Superheroes: Classic or Dud?

(This is also what Tolkien gets wrong - better to see his stuff as an extension of language-structure building into other fields than as an attempt at 'mythology')

The myth theory also ignores the idea that myths are a mass body of belief-stroke-folklore, not the preserve of a private clique. So ur- memory of Superman on TV/Batman on TV is the actual modern mythology and modern superhero comics the equiv. of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.

The best way to understand Morrison's stuff is 'sampling', not 'aping'. This explains his descent from fizzy energetic stuff to horrible overdetermined stuff (his closest pop avatar is probably Goldie, ha!). "Excitement" over Morrison taking on the X-Men totally misplaced - he's already done it (twice!), Invisibles being the X-Men remixed, complete with interminable messianic non-endings and a too- close identification with the characters leading to a complete lack of feeling that anything at all is 'at stake'.

Most New new thing in comics since (bah) Dark Knight *is* of course Image - MTVisation of comics, compu-colouring as the ProTools of comics (in a good sense as well as bad). Creatively of course Image blew it due to commercial and then industry pressure to stick to a formula, a formula that includes the ghastly 'literary' aspirations of post-Kirby Marvel.

Oh yeah, classic or dud? Currently Dud, but I've spent too much time reading the things to actually hand down such a harsh verdict (and to be fair if I was laid up and somebody offered me a fat stack of unread comics I'd probably break my vow of abstinence). So intermittently Classic. Predictable genre peaks - Kirby/Lee Fantastic Four; Ditko/Lee Spiderman; Kirby Fourth World stuff. Best thing in my reading lifetime - Morrison's Doom Patrol run.

Besides computerizing/downsizing the industry (don't forget the letterers!), it's worth noting the impact that the Image / Valiant Wars / Alliance had on the industry. Valiant's attempts to reiterate the classic values of solid storytelling (basic panel layout, telling the story through pictures) were the last attempts at a mainstream comic company to keep traditional values financially viable. And, of course, they were handily trounced by Image's style-over-substance, nonsensical posing, "lookin' good!" efforts. It's amazing to see even the veteran artists (John Romita, Jr.; George Perez) adapt their style to fit the changing times.

Lord, that Deathmate cross-over was pointless. (Of course, I could just type, "Lord, that FILL-IN-THE-BLACK crossover was pointless," and leave it at that.)

And in noting Image's "failure", one cannot discount the fact that their comics were NEVER timely. NEVER. There's an article on the 'web somewhere that details the founding & collapse of Image succinctly - I'll have to find it later...

Lara Croft is definitely a superhero, even if her lips are too big.

Sorry I'm destroying this thoughtful thread, I wish I knew more about comics so I could have something worth talking about.

David - loads of good points, not time to answer this post but i put 'literary' in scare quotes for a reason. Marvel was totally trying to be lit in a kind of really debased way - the person to blame was not Claremont (who's just soapy) but Roy Thomas with his fucking Shakespeare references everywhere. Image people grew up with Marvel's pretensions as The Way To Write and did their own (crappy) imitation of it.

BLACK = BLANK. Stupid typos.

And I almost forgot about Roy Thomas. (John Byrne - oh, John - used to pull out quotes from every possible dusty leather-bound source possible. Wow, he read books - too bad he forgot how to draw.)

One thing re: continuity - I used to CRAVE continuity. Nice, shiny bows on nice, shiny, neatly wrapped presents. But, thinking about what Tom noted re: myths & such, it seems that the same thing that bit those in the ass (that is, the need for reason over conjecture - hence, science!) bit comics in the butt as well. Instead of just telling "stories", they tried to make sense of it all. They actually tried to make sense of nonsense. Oy. People want things to be continuous; they want rhyme or reason. They don't want free-jazz crap like multiple Earths or diverging realities - well, they do, but in the Spyro Gyra sense (watered down, more palatable).

Still, there is something to be said about continuity when involving an enclosed story (like _Watchmen_). I think a large reason that continuity farms the cock-n-bull is due to editors imposing restrictions on the talent - they're the ones concocting the majority of the back story, the bastards.

And, Ally, darlin' - why should you let a li'l thing like not knowing about comics stop you from posting? (Seriously, though, I'm curious as to the thoughts of the non-comic-fan portion of the crowd re: your perceptions of comics - funny books? nerdy crap? T&A for adolescents?)

