Articles by kid_ampersand
Three Colossal Boys? Be still, my heart.
Yes, that's right. Most DC fans have heard of the upcoming Final Crisis tie-in, Legion of Three Worlds. But what exactly does it mean? Well, real-life superheroes Geoff Johns and George Perez will be bringing us a reality-spanning miniseries that brings back not only the original pre-Crisis Legion spotted most recently in the pages of Justice League, Justice Society, and Action Comics, but two other versions of the Legion, widely speculated to be the post-Zero Hour Legion of the '90s and the Legion most recently seen alongside Batman in the pages of Brave & the Bold.
Now, taking a step back from the fanboy puddle of drool that develops upon speculation about this upcoming storyline, and instead looking at all this from an industry point of view, what can we see? For one, the most-retconned characters in the DC Universe may finally have an established, lasting structure, something that may make new fans of the Legion easier to come by. And all those pre-existing versions we've already been thoroughly confused by? Not only will they be addressed, but apparently, they will all exist contemporaneously, at least for a time.
And all this seems to be part of a much larger strategy for DC Comics, one that entails something previously unheard of in comic-book universe continuity management: everything we've ever read in the past of DC Comics is essentially true. So labels like "pre-Crisis" or "post-Zero Hour" are going to lose some meaning as a result. Grant Morrison himself claims that his Final Crisis will do just that, unifying the past, present, and future of the DC Universe for the "final" time. But does this really make things easier to understand or more confusing for DC newcomers? We'll have to wait around and see.
Just last week, we had a story on real-life superheroes out to make the world a better place. Now, thanks to physicists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, Earth could be subject to man-made destruction more befitting the plans of Lex Luthor or Doctor Doom.
According to the New York Times,
The world's physicists have spent 14 years and $8 billion building the Large Hadron Collider, in which the colliding protons will recreate energies and conditions last seen a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. Researchers will sift the debris from these primordial recreations for clues to the nature of mass and new forces and symmetries of nature.
But Walter L. Wagner and Luis Sancho contend that scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, have played down the chances that the collider could produce, among other horrors, a tiny black hole, which, they say, could eat the Earth. Or it could spit out something called a "strangelet" that would convert our planet to a shrunken dense dead lump of something called "strange matter."
Sure, the physicists at CERN certainly aren't threatening to consume the Earth with a black hole unless they're given the head of Captain Marvel or anything, but the fact remains that this invention could seriously consume the Earth with a black hole ... and let's not forget this machine could even turn the entire planet into something actually called "strange matter". And that sounds pretty supervillainous to me.
Asking a Judge to Save the World, and Maybe a Whole Lot More [NY TImes]
Joanne Siegel, widow of Jerry Siegel, one-half of the creative force behind the birth of Superman in 1938, has just compared Time Warner to the Gestapo. Well, she actually did so in a May 2002 letter written to Richard Parsons, then CEO of the newly-merged AOL-Time Warner, but the contents of that letter have recently come to light in the midst of two lawsuits against the media conglomerate over the rights to Superman himself.
Joanne Siegel, who was the original model for the first representation of Miss Lois Lane, has called Time Warner "greedy", claiming they have no qualms about stealing from her and her daughter: "Just like the Gestapo, your company wants to strip us naked of our legal rights... Is that the reputation you want?"
Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created Superman back in 1938, shaping the character out of concepts as varied as Nietzsche's "übermensch" ideal and the exaggerated cartoon violence of Popeye the Sailor; the two sold the rights to their character not long after. In 1999, however, the copyrights for the figure were terminated, and the Siegels claim they should get half of all Superman-related revenue since then: that's nine years worth of money generated by DC comic books, a WB television show, a number of animated series, and a big-budget feature film.
A ruling on Wednesday has already given half of the ownership to the rights of Superman to the Siegels, so there's no telling what may happen to the beloved character in the near future; by the end of the court proceedings, there may be profound effects on Superman comic books, movies, TV shows, and any kind of marketing that involves the Man of Steel.
DC fans haven't seen much of Ralph Dibny (formerly the Elongated Man) and his wife Sue lately. And rightly so, since both characters are quite dead, one having been given an aneurysm by a microscopic serial killer in Identity Crisis, and the other slain by a demon in the final pages of 52.
But the Dibnys, one of comics' most beloved mystery-solving husband-and-wife duos, have emerged again in the DC Universe; and unlike the reintroductions of most superheroes to which we've become accustomed, Ralph and Sue are actually still quite dead.
The team at DC has kept quiet about Ralph and Sue since we saw them reunited in the afterlife as 52 drew to a close. But they've since reappeared in the pages of Chuck Dixon's Batman & the Outsiders, not through time travel or magical reincarnation or some such crap, but as ghosts. And just like Deadman, another of DC's incorporeal sleuths, the Dibnys seemingly have the ability to possess living human bodies temporarily, as demonstrated when the two are revealed at the end of last week's Batman & the Outsiders #5, leading all readers keeping up with the story to collectively mutter "Oh, now all those random strangers helping out in the last few issues finally make some sense".
