100 Comic Book Movies

With a little time to kill this afternoon, I decided to make one of those “Movie List Challenges” over on Facebook. Being the sort of nerd I am, I whipped up a list of 100 movies based on comic books, graphic novels, and newspaper comic strips. Some of these are kind of indirect — the comic strip was made into a broadway musical, the musical was made into a movie. Some of them will be movies you’ve seen but maybe didn’t know were comic books first. Some of them will be foreign and some of them, especially the movie serials of the 40s and 50s, will be characters you’ve heard of in movies you didn’t know existed. And although I tried to stay with theatrical films, it’s possible a made-for-TV movie or two snuck in while I wasn’t looking. But let’s see how many of ’em you’ve seen. For the sake of fairness, I’ve put an asterisk next to each movie that I’ve personally viewed…

1. The Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941) *
2. Batman (1943)
3. Congo Bill (1948)
4. Batman and Robin (1949)
5. Superman and the Mole Men (1951)
6. Blackhawk: Fearless Champion of Freedom (1952)
7. Lil’ Abner (1959)
8. Batman: The Movie (1966)*
9. A Boy Named Charlie Brown (1969)*
10. Tales From the Crypt (1972)
11. The Vault of Horror (1973)
12. Superman (1978)*
13. Flash Gordon (1980)*
14. I Go Pogo (aka Pogo For President, 1980)*
15. Popeye (1980)*
16. Superman II (1980)*
17. Annie (1982)*
18. Swamp Thing (1982)
19. Superman III (1983)*
20. Supergirl (1984)*
21. Howard the Duck (1986)*
22. Superman IV: The Quest For Peace (1987)*
23. Akira (1988)*
24. Batman (1989)*
25. The Punisher (1989)*
26. Return of Swamp Thing (1989)
27. Dick Tracy (1990)*
28. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)*
29. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991)*
30. Batman Returns (1992)*
31. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)*
32. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Turtles in Time (1993)
33. The Crow (1994)*
34. The Mask (1994)*
35. Batman Forever (1995)*
36. Judge Dredd (1995)*
37. Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight (1995)*
38. Barb Wire (1996)*
39. Tales From the Crypt: Bordello of Blood (1996)*
40. Batman and Robin (1997)*
41. Men in Black (1997)*
42. Spawn (1997)*
43. Steel (1997)
44. Blade (1998)*
45. X-Men (2000)*
46. Ghost World (2001)*
47. Blade II (2002)*
48. Road to Perdition (2002)*
49. Spider-Man (2002)*
50. American Splendor (2003)*
51. Daredevil (2003)*
52. Hulk (2003)*
53. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)*
54. X2: X-Men United (2003)*
55. Blade: Trinity (2004)*
56. Catwoman (2004)*
57. Garfield (2004)*
58. Hellboy (2004)*
59. The Punisher (2004)*
60. Spider-Man 2 (2004)*
61. Batman Begins (2005)*
62. Constantine (2005)*
63. Elektra (2005)*
64. Fantastic Four (2005)*
65. A History of Violence (2005)*
66. Man-Thing (2005)*
67. Sin City (2005)*
68. Son of the Mask (2005)*
69. V For Vendetta (2005)*
70. 300 (2006)*
71. Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (2006)
72. Over the Hedge (2006)*
73. Superman Returns (2006)*
74. X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)*
75. Ghost Rider (2007)*
76. Persepolis (2007)*
77. Spider-Man 3 (2007)*
78. TMNT (2007)*
79. The Dark Knight (2008)*
80. Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)*
81. Iron Man (2008)*
82. Punisher: War Zone (2008)*
83. Surrogates (2009)*
84. Watchmen (2009)*
85. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)*
86. Iron Man 2 (2010)*
87. Jonah Hex (2010)*
88. Kick-Ass (2010)*
89. The Losers (2010)*
90. RED (2010)*
91. Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World (2010)*
92. The Adventures of Tintin (2011)*
93. Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)*
94. Cowboys and Aliens (2011)*
95. Dylan Dog: Dead of Night (2011)*
96. Green Lantern (2011)*
97. The Smurfs (2011)
98. Thor (2011)*
99. X-Men: First Class (2011)*
100. The Avengers (2012)

Classic EBI #242: What’s Santa Bringing For the Geeks?

Every Christmas, I make it a point to seek out as many Christmas comics as I can and present them to the faithful readers of Everything But Imaginary, and this year is no different. I’ve got twenty yuletide comics to share with you today, my friends, so click on the link and get to it!

Everything But Imaginary #428: Christmas Comics 2011

Going back in time, let’s look in at 2007, and what Santa was bringing to the Geeks that year…

Classic EBI #242: What’s Santa Bringing For the Geeks?

It’s T-minus 20 days and counting, friends. Christmas is rapidly approaching, the assorted poultry are growing corpulent, and the geriatric gentleman is asking for alms. And for us, the Assorted Fanboys of the Universe, we’re making out lists of toys and goodies that we’re just hoping Santa will leave under our trees. Unfortunately, for those of us who were stupid enough to buy an issue of One More Day, we’re stuck on the “naughty” list, and we’re left hoping for treats from the special people in our lives. So this week’s special “Everything But Imaginary” column is not for you, fanboys.

No, no. It’s for your loved ones.

This column is going to list some of the coolest stuff you can get for your fanboy this year. Fanboys, make sure your primary gift-giver sees it. Print out a copy and leave it in the bathroom. Casually mention how awesome Everything But Imaginary is until they have no choice but to log on. “Accidentally” CC an e-mail to them saying, “Hey, Joe, did you read this column? I hope Marcia gets me some of this stuff for Christmas.” (Also, you may want to use your own girlfriend/fiancé/wife’s name, because if it’s not “Marcia,” you’re going to have much bigger problems than Christmas presents.)

So what are some of the best gifts out there for comic geeks this year? Let’s start with…

BOOKS

Now not every geek has the same tastes, so it’s important to find something that will appeal to him or her. There are a lot of nice, hefty hardcovers available these days that will almost certainly be to someone’s liking. The Captain America Omnibus might be nice for someone who didn’t start reading the comic book until March. Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus can give the DC fan some nice background on Countdown. Fans of the Disney theme parks will salivate over the collected edition of Slave Labor’s Haunted Mansion comic book. Looking for a cool comic he probably didn’t read? The Hero By Night hardcover just came out. And if your geek is digging the current Spirit series, there are over 20 hardcover archives available collecting the original run.