Hmm. Now I'm running late. Damn it all.

I really wish I could do it, because if I could post, "I'm a huge fan of The Dirty Pair", I seriously would because that'd be the best thing I ever said.

_Dirty Pair_, though - that's magna, and that's a whole other ball of wax (one which I'm not too familiar with). That has as much to do with superhero stuff (at least, what the crux of this thread pertains to) as books like _The Acme Novelty Library_ & _Optic Nerve_ & _Eightball_ do.

(That was of course a code we all worked in the dark days, come up with something that only the REAL Ethan wd recognise...)

(You can never be too careful...)

HURRAH!!

Gimme a couple of hours to bullshit some stuff, and I'll be happy to respond.

Sincerely yours,

Daver - Stroking the Stats Cock Since June of 2001.

So, should I bother with superhero comics anymore? I'm afraid I'll get sucked back into the dystopia that is comic collecting. But I miss 'em. (Really, I'm just scared to see what sort of crap the once- great John Byrne is barfing up each month.)

ahem, said it before, say it again, the best superhero comic of the past ten years is SAVAGE DRAGON. larsen's the image creator who stayed on his original book with his original character--he hasn't even had any fill-ins! it's a fantastic comic that's always overlooked for that intelligent superhero astro city bullshit that barnes & noble intellectuals love to discuss as revitalizing the superhero archetype or whatever when it's really just boring as fuck. dave, you like hellboy, right? everyone loves motherfucking hellboy. the two dragon issues with hellboy were the greatest thing ever. madman, you like madman? madman guesting in dragon's book right now. if you want to start in a good place, try #27, it's right after the 'gang war' storyline got wrapped up and the new plot focus (for a few issues, at least) of dragon and his girlfriend rapture started, and it's a damned good one anyway. #28 has the maxx in it too, but it's not a very good one. but then dragon goes to hell and sees the devil and god comes down and fights him and he's like 'DONT FUCK WITH GOD' and it's awesome. after that, let's see, the kirby- esque darkworld and godworld parts, dragon joins SOS (this hype superhero team with all these hilarious realistic touches) and it just gets better and better and better.

question: anyone know what's up with scud: the disposable assassin? last issue i could find was #20 and that was like two years ago. last thing i saw from schrab was a black octopus back-up story in the drywall and oswald special by the kid who did 'creed'. help? scud was my favorite comic, dammit.

But, yeah, _Hellboy_ was cool as all that. I WAS a big _Next Men_ fan, too, before Byrne decided to sell his soul to the Big Two, the bastard. And _Madman_ was OK, if a bit too pop-arty for my tastes. But, Nexus - hot damn, that Steve Rude's a drawring fiend!

I believe _Scud, The Disposable Assassin_ is being developed by some Hollywood jerks for some sort of movie/cartoon thing. Given how long the Tick live-action series has taken to get on the air, I wouldn't get your hopes up.

Where the funk is Art Adams? Adam Hughes? Is Neal Adams still drawring Mr. T comics?

hellboy, madman, nothing new to say, i love them both.

re: scud, my hopes are up if there are chances of it NEVER being a cartoon/movie. i know rob thinks he's making movies on paper or whatever the fuck, but scud is an idea that works only in comic books.

art adams was great, but i never read monkeyman and o'brien. alan hughes is only good for pin-ups and covers. neal adams can fuck off.

David, over the course of 100+ issues, completely upended the series, for the better. Made the whole stupid grey/green/smart/dumb Hulk issue into a psychoanalytic exploration (again, remember - I'm a pseudo-intellectual), had the Hulk suffer amnesia and become a Vegas bouncer (oh, yeah), made characters like Rick Jones and Betty Ross into REAL CHARACTERS, not one-note ciphers, broke down the 4th wall, poked fun at the Marvel mythos, and basically had loads of fun. And, damn it, it was fun.

And his Spider-Man (written before the fame/infamy the Hulk would bring him) was equally good. Fucking Marvel fucked everyone up in the 80s and 90s. Fuckers. Don't get me started on Spider-Man - how they managed to cut the balls and brain out of THEIR BEST CHARACTER (fuck Wolverine) still sends me reeling. His parents are robots, and Norman Osborne didn't die? No, no, no, and no!

