Pierre vs The Avengers

Editor's Note: As promised, Pierre has found some time in his animation schedule to give us his thoughts on The Avengers. - Jim

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Avengers Assemble! The classic Avengers rallying cry is missing from the movie. And the absence of these two words sum up what was missing for me in the Avengers movie. If it was a more classic take on the Avengers, I might be one of those who think this is the best movie ever made, but there is too much Ultimates in the Avengers movie for my taste.
That kept the fanboy in me in check and allowed me to see that movie without some rose colored lenses - although I did see it wearing some 3D lenses.

Don’t make that mistake! The 3D in that movies is pointless. Just as it was pointless in the Captain America and the Thor movies. Dark movies + 3D = NOT A GOOD IDEA!!! So do yourself a favor, don’t see that movie in 3D unless you really have too.

Is it a bad movie?? No. Absolutely not. Is it a great movie??? I don’t think so either. It is a good action flick with a pretty basic plot (villain wants to conquer the world, An unlikely group of Heroes get together to stop him) and some fun moments.

Let’s start with what I did not like:

Although the Ultimates elements did not come as a surprise. Previous films already had some Ultimates elements (Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Ultimate Hawkeye in Thor), so it was no surprise that this film felt more like seeing the Ultimates then the Avengers. If I was a fan of the Ultimates, I most likely would not mind it. But I am more of a classic Avengers fan. The first part of the movie feels pretty much like “The Adventure of SHIELD (guest starring the Ultimates)”.

Give me a Hawkeye wearing his trademark purple suit and some Skrulls as opposed to some Chitary, and I would have been a happy guy. That is one of the things that I love about the Avengers cartoon, although the animation is awful, Hawkeye is Hawkeye in that show.

And I did find it tedious how they had to slowly reintroduce all the characters. I thought that was the point of the previous films to introduce all the characters. But I can understand how they wanted to play it safe and introduce all the characters for those who may not have seen the previous films.

I read online how they had to cut out about 2 hours from this movie. And that does not surprise me. A lot of time I thought that the transition from one scene to the next was off somehow, . As if something was missing in between. So I can only guess that we can expect an extended version of the movie at some point.

And can someone explain to me Banner’s “secret”?? How he is always angry?? If he was always angry, wouldn’t he always be “the other guy”??
I don’t get it.

And now what did I like about that film?

The first time I saw Cap, Iron-Man and Thor together, I had goose bumps.
Loved every frame with Steve Rogers/Cap. Can’t imagine anyone else in the role now. The same with Tony Stark/Iron-Man.


Loved Loki. You could feel the venom dripping from his mouth. And when he gets people to kneel, loved it. And Thor and Bruce Banner the 3rd were pretty good too.

Other then being pretty, I did not care much about the Black Widow. Oops, this is supposed to be about the parts that I like. Sorry. ;)

The movie had some good action scenes and some fun moments with the characters. The scene when Hulk grabs Loki and goes “bang” “bang” “bang” with him was priceless.


And whenever Cap throws his shield, I really get a kick out of it. When I was playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance, I would use Cap and I loved throwing his shield around.
This movie is a must see for any Avengers/Marvel/Comic fans. And from the looks of it, Marvel will make a gazillion dollars with this movie. So it would seem that Marvel’s gamble paid off.

Now if only Warner/DC could make that darn JLA movie now. ;)

(Note: This poster comes from Daniel Morpheus. click to see full size version. )

Until next time.

Pierre

Flashback Mail Bag

Today, I'm going to reach into the Flashback Mailbag and answer some readers questions:
Question 1. Are you going to make any more comics?

I hope so! As fortune would have it, Gentleman Jerry Hinds has recently had time in his busy schedule to get back to working on his Flashback Two-In-One story. Here's a finished page he sent me the other day (click to see the full size)


So, when we get all the pages completed, I'll begin the process of lettering Chris Sim's script and there will finally be another Flashback Universe comic. :)

After that, hard to say. My perspective on comics has changed a lot since I started Flashback Universe. My original goal was two fold.

One, I wanted to create the world's first comic specifically formatted for CBR/CBZ (digital) format. In that, I was successful. Many of the techniques and transitions Pierre and I pioneered with our original Flashback Comics have since shown up in other comics with Mark Waid doing the best job in pushing this envelope.

Two, I wanted to create a comic that gave readers the same rush they might experience reading their first classic Silver Age Marvel comic. I was really more interested in emmershing readers into a world populated by a myriad of colorful characters than an ongoing narrative. I never really had a long term plan for the FBU, and it shows.

