Other Writers I Like

With the last post I mentioned the name of writers I liked who also happened to be the biggest names in comics right now. I'm continuing that list and admittedly most of the other names are also big names in comics whom I really like.

Brian K Vaughan
Most Famous Works: Y - The Last Man, Runaways, Pride of Baghdad, Ex Machina
Claims to Fame: Not much beyond quality storytelling. He did escape the stigma of being confused with Brian Michael Bendis. That's what you get for being a bald American writer named Brian.
Big Mistakes: None yet, but I do find some of the pop culture references in his works distracting in that they can really derail a conversation and it feels like Brian's mentioning stuff he's personally interested in.
Style: I can't really describe him as having a single particular style, though he works very well with the serial format. He's great at both creating cliffhangers and hinting at things to come in future stories so that even if the current story doesn't press all the right buttons, the next one looks promising. Vaughan is wise enough to keep things unpredictable, yet logical. There are lots of series that are well written but has plot twists that one can see a mile a way, but Vaughan manages to surprise with every story. He's also really good at coming up with premises for series. Y - The Last Man examines the age old hypothetical question "what if I was the last male on Earth" and examines how women have learned to survive in the face of the end of mankind (so to speak). Runaways is a subversive teen hero book about rebellious youth warring with their super-villain parents. Ex Machina is about a super-hero who can speak to machines who ends up giving up crime fighting to do greater good as the new mayor of New York City. Brian K Vaughan takes already great ideas and does a very good job exploring the possibilities within the series. His characters are also usually pretty likeable, which always makes a series better.
Most Recent Works: He's finishing up his run on Runaways and is finishing Ex Machina and Y - the Last Man. I really don't know what he's planning beyond that.

Kurt Busiek
Most Famous Works: Marvels, Astro City, Conan, Superman, Thunderbolts
Claims to Fame: Showing readers that powerfully emotional and human stories can be told with classic super-heroes. Plus, he made the Avengers and Conan popular again, and catching readers completely off guard with the surprise ending to Thunderbolts #1.
Big Mistakes: He's had quite a few forgettable stories and created some very forgettable characters (Triathalon and Silverclaw). Also, the epic Kang Dynasty had as many flaws as it had strengths.
Style: His style of writing is old fashioned in an age of meta-storying that has become popular in the post modern era. Most of his super-hero stuff is classic hero versus villain storytelling, though he does it quite well. When he's on the right book he can really bring out the best in the heroes and villains. In Thunderbolts, a series about a group of villains pretnding to be heroes as part of a world domination plot, become quickly likeable and there is a pleasure in seeing these selfish villains reluctantly learning what it means to be a hero. His best stuff, however, are his slice of life stories that take place within a super-hero filled world. The best examples of this are Marvels, in which a reporter chronicles the Marvel universe in through the Golden and Silver Ages, and Astro City which focuses on what it is like living in a city full of heroes and villains. His stories are often quite poignant and rather than trying to make the world "realistic" (which was popular at the time), he's more concerned with having believable characters in a crazy and unbelieveable world. Recently, however, he has expanded into sword and sorcery type books like Conan and Aquaman, which he is doing a great job on, bringing an epic feel to books I never thought I'd care about.
Most Recent Works: Superman, Aquaman, Astro City: the Dark Age

