Superheroes

It's the penultimate issue of what was anticipated to have been a huge event in the DC Universe -- the culmination, in fact, of what began in REBIRTH.

It still is the culmination of what began in REBIRTH. Except REBIRTH doesn't mean anything any longer. The years of teasing the presence of Saturn Girl in the present day, the absence of the Justice Society, the return of Wally West, THE BUTTON... all of that is for naught, because the Legion of Super-Heroes is being introduced in a different fashion, the Justice Society has already returned in JUSTICE LEAGUE, and Wally West has been ruined by Tom King in HEROES IN CRISIS.

The seventh season of ARROW brings with it echoes of the Green Arrow movie idea that was tossed around in the late 1990s. SUPERMAX was teased as a film about a superhero who gets incarcerated in a maximum security prison with the people he helped put there. It was later revealed that superhero was going to be Green Arrow, but the movie never made it out of development.

Now in ARROW we get a taste of what that movie might have been, as Oliver Queen (STEPHEN AMELL) is arrested for his activities as the Green Arrow under a plea deal that allowed the rest of Team Arrow -- including his wife, Felicity (EMILY BETT RICKARDS) -- to walk free. But while Oliver's new identity is Inmate 4587, a new Green Arrow has taken to the streets, one whose identity remains a mystery to all.

When I was in first grade, I wrote my first play. At a school assembly, I saw that play come to life, thanks to the support of my teacher.

In eighth grade, we had to turn in a paper every week on any topic. I turned in episodic chapters of a monster adventure, and my teacher set aside time for it to be read, by the author, to other classes.

Mrs. Joanne Paul and Mr. Stanley White cultivated those early efforts, allowing me to realize the dream of becoming a professionally published artist.

Parker Davis is an eleven-year-old boy with a dream. Since the age of three, he has been expanding the universe of his own superhero creations: Pillowman and Blanketboy. And thanks to the advent of crowdfunding, he's close to seeing those heroes star in a published comic book.

The last time I saw the Death-Defying Devil in Dynamite Comics, he was a spirit on the level of The Spectre, able to stride down the street while looking over skyscrapers. Quite a leap from his time as Daredevil (yes, that's his real name, much like Shazam's real name is Captain Marvel, and like Captain Marvel he also had the name first), when he fought in the streets and had a band of feistly little kids as his entourage.

Well he doesn't have the entourage, but he's definitely back down to street level in this newest series, DEATH-DEFYING DEVIL, by Gail Simone and Walter Geovani.

The iconic Batman tour-de-force that served as a vehicle for Jim Lee's introduction to the DC Comics stable, HUSH, is the latest storyline to be adapted into the DCAU straight-to-DVD library, and scene omissions and straight-up plot changes, it's a largely enjoyable way to pass 90 minutes.

The news from CW about the next season's huge crossover (just around the corner, really, with episodes in December 2019 and January 2020) continue to tease fans with new potentials at every turn. With the recent revelation that KEVIN CONROY will be appearing in the event as an older Bruce Wayne, it's easy to think he may be playing the Bruce Wayne seen in BATMAN BEYOND.

But there's also the possibility he's playing an entirely different Batman -- perhaps a kinder, gentler, exceedingly poite and moral Batman.

Earlier it was revealed that BURT WARD would also have a role to play in the upcoming CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS. Ward, of course, played Robin in the 1960s Batman television show, opposite of Adam West. With the addition of Conroy to the multiversal cast, it raises the potential likelihood that what we may get to see are a retired Dynamic Duo -- a Batman and Robin who, on another Earth, had their heyday in the swinging 60s and 70s.

BRAND is one of many new independent comics coming from the crowdfunding trend that has grown up over the past two years. The brainchild of writer Antonio Brice and artist Caanan White, the comic book is mostly impeccably drawn and colored, and each individual scene is compelling in its narrative.

It's when looking at the book as a whole where things suffer.

The character you are about to see in this movie has a lengthy and rich history, nearly as long as Superman's, and peppered with controversy from the beginning.