Books are the ultimate gift for a fanboy. We’re always looking for something else to read, because if we didn’t love reading, we wouldn’t be comic geeks in the first place. Your trick, your task if you will, will be to determine just what your fanboy likes. Hardcore fans of Serenity or The Dark Tower likely already have those issues in their collection, but that doesn’t automatically mean they wouldn’t appreciate the hardcover collections of those comics.

DVDS

If anything can rival a book in a fanboy’s heart, it’s the DVD, and there were a ton of them released this year. TV shows featuring Superman, Batman, Aquaman, the Super Friends, and a jillion more. Awesome movies like 300, TransFormers and Spi… Spider…. Um, and let’s not forget that this is the year that high-definition players really began to grow in prominence! (Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 are in high-def now, right?) Find out if your geek is interested in “upgrading” his old DVDs to high-def or Blu-Ray. Once you’ve figured out if your geek likes a certain TV show or movie (here’s a test: “Hey, sweetie, what did you think of 300?”), ascertaining whether or not he already has it is the easy part. The Native North American Geek usually has a cabinet or shelf where his DVDs are proudly displayed as though they were college degrees, Olympic medals or Grandma’s ashes, providing Grandma looked as good in spandex as Jessica Alba. All you’ve got to do is look and see if the DVD you’re considering purchasing is already there.

TOYS AND ASSORTED JUNK

As always, there are a ton of toys and goodies you can get for your geek. If you’ve got the display space, there are plenty of great statues out there. My girlfriend Erin (who is not only cute, smart, funny, and basically awesome, but also a terrible enabler for my habit) got me the Fables Snow White/Bigby Wolf statue for my birthday back in August, and lemme tell ya, this is the coolest thing you could possibly get for a Fables fan. And of course, there are statues available featuring practically any denomination of fan worship – Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, the X-Men, Serenity, Star Wars, Star Trek, Archie Comics, classic Universal monsters, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Carribean – just walk into your local comic shop (you may have to ask your fanboy where it is) and see the stuff they have on the shelves.

A statue a little outside of your price range? No problem. There are plenty of action figures out there that look good enough to practically be statues – the Marvel Legends and DC Direct lines are packed with beautiful sculpts of beloved heroes. Don’t want to get your fanboy a toy? (You elitist.) How about a Betty Boop Zippo lighter? A Superman lunchbox? A Serenity-as-Reaver-Ship Christmas tree ornament? Getting “collectibles” instead of “toys” takes a little of the sting out of it, doesn’t it?

STOCKING STUFFERS

C’mon, you know you still hang your stocking up every Christmas Eve, and you know that you still wake up every Christmas Morning in the hopes of finding it full of loot. Give your fanboy that gift this year. There are plenty of things to choose from – including my favorite toy line of the year, Mini-Mates. Miniature action figures that come in packs of two – not as detailed or as displayable as some of their bigger, pricier cousins, but just as cool. And the best part is, they come in a ton of denominations as well – Marvel superheroes, DC superheroes, Battlestar Galactica, 24, Speed Racer and many more. (Um… just try to avoid the zombie ones. I had some trouble with them back on Halloween.)

So there you have it, friends – plenty of ideas to get you started. And if you come up with any gift suggestions of your own, share them here! We can use all the help we can get.

Favorite of the Week: November 28, 2007

It wasn’t a long run, but Tony Bedard and Dennis Calero’s term on Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes (which ended with last week’s #36) was a really good one. In their few issues, they helped the Legion reestablish itself in the aftermath of the Dominator War and the disappearance of one of their founders, Cosmic Boy. They reintroduced a number of fan-favorite Legionnaires and Legion concepts (the lost-missed Wildfire/ERG-1, for instance). They brought Supergirl’s story to a very satisfying close, and they gave Jim Shooter and Francis Manapul a solid foundation to begin their stint on this title. Well-done, sirs. Well done.

Blake M. Petit is the author of the superhero comedy novel, Other People’s Heroes, the suspense novel The Beginner and the Christmas-themed eBook A Long November. He’s also the co-host, with whoever the hell is available that week, of the 2 in 1 Showcase Podcast. E-mail him at BlakeMPetit@gmail.com and visit him on the web at Evertime Realms. Read past columns at the Everything But Imaginary Archive Page.

Classic EBI #99: The Makings of a Universe

For years now, I’ve maintained a steadfast and unbroken tradition of not being at San Diego Comic-Con. This is not for lack of desire. So today, I take a look at the stuff happening in San Diego this year I wish I could be a part of…

Everything But Imaginary #407: What I’ll Miss in San Diego

But moving back in time, it’s January 25, 2005 and I’m taking a look at just how tight the continuity of the DC Universe has become in the last year or two. I’ll leave you guys to decide in this counts as irony or not.

Everything But Imaginary #99: The Makings of a Universe

I believe in credit where credit is due, so you’ve really got to give Stan Lee props for really creating our current concept of a superhero “universe.” Oh, superheroes had met before. All of the top National (later DC) Comics heroes had come together as the Justice Society of America in the 40s. Superman and Batman frequently appeared together in World’s Finest Comics. Even Atlas (later Marvel) had their collections of World War II-era characters like the Invaders and the All-Winner’s Squad.

But it was Stan the Man, writing approximately umpteen billion Marvel comics every month (this record would be held until Brian Michael Bendis broke into the business) that really started to forge a world with his creations. The adventures of the JSA didn’t impact the characters in their own titles, nor did the various team-ups that had happened. What Stan did, and did so well, was begin to mix events from various comics. If the Thing lost his powers in Fantastic Four, then he’d be powerless if the team happened to appear in Avengers that month. If Spider-Man was on the run from the law (in other words, if it was a day of the week ending in “y”), Foggy Nelson may have mentioned it in Daredevil. This was nowhere more evident than when Hawkeye, the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver — villainous foes of Iron Man and the X-Men, reformed and joined the Avengers.