Warren Ellis
Most Famous Work: Transmetropolitan, The Authority, Planetary, Fell, Desolation Jones
Claims to Fame: Bringing the edge back to super-hero comics and sci-fi in general, though sometimes that can be a bit of a mixed blessing. He also manages to explain sci-fi concepts in manners that are both clever and carry the illusion of pluasiblity.
Big Mistakes: I wouldn't call him mistakes, per se, but even Warren admits that some of the early books he wrote for Marvel are not that good.
Style: Warren Ellis is what I would call a cynical optimist. Or maybe an optimistic cynic. It's like what Morgan Freeman's character says in the movie Se7en: 'Ernest Hemingway once wrote, "The world is a fine place and worth fighting for." I agree with the second part'. Warren Ellis' work shows just how horrible, hypocritical, and humanity can be and how incredibly unfair the world can be, but he also often shows that there is beauty in the world, sometimes hidden even in the mundane and that there are at least a few good things humanity can accomplish. And he also tends to show that there are causes worth fighting for, but no one says you have to fight fairly for them. It doesn't mean that the means justify the ends all the time. It just depends on the means and the ends. He is primarily a sci-fi writer, though he has written mysteries and a few fantasies as well. As I said before, he's very good at constructing and explaining the sci-fi elements in his works, but what really impresses me is that he is able to explain these things while retaining the sense of mystery and wonder that would often be lost or dulled by explaination. He's also known for his absolutely wicked sense of humour (he's known for offing characters in warped and bizarre ways) as well as a strong sense of justice that most of his characters have.
Most Recent Works: Nextwave, newuniversal, Fell.

Next time, if I don't come up with a better idea for an article, I'll probably introduce some of my favourite artists, who, in this case, while popular, are not quite the huge megastars (for the most part) that these writers are.

Styles upon Styles

I was thinking of doing a blog entry on comic books that would make great video games (since we started playing Ultimate Alliance for the Wii) but talking with Nathan of Sunday and last night about comics and writers that we like and ones that he hasn't tried yet made me feel like properly introducing the writers and artists that I really like. Now they're not all perfect, but they all have something that makes them unique and capable of telling great stories. So here's my list of today's top writers.

Alan Moore
Most Famous Works: The Watchmen, Swamp Thing, V for Vendetta, Promethea, From Hell
Claims to Fame: He rewrote the book on comic storytelling and ignited the "British Invasion" in which DC comics started staking out great English-speaking European writers to work for DC (and those writers ended up becoming superstars in their own right) and became one of the most respected comic writers of all time.
Big Mistakes: Not a lot really, although dealing with DC after he said he wouldn't ended up biting him in the ass. He and Frank Miller, unfortunately did unintentionally usher in the "grim
n gritty" fad in comic, which both writers sort of regret. See Moore was writing a lot of very dark super-hero books that poked holes in the usually optimistic genre and a lot of other series tried to do the same thing. Unfortunately most of these imitators were missing the heart, the intelligence and the interesting characters that made his books great.
Style: Though many of the writer on the list can be quite versatile, Alan Moore is among the most. He gained popularity through his dark super-hero-related books in which cliches and concepts that were taken for granted are scrutinized, as is the act of being a super-hero. He also explores themes of power (and those who wield it), political philosophy and human nature and how super-humanity would be effected by these things (and vice versa). A lot of his super-books also have recurring mystical themes as well Many involve protagonists who die (or are "destroyed" in a more metaphorical fashion) and come back like a phoenix from the ashes, having to relearn who they are and what they are capable of. Lessons often take story arc and culminate in a big threat were the character must show what he/she has learned. Though his hero-related books grab the most attention, he has also written quiet subtle books like Birth Caul and A Small Killing that tell the kind of stories nobody else tells in comics. One of the most famous examples of this is when he fell away from the mainstream and started writing the meticulously researched From Hell, which tells of the Jack the Ripper murders and the supposed conspiracy surrounding them. Interestingly much of the series starts building up a strong case for it and the final issue seems to imply a case against both the existence of a conspiracy and exploiting such tragedies (the way he has done through the series). In the nineties and 2000's he's almost turned his back on writing dark hero books and has focused on more classic and pulp style hero books. His made his return to mainstream comics with Supreme in which he writes his version of Superman, not having to worry about editorial interference with his vision of an Icon. He made an even bigger splash with ABC (America's Best Comics) where he writes action/adventure books in an attempt to lead by example that there are great new things to do with the pulp/hero genre. With this he mixes both retro and contemporary styles in a fashion where you can tell silly and serious stories at the same time. ABC allowed him to do comedy, drama, adventure and tell all kinds of fun stories. Unfortunately a bad deal with DC caused him to leave ABC though he has given the OK for DC to have certain characters to have new stories, the only exception being League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (which he took with him).
Most Recent Works: His latest works include the final book he's done for DC and the last League book publish by DC: the Black Dossier. He also published a long in the works project called Lost Girls, a story that proves that pornography can be art.

