Why Do We Need A Masked Manhunter? Comic Book Rehab Relaunch Issue #1

People still ask, "If you had any superpower, which one would it be?" Meanwhile, the most successful superhero is a guy who has no powers. Actually, he does have a power, the most powerfull of all.

Batman's been around for over 70 years - he's been played in live-action by seven different actors, he's starred in a bunch of cartoons, had his face plastered all over merchandise, and supports a whole line of comics - a "Batman Family" of books - within DC's line, for over the last 20 years.

Some credit this success to the fact that he's a very flexible character - open to differnet interpretations, yet never inconsistant; no matter how light or dark the portrayal, he remains Batman. How is this possible? I suspect it has a lot to do with the fact that his origin came sometime after he was introduced, and when you're working backwards like that, it means you have a concept first, and when that happens,  it's possible to go any which way you please, because the backstory came later. That's how you wind up with the giant props, the cheery sidekicks, magic creatures, crazy costumes, goofy adversaries - the whole bit. Strip away all these elements and you can still tell Batman stories. Add in more elements and you can still tell Batman stories. He's still The Dark Knight. And The Caped Crusader. And The Masked Manhunter. And The World's Greatest Detective.

There are disagreements as to which interpretation is considered proper Batman. Some think it's the recent movies directed by Christopher Nolan. Others believe it's the popular cartoons from the last two decades, which feature a fully-realized Batman that outclasses the one that appeared in comics simultaneously. Some say it's the Batman of the 1st Tim Burton film. Some people think it's the Saturday morning Batman that hanged out with Scooby Doo and the Superfriends.

 And there are many that think Adam West is still the best Batman - event though that show has been written off as a spoof.  Use of the word "spoof" seems recent to me - just a way to give it a place on the shelf. Personally, any time I've picked up a book reprinting Batman comics from the 40's-60's, I've found the writing to be no different in execution than the show, save for a few knowing winks and nods to the audience. The same goes for the Superfriends - it may have been a spinoff of Scooby Doo, but the Justice League comics were not too different from the show, save for it being overrun with 2nd and 3rd string characters.

Why is it that one interpretation never stomps out the others? I recall Batman's light blue and grey costume lasted well into the mid-90's, and still appears in merchandise, and in a recent cartoon, 'Batman: The Brave and The Bold" which offers a light and fun Batman. Maybe the light and fun Batman seems more human than the Dark Knight. Maybe a lighter touch can endure the ridiculous merchandising demands and ebb and flow of audience tastes better than Mr. Serious. Is the Dark Knight fun for a dreary Sunday afternoon?

Regeneration is quite an amazing superpower - do you think he was bitten by a radioactive bat? That's a story that'll never be told.

Supergods by Grant Morrison - Book Review

Grant Morrison is an interesting case. He was part of the British Invasion of comic book writers in the 1980's (with Frank Miller as their token Yankee), and his work at the time didn't quite grab attention like Alan Moore or Neil Gaiman, but he's the last man standing. Alan Moore became the modern day Howard Hughes, Gaiman became a bestselling author and screenwriter, recently getting positive marks for writing an episode of Doctor Who. This year Morrison has managed to complete his opus, Supergods, which he often hinted at in interviews over the past few years as being a survey of Superheroes and how people read them, as well as cobbling together a lot of the rhetoric about their popularity which often appeared in bits and bobs in many of his interviews.

Morrison's work can be described in two categories - stories that use structure: there's a beginning, a middle, and an end, the audience is hip to what's going on, the characters are in fine form; then there are stories that consist of moments: cause-and effect built around high-concept metaphysics. These are stories that approach the character as a concept, with reflections that play off representative samples of how they were portrayed over decades, as well as creating suspense about the nature of the world/universe/hyper reality that serves as their backdrop/soundtrack, decompressed into a 30/40-issue arc. This approach is the more ambitious, often  sabotaged by modern scriptwriting. Stories like Seven Soldiers, Batman R.I.P,  Final Crisis, and Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne feel rushed and incoherent, making more sense in talk back interviews. Final Crisis felt like a typical Zombie/Vampire movie with a tired superhero/supervillain twist and not very interesting, but it was only upon reading Supergods that there was a more intriguing undertow that should have been front-and-center. It was as if Grant had been stretched thin and had to move on to his next "big event thing", his next wide screen comic book epic.