These days, though, Marvel has sort of lost its cohesion as a universe. Each of Spider-Man’s three titles seem to exist in their own pocket world and barely connect. Nearly two years have passed in Daredevil during Bendis’s run, while other Marvel titles have only progressed a few months. Why, Magneto took over the entire city of New York at the end of Grant Morrison’s New X-Men, and not a single other title even made reference to it. Except for comments in various titles about the events of Avengers Disassembled and the gloriously continuity-heavy She-Hulk title, it’s hard to feel like there’s a Marvel “universe” anymore.

But man, DC is trying to make up for it.

As Marvel’s titles have grown looser and looser, DC’s are getting tighter. And I’m going to warn you right now, this column is about to get spoiler-heavy for half of the books in the DC line, so if you see a title bolded you don’t want to know about, you may wanna skip ahead.

It’s easy to point to Identity Crisis as the genesis of this transformation. Like the ending or hate it, it was a huge storyline that has had an astronomical impact on the DC Universe. Just a month after the story’s conclusion, we’ve already seen fallout everywhere: the death of Robin’s father has impacted his own series, which in turn has impacted the other Batman-family books. It’s also being dealt with in Teen Titans, and dealt with extremely well. The Titans are also dealing with Lex Luthor’s battle armor, lost during that miniseries.

The apparent death of Ronnie Raymond is the very catalyst for the new Firestorm series. As if that weren’t enough, it’s sparked a storyline in Manhunter, as DC’s newest vigilante is trying to hunt the murderous Shadow Thief.

In Flash, Wally West has to cope with the fact that his uncle, the paragon of virtue Barry Allen, was one of a subset of the Justice League that agreed to tamper with the minds of their enemies — and what’s worse, has to deal with restoring an enemy who, in turn, is threatening to turn many of his reformed colleagues like Trickster, Heat Wave and the Pied Piper back to their old dark ways. In Adventures of Superman, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are struggling with the same revelation.

And that’s just the stuff directly from Identity Crisis.What other links are appearing among the many titles of the DC Universe lately?

• After the events of “War Games,” the Birds of Prey have recruited a new member and left Gotham City, impacting every Batman title, particularly Nightwing — because he’s still in love with Oracle. Plus, the cops of Gotham Central are even more hostile towards the caped crusader than ever.

• Speaking of Nightwing, Starfire has quit the Teen Titans to join his team, the Outsiders, to try to help him cope with all the trauma in his life as of late.

• Speaking of the Titans, they’ve linked up with two other titles. Green Arrow’s sidekick, the new Speedy, has joined the team. A few months ago, the young heroes got caught up in a time-travel adventure that wound up restarting the entire universe for the Legion of Super-Heroes, and writer Mark Waid has promised that he and Barry Kitson are doing the new Legion as the official future of the DCU — it’s up to the other writers to get them there.

• In Jeph Loeb’s Superman/Batman title, we met the all-new (yet all-classic) Supergirl, who’s about to get her own title. There’s also a rumor that she may check in with the Teen Titans herself. Plus, Loeb is currently milking DC properties as diverse as Kamandi, Cinnamon, Jonah Hex and the Freedom Fighters for the current arc in that title. He’s brought back characters that haven’t been seen in years.

• In Wonder Woman’s title, she’s gone blind after a battle with Medusa. When she guest-appeared in Adventures of Superman, not only was she still blind, but she was wearing the same blindfold. Not too hard a trick, of course, since the two books share a writer, but it’ll be more impressive in a couple of months during a promised crossover with Flash.

• Speaking of crossovers and books with the same writer, Bloodhound wound up merged with Firestorm (both books by Dan Jolley) and the Monolith lent a hand against Solomon Grundy to Hawkman and Hawkgirl (two books by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray).

“Okay, Blake,” you’re saying, “We get your point. There are a lot of crossovers. So what?” My, you can be rude sometimes, did you know that?

Here’s the point of all this.

A few months ago a group of five writers, Brad Meltzer, Judd Winick, Greg Rucka, Geoff Johns and Jeph Loeb, conducted an interview where they promsied that they were building the future of the DC Universe. And if you look at the books I’ve mentioned, you see their names all over the place, along with other talented writers like Devin Grayson, Gail Simone, Marc Andreyko, Bill Willingham and others I will feel bad later for leaving out.

Clearly, this is going to be a monumental task, even looking ahead to promised events such as DC Countdown and the enigmatic Crisis 2.

Those stories are going to be the framework of the DC Universe of the future.

What we’re seeing now, across the entire line, is the foundation. We’re seeing the hints, the clues, the groundwork. And knowing that this is what we’re seeing, we get to have all the fun of watching as everything is put together.

Some people, I understand, don’t like continuity that tight. I know that. But for those of us who do, watching as it is created before our eyes is something really really incredible. Something amazing.

Something I once may have even called Marvelous.

FAVORITE OF THE WEEK: January 19, 2005

While we’re on the subject of those truly remarkable books, I have to give credit again to Geoff Johns for turning out the best comic book of the week, Teen Titans #20. Since the murder of his father and the death of his girlfriend in agonizingly short succession, Robin has tried to repress his emotions in an effort to prevent from becoming more like Batman (which was nice and ironic, since repressing his emotions only made him more like Batman). This issue dances around some action, but at its core is a heartfelt examination of a son’s grief and his desperate attempt to continue forging his own future, and not let it be determined for him.

Blake M. Petit is the author of the superhero comedy novel, Other People’s Heroes, the suspense novel The Beginner and the Christmas-themed eBook A Long November. He’s also the co-host, with whoever the hell is available that week, of the 2 in 1 Showcase Podcast. E-mail him at BlakeMPetit@gmail.com and visit him on the web at Evertime Realms. Read past columns at the Everything But Imaginary Archive Page.