Neil Gaiman
Most Famous Works: Sandman, The Books of Magic, 1602
Claims to Fame: One of the biggest names to come out of the British Invasion, Neil Gaiman was one of the first writers to get his own American ongoing series with a complete ending, rather than having the series go on until sales could no longer support it, paving the way for other ongoing series with full planned endings and the like. That book, Sandman, also was the leading book when DC launched Vertigo, it's imprint aimed at mature readers.
Big Mistakes: Gaiman's lucky in that he hasn't really made any huge mistakes and seems to have made nothing but friends in the industry and beyond. Heck there was recently a CD released centered all around him. But I guess that writing for Todd McFarlane proved to be a big mistake and they have had a pretty shitty relationship since. I don't know if his Spawn related stories are any good, but Spawn is bad in general.
Style: Gaiman's style is to tell stories in the form of epics, fairy tales and myths. In fact, most of Gaiman's stories revolve around the art of storytelling and the importance of myth and archetypes in all of their forms. That's actually what Sandman, Gaiman's most popular series, is all about. Gaiman is a fantasy writer in general and most stories include actual myths, legends and stories and often involve how they interact with contemporary society.
Most Recent Works: While he writes lots of novels he's slowed down quite a bit in his comic writing, but he still does it. His current project involves the old Jack Kirby comic The Eternals, about space gods who have forgotten who they are and are secretly living as humans waiting to be reawakened. He was also supposed to write the return of Thor but plans changed with a story called Civil War. Thor will now return at someone else's hands but Neil Gaiman's original explanations for his return may be worked in.

Grant Morrison
Most Famous Works: The Invisibles, New X-Men, JLA, Animal Man, We3
Claims to Fame: Creating comics stranger and more experimental than anyone else was doing, being one of the most innovative writers around, and re-invigorating classic characters.
Big Mistakes: Skrull Kill Krew. He's had a few misses but even his misses have something salvageable but Skrull Kill Krew was written by him and Mark Miller for beer money and it was written while they were drinking. Heavily.
Style: Grant Morrison's work has lots of counter-cultural leanings and often questions the nature of reality. With his work on Doom Patrol, he started writing the series by ear and including all the crazy ideas he could fit into it. Some stories were great, others impenetrable. Disliking the grim n gritty "realistic" direction comics were heading in and decided to go against the grain. Though he certainly wrote some dark books, it wasn't in the vein of books like Dark Knight Returns or Watchmen, but rather he followed his own style. He did play with the "realistic" approach in his first major series Animal Man in a more upbeat way: The title character wears a jacket so he has a plkace for his wallet and keys and he often has to by milk after a super-battle for his family. He is a likeable guy who has to balance his goofy super-hero life with his mundane but happy family life in the real world. A lot of his books involve reality and the thin fourth wall between creation and creator (most noticably in Animal Man). His super-hero books are also a mix of traditional super-hero wackiness (Grant doesn't shy away from the sillier ideas and in fact seems to relish in them) and some clever ideas. Grant has crazy ideas but they always end up making a strange sort of sense. He created such great ideas as the idea of mutant culture (think a cross between the flamboyant gay culture, the return to Africa movement as well as other cultures), a woman with 64 personalities that each have a super-power and the idea that Joker isn't insane, but rather supersane and isn't tied down to any one identity, philosophy or ethical code.
Most Recent Work: Currently he's writing 52 and just finished his epic Seven Soldiers of Victory which includes 7 interconnected but individual mini-series.

I'd write about more writers but I'm tired right now, so I'll probably just wait a while before writing about any more. But there are indeed more European people.

Torrent! Torrent! Torrent!

