Selective Continuity!

Anticipation, Half Measures, and the New 52

2011-08-31T20:54:00.001-05:00

Having read the first issue of Johns'and Lee's restructuring of the Justice League, which serves as introduction to the rest of the restructured DC Universe, I'm... Well, I'm not sure I'd have gone about it the same way they did, notentirely. I hope that at the end of the proverbial day this is ahuge success for DC and in six months time they have a half dozen ormore titles selling over 100k each month. Somehow, I don't thinkthat's going to be the case.

Clearly, DC recognized that theirflagging sales trends could not continue. Warner Brothers may onlyneed DC Entertainment as an IP generator, but DC (DCE?) and itsmanagement clearly felt their needed to do something to justify theircontinued existence as a small publishing arm of a much biggercorporation. They need (and by extension all of the comics industryneeds) a huge influx of new readers. All of comics needs a big shotin the arm.

So let's go then. Let's see DCE attackthe marketplace with something bold, and fresh, and super fuckingattention worthy.

Two weeks after stores received thefinale of the most recent Justice League of America series, we getthe spankin' new Justice League #1. And the first issue turns out tobe the first part of a five or six part story arc wherein vaguely“All-Star” feeling versions of Batman and Green Lantern tanglewith the cops and a parademon and a cliffhanger promising a Batman vs.Superman showdown next month.

I was going to issue a parentheticalspoiler warning for the above paragraph but then realized that it wasunnecessary. The issue read, beat-for-beat, like so many othercomics I have sitting in long boxes in my closet that by the end Iwas just disappointed by it all.

I'm going to assume that the rest ofthe arc will detail All-Star Batman and company's bickering slowlymetamorphosizinginto grudging respect as they realize that they must worktogether to defeat an invasion from Apocalypse. Meanwhile, VicStone's transformation into Cyborg will place him in the rookie herorole, acting as the voice of the reader and proxy gateway into thiscrazy new world of super heroic adventure.

Every beat of the issue, from Batman'sin media res introduction to the “Next: Superman v. Batman”caption box felt more like a remix than a reboot. One issue in andthe New 52 reads as a stale remix of the familiar.

And I'm left wondering how they couldhave started this brave new era differently, to make it reallydifferent.

DC wants this to be big; the biggestthing ever. I want it to be the biggest thing ever, as a life longcomics reader and aspiring comics writer. All of comics fandomshould be wanting this to be the biggest thing ever. The New 52should be hitting the market with all the combined impact of Showcase#4, Amazing Fantasy #15, Fantastic Four #1, Crisis on InfiniteEarths, and the launch of Image Comics rolled into a singlefour-color explosion. This should be the biggest entertainment newsof the year.

But how?

DC should have gone away for a while. Rather than the New 52 press release we got, they should have insteadannounced that they were wrapping up the DCU; announced that theywere giving their creative teams another 4-6 months to wrap up theirbooks with satisfying narrative codas. That's it. Announce thatthey're ending DC Comics. Bombshell. Give that a week to cyclethrough the internet and really cause a stir before following it upwith a press release that the new DC Entertainment is launching aftera six month hiatus.

There was a good five or six yearperiod between the Golden and Silver Ages of comics. Ultimately,there's too much money involved for the pantheon of DC's charactersto disappear for that long. But a gap longer than two weeks (less ifyou consider Flashpoint #5 was released the same day as JusticeLeague #1) was needed in order for this soft relaunch to have theimpact in deserves. Most all other media goes on hiatus of somesort. TV shows have three month breaks between seasons. Bookpublishers schedule out their releases far enough apart. Moviestudios give their franchises a rest now and then. The market needsroom to breathe and readership needed a dose of anticipation. Absence makes the heart something something.

I understand that this is serialpublishing and there's a fear that if you take a break your audiencemight not be there when you return. But this is different than abook shipping late. This is a planned relaunch of the entire line. It's already a deliberate gamble. Half measures aren't enough.

DC wouldn't have needed to shut downcompletely. They could fill this hypothetical six month gap with ahandful of war, western, horror or other genre comics while stillstepping back from publishing super heroes for a time. The interimgap could have been used to build anticipation and excitement withcoordinated releases, teases, and advertising. With the backing andcommitment of a parent company that made over a half a billiondollars off the most recent Batman movie, I'd have gone as far as atelevision ad campaign selling the new DC Entertainment. The generalpublic need to be reminded that comics still exist, let alone matter.