 

 

New looks in the new DCU

As you’re probably heard by now, especially if you read my columns or listen to my podcast, starting in September DC Comics is relaunching its entire line. This means restarting every title with a new first issue, launching several all-new titles, and tweaking the continuity and costumes of several long-standing heroes. Looking at the stuff that’s been announced so far, I’m mostly excited. There are some changes I don’t like (Harley Quinn’s new costume) and omissions that I’m not thrilled about (Power Girl and Xombi), but we’re also going to get ongoing series for great characters like Mr. Terrific (who has never had one before), new starts for deserving characters like Static, and the integration of the Wildstorm characters in the DCU. There’s a lot of potential there.

One thing that hasn’t been talked about much, though, is what the books are going to look like. I heard a quick reference somewhere that seemed to imply the books will have new logos and a new trade dress, which is to be expected, but so far we’ve only gotten one glimpse of them: what will apparently be the new logo for The Fury of Firestorm.

Firestorm is one of those characters that’s been around for a long time — over 30 years now — and he’s got a devoted following, but he’s never quite cracked the upper echelon of DC’s top heroes. I’m really looking forward to reading this title, though, because I do like the character and the creative team of Gail Simone, Ethan Van Sciver and Yildiray Cinar is a great combination.

What interests me at the moment, though, is this logo. It’s a cool look — contemporary, with that sort of spiral coming from the “O” that I think is intended to evoke the atomic nature of his powers. It’s also very different from his previous logos:

Firestorm’s popularity has waxed and waned over the years, you see. This is the fourth attempt at a solo series for the character, and at least the seventh logo. Looking at the older ones, it looks like they either tried to evoke the “fire” part of the name or the “nuclear’ element, with only the sixth one (bottom right corner) trying to bring in both.

I was looking at this and thinking about it, and I suddenly found myself wondering… when did I become such a nerd for logos? I blame the great comic book letterer Todd Klein, who often runs logo studies on his blog, where he goes through all of the different logos a particular character has had and discusses the design. I never really put a lot of thought into them before, but I’ve really come to appreciate logo creation as an art form of its own.

This, of course, got me thinking about the other logos. Will DC change them all? They haven’t said one way or another, but I think it’s highly possible. Even something as venerable as Superman’s logo is probably up for a change. And unlike most other characters, the changes to Superman’s logo over the years have either been small or temporary. Look at the graphic to the right — the logo from the first issue of Superman and the most recent issue. Small changes — turning angles into curves, streamlining the characters, but it’s still clearly based on the original design. Bigger changes (like during the dreaded “Electric Blue” period of the 90s) never lasted. It’s kind of like the costume that way — small changes have taken, big ones have gone away. Of course, he’s also getting a slightly different look, so a very different logo I think is very possible.

Then there’s the question of related titles. This new DCU will feature three different Justice League titles, numerous characters in the “Batman” family, and of course, the four Superman-related titles. My question is, will the logos for these titles have any sort of visual link? The Batman books often don’t, but the Superman titles — except for Action Comics — have been pretty uniform. Supergirl and Superboy, as you can see to the left, have had the same basic design as the Superman logo for the past twenty years or so. I like this. It gives them a nice, uniform look, and makes it plain that they’re all part of a group of titles. But this hasn’t always been the case. Before the late 80s or early 90s, the characters often had very different logos, both from Superman and from each other:

The real question, I suppose, will be of the characters themselves. In this “new” DC Universe, will they still be the close-knit family they are now? If so, I’d like whatever new logo design they have to reflect that by sharing some elements. If not, going completely different with each of the three characters may make sense.

It’s interesting. While there are a lot of new DC books I’m excited to read, I’m actually interested in how all of them are going to look.

Classic EBI #87: The Shock of the New

In this week’s brand-new Everything But Imaginary column, I’m taking a long look at the divide between American, European, and Asian comics, and wondering if the digital frontier might not be the place where such divisions disappear.

Everything But Imaginary #395: The Cultural Divide

In this week’s Classic EBI, though, we’re going back to November of 2004, when I was sadly bemoaning the trouble new characters have finding an audience. Some things never change.

Everything But Imaginary #87: The Shock of the New

One complaint you can hear coming from virtually any comic book store is that there isn’t enough new product on the market. Everything is just another endless retread or another X-Men or Batman spin off or something that’s been seen a thousand times before. This is a legitimate complaint, one that I completely agree with, and one that is only midly diminished by the fact that whenever somebody does try something new, nobody buys it and it’s cancelled within 12 issues.

It seems a bit pointless to even dredge it up at this point, but that’s exactly what happened to CrossGen comics. They burst onto the scene in 2000 with a wave of fresh, original comic books, new characters, new styles, stories in nearly every imaginable genre… and then the whole thing fell apart because not enough people were willing to give something new a chance. Excellent comics like Abadazad, Route 666 and The Crossovers are lost to us now. We may never find out how Negation War would have ended. I may weep.

I have to give DC Comics the most credit, out of the Big Two, for being willing to try new properties these days, and for trying to let them find their audience, but sometimes it’s just not enough. It was announced with a whimper a few weeks ago that Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti and Phil Winslade’s The Monolith will end with issue #12. This is incredibly disappointing to me. It really was, in a way, the perfect “bridge” property — it took place in the DC Universe, so it wasn’t completely divorced from the familiar, but it wasn’t tied or linked to any preexisting DC character or concept, so it was easy enough for someone who’d never read a comic before to get into it.

The concept was smart and simple — a Hebrew golem, a good spirit given life in a body of clay — is found after decades of imprisonment and becomes a personal guardian for a down-on-her luck young woman in New York City. Maybe that’s what killed the book — the protagonist wasn’t really the Monolith himself, but Alice Cohen, the girl he protected.

Whatever the reason, this was a smart, well-done series, and its impending demise is really sad for me. If you can still hunt it down, do so. At only 12 issues for the entire run, it won’t break your bank, and it’s a title worth reading.

Other comics still have a chance. Bloodhound is another new DC property with no evident ties to existing comics. Written by Dan Jolley with art by the ex-Supergirl team of Leonard Kirk and Robin Riggs, this book follows Travis Clevenger, a cop who was sent to prison for killing his partner. Cleve is released from jail to help track down a superhuman killer.