While I like Bit Torrent, I only recently decided that I should start using it to read American comics that I haven't read before or don't own. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, however, because I don't enjoy reading it off my computer the way I enjoy reading manga on my computer. I do think that might have something to do with the fact that there's a lot more detail and spaces being used than in manga. Plus there's colour. Or maybe I just haven't gotten used to it, because the only thing I've read so far is an issue of Supreme. Still, I want to take advantage of the bit torrent in order to try to find certain books, which are unavailable in Trade Paperback (my format of choice) and my never be before I die. In some cases books are considered classics but because they're so hard to find, they are unread b a large number of contemorary fans. In other cases, the company just hasn't had enough demand to reprint them or to continue reprinting them.

Miracleman (known as Marvelman) in Britain is Alan Moore's first major comics work and, along with V for Vendetta, helped him get noticed by DC comics. The basic premise is that a good-hearted and innocent hero (who was a pre-existig British character clearly modelled after Captain Marvel) finds himself in a much less innocent present. It seems he spent the past few years not knowing that he was a rather silly super-hero and that the past few years of his life were a lie. Now he's returned to find a much less innocent world and much grimmer threats. Later, Neil Gaiman took the book over and wrote a tale in which Miracleman now rules the Earth as a more benovelent leader, but Miracleman starts questioning if he's done the right thing. Though the final issue of the story was written and drawn, it was never released and it doesn't look like it will happen any time soon. A lot of the themes of this book (rebirth, power, changing the world) reappear in many of his later works, which are pretty much all reprinted. So why won't this one be reprinted any time soon.

It is currently caught in a legal entanglement where both Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane are battling in court over ownership of the character. And it really doesn't look like the issue will be cleared up any time soon, since both seemed very convinced that the character is rightfully theirs. Basically Todd bought the rights to Eclipse comics, who last had the rights to the character, not realizing that Gaiman received 30% of the character rights, who shared them with artist Mark Buckingham. Gaiman (who was one of the guest writers who did an issue of Spawn for Todd) had created a couple of characters for Spawn under the impression he had part ownership and was interested in trading full ownership for the rest of those Miracleman rights. But Todd pointed out something in the book that claimed he had full ownership rights of the aforementioned characters and, well, things went downhill from there. But if Gaiman ever wins, he promises that the character will be called Marvelman again and all of the books will be reprinted by Marvel.

Zenith also looks interesting in that it is an early work from certified genius/madman (may not actually be certified in either case) Grant Morrison. The series follows a Gen-X hero who is the son of a hippie super-hero couple. Uninterested in saving the world, Zenith is more interested in using his power to build on his pop star fame. Unfortunately, Zenith still finds himself facing threats including Lovecraftian horrors, and a Richard Branson-esque madman obsessed with super-eugenics. While it doesn't sound as inventive as his later works, it still sounds quite interesting. Plus it has art from Steve Yeowell, who is an underrated artist in my opinion and has worked with Morrison on quite a few projects, including a personal favourite of mine Sebastian O, which is like a cross between a dumb action movie and the works of Oscar Wilde. This too is caught up in some legal shenanigans, but the details on that one are a little less clear. Still, it never hurts to get a little more Grant Morrison.

Another Grant Morrison work that has gone unreprinted is considered by many to be a forgotten masterpiece. It also is noteworthy for featuring some early art by Frank Quitely, who is a rather big star at the moment. Flex Mentallo focuses on the titular character who is clearly a super-hero version of Charles Atlas. His origin is almost exactly that of "Mac" from the Charles Atlas comic ads in which a guy gets sand kicked in his face and gets revenge later when he returns with big muscles from the Charles Atlas program. Flex discovers that he is more powerful than Mac, however, as he can alter the universe by flexing his muscles, thus becoming the Man of Muscle Mystery! The mini-series focuses on Flex in different eras and is a metaphor for how comics have changed over the years and how they reflect changing eras and represent different stages of growing up. The series is considered by a modern classic, right up there with The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen. It should be noted that DC still might reprint this, as they have reprinted all of Flex Mentallo's appearences in Doom Patrol and they seem to have won the lawsuit that Charles Atlas' current owner that brought against them. Still DC seems very tight lipped about the whole thing, so they could just be waiting until all of Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol run (from which Flex originated) has finished being reprinted.