Two things Morrison neglected to mention in his book had me curious. In 2000, having completed a successful run redefining the long-running, but often mediocre mainstay, Justice League of America, as well as wrapping his creator owned title, The Invisibles, Grant claimed he was through working with DC, believing that concepts he created for The Invisibles had been ripped-off by the Matrix franchise. He then began a four-year tenure with Marvel, headlined by an interesting run on the book New X-Men that ran out of gas very quickly. Then he returned to DC. I guess he got over it - he makes no mention of the fit in particular, except perhaps with a wink when he recalls seeing the Matrix and describing his work on The Invisibles.

The other thing was a series of ads for Calvin Klein jeans that appeared on the back covers of Marvel comics a few years back. After giving Rob Liefeld a poke in the ribs for starring in a Levis jeans commercial in the 90's, I suppose Morrison couldn't find a way to make his celebrity (and that of his cronies, contemporaries, and upstart proteges) distinguishable from Rob's (and the founders of Image comics) without his reasoning falling apart.

He describes his work a lot here. For this book is a memoir disguised as a history lesson - yet that's what it does, it offers the history of Superheroes as the soundtrack to Grant Morrison's life and his universe. For within these pages, these so-called "Supergods" are his muse - his theories about life, the universe, and everything have some connection to the characters that only exist on printed paper, on TV screens, as merchandise, and the cinema. He runs the risk of making mountains out of molehills and coming off glib, but once you realize that he's offering insight into how he works, then the book becomes more interesting for it. We rarely get a chance to pick inside the brain of a popular author, see what makes him tick, and look forward to his next project with greater insight into the origins of his imagination.

In lesser hands, this book would've been an ego trip - many will see it that way. Morrison is still playing his cards close, but he's letting us take a quick peak at his hand. For now, anyway. It's worth a look.


Take Care.

No $#!+, Sherlock. - Comic Book Rehab Dime Novel, Issue #1

When people talk of adapting and updating Sherlock Holmes, they're really talking about the films. Whenever you see a new Holmes film with Watson and Lestrade left in the dust, that's not Conan  Doyle, that's Rathbone and Bruce. Curiously, the only time the 'canon' was ever faithfully adapted was when the late Jeremy Brett played Holmes in the !980's and early 90's in a series for British television that found its audience here in the USA on MYSTERY!. That's the exception.

Never mind exceptions, let's talk PERCEPTIONS. The new series of Sherlock Holmes adaptations is based on that. The new films with Robert Downey Jr. are taking their cues from Billy Wilder's "The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes" by completely embracing the 'friends of Giuliano' rumors. Kingsley Amis, in his essay "Unreal Policemen", wrote that the magnifying glass and the dozen roses belong to two different worlds. Sherlock Holmes with a girlfriend gets in the way of solving the puzzle, so he has no girlfriend, but as a consequence, his "buddy" becomes more than his creator imagined. People read too much, don't they? The character and the stories were popular enough to inspire a cottage industry of imitators - all following the same approach, all stuck with alleged 'bachelors-in-the-closet' in thinly-realized worlds of their own, and the rise of the 'hard-boiled' school becomes its opposite number, with strong emphasis on the "one girlfriend a book" rule that Ian Fleming established in the Bond novels. That doesn't mean no fan hasn't tried to dig further than the surface...

Back to Holmes. The new Sherlock series with Cumberbatch (which really sounds like something you have to look for in the supermarket aisle) is not bad, even if it borrows heavily from Doctor Who - both have the hero/villain showdowns - and the use of the internet and smartphones seems forced (Holmes relied a lot more on logical inferences than that showy parlour trickof deducing a man's profile his hat, but the use of maps is acurrate). The first adventure really got rolling with the final confrontation, the second was a little too Fu Manchu-y, and I have not seen the last, in which Moriarty is revealed to be a nondescript guy in a suit with a smug smirk. Ooo, those nondescript baddies...

To be continued... (really? yeah. I'm gonna find the thrid story. Hold your breath) ;)

September Scrimmage - DC's Previews - Comic Book Rehab :Special issue #0

Last month, comic book stores gave away (well, I'm assuming YOUR STORE gave it away) free copies of a preview of the September relaunch, which is spining out of this summer's Crossover, FLASHPOINT. One thing I can tell you, the price point is still 3 bucks for most of the books. I'll come up with other usefull observations...