With that said, I still love comics as a medium, and I'm constantly coming up with ideas and helping other people with their projects, so I don't doubt I'll soon be working on something. I just might not involve FBU characters. The one thing you can bet on is it will still retain a lot of the classic bronze age sensibilities in one form or another. ;)

Question 2: What's up with Pierre?
He's been working on a new animation project. As those things run, they tend to work at a breakneck pace which keeps up at all hours. As it is, he's doing good to answer an email here and there. He's also got a new website to help promote his animation and illustration skills which you can check out here:

Fortunately, he managed to squeeze in some time for the Avengers and has written a review which I will be posting Wednesday!

Question 3: What do you think about the current Digital Comics market?

I get the sense that sometimes people are asking this question to see if I feel vindicated that so many of my predictions have seemingly come to pass, but in all honesty, the digital market sort of depresses me.

As it stands now, Comixology, sort of have a lock on the digital market. There are a few (1?) other companies out there but the biggest contender for competition, Graphically, sort of threw in the towel a month ago. To make matters wore, as of last week, Marvel announced they were going exclusive with Comixology. And let's be honest here, with 65 million downloads, Comixology deserves their spot in the sun.

Unfortunately, if you are small independent publisher, I think you're going to find the way their app highlights comics from the Big Guys on their main screens limits your ability to sell your comic. Check out this screenshot. Did Moonstone Publishing have a new debut this week? How would you know?

That's not how I was hoping things would be. I was hoping that the digital age for comics would help level the playing field as far helping introduce readers to new and diferent comics. What it feels like now is a digital version of the Diamond Catalog.

I wanted a world where non-techie types could create a comic, upload it to some marketplace where people could discover it via their interests in similar comics (like how Amazon suggests items for you.)

Well, I guess I can hope we eventually get there. :)

Have a great day!

Ten Random Thoughts About the Avengers

Thanks to the insistence of good friend Trey Causey, I braved the crowds and saw the Avengers Friday night, and I am happy to report it is well worth seeing. It was perhaps the most fun I have had at a movie since the first Iron Man. (Prior to that I might have to go back to the first Pirates of the Carribean.)

I have a lot of thoughts about the movie, so I'm going to enumerate them to try and keep myself on task.

1. Disney has got to be happy!

Disney originally bought Marvel for $4 billion dollars (a sum that sounds cheap in these days of tech companies snapping up smaller companies for patents.) Avengers looks to be on track to beat all box office records (some estimates have it possibly opening with $200 million domestically.) When you add the money Disney will get from liscensing and DVD/Blu-Ray sales, the Avengers may well help them recoup a large portion of their initial investments just by itself.

2.  Joss Whedon has got to be happy too!

If Serenity cast a pall on Joss Whedon's movie career, then the Avengers has given it new life. I've always liked Josh Whedon's dialogue style, which Scott Simmons (another friend of mine in attendance Friday night) boiled down to "...where all the characters are one and a half times cleverer than real people..." In other words, it's a style where you get the idea everyone had time to think of the best quip or retort possible before saying their next line. It's not the best reflection of real life, where time and emotions often interfere with communication skills, and because of that, some people that style of dialogue is a bit too precious or artificial. Still, considering the type of movie this was, I think it fit perfectly. Like Scott, I think Captain America got all the best lines.

3. I wonder if Mark Millar is happy?

When Mark Millar introduced his Samuel L. Jackson looking Nick Fury in the Ultimates, I was originally put off by the character. One, because I hate it when comic characters are phototraced from pictures of real people (I find it jerks you out of the medium.) Two, the change of race for the character seemed unnecessary. However, for the purposes of appealing to a larger demographics, that racial switch out really panned out for Disney didn't it? I wonder if it was a conscious move to use that version of Nick Fury on Disney's part? Updated since Trey reminded me that Nick Fury actually started showing up prior to Disney owning Marvel.

4. The smaller line up of the Avengers works better for movies doesn't it?

I've always felt that in the comics that the way the Avengers can consist of 5 (and even 4!) heroes makes it a team that has never really stacked up, powerwise, against the Justice League (unless you count the Aquaman led team back in the 80's)

However, for a movie, a smaller team really works well. If there had been another two characters to deal with, it would probably cut down a good bit on the great character moments Joss Whedon put in the script. Something for DC to consider, eh?

5. What was Loki's plan on the Helicarrier?

I had to go to the restroom, and I think I missed something. What was all that about exactly?

