Henry102006: An eventful year
January 5th 2007 14:16
It's the start of a brand new year, brimming with potential and opportunities. So the thing to do, of course, is reflect back on the year that was, and bitch and moan about everything I hated in the comic book world. Hey, if I wanted to be positive, I wouldn't be posting this thing on the internet.
If there's one thing that marks 2006, it is this: event comics are back. Spider-Man had The Other. The X-Men had Decimation. Hulk had Planet Hulk. DC had 52 and One Year Later. But of course, there were two events that eclipsed all the others. One for each of the major companies, and each one more memorable than pretty much every other thing released this year. In case you prefer a fun night of cross-stitch to the wonderful world of superheroes, here's a hint: I'm talking about Infinite Crisis from DC and Civil War from Marvel.
INFINITE CRISIS
Ever since their multiverse-ending Crisis on Infinite Earths miniseries in 1986, DC continuity has been a complete shemozzle. Every couple of years they trot out another line-wide event intending to clear up their status quo. This year it was Infinite Crisis, and for the first time I was intrigued.
I've never been a huge DC fan. I like their characters, I've enjoyed a decent portion of stories that feature them, but they've always had a big hurdle for me - you never know which stories actually happened and which ones didn't. So I've generally avoided them, with the exception of the odd graphic novel here and there. I read Crisis on Infinite Earths a couple of years ago, and found it delightfully incomprehensible. I assume it's a great read if you're familiar with, say, The Haunted Tank, but I don't have my head filled with DC minutiae. I enjoyed parts of it, was bemused by other parts, and generally vowed not to bother with this kind of major event again.
Until I saw this panel, from Infinite Crisis #1:
So this is the gist of Infinite Crisis - bad shit's going down, Wonder Woman has killed some guy I've never heard off, and the heroes have lost their way. So who's coming to the rescue?
Superman.
Not your hen-pecked, John Byrne-created, "I-can-only-press-100-tons" doubting wimp Superman of the 80s and 90s, oh no. Not your ridiculous, planet-throwing, supermonkey-owning Superman of the 50s, 60s and 70s, either. This is the Superman of the 30s and 40s. The one who used to throw criminals off buildings, and end World War II in a day. The *real* Superman. He's coming to show the heroes how things were done in his day, by gum.
But all is not well. He's accompanied by a version of Superboy, and the son of an alternate-reality of Lex Luthor. It soon becomes apparent that they are Bad Guys. Shit goes down. People are punched. Reality is torn asunder. And once again, I am confused.
Infinite Crisis was never intended for me, I'm afraid. It really makes no attempt at all to ease the reader into what's going on. It's all robots flying around and heroes arguing and lots if fighting and me hanging on trying to work out if there's actually a story in here. I suppose it's about not holding too tightly to the past, but the flash and dazzle kind of distracts from that. It was not really a success.
The major downfall of Infinite Crisis is that it didn't even achieve its goal, which I assume was some sort of continuity clean-up. Here's the deal: a long time ago, DC continuity was split into 2 Earths. In general, stuff from the 1930s and 1940s happened on Earth 2. Stuff from the 1950s onwards happened on Earth 1. (I have majorly oversimplified things here, but bear with me.) In 1986 someone decided that kids couldn't count that high, so in Crisis on Infinite Earths the whole thing was done away with, and one Earth was created that tried to incorporate as much of the old continuities as possible. Cut forward to 2006, and I've just finished Infinite Crisis. And I have absolutely no idea what the new status quo of the DC universe is. None. Is it exactly the same as before? I dunno. Has Earth 2 been brought back? I dunno. Is Detective Chimp still in continuity? I dunno. It's a friggin' mess. A miniseries designed to streamline continuity should not raise more questions than it answers.
CIVIL WAR
Civil War is Marvel's entry in the massive event stakes for this year, and it takes a much different tack than Infinite Crisis. Where the DC story was heavily focused on comic book backstory and established continuity, Civil War drew its inspiration from the real world, more specifically the tightening of civil liberties being practised by the current US government.
Civil War begins thus: a bunch of crap superheroes called the New Warriors attack some villains near a school. One of the villains, Nitro, has the power to blow himself up (awesome, I know). So naturally, he blows himself up and takes a whole lot of schoolkids with him. Cue outrage. The government says heroes must now register with them, give up their secret identities, recieve official training, and work for the government. Iron Man joins up with the government. Captain America says, "No way Jose". Heroes join up on each side, and much punching ensues.