Early Larsen (just prior to his run on _Spider-Man_, the McFarlane spin-off series, not his _ASM_ stuff) was wretchedly gawky. Very Ditkoesque, but as if Ditko was trying to ape Kirby. Zoinks!

Bernard Chang = Valiant prodigy, similar art style to R.A. "Rags" Morales. I liked it. I think Marvel picked him up, too.

And shut yo mouth about Hughes. Pin-ups, yeah, but if you have $.50 lying around, you can snag his entire run on the "funny" _Justice League_ series. The writing was an acquired taste, for sure (unless you liked forced jokes), but Kevin McGuire & Hughes penciling for 40+ issues = wowza.

Re: Alan Moore - what's there to get? Unlike the other European Vertigo writers that followed in his wake - Milligan & Morrison being the ones that spring to mind - Moore doesn't try to be intentionally weird and obtuse. _Swamp Thing_, yes! _Watchmen_, of course. _V For Vendetta_ is interesting, but a bit rough. And his take on superheroes (harkening back to the Golden Age) is pretty damn good, from what I've read.

And, you know, if anyone else wants to offer up their own vats of useless comic knowledge, start coughing. Unless you're enjoying the oh-so-witty reparte between Ethan & I.

Obligatory underground mention - _Ragmop_. Used to be independent, then got picked up by Image before they splintered, then went back to independence, I think. Kooky stuff - the head honcho (Rob Walton) does some animation for Hanna-Barbera, and has that clunky style to his artwork. Lots of stuff in the back re: Adam Smith, too. A strange & interesting mixture of funny books and serious thematic issues (a la _Understanding Comics_). Have no idea if it's still being published.

re: spiderman, i never read any issues past the 70s except untold tales which was quite good (the annual drawn by mike allred is a beautiful thing, and only $1.95! i love spidey-human torch-namor stories.)

the only early larsen i've seen is some mid 80s savage dragon stuff which looked pretty good to me. ditko-esque, sure, but you might as well copy the greats.

didn't keith giffen write those 'funny' justice leagues? i adore him for 'ambush bug' and hate him for everything else. i bet that's pretty bad too.

alan moore, eh.

i read some ragmop a long time ago, i remember chuckling at a joke about 'pope john-paul-george-ringo' and not much else. image actually has become a decentpublisher now, come to think of it. unlike VALIANT, who are ass. i forgot to piss on joe quesadilla last post, so let me do it now: 'ash' is the most idiotic concept i have ever come across. i met him at a con around the time he was set to start on daredevil. fans were asking him about the character and he didn't know shit. he's no frank miller. heyyy, there's a discussion waiting to happen. frank miller, right now i will only divulge that he is my least favorite creator on the legend imprint.

***OTHER PEOPLE WHO READ COMIC BOOKS***: talk about them on this thread before me and dave popshots bore each other to death. doesn't have to be superheroes, anything is good. except peter david books. actually i re-read one of his issues of aquaman the other night it wasn't bad. still, the fucking star trek references, jesus.

Re: comic books in general, and this thread in particular, I have to admit to being a bit, um, bowled over by the level of complexity and absorption here. This whole comics obsessive thing - it's a cultish following with more than a few parallels to uber Sci-Fi fandom (esp. Star Trek), no? Just has a bit more of a coolness cachet to it. I can more easily grasp the Trek thing tho... probably cause TV and movies are much bigger, more accessible media. The worlds put forth there are probably much more 'digestible' too - not so many leaps of faith needed on the part of the consumer, which is an obstacle similar to what Ally was saying way up there. Part of what I really mean by more easily digestible, is that the suspension of disbelief needed for enjoyment, is much easier if the context only is strange and alien, but then the content itself remains relatively safe and recognizable, using archetypal characters, archetypal situations - but oooh... in space (or whatever). An Odd Place + Normal Happenings = Just New Enough. Comic books seem more challenging - partly because it's not as passive a medium, and partly because the alien context/content thing seems often reversed, like Normal Place + Odd Happenings = Unsettling, or to take it further, an Odd Place + Odd Happenings = Frustrating or Irrelevant. I don't mean any of this in a disparaging way at all, because more often than not, the most accessible things are the most crap. I can't really say why I haven't ever properly picked up a comic. I like the art aspect a lot, I like the idea of them, so I don't know... I do have some sort of geek boy type aura surrounding them in my mind - due to highschool guys I knew - eh? it's often a good thing to avoid contact with many known time consuming, obssession inducing, things tho - so might be better off as is.