These are books I'd absolutely love to fid online and wish that they somehow find themselves being published again. I suppose it's not impossible and have high hopes for Flex Mentallo. And Heck, I would have put EC comics on my list but their finally being collected into gorgeous looking Hard Covers by Gemstone comics (who are currently publishing classic Disney comics, including the Uncle Scrooge books that inspired Duck Tales). I know I saw a torrent for Miracle Man once but now it all seems lost. Still, I hope that some day I can cradle Flex Mentallo in my arms like a newborn babe and tell it I love it. Then I'll probably open the book up to the super-hero orgy in chapter 3.

The Ends

Update: I added pretty pictures and some great news: There's a really awesome trailer for Spider-Man 3 and Alan Moore will be Guest Starring on the Simpsons. I also added pretty pictures.

I really don't have a lot of things to say save for that this is my first post that didn't make it on Wednesday since I planned to update every Wednesday. I knew it would happen eventually and suspected it would happen sooner, but to be fair it isn't entirely my fault this time. Turns out that when I signed on to this blogger beta thing and then found that I couldn't access my blog until everything was ready. The price I pay for the drag-and-drop option.

Anyhoo, I've noticed that quite a few series and mini-series are actually coming to an end, so I decided to predict who it will all go down. I don't expect to be write, and for many of them I've only been following the trades, so I don't necessarily have all the information I need to make the best guesses, but I feel I have enough to take a stab.

52
How Much Longer?: The series ends this April which means it has 25 issues to go.
Premise: After the huge Infinite Crisis crossover, every DC universe series skipped a year ahead in time, allowing each series to start out fresh. DC decided to explain what happened in that missing year in a weekly year long series: each issue covers a different week within that year. The characters involved are Booster Gold (a super-glory hound from the future who decided to take Superman's place as Metropolis' big hero since Supes has gone missing), The Question (a conspiracy theorist detective), Renee Montoya (a disgraced Gotham city cop), Ralph Dibny (a former super-hero whose life's been ruined since his wife was brutally murdered), Steel (a super-hero engineer who worked hard repairing the damage from the Crisis) and Black Adam (a sometimes hero, sometimes villain who now rules his own middle Eastern country).
Goings-On: Booster Gold's been seemingly murdered (though who can tell with time travellers) thanks to his sidekick Skeets who may now be insane, Steel's daughter has joined Lex Luthor's own super-hero team, Ralph Dibny has gone off the deep end, a paradise island for mad scientists harbors a strange secrets, The Question trains Renee Montoya to become his successor, and many many other subplots are a happening.
The End?: The series has been hinting at a threat known as the 52 (the number appears in some form every issue) but what the 52 is remains a mystery. My guess is that it has been organizing the mad scientists and is manipulating Skeets. It probably also has something to do with time travel since Skeets himself is searching for time traveller Rip Hunter, who's home is full of insane scrawlings about all manner of super-activity as well as the messages "Time is Broken" and "52". With DC continuity once again changed in a big crossover, it would make sense that some entity or entity would want to take advantage of a fresh new timeline. Since all of the stories are going to intersect by the end of the book, my guess is that it has something to do with the mad science island, the crime bible (a mysterious tome that supposedly archives every crime ever), the new superheroes Batwoman and Super-Nova, the Superboy resurrection cult and pretty much every subplot the series has (which is a lot).