Go away for six months and then comeback swinging as hard as you can and knock it out of the park.

DC Entertainment, and comics writlarge, needs a huge influx of new readers. These new readers need tobe both young and old and they need to have easy access to comics. New readers, intrigued by the ad campaign, should be able find DCcomics everywhere they turn when the relaunch hits. This meanscomics in every possible venue: the local comic shop, theKwik-E-Mart, the supermarket, bookstores, and everywhere on theinternet. This would mean a real sea-change in how comics aredistributed, but it's necessary.

For the LCS, and the buyers who don'tneed that acronym defined, not much would be different than it isnow. They are the hard core. But DC already has those thirty toforty thousand Wednesday customers. They're not going anywhere (notthat this means the industry should turn their backs on them either. As long as they're not insulted or ignored, they're not goinganywhere). Habitual readers will remain so, and the new DCEntertainment can continue to market high quality editions of themonthly issues printed on glossy paper. The LCS is a boutique shop,not a major marketplace, and should be recognized and treated assuch. Give the LCS specials and extras and whatever else; don'tforget that it's a premium market and treat it as such.

Additionally, DC Entertainment's returnshould be including an aggressive return to corner stores andsupermarkets. Every kid in the country should be able to tug ontheir parent's sleeve and beg for the latest issue of Batman orJustice League. Make these newsstand editions as inexpensive aspossible. Print them on newsprint. Fill them with ads. Do whateverit takes to give them the most palatable price point possible; a bucka shot for a parent to give their kid something to read in the car onthe way home. Limit these editions to four or five core titles,tops, and make it easy for stores to commit to stocking them. Makethese the “gateway drug” comics has been missing since they threwall-in with Diamond and the direct market. If Archie can do it, socan DCE.

Then there's digital and the internet. Today when I go to the iTunes store and search for “Batman” I'moffered the feature films, cartoons, audiobooks, podcasts, someancillary nonsense, and the DC Comics iPhone and iPad apps. Butthere's no direct link which I can click on to buy digital editionsof Batman comics or graphic novels. Yes, I'm aware of the app butthat's a bottleneck DC (and again, comics writ large) shouldn't beputting in place. I should be able to go to iTunes, like millions ofusers do every day, search “Batman” and be able to click, buy,download, and read a CBR or PDF of any of DC's back catalog of Batmangraphic novels instantly using any reader I choose. And the veryfirst search result should be for the monthly Batman book with a“subscribe now” button. Make the digital editions cheap, easy toget, and hook people in with subscriptions, just like people arealready accustomed to with podcasts. How many tens of thousands ofextra readers are likely to subscribe to “Batman” in iTunes for$0.99 per month (or save and subscribe for only $9.99 per year!) thatwould never consider walking into an LCS?

Sell monthly comics in the LCS; comicsprinted on high quality paper with alternate covers and packed withextras, letter columns, and back matter. Sell them for $2.99 or$3.99 or whatever the direct market can bear.

Sell monthly comics in Safeway andWegmans and the Kwik-E-Mart; a small selection of comics with“regular edition” covers on cheap paper with an impulse buy levelprice point.

Sell monthly comics online throughiTunes, Amazon, an app, direct download from dccomics.com, fromeverywhere. Sell them cheaply at ninety-nine cents apiece for singleissues and more for trades or OGNs.

Most of all, sell comics.

So, in this ever more long-windedhypothetical, DC Comics has gone on hiatus. They've fueled theirhard core base's anticipation with hints and teases, and built up amainstream ad campaign to match. They've positioned themselves for agiant coordinated premiere with books being available in everypossible marketplace. Remember, no half measures.

This brings us to the actual delivery. “The New DC: There's No Stopping Us Now!”

DC Entertainment's big premiere shouldfulfill the promise and make us all believe the hype. Premiere Dayshould have hit with a one-two-three-four punch of Justice League,Batman, Action Comics starring Superman, and Wonder Woman, and eachone should have been a stunning 96 pages at a bargain two or threedollar price. Hit us with impossible to ignore comics; four booksthat set up the senses-shattering new status quo for the entireuniverse. Do it by telling four complete stories right out of thegate using the four most marketable properties you have, told by thebiggest and brightest talent you have.