Having read GR I now think the Invisibles is EVEN MORE RUBBISH.

Giffen & J.M. DeMatteis were the _Justice League_ culprits - former w/ the layouts & plots, latter w/ the dialogue. Intermittently amusing (assuming you have the same intellectual gag reflex as me).

Frank Miller + Daredevil = untouchable. Frank Miller + Batman = pretty damn good. Frank Miller + anything else = zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Kim, PLEASE interject some Archie stuff into this thread. So far, we've barely covered anything outside superheroes.

And, you know, the initial meaning behind the thread has sort of gotten just a bit lost & stuff...ah, whatevah.

And John Byrne's the weakest link in _Legend_, from the original six. Lemme think ... Miller, Mignola, Adams, Byrne ... ah, damn. John Byrne couldn't carry Rich Buckler's jockstrap right now. He's fallen off SO far. Ugh.

giffen is god for ambush bug, i cannot say it enough.

never read frank miller on daredevil. dark knight returns means more to me than you would expect, though.

kim, did you buy archie vs. punisher? i always wanted that but never picked it up. archie vs. punisher!

inital meaning of the thread = bollocks. no offense dave, but even phil sheldon thought the 'superheroes are the new mythology' angle was boring, and that was in the sixties. (or rather, busiek in the nineties)

i liked in savage dragon whenever 'johnny redbeards NIXED MEN' showed up and it was a team made of parodies from titles byrne had abandoned. fuck john byrne.

Who the hell is this Phil Sheldon? Isn't he the photographer guy in _Marvels_?

Watchmen did it for me at 14. Haven't really read it since: but early experiences mean a lot to me, as usual.

All that talk about Morrison, and no-one mentioned - ZENITH!!!!

YES TO ZENITH. Book III anyway - Book I was a bit derivative (as in: bad or corny sampling as opposed to good/effective sampling) and ended too quickly, Book II was good for the Branson pisstake but not much else, Book IV seemed half-hearted and has a dud ending, though it has a lot of his best jokes.

I won't comment on the superhero stuff, because I hear enough about it at home. It's sad I even know who Alex Ross and Warren Ellis are.

We agree re. 'War In Heaven', forgotten masterpiece.

QUESTION #2: So, Mr. Ewing, if you're going to piss on Alex Ross & Warren Ellis (arguably some of the better talent today's comic industry has to offer, in the super-hero arena), I'm curious as to what whets your whistle when it comes to this geeky shit?

QUESTION #3: Since super-hero jibber-jabber ultimately gets booooring - talk more about the obscuro stuff, please. Like P. Shaw, or _Julius Knipl_.

STATEMENT: I always confused Cherry Blossom with Cherry (the soft- porn comic). Unless they're the same...? Ooo, that'd be saucy.

Ethan, Giffen STOLE his entire 'Ambush Bug' artwork style from a great Argentinian comics artist called Jose Munoz (The Comics Journal had a complete run-down of all of the panels that Giffen lifted directly from Munoz.) So I think granting him godhood status is a bit generous.

Not classic but very underrated: the rotating-triangle superman books up until about 2-3 months before the Death storyline.

Waid, Busiek, Peter David - the whole writerly backlash vs Image, in fact - pretty much killed superhero comics dead for me. A horror of vulgarity married to a terror of pretension: nein danke.

Others may have written it, but Kurt gave them the idea they used.

So, which dopey intern suggested digging up the Green Fucking Goblin?

