You heard it, and no, no one was surprised, but Captain America is Back! (or you know, soon will be).
You heard it right, just in time for the 4th of July, Marvel Comics has announced that it is issuing a limited series comic that will herald the return of Steve Rogers to his rightful place as the one and only Captain America.
Well, that’s about it for me right now. Everyone enjoy the holiday!
The Perfessor
Captain America wannabe or homoerotic posturing? Wait, it's both!
sound not req'd for heroic posing music
In keeping with our on-going all Wolverine, all the time theme that seems to have been running through my recent blog posts this past week. I wanted to relate the following story.
So today, as I was out and about running my errands today, I dropped in on an associate of mine and he laid on me a couple of copies of the 2009 edition of the Comics Values Annual. Yep, I’m one of the editors on this price guide (now in its 18th year of publication — I’ve been with them for 17).
This issue features an interview (conducted by your humble narrator) with John Barber, an assistant editor on Wolverine’s comics (published by Marvel — I also wrote the editorial). As with the past several years, the cover art is provided by Mark Sparacio.
It is published by Krause Books, and available now online or at your favorite book store.
The Perfessor
Yep, this is my “Just saw it @ Midnight, and I want to talk about it†mini Wolverine chat. I went to the midnight show (with my newly-minted 18-year0-old son) to the film, and he seemed to like it, although he felt that it needed more of the other X-Men involved with the action.
Personally, I felt that while I did enjoy the backstory which let us in on the fact that Wolverine (and his brother, who winds up being Sabertooth), are about 150 years old, and then we watch at the two lads grow up and fight in virtually every single armed conflict from the mid 1800s to Vietnam, which is when the real story begins. (Interestingly enough, the opening sequence felt a bit like the opening to Watchmen, only with not as cool a soundtrack).
Still, there was much snarling and sharp-edged weapons flashed through the film as well as explosions, and cameos of other X-characters (plus not one, but two tacked-on post scripts that run during the ending credits, as well as one surprise big-name reprise).
The film is fast and furious and plays well into the legions of who Wolverine is (hey, I’ve been reading comics since the very early ‘60s and until recently I didn’t know that Wolvie had this much back story (I stopped regularly reading X-Men in the mid ‘90s). Anyway, even though I recognized many of the characters (there were a couple I couldn’t completely place) and was aware of much of the plot threads that ran through the film, and still rather enjoyed what was going on in the film version of his past.
The interaction between Logan (Jackman) and Creed (Liev Schreiber) plays well and you can see some of the animosity that will keep them at each others throats. We get to see how an already clawed Logan has Adamantium (a super-cool, wicked-hard comicbook metal) is infused into his bones, and why and how he lost him memories (which he doesn’t fully regain until the X-Men trilogy).
On the down side, those of you who don’t know as much about his visceral past might find some of this film a tad tedious, plus as this is all prequel there are no colorful costumes, and many of the characters that you might have gotten used to seeing in the first films simply aren’t here. Dylan felt that most views might want to see more of the kind of large-scale action from the first films, which is missing from this film, as it is much more of a personal story.
What surprised me, was that, yeah, it is a “school/work†night but the Midnight show at my local theater was not quite half full, and much of the “crowd†didn’t arrive until just a couple of minutes before the lights went down and the trailers started to play. In years past, I’ve been to these events with theaters so packed that management opened up another screen. I can’t help but to wonder if the crappy economy and the fact that a not-quite-completed-version was leaked online a month or so back hurt sales.
Still, it was a fun ride, and (I believe) still worth the trip out.
The Perfessor
Look! A book that I wrote!
Well, usually I post about this stuff on my personal (comics-related) blog, but I wanted to bring it up here because, well, this time the kid meal giveaway about which I’m talking this time is not a toy, as much as it is an actual comicbook. The current kid meal promotion at Taco Bell is a set of four comicbooks produced by Marvel. These four comics are brand new, full-sized 12-page comics featuring , Captain America, Avengers, and the Fantastic Four.
Each comicbook features 11 pages of a main story, plus a 1-page back-up by cartoonist Chris Giarrusso. Chris is perhaps best known as the guy who produces an on-going — if irregular— feature running through many Marvel comics called Mini Marvels. The Mini Marvels are kid-like incarnations of the main marvel characters in, well, silly adventures. Many of these stories have been collected into digest-sized books and re-issued. If you can find any of them I highly recommend you pick it up.