Like The Monolith, Bloodhound takes place in the DCU (characters use LexCorp computer systems and Cleve is going to meet Firestorm soon), but it isn’t linked to any old property. Plus, it’s not a superhero comic, even tangentially. This is more of an action drama about a good cop gone bad trying to atone for his sins. It just happens to take place in a superhero world. Fans of Powers and Alias might find something to their liking if they give this one a try.

DC has had better luck, of course, with its Vertigo line. Quriky books like Preacher and Transmetropolitan were allowed to flourish, grow and tell the course of their stories, a trend that continues today with incredible titles like Fables and Y: The Last Man. Even books with tangential links to the Vertigo corner of the DC Universe, like The Witching, are given room to grow. [2011 Update: The cancellation of The Witching was announced shortly after this column was written.]

Over at Devil’s Due comics, the company best known for breathing new life into the 80s nostalgia genre with G.I. Joe and Voltron, they’ve got a few original projects of their own as well. Misplaced, a sci-fi romp, has been around for a while, and last week they launched their new superhero line, Aftermath. (There is a rule in comics that every company has to attempt its own superhero line within the first five years. This is why CrossGen heroically folded after four.)

Now the comic book industry needed another superhero line as badly as I need another Double Quarter Pounder With Cheese, but if they’re going to do one anyway, they got off to a pretty good start. Chuck Dixon (an old favorite writer of mine) kicked things off with Breakdown, an examination of a superhero whose life is falling apart.

Jeff Carey, a.k.a. Paragon, was one of those bright, shining superheroes that beat up on the bad guys and was a media darling, before his high profile and public identity exacted a terrible price on his wife and son. Shattered, he pieces himself back together. Although the first issue doesn’t explicitly say so, one gets the impression that this title will be Jeff’s quest for revenge. Not the happy-go-lucky superhero he once was, is he? In truth, the premise sounds an awful lot like The Punisher, only with superpowers, but the difference here is that Jeff was once a good, decent, likeable man, whereas Frank Castle was pretty much always a sociopath.

So what about Marvel? They’ve got young titles, right? They must have some new properties in there. Let’s see, what’s been around less than a year or two? Excalibur, She-Hulk, Astonishing X-Men, Ultimate Fantastic Four, New X-Men: Academy X, Gambit, X-Men Unlimited, Marvel Age Spider-Man, X-Men Go Hawaiian… ooh, here it is! Runaways.

Here’s a product with no overt ties to any preexisting Marvel property — a bunch of teenagers who find out their parents are supervillains and go on the run. A simple concept, one well-loved, well-executed and well on its way to being cancelled.

Or is it?

In an uncharacteristic show of good sense, Marvel is giving this struggling remnant of the Tsunami line another chance as a “Season Two,” the same trick Wildstorm is playing with Sleeper. Now if only someone could persuade them to do a Sentinel Season Two (it’s loosely connected to the X-Men corner of the Marvel Universe, but it’s really a strong standalone comic), I would start giving Marvel a lot more credit for creativity.

I know we’re reluctant to drop money on an untested property. There are a lot of comics, after all. But next time you’re at the comic shop, look over your pull folder and see what you’ve got in there. Look at those 17 X-Men comics, nine of which suck. Then look at some of these new titles you’ve never tried, never heard of and don’t have an opinion about… yet.

And give something new a try.

FAVORITE OF THE WEEK: October 27, 2004

Solo #1 actually kind of fits into the discussion of new titles, which is what got me thinking along those lines in the first place. While it’s not exactly a new property, it is a new concept, an anthology title that DC Comics deserves a lot of credit for giving a chance. Each issue of this comic will feature a single artist given free reign to tell stories, alone or with writers, with established characters or with worlds of their own. Tim Sale took the challenge first, giving us really good takes on Catwoman, Batman, Supergirl and Superman, along with a few other stories, helped out by the likes of Jeph Loeb, Diana Schutz and Brian Azzarello. The quality of each issue of this title will no doubt depend on how good each featured artist is, but this opening installment was flat-out excellent. Fans of Batman: The Long Halloween and Superman For All Seasons should definitely give this book a shot.

Blake M. Petit is the author of the superhero comedy novel, Other People’s Heroes, the suspense novel The Beginner and the Christmas-themed eBook A Long November. He’s also the co-host, with whoever the hell is available that week, of the 2 in 1 Showcase Podcast and the weekly audio fiction podcast Blake M. Petit’s Evercast. E-mail him at BlakeMPetit@gmail.com and visit him on the web at Evertime Realms. Read past columns at the Everything But Imaginary Archive Page, and check out his new experiment in serial fiction at Tales of the Curtain.

2 in 1 Showcase Episode 217: SCREAMing For Your E-Mails

Blake is back this week with his review of Scream 4! How does it hold up to the films in the original trilogy? Does it hold up? Can it hold-up? His spoiler-free thoughts are inside. Then, it’s on to your e-mails, where we chat about the shutdown of Tokyopop, Brightest Day, Reign of Doomsday, the Metal Men, and recommendations for all-ages comics! In the picks, Blake loved the Captain America: The Fighting Avenger one-shot. Contact us with comments, suggestions, or anything else at Showcase@CXPulp.com!

Music provided by Music Alley from Mevio.

Episode 217: SCREAMing For Your E-Mails

Classic EBI #83: Spoiler Space

The world is full of comic book nerds, especially in Hollywood… but why don’t we see a lot of original superhero characters outside of comics? Can superheroes only thrive in one medium?

Everything But Imaginary #392: Medium Defiance

And in this week’s classic EBI, let’s look back at Oct. 6, 2004, when I thought about all the spoilers that were invading the internet… and I… struck… back…

Now that we’ve all had a chance to read Detective Comics #799, wow, what a shocker, huh? I never suspected that Robin’s father, Jack Drake, would be killed by the Joker and a hermaphroditic gerbil on PCP. Talk about a shocker!

What? Oh, you mean you guys haven’t read it yet? You mean it won’t even be available to purchase for several more hours? Oh, gosh, I feel terrible now. Wow, it’s a good thing that everything I said there was complete and total rubbish, isn’t it? But now that I’ve got your attention, this would be a good time to talk about spoilers.