100 Bullets
How Much Longer?: It ends at issue 100 and it's now in it's late seventies, meaning it only has a couple years left. That seems like a while compared to the other series, but it's still barreling towards it's inevitable conclusion.
Premise: Agent Graves gives people 100 untraceable bullets and irrefutable evidenced that they've been wronged, thus giving them the chance for consequence-free revenge.
Goings-on: Well, it became apparent pretty early on in the series that there was a much bigger story and now a great deal of it has been revealed except what Grave's master plan is and the more specific details of what happened in Atlanta. It seems that America is secretly run by the Trust, an organization of 13 crime families who run America in just about every conceivable way since the 1600s. To prevent one family from becoming more powerful than the others, the Trust employs the Minutemen, 7 agents skilled in murder, deceit and espionage whose job is to police the Trust. But somewhere along the way the de facto head of the trust, Augustus Medici, convinced the others that it was time for a change and that the Minutemen where now obsolete. While they were supposed to be killed off in Atlanta, a surprising number of them survived and it has become abundantly clear that before and after the Atlanta incident it is impossible to tell whose on which side. In fact it's getting hard to say what the sides are, exactly.
The End?: One way or the other the series is going to end in a lot of bloodshed. My guess is that Agent Graves master plan will end with getting himself killed. A lot of characters seem to be willing to put their life on the line for Graves and one character seemed to know that his end was coming, as if it fit into Graves' master plan and he was still OK with that. I think whatever Graves is planning, he believes in it enough that he's willing to lay his own life on the line for society's greater good. But I doubt he'd just kill the Trust and leave America to look after itself and he doesn't seem like the type to want to take control. I think Augustus has been planning it to be this way as well and that he and Graves are actually on the same side. My guess is that Medici's son Benito will become the new head of the Trust and Augustus may also sacrifice his life in order to get his reluctant heir to want to take over. Most of the Minutemen will die (especially the more experienced and confident ones) but a few will remain. And those who do will be Benito's new Minutemen who will begin the test again, giving 100 bullets to those who need it to find out who should be Minutemen (as well as taking care of other problems)

Civil War:
How Much Longer?: Hopefully three months unless there are more delays.
The Premise: After a tragedy involving the destruction of the small mid-western town of Stamford thanks to reckless super-heroing, the moral implications of super-vigilantism come into question. Iron Man quickly gets behind the Superhuman Registration Act which would render any non-government regulated superhuman activity illegal. Before it is, characters find themselves having to pick sides and when it is passed there are two major camps: Iron Man's pro-registration side (his argument is that heroes should not be above the law and that they can accomplish more working with the law) and Captain America's anti-registration side (his argument is that superhumans should not be forced to be government agents or be forced to sacrifice their identity).
Goings-On: To beef up support for the registration, Iron Man convinces Spider-Man to reveal his secret identity on national TV. Spider-Man does so (after consulting with Aunt May and Mary Jane) and finds it biting him in the ass and finds that old friends now view him with disdain. Meanwhile Captain America plans to give members of his faction new secret identities (I can't decide which is better: Cap as a mall security guard or Hercules as an IT guy). The two sides class for the first time in the ruins of an old Stark building and Tony whips out their trump card: Thor, who was thought dead. Well, actually he still was and what they have is actually a Thor clone, that turns out too be a little hard to control as it kills the Black Goliath, which royally pisses Captain America off. Spider-Man, realizing that he's backed the wrong side prepares to defect while Tony, realizing that he'll still need more soldiers organizes a new team to neutralize the heroes, composed entirely of unreformed super-villains.
The End?: Well, if I have one problem with the crossover it's that Tony's side seems to... villainous. I would prefer it that both sides were more relatable rather than making Tony the bad guy. Anyway, my guess is that somewhere there is a villain whose adding fuel to the fire. Wolverine recently discovered that Damage Control, a company in charge of cleaning up after super-battles, may be responsible for the Stamford incident that triggered the war. Plus that murderous Thor clone stinks of evil. My guess is that Loki the chaos god has returned to life (he died at Ragnarok along with all the other Norse gods) and has decided to make things worse. Still, the Superhuman Registration Act will still be polarizing the Marvel universe with each side having to pay for their choices. There will be two Avengers team, Spider-Man will be on the run and (based on an image leaked onto the Internet) Tony Stark will be the new director of S.H.I.E.L.D., making me suspect the current director might be a villainess. Still, the Marvel universe will probably be forced to work together for the next big crossover World War Hulk.