(And Tom with the shout-out to John Ostrander - very nice!)

some random thoughts:

to stick up for marvels, i'd like to point out that it was really intended for the middle- aged demographic who grew up reading comics in the 60s, not jaded fans like tom (or me) who grew with vertigo and alan moore. it captures a sense of awe and wonder, and it does what it set out to do pretty well (my dad loved it). i mean, honestly it's only about as pretentious as the first superman movie. now, kingdom come, i can't speak for that. i read it, but eh. like i was saying about one of the big dc edition things recently, having alex ross paint your comic does not make it marvels. i predicted tom's hatred of ross weeks ago and so it's no surprise to see that, but really, alex ross? he's harmless.

and anyway i don't give a fuck about whatever with jean grey, i met kurt busiek at a convention and he was a really nice guy (although that didn't stop me from dropping astro city in disgust after picking up two issues). somebody there said his entire brain was wired for comics, like if you mentioned a toaster he would bring up how iron man could modify his armor with heating coils. he genuinely loves superheros and you can hardly fault him for that, because all he wants to do is make superhero comics. i used to stick up for liefeld the same way, if you don't like him don't buy him, but don't knock his work, he's just a big kid. all the brit vertigo writers shipped over in the mid-90s that had 'never read bleedin funnybooks' and were raised on shit pseudo-intellectual films were far worse for the medium.

it's funny to so what different levels of fanboy (and girl, although that's been sorta lacking; sorry, i never read archie) everyone here is. as an early teenager i declared my favorite comics company to be dark horse and i think that's good enough to define me still. whereas i'm not even sure tom read comics as a kid.

side question, prompted by tom's mention of crime comics: anyone read stray bullets? i'm thinking about getting into it.

Then I got into American comics - all Marvels (X-Men, Alpha Flight, Avengers, New Mutants), got a bit pissed off with them, tried DCs, got into the whole post-Crisis thing, then the pre-Vertigo stuff, also Watchmen etc. of course. Then just gave up - I can remember the exact storyline too, a really really interminable Hellblazer one about eco-warriors. Still read 2000AD a bit half-heartedly as it was mostly pretty poor.

After my Oxford interview I needed to wind down and found myself in a comics shop again, and bought a few X-Men comics and to my surprise got bitten by the bug again. My half-year period of post-school friendless unemployment coincided with the birth of the speculator boom so I ended up reading almost *everything* Marv and DC did and it was all pretty ghastly, no sense of wonder but still addictive continuity candy. Feeling pretty jaded I started getting alternative comics which I'd never really done before - Cerebus, Hate, Eightball, etc. So the upshot was that throughout University I had a pretty big comics habit - we'd buy them every thursday and use them to fuel an afternoon's drinking and slacking. Around this time romantic crises led me moth-flame to Love and Rockets.

Then I got a job in a book and comic shop, which introduced me to european comics, loads of underground stuff, newspaper strips, and every month's mainstream imports for free. This also pretty much killed off my desire to buy comics - burned myself out on them, I suppose. I still read my brother's copies when I go home but I've not bought one for over a year I think.

Dark Horse? That means fuck-all. Shameless movie-based mini-series, generic indie head-up-ass nonsense, half-ass superhero crap (Comics' Greatest World - pheff), and momentary sparks of indie brilliance (a la _Hellboy_ & SOME _Concrete_ & bits & pieces from _DHP_). Eclectic as all hell, though - that's admirable.

YES, YES, YES re: the influx of UK-based gothic / Vertigo pretense into the comic world. Much more detrimental than the so-called literary pretense Tom whinged about. Of course, when Vertigo came into vogue, Marvel tried revamping all their horrorific characters. Bwah hah hah. (And, for a long while, _Books of Magic_ was the best Vertigo series, hands down. Whimsical and realistic. Take your Harry Potter and shove it up your ming.)

Here's a question - Kevin Smith. How's his writerly skillz?

The Goth problem was initially a side-issue (Swamp Thing was Gothic explicitly, and in a good way too) and really became a problem when Sandman took off and DC decided to brand their entire line of 'adult'/'horror' comics using it as a guideline. Most of the really awful Vertigo writers were Anglophile Americans - and yes they were AWFUL, just as bad as the 'literary' folx (who are still indefensible in my book). The literary-retro stuff arose as a conservative overreaction to the 90s speculator boom, to the Sandman cash-ins, but also to a really wacked misinterpretation of 80s comics.