Hook new readers with excellentwriting, even better art, and fun, complete original stories thatlure them in and leave them wanting to sign up for more.

Instead, DC is back and they'restumbling out of the gate with a convoluted, staggered approach. JL#1 has a “five years ago” setting. Action is apparentlystarting out set further back than that, and most of the other booksare taking place in the narrative present day. Day one, and casualreaders are being tasked to deal with a simultaneous, multipletime-lines barrier to entry and the daunting commitment of a sixmonth wait before the completion of a single story.

I'm left wanting, thinking of analternative wherein DC could have offered four complete stories tohook new readers and then capped each one with a “Read TheContinuing Adventures Monthly” caption at the end. So far, it allfeels like more of the same, with an approach that still encourageswaiting for the trade collections.

This new beginning should hook us, reelus in and never fucking let go. New stories and a brave newdirection featuring iconic characters. No looking back, the future'sover there!

Instead, at the beginning of this issueI'm reminded of Batman chasing a monster from Apocalypse in the firstissue of Cosmic Odyssey. I'm reminded of Batman & Green Lanternbickering in the pages of All-Star. I'm reminded of rookie heroCyborg being instrumental to the Super-Friends defeating Darkseid inhis introduction and expect rookie hero Cyborg to be instrumental tothe Justice League defeating Darkseid in this introductory arc. Atthe end of the issue I'm reminded of all of the times Batman andSuperman have clashed in forever.

And, at the end of the proverbial day,I suspect that comics on the whole are going to come out the otherside of DC's shake-up with a lot of sound and furor amounting tonothing much more than cosmetic uniform changes and a temporary salesbump accompanying the renumbered first issues and same-old salestactics.

I wanted innovation. I wanted risktaking. I wanted to buy and read the distillation of everything thatmakes comics, and DC Comics in this case, incredible. I wanted toexperience the rush of DC's icons being folded and tempered, beinghoned to a new cutting edge. I wanted to read something new. Iwanted streamlined, purposeful, daring, original comics. I wanted(still want) the best stories told with the best characters. Most ofall, I want everyone to be reading these comics.

It's the first day of DC's New 52. There's room for growth and change and course correction, but so farall I see are missed opportunities and half measures.

By the Hoary @#%$ Hosts!

2008-01-17T12:40:00.000-05:00

For a comic that came out in 2006 (and one that I've had the trade of since last summe) this shouldn't be news to anyone. I'm going to say it again anyway. Dr. Strange: The Oath is a hell of a lot of fun.

Rereading it this morning, I was completely taken in by just how much fun this comic is.

If you haven't already, do yourself a favor. Find this book and enjoy the hell out of it. Otherwise, maybe we can't be friends anymore. Nothing personal. Just... you know.

Well, She's Not a Skrull

2008-01-10T17:30:00.000-05:00

You can read all about it, and at length, elsewhere. Including here, here, here, here and here. Not to mention, my original complaint. Or "to mention", since I just did.

I also seem to recall the summer of 2006, when Marvel's current Editor-in-Chief promised the public that Spider-Man revealing his secret identity would be a permanent change.

Yeah. Right.

Buying comics is no longer the minor investment it used to be. Forgetting trades, Absolute Editions and the like, let's just look at single issues. The latest issue of Amazing is four bucks. Sorry, "Still Only $3.99!"* While the regular price is 3 bucks, another jump is on the horizon. I'm an adult with a job and $50-$60 a month is a pretty big sized bite. Kids aren't buying comics anymore? Do you know any kids that want to burn their entire allowance on a single comic book, let enough titles to keep up with a shared universe? I don't.

And now I'm an old man complaining about how movies used to cost a nickle and nothing's as good as it used to be.

Veering back towards the topic, how many of the Marvel comics that I've bought no longer "happened"? The first and best** appearance of Venom? Harry Osborn's death in "Spectacular"? Forget about all that... wait, rephrase. Don't consider the ramifactions of all that just now. Think about all the recent Marvel comics effected. Civil War, New Avengers, the bulk of JMS' run on Amazing, that awesome issue of She-HUlk?

The hand-in-hand excuses of "Well, they all still happened, just not in that way." and "You can still go back and read the ones you own. Those books haven't changed." are just weak sauce.