6. This movie may have saved the Hulk franchise.

I saw over at Bleeding Cool that Mark Ruffalo has signed a 6 picture Hulk deal with Marvel  and based on audience reaction to the Hulk scenes, it looks like the time is right to relaunch that franchise. I feel the key with the Hulk is is to remember that he is not just a raging brute, but that he can also be a bit childish at times. This gives writers innocence and indulgence aspects of the character to explore.  (Like this scene from the classic Len Wein/Herb Trimpe era)

It's not something that is played up in current Hulk comics, but I believe it is vital to fully exploiting the wish fulfillment aspect of the character. It would also be a much needed source of humor for any resulting movies.

7. Aliens are the new Ninjas

I guess it's just a by product of action movies that they have scores of creatures for the heroes to fight. Sometimes we get clever variations on the them like the Nazi zombies in SuckerPunch. Still, I do grow weary of the meaningless hordes.

8. Is this a history making/game changing movie?

In discussing the ensemble cast of this movie, I was struck by the notion that this was the first time that characters from successful movie franchises had ever been gathered together all in one movie. As I thought on it more, I realized that's not necessarily true, as back in the heyday of the Universal Monster Movies, we saw this classic picture:

Since then, there have been a few other dalliances in combining an assortment of fictional characters in a movie (Murder By Death, Aliens Vs Predators, Freddie vs Jason and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) but none of those had the combined star power this movie had. With the success the Avengers is having, will we see this formula repeated? And if so, what grouping (outside of the DC Universe) would lend itself to such an ensemble?

9. The Spider-man trailer looked better than the Batman trailer.
'Nuff said.

10. The Loki at the Opera scene!

I haven't seen a lot of people comment on this scene, but with its use of Local Music and eschewing of dialogue during this part, it felt like a tip of the hat to the classic opera scene from the Godfather 3. Tom Hiddleston stole the movie as Loki, and this moment highlighted just how well he was able to portray the character even without talking.

Anyway, if you haven't seen this movie, do yourself a favor and go!

- Jim

A Valiant Return for XO Manowar

Last year (June 2011), it was announced that many of the original Valiant Univerve comics characters would be returning to comic shops this Summer including XO Manowar, Harbinger and Archer and Armstrong.



I don't know that I talked about this news here as previous returns of the Valiant characters have been less than spectacular. Also, I had my doubts the marketplace would receive them any better than it did Jim Shooter's recent Dark Horse foray with Solar, Man of the Atom. Don't get me wrong. I love the old Valiant comics (at least a certain era of them) but how many failed attempts have we seen to revive old comic properties in the last few years?

However, Bleeding Cool had this bit of promising news about the order of the first issue of the new XO Manowar series:

X-O Manowar #1, the debut title from the new Valiant Entertainment, has received over 42,000 preorders 
 
The timing on this couldn't be better as this issue will be coming out the week of Free Comic Book day and the weekend that the Avengers movie will (hopefully) be driving tons of lasped comic book fans to their local comic shop.

Anyone else looking forward to checking out this first issue?

- Jim

Top Ten Off Brand Superheroes

Based on glowing recommendations from Pierre and a new appreciation for the storytelling in The Walking Dead, I started reading Robert Kirkman's Invincible from Image Comics. I'll won't go into a in depth review of the series here today but I will say I enjoy it.

I had been putting off reading the series because I think in my later years, I have developed a prejudice against Off Brand Superhero comics. I think a lot of that is due in part to the wave of Youngblood and (later) Authority clones we have seen in recent decades.

However, that has not always been the case with me, and over the years, I have tried out a lot of Off Brand Superhero comics. Here is what I consider my Top Ten Favorites from decades past with a few honorable mentions at the end. For the sake of this article, I am defining Off Brand Superheroes as Spandex wearing characters. How many are you familiar with and who would you add to the list?

No 1: Nexus by Steve Rude and Mike Baron

While this series sometimes meandered during story lines, there is no denying the brilliance of Steve Rude's artwork. And Mike Baron often took the stories in some fun and unexpected places.

No. 2 Dreadstar by Jim Starlin

This might seem like a bit of a cheat to put this here, as some people might categorize this title as Space Opera or Sword and Planet. This series is Jim Starlin in his prime on a series he put a lot of thought into. Along with Nexus, this is one of the longer running series on this list with a lot of amazing crescendos throughout the run.

No. 3 The Elementals by Bill Willingham

Before he became a multimillionaire ;) writing Fables for Vertigo, Bill Willingham created his take on the Fantatic Four back in the 1980s. Great artwork and zippy storylines made this a fun title to read. Unfortunately, financial problems with Comico resulted in a mess later.