A “spoiler,” of course, is any piece of information regarding the plot of a story that you didn’t know yet, in essence, “spoiling” it for you. The term “spoiler” was coined because “ruiner” sounds funky. And before we go on much further, in case you didn’t get it, I was lying in the first paragraph. Being the kind, benevolent, dashing, callipygian, modest columnist-type-person that I am, I would never actually tell you what happened in Detective Comics #799 because that would spoil it for you. Also because some of you may know where I live.

For as long as there has been fiction, there have been spoilers. If you go back to the 1500s you can find scrolls written by people talking about that startling new play wherein, at the end, SPOILERS AHEAD! Romeo and Juliet both kill themselves. But since the invention of the Internet, spoilers have become a much bigger problem because now people have the ability to opine from anywhere in the world to anywhere in the world as fast as the information can be processed in their brains. Or, more frequently, their mouths, since often people on the Internet have found ways to bypass their brains altogether.

This problem, of course, is not exclusive to comic books. Websites like Ain’t It Cool News make their name by giving out juicy spoilers for movies far in advance (and conveniently forgetting about it when the spoiler turns out not to be true), but at least they have the courtesy to stamp a big warning label before the spoiler appears. This, unfortunately, will not stop idiots from e-mailing it to you or blabbing it in a chatroom, but in this day and age, that’s the price you pay for daring to get out of bed in the morning.

You can also spoil books – I’m a big fan of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, and frequently visit a message board devoted to such. When the advance review copies of the last book in that well-loved series began to circulate a month or so ago, there was a massive storm on that board between the people who were hurling spoilers around right and left and the people who didn’t want to know. One jerk actually went so far as to post the entire plot of the book in the middle of a thread where people were congratulating the administrator for pulling the plug on spoilers. Another popped into a chatroom and spouted out the ending to people who hadn’t read it yet. And this is for the end of a series that some people have been reading for 22 years. There is a word for people who do that sort of thing. However, I will not tell you what that word is since the CXPulp.com filter would most likely block it out anyway. (HINT: it ends in “weed”.)

Now some people don’t mind spoilers. Some people are perfectly happy knowing that SPOILERS AHEAD! “Rosebud” was the name of his sled before the movie even starts. And if that’s your thing, hey, that’s fine. But there are an awful lot of us out there, myself included, who prefer not to know the ending. You’re the kids who always snuck into your parents’ closet looking for Christmas presents, whereas we’re the kids who just looked at the 18-inch box under the tree and hoped against hope that a puppy could fit in there somehow. If you want to discuss spoilers, you’ve got every right to, but you should also have the respect and courtesy to keep them amongst yourselves and not go blabbing that you find out in Amazing Spider-Man #512 that SPOILERS AHEAD! Norman Osborne is the father of Gwen Stacy’s children to anyone who hasn’t heard it yet.

Just last week a thread appeared here which started with the phrase “Well, now that we’ve all read Superman/Batman #12…” and proceeded to give away the entire plot. The trouble with this thread was, not all of us had read Superman/Batman #12 yet. This appeared on Friday. The book came out Wednesday. Not everyone gets their comic books the day of release – or even the same week – and you can’t just assume that they have. If I hadn’t finished reading the book about five minutes before, I may have had to go to the guy’s house and hit him with a frozen halibut.

Even worse was an incident a few weeks ago in the forum of our own Chris Sotomayor. Soto, one of the best colorists in the biz (and I say that out of genuine admiration, not just because he hosts a forum here), was discussing his upcoming work on the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Book of the Dead. Fans were speculating as to who would appear in that book, since the current Avengers Disassembled storyline was resulting in many casualties. Then someone appeared in the thread and asked Soto if he could post some pictures since, by now, we all knew that SPOILERS AHEAD! Hawkeye was the character who died in the much-touted Avengers #502.

The problem with this? He posted this message nearly a week before Avengers #502 even went on sale!

Oh, I was ticked.

Now to his credit, he’d tried to do something, at least. He changed the font color to white. Unfortunately, since the background text on the site is various shades of gray, that was worse than useless and the book was seriously spoiled for me. And it didn’t help that everybody else was talking about the death like it was common knowledge soon afterwards.

The obvious question to ask here is, how long is information considered a spoiler? Technically, I’d say any time before you, personally (or to be more specific, I personally) have read the comic. But that gets a little ridiculous. I mean, just because someone has never read Avengers #4 doesn’t mean they don’t already know SPOILERS AHEAD! they found Captain America frozen alive in a block of ice, thawed him out, made him a member of the team and he served proudly for at least 500 issues.

So how long is a reasonable amount of time to consider something a spoiler? When do you have to stop putting information like SPOILERS AHEAD! the boat sinks and Leo drowns in those little gray text boxes we use to shield the masses? I know some fans would prefer something remain a spoiler until the trade paperback comes out – this specifically applies to those fans who wait for the trade paperback. But I don’t think that’s always necessary. If you’re writing in a thread about Identity Crisis #3, you can reasonably assume people have read Identity Crisis #2 and know that SPOILERS AHEAD! Dr. Light raped Sue Dibney already.

Rather than cruising on a set period of time, I think it’s fair and logical to assume something is a spoiler until the next issue of that title comes out, whenever that happens to be. When Birds of Prey went biweekly, by the time #74 came out it should have been acceptable to reference how, in #73, SPOILERS AHEAD! Oracle defeated Brainiac.

And if that means you’ve got to talk about NYX #5 in spoiler blocks for the next six years or so before #6 comes out, so be it.

Some people don’t mind spoilers. Some people even like ‘em. And those people have plenty of opportunity to talk about them. But if you’ve got spoiler info, make sure you present it as such for a reasonable length of time. Otherwise, you’ll be like Homer Simpson walking out of The Empire Strikes Back and saying, SPOILERS AHEAD! “Wow, who would have thought Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father?”. This would, by extension, make the rest of us the people standing in line outside the theatre who wanted to kill him for saying it, and since very few of us have yellow skin, four fingers and an overbite, it’s not a fair analogy.

Like so many problems in the world of comics (and the rest of the world too, when you get right down to it), you can solve this one if you just apply a little common sense. Try it sometime. You might even like it.