Pete Milligan - X-Force
Mark Millar - The Authority, Ultimate X-Men
Grant Morrison - New X-Men
Warren Ellis - Transmetropolitan
Alan Moore - 100 Bullets
Brian Azzerello - 100 Bullets

kevin smith comic writing = utterly dud. i've read maybe two comics by the guy and i'm convinced to never let him touch the medium again.

i strangely have about fifteen issues of pre- vertigo swamp thing that are quite enjoyable, one of them is entirely experimental photo-art techniques and is really nice. books of magic wasn't very good, and vertigo as a whole is leering towards dud. but dark horse, oh no. the movie adaptations are mostly shit (although i have a great issue of 'dark horse comics' with art adams doing godzilla, predator, james bond, and aliens) but the other titles are consistent. hellboy, one of my favorite books ever. madman, concrete, both solid. monkey man and o'brien, essentially just an angel and the ape rip-off, but a good one. sin city, ehhh. john byrne, no. still, more solid than image, which would have been the other company to hold allegiance to in my teens (for dragon and the maxx, naturally). and marvel/dc, blech, i didn't get into hellblazer and doom patrol until later. and i've NEVER regularly read a marvel title.

Hell, the revamp of Superman was mid-80s, too. Damn, I'm stupid.

Actually, I'd have to say that 1975-1985 is a dead zone for most comics, excepting some notable burps (Dark Phoenix Saga & the 10+ issues preceeding it, FM Daredevil - shut yo mouth about Elektra, foo, _Crisis_, early Byrne FF stuff, _Swamp Thing_). It wouldn't be a stretch to point to _Crisis_ as what opened the door for both the uber-crossover/gimmick sickness (_Secret Wars_ - HA!) AND the more mature / status-quo-unsettling nature of stuff like _Dark Knight_ & _Watchmen_, would it? (Or am I getting my timetables funked up again?)

Crossovers = MLB interleague games? A cool idea in theory, and in limited practice, but loses its appeal after many, many, many, MANY permutations on the same stupid theme.

The thing about the 80s 'superhero scene' is that yes you had the 75- 85 dead zone but at the same time you got stuff like American Flagg and Nexus and Zot! which probably don't stand the test of time too well but also probably made it seem less of a wasteland.

Blimey I'm shocking myself by remembering all this.

Swiping is, of course, a complicated subject in comics, and has been going on for years - think Wally Wood and Dan Adkins, for starters. I reckon comics might actually benefit from a spot of 'sampling' - Brendan McCarthy once had the brilliant idea of 'remixing' classic stories like 'The Battle for the Baxter Building' - but imagine if a hip-hop act only sampled one album, again and again and again. Wouldn't you think that showed, at the very least, a certain poverty of imagination?

Besides, I think writer Robert Loren Fleming was the REAL talent behind Ambush Bug - his Thriller series with Trevor Von Eeden is one of the great bargain box comics of all time. But I really don't want a fight, so will shut up now.

Casper, OTOH, was da BOMB.

This is "Nation Of Millions", surely ;)

Otherwise Andrew L has dropped the science bomb re. Giffen.

Archie: did not translate to the UK. Who needed Betty and Veronica when you could have LOOK-IN's Grange Hill strip, eh?

Underrated inker: Karl Kesel.

Anyone know about Jack Michael Bendis? Hot shit guy, pulpy, wrote _Batman_ for a while?

Or is this equivalent to the Beatles recording "Free As a Bird"?

I'm all for some goofiness in my comic helpings, but it amazes me that folks like Gruenwald (among many, many others) could be so off- the-wall and still drearily DULL.

Superman split into red & blue Supermen = WTF?

DG I assume this wasnt you :)

See, I did that whole entry without calling someone a dumba@@ or resorting to base vulgarity. I didn't need to.

Hurrah at last a cogent, insightful and utterly original opinion on comics from a man who has read a novel and therefore knows whereof he speaks.

And you can imagine how Santa Claus would get way less cool if people said things like "Oh, but as you get into the early-70s Santa Claus, when they did that whole time-travel arc. . ."

So is there any residual animus in the white South, towards the hated Yankee elf?

http://ladyfriend.homestead.com/survey.html

I should buy comics; I need some inspiration. Really, I need sad, simple drawings of sad, complex people. And spandex. LOTS of spandex.

Ok this could hurt.

http://www.wlwt.com/cnn-news/19305002/detail.html

abused as a child and grew up in foster homes

That’s exactly how I like my superheroes

guy's got nothing on Master Legend