Civil War, while not yet completed, is still not without its flaws. The central conceit is a strange one, since it undermines the most basic conventions of the superhero genre. When Iron Man starts saying that heroes should be trained, and answer to the authorities when they screw up and knock over a skyscraper, it makes sense. A lot of sense. So much sense that it makes you realise that, hang on, superhero fights do cause a lot of damage. Heroes should be registered, and give up their secret identities. Thirteen-year-olds shouldn't be out there fighting gangsters with machine guns. All Cap has to offer is a lame, "The way we've done things always worked in the past," which is hardly convincing. He's being played as the good guy, but it's hard to back him when his argument is so paper-thin.
The bigger problem is with the contentious portrayals of several key characters. I haven't had too many problems with them, but you don't have to cast a wide net to find someone who does. You've got Reed Richards building a superhero Guantanamo in another dimension, you've got Iron Man recruiting mass murderers to hunt down his former friends. I can see why long-time fans get upset.
Nevertheless, I have found myself enjoying the whole thing despite its many problems. Ignore the strained political allegory, ignore the wonky characterisation, ignore the genre destroying plot points - it's really an excuse to get superheroes fighting other superheroes. On that level it works, and it's also done one other thing. It's got me wondering just what the hell happens next. I honestly don't know. I can make some guesses based on preview material I've seen, but I don't know for certain. I like that. The Marvel Universe is unpredictable again. Some characters had to be skewed a little to accommodate that, but I think it's a decent trade-off.
So, if you're wondering why I'm so focused on the big events, and the big companies, it's because very little of interest happened this year. There wasn't anything interesting out there like Seven Soldiers that really grabbed me. We're going through a 90s revival, with huge shocking events and variant covers. Mind you we've seen nothing as truly dire as the 90s had to offer, but it hasn't exactly been a great year either.
THE COMIC NERD AWARDS!
Writer of the Year: Ed Brubaker
I've sung this guy's praises a fair bit, but here's the run down again: Captain America. Daredevil. Uncanny X-Men. Books of Doom. Criminal. X-Men: Deadly Genesis. All very good books, and all different in tone and style from the others. I realise that Brubaker has done a lot of work in the past, but I really only discovered him this year. What I really dig about Brubaker is that he doesn't piss away the previous writers' runs. He's building on what's come before, and that's one of the best things to see in a serial medium. He's also not afraid to write superheroes as superheroes - I loved the Bendis run on Daredevil, but it was a crime book first and foremost. Brubaker is writing it as a superhero book, and I'm liking it even more. FInally, the guy gets pacing. He knows how to write for the serial medium, a sadly dying art in comics. It's rare that I finish a Brubaker comic and feel like not enough happened.
Honourable Mentions: Grant Morrison (All-Star Superman, Seven Soldiers, Batman), Warren Ellis (Nextwave, Fell), Kurt Busiek (Conan, Superman, Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis), Mark Millar (Ultimates 2, Ultimate Fantastic Four)
Writer to watch out for in 2007: Jeff Parker
Seriously, this guy's been doing top-notch work on a lot of books that have fallen under the radar. Agents of Atlas, focusing on Marvel heroes of the 1950s, has been a lot of fun, but even moreso has been Marvel Adventures: The Avengers. Parker has taken a team featuring Wolverine, Spider-Man, the Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, and Storm, and he's made it work somehow. It's a charming book that revels in the silliness of the Marvel Universe without taking the piss too much. The book just hasn't been the same since he left, but he's coming back, so it's all good.
Artist of the Year: Frank Quitely
So he's slow. I adore the guy's pencils, and his work on All-Star Superman is no exception. (It helps that there were few memorable standouts this year).
Book of the Year: Nextwave
This book had everything. Explosions. Kicking. Punching. Asparagus Men. Suicide attempts. Man-eating koalas. Bulimia. Correspondence from Shakespeare and Julius Ceasar on the letters page. Mindless Ones riding skateboards. Potty-mouthed Celestials. Captain *censored*. More kicking. Underwear. Fin Fang Foom. The Ultra Samurai. Rorkannu of the Dank Dimension. The Crayon Butchery Variant. Dirk Anger.
AND - it's own theme song!
It's like the Titanic but the boat is still floating,
No it's not - the motherfucking boat is exploding!
Genius.
Panel of the Year:
A difficult one, with some stiff competition from a certain page of Civil War, but for sheer nerdgasm power it must be this, from Infinite Crisis #5:
So that's it for another year. What will 2007 hold? More of the same by the looks of it. More crossovers, more events. It doesn't look terribly exciting, but I'm sure to find stuff I enjoy - and I'm sure to tell you when I do so! Expect this blog to continue much as it has done - reviews, trailers, commentary. I'll be continuing my Fantastic Four read-through. I'll be trying to post semi-daily. It'll be more of the same - if you like it you'll still like it, if you don't you know where the door is pal. Until next time - read more comics! It will make you rich and successful!