Planetary
How Much Longer?: One issue left. Who the hell knows when it'll come out.
The Premise: A team of mystery archaeologists are trying to uncover the Earth's secret history as part of an open conspiracy while matching wits with a deadly group of ex-nazi scientists who have powers not unlike the Fantastic Four... only deadlier. the team is made up of Elijah Snow, the 106 year-old leader with cold powers, Jakita Wagner, a beautiful amazon, and the Drummer, who can talk to machines and can sense information.
Goings-On: Planetary was able to defeat most of the 4, but only the leader remains, as well as a friend turned foe. Also, it turns out the Drummer is a being of pure information.
The End?: The good guys are going to get what they want: access to the secret history of the world and the ability to give that information to the people. But what those big secrets are I can hardly imagine. I'm stumped as to how will this end beyond the obvious good guys win stuff. But Warren Ellis is always more original than that. So my guess is that we'll get a glimpse into the world that Planetary leaves behind now that there are now big plots to exploit the wonderfully strange secrets of the world. I also think that Snow may shock the other characters by giving the last villain mercy since he has much to offer the world despite his selfish evil. I'm guessing that mostly because the rest of Planetary felt a little let down by Snow's somewhat amoral handling of the four's seemingly unstoppable Thing-like member which cause a bit of a rift in the team.

Y - The Last Man:
How Much Longer?: Nine more issues left to go.
The Premise: A man with the unlikely name of Yorick Brown and the helper monkey he's training (named Ampersand) are the only living male mammals on the face of the Earth. All of the other suddenly, at around the same time, coughed up blood and died. Now Yorick finds himself traveling across the Earth with a government agent named 355 and geneticist Dr. Mann in order to find out why Yorick and Ampersand are the only survivors of the plague.
Goings-On: I actually haven't been keeping up with this one but I'd be able to make a better guess when the eighth trade finally comes out. Last I remember the main character was heading to Japan, but I'm pretty sure he's left by now in the monthly books. Also the books recently told the cause of the plague and the reason for it. The reason for Yorick's survival was released much earlier. Also, Yorick still has to find his girlfriend Beth, who's somewhere in Europe.
The End?: Someone might die but I doubt it's going to be Yorick. Frankly, I'd like a happy ending for everyone but I doubt that's going to happen. But I bet that while not everyone's ending will be peachy keen, the Earth will be able to produce new humans again.

Frankly, I'm not the best at predicting and there is some stuff being telegraphed from a mile away but with some stuff, I have a good feeling that I'm right. Especially 100 Bullets.

Four Colour Crap

I really don't have much to talk about this week (or most weeks) but since I'm always singing the praises of sequential art, I thought I'd point out some of the most awful comics of all time. Now there are certainly a lot of crappy comics, but I want to go beyond your Spawns and your Youngbloods to show you something that goes beyond regular bad. These books are like the "Plan 9 from Outer Space" of comics.

Dracula: Drawn by talented artist Tony Tallarico when he was in a serious slump, Dracula is about the adventures of a guy who looks like a cross between the Phantom and Batman but with a much more hideous costume than either of them. Dracula's real name is Al U. Card (*groan*) and has radar powers derived from a bat-serum that was supposed to cure his brain damage. It apparently didn't work, because then he dressed up in purple and red and called himself Dracula despite not being a vampire, or Dracula or even sucking blood. Come to think of it, Dracula did not have radar. I'm really confused by this guy's code name. Also unlike Batman's intimidating sharp pointy ears, Dracula's ears look soft, round, fuzzy and kinda cute. Seriously, I'm not an expert in fashion but not only is this one of the worst super-hero outfits I've ever seen (and that's saying a lot), it has possibly the worst use of colour I've ever seen. Uninteresting fact: Tony Tallarico later created a much uglier looking super-hero named Frankenstein.


NFL SuperPro: For some reason Marvel and the NFL decided to team up to create a comic book. It was terrible. It focuses on a football player who receives a career-ending injury while saving a little girl. He later gets dosed in chemicals which, thanks to a combination of fire and "ultra-rare NFL Souvenirs", give him superpowers. He then proceeds to fight football themed villains, including Instant Replay and Quick Kick (a football player turned ninja). Suddenly, everything that occurs in Eyeshield 21 seems plausible and sobering. Superpro's secret identity is that of a football journalist, which, much like Superman, allows him to hear about football disasters before anyone else so that he can avert them. Finally a football reporter who isn't afraid to do something to fight football corruption, unlike those yellow football journalists.