It's impossible to re-read the issues where Aunt May discovers Peter's secret identity and not be constantly thinking about what a huge waste of time it all is. Because it never happened. And these are stories only five or six years old.

How about May and Jarvis makin' the smokey eyes at each other in New Avengers? I suppose I can just x-acto those pages out of the trade paperback edition Marvel's still selling.

Sweeping continuity changes, specifically ones that invalidate books I've spent money on (especially within the last year), are insulting. It tells me, as a reader, that I shouldn't emotionally invest anything in the stories I'm reading. If I shouldn't care about a story, why should I buy it?

In fact, DC's ongoing series of continuity reboots are the reason why the only DC comics I've bought in the last year are Jeff Smith's Shazam! mini and a near complete run of "The Trial of The Flash" out of dollar bins.

Equally depressing is the truth that this editorially mandated continuity patch will be as permanent as Spider-Man's public unmasking. So when Loki reveals the truth to Peter and MJ somewhere around Amazing 575 (600? Will it last that long?), is anyone going to be surprised? Or maybe just bitter that they invested their money and their emotions on "imaginary" stories with an imaginary status quo and now the rug is being pulled out from under the reader yet again?

Sigh. "This has all happened before and will all happen again."

I'm not going to get into some of the other questions that could be asked. What would Uncle Ben think of Peter and MJ's actions? Or Aunt may (because she is going to find out)? Why should I care for a man who would throw away his marriage in a deal with the devil? And what the hell cheap-ass Faustian bargain is it where the devil doesn't throw in a double cross and have Aunt May get hit by a car on her way out of the hospital?

I'm so very tired. And rambling.

I also still think that making Mary-Jane a Skrull would've been a great (and temporary) solution to the manufactured problem. Plus, it would've dovetailed nicely into the coming Skrull-pocalypse (Skrull-vasion?).

*I get the thinking behind this cover blurb. The execution and timing are what I have a problem with. Why point out that the book is a dollar more than usual with phrasing like "still only"?

**Venom in the Parker's apartment, waiting for MJ to come home. Downright creepy. And yet to be topped. Oh, and now maybe never happened at all.

----------------------------------

One last point that I find amusing, from a press conference in '06.

QUESTION: Seeing as how the continuity of the X-Men titles doesn't seem to flow properly, would you ever consider just making X-Men a weekly book with multiple different creative teams working on it?

ANSWER: QUESADA: That would be kind of like when Superman had four titles and the creative teams worked together on them ... but it's a real drag on the creative teams and on the editorial staff to do something like that.

Happy Birthday Santa!

2007-12-21T17:08:00.001-05:00

Just a quick reminder that there's only 370 shopping days until next Christmas! So get out there and splurge, you crazy consumers, you!

Me, I'm going to drink my way through the winter solstice in the hopes that the Earth's axis will, once again, tilt back toward the sun. Grumble, grumble. Stupid Casket of Ancient Winters.

For everyone else, make sure you stuff plenty of old fruit and straw in your shoes so pappa Odin will leave you something good this year.

Too Soon?

2007-12-11T18:25:00.000-05:00

What did I do today? Apparently, my offhand, wise-ass comment about a certain wrapped-in-plastic murder victim having been killed by her dad spoiled the show for someone.

I guess a seventeen year old show is too soon to talk about.

In other news: It's a sled. He's Luke's father. Bruce Willis was dead the whole time. Jack is Tyler Durden. Oh, and Ozymandias is the villain.

Maybe I should've waited on that last one.

Friday Night Strikes!

2007-11-30T17:21:00.000-05:00

Posting's been... light around these parts, a bad habit I need to kick. No one cares about excuses, so I won't offer any.

Today is Day 26 of the Writer's Guild strike. As someone who's goal is to someday be a dues paying member of the WGA this has pretty much been the only current event I've forced time into my schedule to follow. I assume if you're here reading this then you're already up to speed on the incredibly justified reasons for the strike. Or you're here on this site because you know me, in which case, I've already beat into your head the incredibly justified reasons for the strike.

Go buy a T-shirt already. Proceeds help support non-WGA members affected by the strike.

In the mean time...

Bahlactus can show you the way.