If there's one thing that marks 2006, it is this: event comics are back. Spider-Man had The Other. The X-Men had Decimation. Hulk had Planet Hulk. DC had 52 and One Year Later. But of course, there were two events that eclipsed all the others. One for each of the major companies, and each one more memorable than pretty much every other thing released this year. In case you prefer a fun night of cross-stitch to the wonderful world of superheroes, here's a hint: I'm talking about Infinite Crisis from DC and Civil War from Marvel.
INFINITE CRISIS
Ever since their multiverse-ending Crisis on Infinite Earths miniseries in 1986, DC continuity has been a complete shemozzle. Every couple of years they trot out another line-wide event intending to clear up their status quo. This year it was Infinite Crisis, and for the first time I was intrigued.
I've never been a huge DC fan. I like their characters, I've enjoyed a decent portion of stories that feature them, but they've always had a big hurdle for me - you never know which stories actually happened and which ones didn't. So I've generally avoided them, with the exception of the odd graphic novel here and there. I read Crisis on Infinite Earths a couple of years ago, and found it delightfully incomprehensible. I assume it's a great read if you're familiar with, say, The Haunted Tank, but I don't have my head filled with DC minutiae. I enjoyed parts of it, was bemused by other parts, and generally vowed not to bother with this kind of major event again.
Until I saw this panel, from Infinite Crisis #1:
So this is the gist of Infinite Crisis - bad shit's going down, Wonder Woman has killed some guy I've never heard off, and the heroes have lost their way. So who's coming to the rescue?
Superman.
Not your hen-pecked, John Byrne-created, "I-can-only-press-100-tons" doubting wimp Superman of the 80s and 90s, oh no. Not your ridiculous, planet-throwing, supermonkey-owning Superman of the 50s, 60s and 70s, either. This is the Superman of the 30s and 40s. The one who used to throw criminals off buildings, and end World War II in a day. The *real* Superman. He's coming to show the heroes how things were done in his day, by gum.
But all is not well. He's accompanied by a version of Superboy, and the son of an alternate-reality of Lex Luthor. It soon becomes apparent that they are Bad Guys. Shit goes down. People are punched. Reality is torn asunder. And once again, I am confused.
Infinite Crisis was never intended for me, I'm afraid. It really makes no attempt at all to ease the reader into what's going on. It's all robots flying around and heroes arguing and lots if fighting and me hanging on trying to work out if there's actually a story in here. I suppose it's about not holding too tightly to the past, but the flash and dazzle kind of distracts from that. It was not really a success.
The major downfall of Infinite Crisis is that it didn't even achieve its goal, which I assume was some sort of continuity clean-up. Here's the deal: a long time ago, DC continuity was split into 2 Earths. In general, stuff from the 1930s and 1940s happened on Earth 2. Stuff from the 1950s onwards happened on Earth 1. (I have majorly oversimplified things here, but bear with me.) In 1986 someone decided that kids couldn't count that high, so in Crisis on Infinite Earths the whole thing was done away with, and one Earth was created that tried to incorporate as much of the old continuities as possible. Cut forward to 2006, and I've just finished Infinite Crisis. And I have absolutely no idea what the new status quo of the DC universe is. None. Is it exactly the same as before? I dunno. Has Earth 2 been brought back? I dunno. Is Detective Chimp still in continuity? I dunno. It's a friggin' mess. A miniseries designed to streamline continuity should not raise more questions than it answers.
CIVIL WAR
Civil War is Marvel's entry in the massive event stakes for this year, and it takes a much different tack than Infinite Crisis. Where the DC story was heavily focused on comic book backstory and established continuity, Civil War drew its inspiration from the real world, more specifically the tightening of civil liberties being practised by the current US government.
Civil War begins thus: a bunch of crap superheroes called the New Warriors attack some villains near a school. One of the villains, Nitro, has the power to blow himself up (awesome, I know). So naturally, he blows himself up and takes a whole lot of schoolkids with him. Cue outrage. The government says heroes must now register with them, give up their secret identities, recieve official training, and work for the government. Iron Man joins up with the government. Captain America says, "No way Jose". Heroes join up on each side, and much punching ensues.