Chris also produces his own characters (which sometimes appear in Image Comics’ Savage Dragon, and sometimes in their own stand-alone title, also produced by Image). Chris has a very cool website where you can keep up with his work.
Oh, and (generally speaking) you don’t have to buy the kid meal to get the comic. If you ask, you can probably get the comic for a buck or two. Part of why I’m mentioning this is that Saturday is Free Comicbook day, and talking about these comics seemed a natural tie-in.
The Perfessor
Renown romance author Marjorie Liu has been writing a six-part continuation of a small group of mutant teenagers for Marvel Comics (home of the equally-renown group of mutant teens; The X-Men). The only thing about this group of teen mutants is that none of them wear colorful spandex (or even black leather), solve their problems by immediately punching out the other guy, or even fight criminals or world-threatening baddies.
Nope, they are really just a bunch of street kids cut adrift in a harsh world that (mostly) doesn’t give a right, royal damn about them. The are tough and street-wise, but still, they are kids in a grown-up world with grown up problems. Someone is chasing them and they really aren’t sure why, only that they must stick together and fend for each other, because each other is all that they have.
Sure, sure, the circumstances of their collective lives is not so much the cut-and-dried issues that real-world street teens must deal with in the world in which we live, but still, the set of circumstances are truly not so much different if you think about it all. They still must put up a brave front against a cruel, uncaring world, and make it through each day relying on their own wits and all.
So yea they have powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men, but the story is truly well-written and the fact that they do possess these extraordinary powers becomes transparent to the story being told. They must work their way through to the conclusion of events set in motion both at the beginning of this series as well left over from the previous series. So if you are a fan of either the X-Men, Heroes or (Stan know shy) Push, you should enjoy this well-written series.
As a matter of fact, you should enjoy this series even if you are not a fan of the above-mentioned material, because Liu is a most-excellent writer and brings these characters to life in a wining way that will bring you right into their tale and make it completely believable, even given their fantastic powers and abilities.
The last issue of the six-issue series just came out recently, so if you missed any of the issues you could either search for them at a comics shop or on-line, or simply wait a bit more as the entire set is being collected and bound in a hardcover volume and will be available at a book story near you. Each of the individual issues came with “extra†material packed in with it, so the bound volume is sure to also contain like material. I believe that if you haven't read a comic in a while you will be pleasantly surprised by this story.
The Perfessor
OK, OK, I know that neither Walt or I have been muchly active since the beginning of the year but that is because (Walt is a lightweight) I’ve been busy.
No really, I’ve been witting quite a bit. one of the places that I’ve been quite busy, has been working on The Official Index to the Marvel Universe. Yeah, yeah, it is a real geek thing, specific to comicbook fans only, but hey, it is paying work, and I am having fun with it, so you know, what the heck?
The really cool part of the Index, is that Marvel is actually listing me as one of the writers of the series in their solicitations.
Anyway, here is a presidential cartoon that I came across that I found entertaining.
And, here is a very funny Foxtrot cartoon that points out the difference between boys and girls as far as math goes. I'm sure that you will enjoy it as well.
The Perfessor
As reported earlier, today was the day when Marvel Comics published a special edition of Amazing Spider-Man #583 which co-stared the (soon to be sworn in) President (elect) Barack Obama. Well, as already revealed the villain of the piece was to be the Chameleon, a long-standing Spider-Man villain.
I am revealing here fro the first time that was a bit of disinformation from Marvel, and through my investigative powers (and Photoshop) I was able to determine the actual villain:
The Perfessor
A lawyer by training, an author by choice Marjorie M. Liu has studied and traveled extensively through Taiwan and China, and spent some time working at the US Embassy in Beijing. She loves to read and poodles. A couple of the books she has authored include, The Wild Road, (August 2008 — Dirk & Steele #8), The Iron Hunt, (July 2008 — Hunter Kiss #1), Hotter Than Hell, (July 2008); and of course NYX.
According to Liu, she got the chance to write an X-Men book during a lunch with her agent, and mentioned that it was a long-time dream of hers to write something for Marvel comics. As, she happened to know a Marvel editor who was active seeking proposals for X-Men novels she sat down and brainstormed a couple of ideas. As it turned out, even though her first couple ideas were rejected, the last one took, and well, the rest is NYX.