They look alike/they talk alike? - The solicitation form the new comic RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS hints that Red Hood (Jason Todd) is starting to act a lot like Grifter from the Wildcats.

Green Arrow - everyone's favorite writer, J.T. Krul is back with a new take on Oliver Queen. The murky "Watcher in the woods" angle is gone, replaced with a "World's Policeman" angle. And trick arrows. And Dan Jurgens on art, but a nice cover by Brett Booth. I hate when we have no clue what's inside but get nice art on the outside. It's like Boom!'s Ducktales comics - the covers by Leonel Castellini are fantastic, but they do not reflect what's happening inside - that's like false advertising. The inside is kind of like what a Gold Key Ducktales comic would've looked like if that company had survived.

Justice League - 2 books, one attempting a comeback with the late 80's-era league - sans Ted Kord, & BIG sucka', with Jim Lee art, that seems to be carrying this leaked-out angle that a big reset button has been pressed and, ... well, these are the only kinds of stories anyone knows how to tell anymore - origins, deaths, rebirths, weddings, funerals, godlike a-holes who shout dull speeches, zombies, and obnoxius awkward teenagers, which reminds me...

They're trying again with Blue Beetle - poor Jaimie. They try and try and puch and push and the only fans you've got are that little old spanish lady who (according to an anecdote by the character's creators) thought it was wonderful to have a latino superhero for kids to look up to. See, Jaime's got groupies - little old spanish ladies who'll buy his comic for their kids...who'll wonder why they didn't get Batman or Spider-Man comics, instead. Oh, and fans of Nova, the human rocket, who I'm convinced is the template for this incarnation of Blue Beetle - they'll be picking up the book too, just for the sake of remembering how 'cool' Nova was and maybe if they buy this, then Marvel will try a reviving Nova again. Yeah,yeah, that's the ticket.

Oh, and Superman. They've been wanting to erase his marriage to Lois Lane for years and years, and now they've got it, but that was the most distinctive element of the comics - you don't see a married Lois and Clark potrayed anywhere else in the media for any long period of time, so the comic will REALLY have to entertain us with a status quo that goes beyond dodging bullets and hoping over traffic.

Oh, and that guy with the bat ears. Batman gets to be just Bruce Wayne, again. Batgirl gets to be Barbara Gordon again. Damien gets to still be Robin. No clue on whether the book will go back to rehashing old "NYPD Blue" or disaster movie scripts like in the past. At least Converse like Batman's blue costume.

Oh, and there's a bunch of other books I didn't get to because there's too many that look like cannon fodder at the moment. I'll approach them when they appear on the shelves.

Take care - behave yourselves.

Joe.

Borders goes Bonk! My last visit - Comic Book Rehab second issue #2 variant cover

I went to Borders this week to check out their getting-out-of-Dodge sale. I felt my membership card deserved one last scan - though it may not have been needed. I wouldn't know. I didn't buy anything. Here's what happened...
The first thing I noticed was that the same liquidation company that handled the closure of Virgin Megastore and Circuit City here in the U.S. was also handling Borders. They use the same discount signs and the same price guide chart that's convieniently taped all over the store. It's a good time to own a discount stockcard sign company!
How are the sales? On Tuesday, it was 10% off most books (that's about a 1/2 dollar off retail), 30% off romance novels (about $1.50 - $2.00 dollars off), and 40% off magazines. Items I was hoping to find (Doctor Who magazine, some Agatha Christies) were not there...kind of. They had Dame Agatha's worst book - Passenger to Frankfurt. They had a bunch of James Bond novels, including Quantum of Solace, and some Doctor Who novels, plenty of those Twilight/Vampire Diary things, if that's you're cup of tea, only a few Harry Potters, LOTS of Harry Potter wannabes Lemony Snicket, Percy Jackson, that 39 clues/ bar code thing where you're not just buy to read a book (how silly is that ;), but to enter an online contest, lots of manga, lots of dog-earred comic book trades, lots of cookbooks, bios, science,business, westerns, horror, sci-fi, and other books you promise to get around to someday.
The big issue for me was that the sale wasn't so great. I always reserve the right to walk out empty-handed. I imagine all the stuff that went unsold will appear in some new discount bookshop like the DVD stores that have popped up around NYC lately. I'll go cut up my card now - at least that was free. Barnes and Noble charges a processing fee (huh?) for a 10- 20% discount membership. Wouldn't that be covered by the amount I'm paying to get the card?
"Bonk!"

