Guin. Neil Gaiman payed tribute to her during the 2014 National Book Awards. The rest of the literary world reacts to her passing.

A profile on the late Marc Campos on TCJ.

RIP Mort Walker (September 3, 1923 – January 27, 2018), best known as the creator of Beetle Bailey.

Brilliant #1

By Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Bagley, Joe Rubinstein, Nick Filardi, Chris Eliopoulos, Tim Daniel

Fiction that tries to answer the "what if superheroes were real" question tends to follow one of two broad approaches.* In the first, ordinary people put on costumes and try to act like superheroes despite an absence of superpowers or impossible blend of skill sets. This happens to have some currency due to the activities of Real-life Superheroes. But with all due respect to Phoenix Jones and his ilk, only the second approach piques my inner scientist. Those are the stories that speculate on the real-world possibility of metahumans. Sure it might be interesting to explore what motivates mere mortals to fight crime. But without the powers or ludicrous training, they're still basically vigilantes who cosplay. Another advantage of the latter approach is that the protagonist doesn't have to conform to the narrow requirements of the superhero genre. After all, just because someone can fly, it doesn't make her morally obligated to fight crime.

Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley's creator-owned series Brilliant uses the latter. It follows a bunch of ordinary, if very smart, college students researching the possibility of developing real-world superpowers. Since Bendis and Bagley were the original creative team behind the Ultimate Spider-Man, familiar readers might expect them to bring their particular brand of teen drama into this project. They do, but unfortunately, this inaugural issue ends up showcasing the weaknesses to their Marvel-honed style.

The comic begins with a young man named Amadeus robbing a bank in broad daylight. During the heist, he exhibits a number of paranormal abilities. But just as things are about to get interesting, the scene suddenly shifts. Now another man named Albert is entering what appears to be a college dorm. He's welcomed back by the other residents, as he took the previous semester off. What follows is twenty pages of Bendis' staccato dialogue. We're treated to gems like this:

I'm OK. It's all okay.
No, really?
Really.
Did they talk to you yet?
About what?

And so on and on. I get the impression that Bendis is trying hard to capture the nervous energy of the college milieu. Such cryptic shorthand might convey the casual intimacy between freinds, but it doesn't leave much room for adequate characterization. There are about half a dozen characters being introduced, including Amadeus and Albert, but they share one personality between them. Only Bagley's and Joe Rubinstein's art allows the reader to separate their individual voices. To their credit, the multi-ethnic cast is easily distinguishable. But without colorful costumes, fight scenes, and requisite poses to work from, the art only rates slightly above average. It's only towards the end when the conversation gets around to discussing the viability of creating genuine superpowers. And the scene cuts off again. There's no cliffhanger or natural chapter break.

So that's it. Two disjointed scenes with not much to latch onto. I realize it's now common practice to use the first issue as a setup for a larger story arc. But even by those standards, this is a pretty slow intro. Actually, it feels more like the prelude to the intro proper. It's a frustrating read, and not the most compelling way to hook skeptical readers.

____
* The seminal Watchmen naturally uses both.

Siege #1-2

by Brian Michael Bendis, Chris Eliopoulos, Laura Martin, Mark Morales, Oliver Coipel

It's a hallmark of the Marvel Universe that its characters have to fight hard just to maintain an even keel. Even on their best days, Marvel's superheroes face a world that fears and loathes them. At least that's the general idea Marvel wants to convey anyway. But as anyone who's been paying attention to its company-wide events for the last three years, its superhero in-universe stock has been dropping rapidly. They've been outlawed, arrested, identities publicly exposed, murdered, kidnapped, impersonated, and suffered the indignity of watching their mortal enemies being put into key positions of power. Eventually this downward spiral had to reverse itself before it alienated even Marvel's most diehard fans. Which leads to the latest company-wide event Siege.

For an event that is much hyped as the culmination of several years of storytelling, the main Siege miniseries, which is currently halfway through its four issue run, is a fairly pedestrian effort. While it's easy to blame writer Brian Michael Bendis, Siege is, like most events, a part of a much larger commercial package designed to appeal to hardcore fans and completists. The miniseries functions as a spine from which the reader attaches several interconnected titles. The fact that it has become SOP for Marvel to supply the checklist for company-wide events just to keep the story straight is not only a sign of the kind of mental and financial investment required by the reader, but also how much synergy is required between at least half a dozen writers. The miniseries is a gigantic spectacle and little else. Presumably the subsidiary titles are there to supply a additional narrative substance. But the result is that the central story lacks any context or emotional pull to its proceedings.

The setup is simple enough to those who've been following Marvel: über-villain Norman Osborne has spent his time accumulating political capital while successfully discrediting any effective opposition from the superhero community. Now he decides to eliminate the Asgardians, who for reasons too complicated to go into, have relocated Asgard above Oklahoma. With the help of evil god Loki, he engineers an incident as a pretense to launch a full-scale invasion of Asgard with all the military and superhumans under his command. In what is either an act of symmetry or just lazy writing, the incident mimics the one that sparked Civil War. But while Mark Millar used Civil War as a platform to deliver ham fisted political messages, Bendis plays it straight. While Iron Man and Captain America fighting over superhero rights in the former pretended to be relevant, here Osborne is clearly in the wrong, necessitating the intervention of Thor and the real Avengers. It couldn't be any more obvious if Bendis had Osborne and Loki cackle maniacally. So in place of ponderous discussions on whether superheroes do more harm than good, we have a perfunctory scene that barely registers the death of thousands of civilians, followed by several scenes of Osborne cowing, bribing, and lying his way in order to commit an act of genocide. Osborne has never had much dealings with the Asgardians in the past; so his motivations for listening to Loki and attacking them seem like an empty exercise in rote villain behavior.

The battle of Asgard proceeds at a similarly clipped pace: Thor is quickly taken down; Ares and Balder have a brief exchange; a B-lister dies to stress just how evil Osborne is; Steve Rogers rallies the superheroes driven underground by Osborne. The art supplied by Oliver Coipel and company is fairly conventional, but slickly drawn. There are some pretty splash pages, but overall the backgrounds and surface details are rather generic and kept to a minimum. Unfortunately this doesn't help convey the sense of scale needed for these grandiose battle set pieces.

Siege feels very much like a means to an end - to establish a new status quo. The first issue cover already promises the triumphant reunion of Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America. If it does that while ending Norman Osborne's reign of terror, it may be the cathartic experience many fans want. But as a story in itself, the miniseries is a rather stilted excuse to justify one big fight.