And, despite a relatively recent change to the comic book mythos that carried over to this movie, his name is not Shazam. His name is Captain Marvel, and he predates a certain Air Force pilot turned alien warrior turned superhero by leaps and bounds. "Shazam" is what he shouts to change from youthful Billy Batson into his adult hero persona, as he does in this movie. Why would he call himself "Shazam" if every time he introduced himself he ended up changing identies?

I've been reading comic books for nearly fifty years. It's not just a fandom for me, it's a lifestyle. In all that time, there are characters I've grown to love, teams I've rallied for, and storylines that have served as touchpoints in my life.

The Teen Titans were always more than that. The Teen Titans were special. They were the sidekicks, given a chance to stand on their own. It was a one-off idea, putting Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad together for an adventure in THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD, arguably a filler series, but it struck a chord. The next time these three got together, they were joined by Wonder Girl as the Teen Titans, quickly getting their own series. Those Bob Haney and Nick Cardy books were elevated in some way from the other titles--more culturally relevant, and definitely more relateable to the younger audiences.

Vampirella has gone through a number of origins through the years. She's been an alien from Drakulon, an escapee from a realm of Hell, a daughter of Lilith. Through it all, she has been a force for good, standing against the agents of Chaos. And she has become an icon.

The creation of Forrest J. Ackerman, Trina Robbins and Tom Sutton, Vampi first came Drakulon to survive the blood drought on her planet. Attempting to blend in to human society, she caught a flight to take her to a television contest. The plane crashed, and she survived by drinking the blood of all the victims.

The original premise of GOTHAM was underrated. It was going to focus on James Gordon (BEN MCKENZIE) who would begin the series as a sergeant and work his way up to commissioner. Bruce Wayne (DAVID MAZOUZ) would appear, but he would still be the young boy who had just lost his parents to a murder, a case Gordon worked. And while Bruce sets out on the path that will take him to becoming Batman, the villains are already taking the stage. Oswald Cobblepot, aka The Penguin (ROBIN LORD TAYLOR) went from being an assistant stooge to a crime lord. Edward Nygma, aka The Riddler (CORY MICHAEL SMITH) started as a mentally troubled forensic scientist for the police to letting his evil alter ego take over his life. Ivy Pepper went through the more startling metamorphoses, as she began as a child and grew to adulthood thanks to some weird chemical process. Even Leslie Thompkins (MORENA BACCARIN) went from being Gordon's love interest to being a psychotic villain and back to good guy again.

Sina Grace has been a focal point controversy within the comics community. Not for unprofessional behavior or for unethical crowdfunding efforts, as is de rigeur for the troublemakers these days. No, the attention on Grace has been solely because he is a gay man, writing a gay character, who just happens to be one of Marvel Comics' oldest mutants: Bobby Drake, Iceman.

Born out of a Kickstarter crowdfunding effort, WHITE WIDOW is the creation of Jamie Tyndall and Benny R. Powell, and puts a sexy superheroine front-and-center of the action. Gabrielle Garcia has just learned she was born with a fatal disease, and that her parents arrested the disease using experimental technology from the government think tank where they worked. But when the cure began to fade, another unique treatment was applied. Only this time, her parents got caught and her father was murdered before her eyes -- but not until after injecting her with some special nanites to bond with the white widow spider DNA that had already been spliced into her physiognomy.

The result: Part Philip Wylie's Gladiator, part Marvel's Carnage, part Spider-Man. In fact, lots of Spider-Man, right down to the sticking to walls, spinning of webs, and spider symbol on the front and back of her nanotech / spider-silk armor.

Detective Jim Corrigan is the human host for the Spirit of Vengeance known as The Spectre. But that's a secret that someone has figured out, and they've enacted a horrific, bloody plan to separate the ghost from the host, and hiding him where the supernatural spirit cannot find him.

You would think that when one "good guy" needs the help of another "good guy," it's a simple matter. That's not the case when The Spectre is involved. Because Spectre operates on a different plain, and reports to a higher authority. So when Batman visits the scene of the crime, he finds an abbatoir of death -- a dead police and the several bodies Spectre left behind that allowed the villains to steal away Corrigan. This is not the kind of "justice" Batman can get behind.