Favorite of the Week: September 29, 2004

It’s a darn good thing that I had read Superman/Batman #12 before I read the spoiler, because this was a fantastic issue. (And considering how long it took to come out, it better have been.) Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Barda have stormed Apokalips, hoping to rescue Kara from the clutches of Darkseid… but what if she doesn’t want to be rescued? There’s plenty of action this issue, and then just when things seem to have settled down, Jeph Loeb hits you in the gut with a knockout punch, a real shocker. Granted, it’s the sort of shocker that you’re certain will be resolved in one of two ways, but it’s a shocker nonetheless. Now let’s all just hope Michael Turner manages to turn out issue #13 before Kara is old enough to have grandchildren.

Blake M. Petit is the author of the superhero comedy novel, Other People’s Heroes, the suspense novel The Beginner and the Christmas-themed eBook A Long November. He’s also the co-host, with whoever the hell is available that week, of the 2 in 1 Showcase Podcast and the weekly audio fiction podcast Blake M. Petit’s Evercast. E-mail him at BlakeMPetit@gmail.com and visit him on the web at Evertime Realms. Read past columns at the Everything But Imaginary Archive Page, and check out his new experiment in serial fiction at Tales of the Curtain.

2 in 1 Showcase Episode 210: Godzilla, Pixar, Cartoons and Cussin’

The boys get to rambling this week on every topic that comes to mind, including the innovative Godzilla #1 promotion, changes to the Pixar comics, and movie chat about Iron Man 3, All Star Superman, Toy Story, The Muppets, and Blake explains why he would rather pay money to see the Justin Bieber movie than I Am Number Four. Also, Ducktales. In the picks, it’s a Superman Family double feature: Kenny pulls out the Superman: Birthright paperback, and Blake discusses Supergirl #61. Contact us with comments, suggestions, or anything else at Showcase@CXPulp.com!

Music provided by Music Alley from Mevio.

Episode 210: Godzilla, Pixar, Cartoons and Cussin’

Classic EBI #142: Christmas Comics From Duckburg to the Watchtower

It’s the last Wednesday before Christmas, my friends, and that means it’s time for my annual look at all this year’s Christmas Comics! There are plenty of ’em — a Larfleeze special, a Night of the Living Dead one-shot, an appearance by Dynamo 5 and Jingle Belle, the usual offerings from the Simpsons, Disney, and Archie, and more! They’re all right here:

Everything But Imaginary #379: The Christmas Comics of 2010

But here at the ‘realms, we’re going back to December 14, 2005, and one of my early Christmas round-up columns… let’s take a peek…

Everything But Imaginary #142: Christmas Comics From Duckburg to the Watchtower

Less than two weeks until Christmas, gang, and the comic shops are swarming with Christmas issues this year. There have been Christmas comic books for as long as there have been comic books at all, and if I’d been alive then, I would have been a fan of them for just as long. As everyone who’s been following along with the Christmas PArty testify, this is the one time of year that I lean more Clark Griswold than Clark Kent.

I decided a few weeks ago to get my hands on every Christmas comic book that was put out this year – or at least all those I could find, and share my thoughts on ‘em with you guys here in Everything But Imaginary. Comic books, after all, make the perfect stocking stuffer – if you’ve got kids that you’d like to see get into the habit, what better way than to give them a dose of four-color jollies under the tree? I was surprised, however, at how many I managed to find this year. Perhaps there’s just more Christmas spirit in the air, I don’t know, but I’m in favor of it. So rather than doing one monster of a column, I’m going to break it up into two, and I’m going to begin this week by taking you down to visit the gang in Duckburg.

Since the classic Walt Disney’s Christmas Parade published by Dell back in the 50s, Disney comics have been some of the biggest boosters of Christmas in print, and I’m happy that the current licensee, Gemstone, is continuing the tradition in its third year of publication. This year’s Walt Disney’s Christmas Parade #3 is a ginormous collection of comics both old and new, kicked off with the Carl Barks classic “The Golden Christmas Tree.” Donald Duck’s nephews announce that they want a golden tree this Christmas, but when the tree turns out to be cost-prohibitive, the boys fall into a trap left by a witch concocting a potion to eradicate Christmas forever. It’s a grand adventure in classic Barks style.

Next up is Mickey Mouse in Romano Scarpa’s “It’s a Wonderful Christmas Story,” a familiar tale in which the world-famous mouse falls down on his luck and wishes he’d never lived in Mouseton. When a special guest-star (okay, it’s Santa Claus) shows him what the world would be like without him, he changes his tune. “Sentimental Energy,” by Marco Rota and Tony Isabella, is another gem, in which a group of aliens crash in Duckburg on Christmas – and need very special fuel to get back into the air.

The book also features stories with the Big Bad Wolf, Pluto and Grandma Duck and another Barks classic, “Silent Night,” focusing on Donald’s everlasting feud with his neighbor. It’s a fantastic package that any kid would gobble up.

But the Christmas Parade wasn’t enough for Gemstone. They gave Christmas themes to all four of their regular monthly Disney comics as well, starting with Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #663. Now this issue starts with a non-Christmas tale, Don Rosa’s “The Magnificent Seven (Minus Four) Caballeros,” a fantastic story in its own right, but I’ve already reviewed that one. Mickey Mouse, on the other hand, is featured in two Christmas stories this issue. In “The Spirit of Christmas,” that old crumb Pete is at it again, stealing an experimental virtual reality machine. Mickey makes a play to get the device back, but the real change for Pete comes in the form of three visions of the past, present and future. Yeah, it’s the old Dickens formula… and it still works.

In “Miracle on Main Street,” Goofy gets a job as a department store Santa, but when a little girl sees him changing out of his costume, she loses her faith in Santa Claus. Mickey and Goofy set out to prove that he exists – and have a little help. The issue also features great winter (if not specifically Christmas) stories with Chip and Dale, the Big Bad Wolf and Donald Duck.