Civil War, while not yet completed, is still not without its flaws. The central conceit is a strange one, since it undermines the most basic conventions of the superhero genre. When Iron Man starts saying that heroes should be trained, and answer to the authorities when they screw up and knock over a skyscraper, it makes sense. A lot of sense. So much sense that it makes you realise that, hang on, superhero fights do cause a lot of damage. Heroes should be registered, and give up their secret identities. Thirteen-year-olds shouldn't be out there fighting gangsters with machine guns. All Cap has to offer is a lame, "The way we've done things always worked in the past," which is hardly convincing. He's being played as the good guy, but it's hard to back him when his argument is so paper-thin.
The bigger problem is with the contentious portrayals of several key characters. I haven't had too many problems with them, but you don't have to cast a wide net to find someone who does. You've got Reed Richards building a superhero Guantanamo in another dimension, you've got Iron Man recruiting mass murderers to hunt down his former friends. I can see why long-time fans get upset.
Nevertheless, I have found myself enjoying the whole thing despite its many problems. Ignore the strained political allegory, ignore the wonky characterisation, ignore the genre destroying plot points - it's really an excuse to get superheroes fighting other superheroes. On that level it works, and it's also done one other thing. It's got me wondering just what the hell happens next. I honestly don't know. I can make some guesses based on preview material I've seen, but I don't know for certain. I like that. The Marvel Universe is unpredictable again. Some characters had to be skewed a little to accommodate that, but I think it's a decent trade-off.
So, if you're wondering why I'm so focused on the big events, and the big companies, it's because very little of interest happened this year. There wasn't anything interesting out there like Seven Soldiers that really grabbed me. We're going through a 90s revival, with huge shocking events and variant covers. Mind you we've seen nothing as truly dire as the 90s had to offer, but it hasn't exactly been a great year either.
THE COMIC NERD AWARDS!
Writer of the Year: Ed Brubaker
I've sung this guy's praises a fair bit, but here's the run down again: Captain America. Daredevil. Uncanny X-Men. Books of Doom. Criminal. X-Men: Deadly Genesis. All very good books, and all different in tone and style from the others. I realise that Brubaker has done a lot of work in the past, but I really only discovered him this year. What I really dig about Brubaker is that he doesn't piss away the previous writers' runs. He's building on what's come before, and that's one of the best things to see in a serial medium. He's also not afraid to write superheroes as superheroes - I loved the Bendis run on Daredevil, but it was a crime book first and foremost. Brubaker is writing it as a superhero book, and I'm liking it even more. FInally, the guy gets pacing. He knows how to write for the serial medium, a sadly dying art in comics. It's rare that I finish a Brubaker comic and feel like not enough happened.
Honourable Mentions: Grant Morrison (All-Star Superman, Seven Soldiers, Batman), Warren Ellis (Nextwave, Fell), Kurt Busiek (Conan, Superman, Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis), Mark Millar (Ultimates 2, Ultimate Fantastic Four)
Writer to watch out for in 2007: Jeff Parker
Seriously, this guy's been doing top-notch work on a lot of books that have fallen under the radar. Agents of Atlas, focusing on Marvel heroes of the 1950s, has been a lot of fun, but even moreso has been Marvel Adventures: The Avengers. Parker has taken a team featuring Wolverine, Spider-Man, the Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, and Storm, and he's made it work somehow. It's a charming book that revels in the silliness of the Marvel Universe without taking the piss too much. The book just hasn't been the same since he left, but he's coming back, so it's all good.
Artist of the Year: Frank Quitely
So he's slow. I adore the guy's pencils, and his work on All-Star Superman is no exception. (It helps that there were few memorable standouts this year).
Book of the Year: Nextwave
This book had everything. Explosions. Kicking. Punching. Asparagus Men. Suicide attempts. Man-eating koalas. Bulimia. Correspondence from Shakespeare and Julius Ceasar on the letters page. Mindless Ones riding skateboards. Potty-mouthed Celestials. Captain *censored*. More kicking. Underwear. Fin Fang Foom. The Ultra Samurai. Rorkannu of the Dank Dimension. The Crayon Butchery Variant. Dirk Anger.
AND - it's own theme song!
It's like the Titanic but the boat is still floating,
No it's not - the motherfucking boat is exploding!
Genius.
Panel of the Year:
A difficult one, with some stiff competition from a certain page of Civil War, but for sheer nerdgasm power it must be this, from Infinite Crisis #5:
So that's it for another year. What will 2007 hold? More of the same by the looks of it. More crossovers, more events. It doesn't look terribly exciting, but I'm sure to find stuff I enjoy - and I'm sure to tell you when I do so! Expect this blog to continue much as it has done - reviews, trailers, commentary. I'll be continuing my Fantastic Four read-through. I'll be trying to post semi-daily. It'll be more of the same - if you like it you'll still like it, if you don't you know where the door is pal. Until next time - read more comics! It will make you rich and successful!
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