No. 4 The Strangers by Steve Englehart and Rick Hoberg

The Ultraverse brought us a ton of great titles. This was such a great setup. Strangers on a subway car all get superpowers due to an unexplained power bolt and later we get a mystery as someone seems to be killing off members of the group.

No. 5 The Futurians by Dave Cockrum

As with many titles on this list, this group had a bouncey publishing history. Still, Dave Cockrum's signature design style always made it worth reading when you could find it.

No. 6 Next Men by John Byrne

This should probably be up higher in the list, but sometimes John Byrne's plotting just leaves me cold. However, if you are even remotely a fan of John Byrne's work in any form, I would strongly suggest sampling this series.

No. 7 Grendel by Matt Wagner (writer) and others as artists

This title spanned multiple versions and eras of the title character as it kept going so it's a bit hard to really review as a whole per se. I will say that it is perhaps the finest examination of the enduring influence of heroic legends and the permutations that can develop around such myths.

No. 8 Doctor Mirage by Bob Layton and Bernard Chang

Like the Ultraverse, Valiant produced a lot of great comics during their short tenure, so it was hard to pick a favorite easily. To be honest, XO Manowar and Harbinger were really the two I liked best from that line, but Doctor Mirage fits my prescribed definition of an off brand superhero better. I've always liked the focus on the relationship between Doctor Mirage and his wife in this series. It sort of reminded me of the banter between Nick and Nora Charles in the Thin Man series. Also, even back then, it was easy to see that Bernard Chang was a real superstar.

No. 9 The Justice Machine by Mike Gustovich

I remember this series being full of some really clever ideas (the facist planet the series takes place on is named Georwell) and plot twists at the time, but finding issues was sooooo hard. Later incarnations would vary in quality (so much so that in one later volume, events in a previous volume were openly mocked.)

No. 10 Next Man by Vince Argondezzi


Is there anyone besides me that remembers this series? Probably not. Even my memory of the series is vague, but what I DO remember is that the art was a wonderful facsimile of Jack Kirby's style at a time when most comics were shunning that style.

Honorable Mentions:

Here are a few that I also liked but didn't make it into the top ten.
Division 13 by Dark Horse

There was only one issue of this published which was a damn shame as it struck me as one of the cooler comics to come out of the Dark Horse Comics Greatest World. If I had to describe it, I would say it was Ultimate Challengers of the Unknown with a bit of Suicide Squad tossed in. Other series (X and Ghost) would have much longer runs, but they didn't captivate half as much me the way this first issue did.

Southern Knights by Henry Vogel

I only got one issue of this (because that was all I could find) but I really liked it. In writing this article, I discovered you can buy them digitally (from DriveThruStuff ) so I may try a few more issues in that format.

Tiger-Man from Atlas Comics

Here is an oldie but goodie from Atlas comics. Interestingly enough, this savage claw bearing character had a lot of attributes that would later make the Wolverine so popular. If only Atlas had known.

DNAgents by Mark Evanier

I think I got one or two issues of this, but it just didn't compel me to follow it. I think it came at a time when the Teen Titans had been big for so long that a host of imitators from the Big Two burned me out on teen teams. I also remember being a bit chagrined by the number of crotch shots in every issue. Oh how did we survive without Comics Alliance to save us from such things back in the day? ;)

Well, that felt pretty all inclusive, but I would be delighted to hear from any of you guys as to which of your favorite off brand superhero I missed!

Have a great day!

- Jim

Ditko's Design Sense

I was recently listening to a Podcast about the Lee/Ditko Silver Age Spider-man run, and it got me to thinking. People rightly acknowledge how fluid and dynamic Ditko's art was, but rarely do I hear them say anything about his design sense. As a conceptual designer, comparing him to what his peers were doing at other companies, he really thought outside the box in a number of ways. I would like to go over some of these over the course of a few articles here in time, but will start with Spider-man's mask today.

With the classic web-head look, I think Ditko introduced the concept of the completely masked Superhero (at least at Marvel, if not for the Silver Age in general) Is there another superhero whose faced is completely hidden in a Silver Age comic at the time?


The only one I could come up with was Iron Man, and Spider-man precedes him by almost a full year. It makes for a striking visual with the exaggerated eyes and lack of mouth to give you insight into the character's thoughts.

While it might be arguable how much this fully masked designed played into the popularity of the character, what is important is how much it adds into the transformation of Peter Parker into Spider-man. It completely removes any signs of the callow boy we are first introduced to at the beginning of the story.