Comicon on G4 goes "Bonk" - Comic Book Rehab Issue #1D

 There's a Calvin and Hobbes book titled "Scientific Progress Goes Bonk!" 'Bonk' is the most unimpressive sound effect used for any attempt at innovation, and Bill Watterson uses it for one of Calvin's cardboard box inventions. 'Bonk' isn't even offered as a ringtone. 'Bonk' is what I use to describe G4's coverage of 2011's San Diego Comicon.
 Imagine, you're the only network on television offering 6 hours of live coverage of an event that's usually given 2-3 minutes of airtime everywhere else. You have a chance at offering something new and different - so of course you'll offer more of the same pap we can find anywhere else! Why not?
 Why not, indeed? Why not flood your first hour with coverage of video games that you often cover on your regular programming schedule? Why not flood your remaining 5 hours on endless vaccuous celebrity interviews that offer nothing controversial/insightful/interesting? Why not host the show at the dullest camera angles imaginable?
 The point is, I've learned more about what went on at the event by checking Twitter and not from what went on the air. Most of the coverage was essentially boring and the little coverage of comics was more perfunctory then informative/interesting. Coverage of this kind would be perfect for a class in Anthropology - we don't learn anything about comics, here - only that "All you really care about" translates into inane brownnosing.
 "Bonk!"

Comicons with Holy water - Comic Book Rehab 4th #1 issue

By 2013, it will be a decade since attending a comic book show in a church.

I'm not sure why that is - if anyone out there knows of any shows/conventions in NYC set at churches, feel free to chime in. How about Temples? Mosques? Scientology Centers?

The last church show I attended was at 9th street and 9th avenue, at St. Paul Church, on the same block as my college, John Jay College of Criminal Justice (shameless alumni plug). Between 1999 and 2003, there were about 15 Big Apple Con shows held there before Big Apple moved to the Penn Plaza Pavilion across the street from Madison Square Garden - where it stayed until it became Wizard World Big Apple Con in 2009.  1998-2003 were my college years, so the juggling of the Saturday class schedules were the stuff of Blake Edwards movies. Sit in class, class ends, time for 'break', attend show, exit, attend another class, leave, go back to the show. Of course, anyone noticing the stamped hand would know what I was doing...

Anyway, back to religion. there was no holy water offered, or conversions. The shows were often held in the Basement - a very large basement. One time the show was rescheduled without anyone knowing and I wound up walking in on a ballroom dancing competition! I did notice that the space provided looked a lot brighter and cleaner when it's not jammed with tables and boxes of comics. I'm sure if this were a Blake Edwards film, I would've had to have made dancing shoes of my sensible sneakers and try a pasa doble wishing it was a quick step instead...

The first church show I attended was near Sullivan St. in the Village (aka NYU) and there was no basement for that one - they cleared out the benches and devoted the main space to just a few tables with only a few dealers and guests. It looked a bit like a Clean House yard sale caught in a dry spell. It was dark and stuffy in there, so the front doors were kept wide open, with the benches stacked on the sides, like the bleachers in the high school gym when they're cranked back in place against the walls. I bought a great copy of Spider-Woman #1 (this was in 1998, before Bendis made her seem like a big deal) for two bucks. I bought it because the idea of having an old comic from before my time in mint condition was cool. I really wanted to get an autograph from an inker (yeah, an inker - any name that appears in your comic collection showing up to a sigining can attract a mob of autograph hounds)...who didn't show up. I also bought some other comics from half-dollar bins - mostly early 90's stuff like Trencher, Next Wave, Troll - all never-read and brand new because they were kept finer than fine china. I was there for about 15 minutes - that record was broken after I attended a show at the Holiday Inn that I spoofed in the last entry.

Church shows are low-risk when it comes to spending for admission and finding/not finding what you're looking for. Are they a thing of the past? Are they being swallowed by a new generation of Big Comicon wannabes? Hard to tell. Are people still getting hand-stamped? Nowadays they use disposable bracelets that are color-coded for each day of the show's duration. When I went to the Brooklyn Lyceum in fall 2010 for King Con, I felt like I was walking into a church, but it turns out it used to be a public bath. Now THAT'S  a scene in a Blake Edwards film. :)

Be good everyone.