It seems odd that there are so many football obsessed villains out there. Do baseball players and curlers have to deal with this kind of shit? Frankly, if I was about to sack a quarterback and then a guy in a blimp shot laser rays at a guy whose team colours don't match any player on the field, I might take a month off. Heck, I might take the season off. But if I became aware that this sort of thing was happening every week, I would not hesitate to quit the game and look for another non-laser ray sport to play professionally. Assuming there is such a sport.

Skrull Kill Krew: This is probably the only super-group to have a neo-Nazi on the team. The series' origins go way back to Fantastic Four #2 where Mr. Fantastic hypnotizes invading skrulls into thinking they're cows. Well, Mr. F might be a genius, but he wasn't smart enough to prevent the cows from getting milked and slaughtered into skrull burgers. The milk issue was dealt with in a rather dark and clever before this, but the skrull burgers were eaten by some random people, who now have super powers and can see Skrull posing as humans. Not only that, but these people now have an intense and irrational hatred of Skrulls and travel around the country murdering Skrulls.

This series was actually created by visionary Grant Morrison and the popular Mark Millar. Though they are currently some of comics' most beloved writers, they created this dog right before Morrison hit it big and a five years before Millar did. Millar admits that they did most of the plotting while drinking heavily and is pretty embarrassed by it. In fact, the writers did a lot of things just to see what Marvel comics would let them get away with (which was a surprising amount). Still, the series was originally going to be called the Skrull Kill Kult (in reference to the popular and controversial Thrill Kill Kult), but the all ages Marvel didn't like the idea about a series that revolved around a Kult. Oddly, they took no issue with Skrull Killing.

Bad as it is, I do like the first issue cover, pictured above.

Brother Power, The Geek: The next two series I have a soft spot for, despite having never read them. Part of it is that the series premise is so quirky, that it would be possible to make them into really fun series with a good creative team and a good mind set. The other thing is that I think that the creator of both series wanted to say something about the hippie/youth culture of the time. The problem was the writer (Captain America creator Joe Simon) and editors were way to out of touch.

This two-issue series focused on a human-sized rag doll brought to life in a freak occurrence and who is trying to understand humanity in a Stranger in a Strange Land sort of way. He gets involved with Hippie Land and there's all sorts of attempts at social commentary, but it's really apparent that the creators don't know what a hippy is or where they come from. According to artist Carmine Infantino, Superman editor Mort Weisinger really hated the hippy subculture and didn't like how sympathetically the hippies were portrayed. He petitioned to have the series cancelled, but it's hard to tell if that was what ended the series. It was probably just the piss poor sales. The series ended with Brother Power being launched into space as order by governor Ronald Reagan!

Prez: The other series by Joe Simon that tried to connect with the current youth culture and completely misses the mark. This one focuses on Prez Rickards: the first teen president! Seems that he fixes all the clocks in his hometown, which somehow gets him on the fast track to the presidency after the age of eligibility is lowered for whatever reason. After that he fights vampires, undead generals and "Boss Smiley", an evil political boss with a smiley face for a head. A lot of this book was expanding on ideas that were hinted at in Brother Power and was also apparently inspired by the hippy flick Wild in the Streets, which I haven't seen. Ask Darcy about it.

It also did poorly but had two more issues than Brother Power and... well, that's really all it had going for it.

I still think that the previously mentioned series have more potential to be a good comic than the others, as long as an appropriate can be found. Critically acclaimed writer Neil Gaiman actually did stories for both characters: he turned Brother Power into a doll elemental in a Swamp Thing annual and wrote a great Prez story in Sandman in which we get to see how America would have been different if there really was a noble, clever, incorruptible soul in the white House. Frankly, I have a soft spot for most bad comics because I always feel that any crappy premise has the potential to be a great story as long as it's given great creators and the right angle. Except Superpro. I mean, football ninja? Fuck!