The full face mask is also is significant because it allows Lee and Ditko to compartmentalize the two characters a bit. Peter remains a young boy at odds with his world while the Web Slinger is the MAN. As Ditko himself says:

I wasn't sure Stan would like the idea of covering the character's face but I did it because it hid an obviously boyish face. It would also add mystery to the character....

~TwoMorrow's Publishing

As the series progresses, there will be times when a portion of his mask will reveal his true age to which observers are always astounded that he is just a young boy. (Like in Marvel Team Up 4 where Spider-man steals a kiss from Marvel Girl.)



This idea of the faceless character would be one that Ditko would revisit a number in his career, most notably with The Question:



And Dormammu:


Later versions of Dormammu would add a mouth and more expressive eyes, which I think was a bit of a mistake because it removed some of the mystique and unapproachability* from the character.

As to the design of Peter Parker himself, I think need to look no further than this classic self-portrait of Steve Ditko:



Have a great day!

- Jim
*Yeah, I'm not sure unapproachability is even a word, so feel free to suggest a better one.

Avengers vs X-men: An Intervention

Last week saw the arrival of the first issue of the much ballyhooed AvsX mini-series - a bi-weekly Marvel Event that is going to run for the next 6 months consisting mostly of fights between Avengers and the X-men scripted by Brian Bendis.

Now, most of the backlash against this series has come in the form of fans denouncing Event styled stories in general. I don't necessarily agree with that sentiment. I think comic Events are a bit like any other type of storytelling approach - they succeed (or fail) based on their own merits.

With that said, I think AvsX is going to be another one for the Fail column and let me explain why.

First, I don't think Bendis has ever had a good handle on how to dialogue some of the more esoteric characters in the Marvel universe. For writing the dialogue of street level characters like Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Daredevil, he does an adequate job. However, anytime he has to write Thor saying something, it comes out like this:

I have this? 

This is really how Thor talks these days? Even putting that dialogue in some faux Medieval font from Blambot doesn't shake the feeling that this line was left over from Die Hard 4. Is that what is passing for verisimilitude now? And I know Bendis isn't the only writer who does this (Paul Cornell is guilty of it in DC's Demon Knights) With dialogue like this creeping in at the onset, I wouldn't hold my breath that it will get better by the time we hit month 3 or 4.


Hey, that's okay, you say because this series is going to be mostly action scenes, so who cares about the dialogue? 

Well, good point. Let's look at the action scenes we got this issue:

Early on, a mysterious object from space clips off the top of the building scattering all the people inside to the four winds.

Wow! People and debris falling every where! How will the heroes solve this problem? Well, Spider-man makes a giant web that somehow separates the people from the debris and saves everybody. All in the space of one panel break.

Also in this early scene, check out how Thor and Iron Man handle a problem with a Jet that has lost a wing in the middle of the city. Iron Man uses an unspecified ray blast of some sort to just atomize the separated wing, and Thor creates a magical wind tunnel to capture the jet and guide it to safety.

But Jim, you remind me, that's okay because comics are all about heroes using far fetched solutions to solve problems! Well, you may have a point, but I think the far fetched solutions in Silver Age Superman were often clever parts of a larger story with a twist to them.  Here we just get one panel with no attempt to even rationalize the physics or abilities involved. With Thor, you can say it's magic and just sort of shrug, but that nonchalance has been expanded (by the writer) onto the Spider-man and Iron Man scenes as well. It's perfunctory at best and lazy at worst.

Well, that's okay, because while Bendis may be weak on action scenes, he will come through on the fight scenes.

I wouldn't bet on that. Check out this scene where Cyclops is just beating on Hope for reasons that are a bit unclear.


Now, it's implied that he's training her for self defense here. However, if Cyclops is supposed to be seriously training Hope, wouldn't some form of martial arts be more effective? This scene, which runs several pages, resembles a bar fight as recounted by a guy who wasn't there. Like Thor's dialogue, there isn't any suggestion of a style other than Street Level 101.

But, but...Bendis writes good character interaction scenes.

Well, I guess you mean like this one with Mopey Wolverine who is the best at what he does (as long as what he does is exposition.)


As I said, what seems to be the marketing rallying cry of this series is the battles that are to come in each issue. However, writing awe inspiring (or clever) battle/action scenes isn't really Brian Bendis' strong suit. This has long been a complaint leveled against Bendis by many different comic reviewers and podcasters so I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. So, if you still feel compelled to buy this mini-series, go for it. Maybe the next one will be better. ;)

What I predict will happen is that somewhere around July or August we will see a lot of buyers remorse as those fans who bought into the hype with this series start to realize it just ain't that good.


- Jim