I really enjoyed Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man series, at least the first two films. The inclusion of Macho Man Randy Savage as Bonesaw more than made up for the very slight shortcomings of the Green Goblin. Willem Dafoe was great, but that suit--there just was no good reason to not use the classic look. The second movie, with Alfred Molina's excellent turn as Doctor Octopus, was a rare sequel that surpassed the original. Beyond those two films, well, let's focus on the positive. The Marvel Cinematic Universe was launched and over the course of 22 films it became a paradigm shift in cinematic storytelling.

I've never heard of Cave Comics (although I've been in a few comics caves in my travels around the country). But I have heard of Jim Krueger, from the mesmerizing job he did for Marvel on EARTH X. So when my friendly neighborhood comics guy at Cosmic Comics in Belleville suggested I check out THE NO. ONES #1, I was instantly intrigued. I expected Krueger to deliver a multi-layered mystery with a mixture of distinct personalities, and I was not disappointed. Well-Bee's washed-out inks and colors gave the superhero series a gloomy tone that helped establish the mood of the story going forward.

The Bastion are the city's superheroes. They're more than just heroes, however. They're role models with a carefully cultivated public persona and canny marketing. Their brand is valuable, in both social and physical currency.

When I first heard about the DCEASED concept, the immediate callback was to the Marvel Zombies issues that saw the company's super-characters turned into creatures of the undead. But an appropriate amount of time has passed so that this doesn't seem derivative and, I have to admit, the name is deucedly clever.

The conceit of DCEASED is that Darkseid has finally found the other half of the anti-life equation, buried in Cyborg's programming. But getting it out might kill Cyborg, and destroy his chances at obtaining the equation. So Darkseid summons Death personified in the form of the Black Racer, to keep him from taking Cyborg. But by introducing Death into the equation, he corrupts it, and the modified anti-life equation destroys Darkseid and all of Apokalips as his zombied body releases Omega energy from the core of the planet.

So I've just finished reading EVENT LEVIATHIN #1 -- and boy, are my logic processors tired.

Boiled down to its core, Brian Michael Bendis's grand design is a "mad bomber" story, utilizing technology that doesn't leave behind any clues other than the massive destruction and the aforementioned lack of clues. We open with Batman sneaking into the ruins of the darn-near-just demolished ARGUS facilities to investigate, only to find he's not the only investigator there. Not first responders or CSI teams or DHS agents. Him in the dark, because that's how a Batman story works. The bodies are skeletons, because the energy was just efficient enough to detroy tissue but not so hot as to shatter bones. And who does he find waiting inside but Lois Lane, who snuck in all on her own.

And she's holding a gun on him. And she keeps it trained on him for far too long.

The dialogue exchanged between them does not, unfortunately, improve anywhere else in the book.

When we reviewed the first issue of Dynamite Comis' take on PETER CANNON: THUNDERBOLT, we were taken aback by what we read. Was this a WATCHMEN derivative? Did Kieron Gillen think people wouldn't catch on? By the end of that issue, it became clear that things were muddier than we thought (if that makes sense), and the second issue had us hooked. This was something different, something that was far more metacomic than it was supehero adventure.

When the fifth and final issue came out, we were certain that the whole thing was a reaction to what WATCHMEN had brought us, and how it had changed the industry.

CAPTAIN MARVEL was, perhaps, the first Marvel Cinematic Universe film to come with pre-release baggage. The marketing machine started things off by signalling how much of a milestone it was that this was the first Marvel film to have a female lead, as though that were a reason to watch the film. Then lead actress Brie Larson began making disparaging comments about the opinions of white male critics. There was simply too much pre-movie commentary that came off as "You will enjoy this movie for the reasons we tell you, or else you're a bad person."

That was before the film hit the theatrical circuit, where I did not see it. More time has passed now, and viewing CAPTAIN MARVEL on Blu-ray is my first exposure to the film. And with the hype and anti-hype simmered down, I could actually sit down and watch this without being told that I have to have a feminist mindset, or that there's a politically subtextual nuance to every comment, or that Brie Larson doesn't smile enough.