As for the story of isue #four, Kiden and her mutant friends are trying to find their missing mentor, the adult teacher Cameron Palmer. Unfortunately that was before Tatiana was shot and now the cops are hunting for them. With this limited series (two more issues are left) Liu has crafted a very believable (human) story about these extraordinary youths, and somehow managed to do so in a world where everyone has big muscles and wears spandex.
This is a rather remarkable feat of no small proportions considering that the male-dominated comicbook industry is powered by people wrapping I-Beams around each other’s skulls. This story really draws you in to learn about the lives of these kids. You really want to know who they are and discover more about their lives. as the story twists and turns you are treated to a solid story that makes full use of the words and pictures aspect of this unique medium (in fact, even as a first-timer, she is better than some folk who have been doing it for years.
If you mised out on the first couple of issues, and don't want to jump into the closing chapters of the story, then you are in luck. Marvel will be reprinting this story in a graphic album form that is sure to be at a book store near you.
The Perfessor
Mutants without costumes
I’ve been reading comicbooks for a very long time, and in most of them, guys in costume try to take over the world (or the First Federal Bank of Somesuch) and then have the crap kicked out of them by other guys (and gals) in colorful spandex.
I am an open-minded, free-thinking modern guy who reads and supports Indie comics, and still I am not wholly not used to the kind of under-stated elegance that I have found in Marjorie M. Liu’s lyrical writing that I am finding in NYX. The first couple of issues seemed to re-establish who these characters were and setting up the story that is to come. With issue #3, that is now done and, well the excitement begins.
I was prepared for the pacing of the first two issues (I had not read the first series) so I was not entirely sure what to expect as far as a storyline was concerned, but I knew right for the get-go that this was not going to be a funnybook where people were going to put on spandex and hit each other.
What I got in the third issue was a subtly powerful story about runaway teens who were on their own living in New York City. Teens who already had tragic lives. Teens without the benefit of caring parents (they do have an adult who looks out for them, a teacher who has taken them in, but that’s not quit the same thing). Still, the events of this issue are powerful. The teacher (Cameron Palmer) was kidnapped last issue and the kids walked into their apartment to see it splattered with blood.
The kids are now on the run, trying to make sense of a world suddenly gone mad. The violence is underplayed and overwhelming, while the histrionics of the events swirling around them flow smoothly to support the characters and the storyline itself. It is a wonderful piece of work, and if you are not picking up this comic you still can (this is only the third issue). Plus when it is all don (there will be a total of six issues) it will be collected in a graphic album that will be available both online and at brick-and-mortar bookstores.
In case you are unfamiliar with Marjorie M. Liu, she is an attorney and a writer (The Wild Road,
Tiger Eye, The Last Twilight, The Iron Hunt). She has traveled throughout Asia, and when not writing, she tends to enjoy reading comicbooks, designing websites, and watching movies from a long time ago and far, far away that involve light sabers, various applications of the Force, and small green men with pointy ears.
I’m going to keep reading this series. I like when my preferred choice of reading material surprises me.
The Perfessor
NYX #2
Kiden, Tatiana, Bobby Soul, and Lil' Bro (our young heroes) have never had an easy life, but when someone kidnaps their would-be mentor — the only person who ever lifted a finger on their behalf — for this is when the NYX kids learn what they’re really made of. Will they stand together…or fall apart?
Well, that’s the way the Marvel catalog describes it. for me, it is a different kind of comic, for as a reader of the four-color literary periodicals for the past 45 years or so, I am used to people in gaudily-colored spandex kicking the crap out of each other for little if any reason.
This comic is vastly different than most main-stream hero comics that I have ever read. It is not so much about heroes in costumes (in fact, no one appears in costumes, and really, no one refers to anyone by wicked-cool handles, but their actual names). No, here the story seems to be an actual story, that revolves around characters and their motivations.
(This is not to say that all comics are cheap, badly-written stories centered around violent content, I’m just playing to type here. Actually there are quite a few well-written comics that feature real characters, honest-to-Homer stories, and meaty content. It is just that I’m often surprised when I find such in mainstream comics from one of the major publishers int he field.)
Anyway, for what it is worth, Marjorie Liu has delivered the second chapter in what can only be described as an interesting, off-beat story that will have people sitting up and taking notice of her, and that sort of writing is always good, no matter the medium.
The Perfessor