Scott Pilgrim, that adorable 23-year-old hipster musician created by Bryan Lee O'Malley and star of his own "Canadian manga" series, may soon be gracing the screens of your local cineplex.
The possible adaptation of Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life to the big screen is now old news in the world of Internet speculation, but there are a few names attached, one of them particularly recent. Edgar Wright, who brought the world beloved pinnacles of comedy Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, is set to direct, with O'Malley himself and Michael Bacall set to write. But the most recent buzz surrounding the movie surrounds, of course, the man who will be Scott Pilgrim himself. And that man just might be Michael Cera of TV's Arrested Development and recent hit Superbad.
According to that bastion of worldly information known as The Hollywood Reporter, Michael Cera is in talks with Universal to star in the upcoming film. And fans of Scott Pilgrim couldn't seemingly be happier; after all, at least from my vantage point, big fans of Scott Pilgrim are exactly the kinds of people who are big fans of Michael Cera. And why shouldn't they be? Scott Pilgrim and Cera's work in comedies like Arrested Development appeal to a millennial generation that embraces both irreverence and authenticity. And Cera, who will be 22 next year, already exudes the awkward but lovable personality that also belongs to his possible comic-book counterpart. Could there be a much better person for the role? Excluding myself, of course.
Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey, the team behind the comic book series Action Philosophers!, unveiled this month the first issue of their example of a medium exposing itself in the most self-reflective way possible: Comic Book Comics! is, in fact, a comic book series illuminating the intricate history of the comic book itself. The first issue, out earlier this month, highlights the birth and innovation that led to the invention of the modern comic book; the relationship between comic and animation and the subsequent cartoon war waged between Max Fleischer and Walt Disney; the influence of pulp fiction on early comics' popularity; the early careers of many comic book pioneers, including one Jack Kirby; and the true origin of the Man of Steel as envisioned by his creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster.
The premise of the series is easily imaginable and not an altogether outlandish concept, but the execution is brilliant and the content can be utterly surprising. Van Lente and Dunlavey thoroughly and literally illustrate the origin of the comic strip as an invention not imagined on a whim but rather borne by an intricate balance of visual art, sequential dialogue, and vaudeville-style comedy. The pair also illuminate the often-unnoticed relationship between comics and animation, a relationship that would probably be more obvious if you laid the frames of an animated film side by side and noticed what it happens to look exactly like. The veritable arms race between animation pioneers Disney and Fleischer is laid bare, and the cover illustration of the two battling as famous cartoon mice is at least enough to pique anyone's curiosity, avid comic book historian and bored Barnes & Noble peruser alike.
Perhaps the greatest achievement of Comic Book Comics! #1 is the most descriptive illustration ever of the myriad concepts and ideals behind the creation of the world's first comic-book superhero. Van Lente and Dunlavey successfully tell the tale of how Zorro, Friedrich Nietzsche's "übermensch" ideal, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and even Popeye the Sailor himself joined together in the minds of Cleveland comic-book artists Siegel and Schuster to ultimately yield Superman in the pages of Action Comics #1.
The Pulse is a new feature of ours where we'll check the pulses of our favorite titles that may have escaped the radar during our regular reviews. We'll take a closer look to check the health of a title, and what can be done to fix it. Just because they're not up on Thursday for review doesn't mean we aren't glued to their pages. So without any further ado, let's check up on that extremely old favorite, Action Comics.
Hit the jump to check its pulse!
ROYGBIV & Other Mnemonic Devices of the DCU
Growing up, Green Lantern was my perennial favorite superhero: a normal guy given incredible power fueled only by his imagination and will. But one thing always bothered me: I never really liked green. Why not Blue Lantern? Or Orange Lantern? Or for that matter, Pink Lantern or Off-White Lantern or Chartreuse Lantern?
Two years after the debut of the Green Lantern Corps, the character of Sinestro was introduced, himself a Green Lantern gone rogue and equipped with a power ring of a different color--yellow. But Green Lantern writers would wait another 45 years before exploring the concept to its fullest, and during last year's Sinestro Corps War storyline, Geoff Johns and Dave Gibbons revealed a prophecy in the Green Lantern mythos that predicted a massive war lit by every major color of the visible spectrum: not just the green and yellow to which Lantern fans were accustomed, but also red, orange, violet, blue, and even rainbow stalwart indigo.
Read more without pesky spoilers for you latecomers...
"Oh Lois, you SO don't want to know!"
Comic of the Week
Frater Mine by Sean McGrath and Juan Romera
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