In Uncle Scrooge #348, we get a great old-fashioned Scrooge adventure, “The Hunt For White December.” The richest duck in the world makes a bet with his old rival, Argus McSwine, that Duckburg will have a white Christmas. When McSwine realizes he’s going to lose the bet, he calls on Magica DeSpell to help him win. The witch double-crosses him, using the bet as a pretense for her latest effort to get her hands on Scrooge’s number-one dime. It’s really a great adventure.

In “The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t,” Gyro Gearloose loses Helper, his lightbulb-headed assistant, while delivering decorations for Daisy Duck’s Christmas party. Gyro calls on his friends to track Helper down, but he may be too late. This is a really unusual story for Gyro – it doesn’t rely on a screwy invention to drive the plot, but rather on his faith in his friends, making it one of the best Gyro stories ever. The book also gives us the Beagle Boys in “The Christmas Gathering” – the notorious crooks call up all their family for a Christmas crime spree. It’s a funny tale that rounds out this issue’s holiday offerings nicely.

Mickey Mouse and Friends #283 continues the yuletide offerings with “Mickey’s Christmas Trees.” Pete is at it again (man, that guy gets around), this time using the Christmas shopping rush to hide a shoplifting spree. Goofy decides to go “undercover” to sniff him out, leading to a hysterical confrontation in Mickey’s Christmas tree lot. Come on, if you’re gonna tell me you don’t find cross-dressing cartoon characters funny, I’m calling you a liar. Later in the issue we get “Songs of the Season,” in which Mickey and Horace Horsecollar go head-to-head in a Christmas song competition – after all, anything would be better than the “Silver Bell Rock” that keeps bludgeoning their ears. It’s a short, quick story about the spirit of Christmas, with a great punchline.

Wrapping up (no pun intended) the Gemstone offerings for this year is Donald Duck and Friends #334, with another Barks story. In “Santa’s Stormy Visit,” Donald has taken on yet another job, this time at a lighthouse, but his nephews are concerned that Santa Claus might not be able to find them there. Desperate, the boys attach a letter to Santa to an albatross and send him off to deliver it, but a hellacious storm blows him off-course. This being a Disney comic, of course, there turns out to be a happy ending after all. “Santa’s Helpers,” by Lars Jensen and Marco Rota, is actually a sequel of sorts to an earlier tale featuring (of all people) the Easter Bunny. When Santa sprains his ankle making his delivery to Donald’s house, he summons the Easter Bunny to finish his rounds for him, asking Donald to tag along. The Bunny soon discovers that Christmas deliveries are a bit different than hiding eggs, and Donald is in way over his head. Out of all the stories I’ve read in these comics, this screwy little tale may just be my favorite.

If Disney comics aren’t your thing… well, you’re kinda reading the wrong column, aren’t you? But let’s finish up this week’s installment with a couple of non-Disney comics. First up is Justice League Unlimited #16. I’m on record as saying that the JLU cartoon is one of the best superhero cartoons ever made, and the comic book is a great extension of a great TV show. This issue it’s Christmas Eve, and the JLU (displaying flagrant ageist policies) has a rule that the junior members are on monitor duty. So Supergirl, Power Girl, Stargirl, Atom Smasher and Firestorm (along with a volunteering Hawkgirl) are holding down the fort at the satellite when the call comes in – Girder has broken out of Iron Heights. The team scrambles to capture him, but Atom Smasher discovers that his motives may not be evil for once. This is a strong Christmas tale that’s also notable for pointing out the diversity of the cast – it’s Atom Smasher, the lone Jewish member of the JLU, who remembers what the season should be about.

And finally, let’s talk about the debut product from a new company, Taylor Comics, I Gotta Catch Santa Claus #1. This comic actually came out in October, although Taylor promises to follow it up with more one-shots, I Gotta Catch the Easter Bunny and I Gotta Catch the Tooth Fairy. This is a rather different sort of story – a grade school chess team finds a rather unlikely contest – a $25,000 chess scholarship for anybody who can provide proof of the existence of Santa Claus. Drawing on their strategic skills, the children lay traps for him at each of their houses… but c’mon. Santa has been at this for centuries. Do they really have a chance? It’s a cute story – not quite a classic, but entertaining enough if you can find a copy for your kids.

Am I kind of a nut for Christmas? Well heck, of course I am. And I make no apologies for that. I hope you’ve enjoyed this little glance at some of this year’s holiday offerings, and come back next week when we’ll visit the gang from Riverdale High School, a Christmas party at Dr. Strange’s, and more!

FAVORITE OF THE WEEK: December 7, 2005

Just two issues in, I’ve already completely been won over by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray’s resurrection of the classic western hero Jonah Hex. A hard-ridin’ western hero who has no qualms about killing wrongdoers, or even leaving them to face their own horrible deaths. This issue, when a priest is murdered, Hex rides off for some vengeance. Like this first issue, this is a simple done-in-one story that works wonderfully. The western is back, and DC has got it!

Blake M. Petit is the author of the superhero comedy novel, Other People’s Heroes, the suspense novel The Beginner and the Christmas-themed eBook A Long November. He’s also the co-host, with whoever the hell is available that week, of the 2 in 1 Showcase Podcast and the weekly audio fiction podcast Blake M. Petit’s Evercast. E-mail him at BlakeMPetit@gmail.com and visit him on the web at Evertime Realms. Read past columns at the Everything But Imaginary Archive Page, and check out his new experiment in serial fiction at Tales of the Curtain.

 

2 in 1 Showcase Episode 201: Mike Vs. Rankin and Bass

A few months ago, Mike “Technodunce” Bellamy made a horrifying confession: he’d never seen any of the classic Rankin & Bass Christmas specials in their entirety. This week, the Showcase boys set out to rectify that error, making Mike watch the classic TV specials Santa Claus is Comin’ To Town, The Year Without a Santa Claus, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman, complete with our commentary on each one! In the picks, Kenny digs the Blu-Ray of The A-Team, while Blake goes with a double dose of Christmas Comics, Supergirl #59 and the graphic novel Amelia Rules!: A Very Ninja Christmas. Contact us with comments, suggestions, or anything else at Showcase@CXPulp.com!

Music provided by the Music Alley from Mevio.

Episode 201: Mike Vs. Rankin and Bass