Classic Cover of the Week

2007-11-05T18:36:00.000-05:00

As a kid I bought my comics where I could. The book store, a cigar store, the local equivalent of the Kwik-E-Mart, they all enabled my early buying habits. Heck, I even bought the Spider-Man/Wolverine one-shot at the supermarket, along with the Buckaroo Banzai movie tie-in and the first issue of Iceman's original mini-series.

But this isn't about being able to find comics everywhere. This is about the first time I found a comic in a local comic book store. It's also the first back issue of a comic that I bought.

The next time that someone's complaining about the "death" of the comics industry, or specifically the reality that comics no longer exist outside of your LCS, point them to "Moon Knight". The first (correct me if I'm wrong) direct market title, Moon Knight showed that comics could tell more "adult" themed stories and be sucessful without newsstand exposure.

Me, I just loved (and love) that art.

Dollhouse?

2007-11-02T12:58:00.000-05:00

Ho. Ley. Crap..

Whedon, Dushku and Minnear? Count me in.

Of course, it being a Fox show I suppose I can look forward to having a "Dollhouse: The Complete Series" DVD box set on my shelf next to "Wonderfalls: The Complete Series" and "Firefly: The Complete Series". That is, if Fox even lets them get past the initial seven episode order. My excitement is tempered by the writer's strike induced delay and "baby steps" thinking. Please get further than "Drive" did, or "The Inside".

Classic Cover of the Week

2007-10-29T15:32:00.000-05:00

My introduction to the character actually took place in the pages of Suicide Squad #1, which I picked up because of the "Legends" crossover blurb on the cover.

This series though, by Ostrander, Yale and McDonnell, took Floyd Lawton's character which they'd been building in the main title and cemented it. The four issue mini-series was a perfect exploration of the character's history and motivations.

For me, and the way the selective continuity in my brain works, the original 1988 Deadshot mini-series is on par with, and DC's answer to, Marvel's original Wolverine mini from Claremont and Miller.

As far as I know, the series has never been collected but if you can find the issues is the dollar bins grab them. You won't be sorry.

Oh, and remember "DC Comics aren't just for kids", in case you needed that reminder while reading a story about a suicidal contract killer with mother issues who dresses up in orange and silver tights.

Friday Night Fights!

2007-10-26T17:08:00.000-05:00

Kierkegaard!

Goethe!

Kant!

Sartre!

And with one of the all-time great first issue cliffhangers in comics, the Question gets his ass handed to him by Lady Shiva, takes a lead pipe to the noggin and has a slug from a .22 ride his skull like Bodhi riding the big ones at Bells Beach, all before getting dumped in an icy river. If you're going to "kill" your lead in order to kick start his title, this is how it should be done and O'Neil was the master.

Bahlactus says, "Cogito, ergo objurgo"

Called Out!

2007-10-25T11:17:00.000-05:00

Well, it looks like I've been called out, and with reason.

Catching up on a mountain of reading? No excuse.
The start of hockey season (even if the Sabres are 3-5 right now)? No excuse.
Trying to finish up the first two arcs of The Irregulars? No excuse.
Borrowing a friend's Farscape box set? No excuse.
Getting dumped? No excuse.
Being drunk? No excuse.

If I can't come up with even a 100 words a day related to Power Man and Iron Fist, talking monkeys, Cylons, Silver Age Lex Luthor, the Yakuza, Dan Slott: Marvel EiC, Ewoks, Dr. Doom's pimp cup or my fears that Mark Steven Johnson will make another comic book movie then I've got no business keeping this crappy little web log going.

Message received, Palette. Message received.

And by "Message received" I mean "Okay, okay, okay! I'll get back to work."

Casting Call Friday: The Pitch

2007-09-28T12:18:00.000-05:00

The Fantastic Four. The X-men. Spider-Man. Captain America, Iron Man and The Avengers.

The shared universe of Marvel Comics is populated by some of the most colorful, interesting and recognizable superheroes being published today. The New York City patrolled by a web-slinging, friendly neighborhood wall crawler is the same city that’s home to the family of science-heroes living in the Baxter Building and the demigods who call Avengers Mansion home. The biggest thrill a kid can have reading a Marvel comic is when his heroes team-up to defeat the bad guy. Spidey and the Human Torch are trading wisecracks while trading punches with the Rhino? What are Wolverine and Captain America doing together on that cover? Any small boy seeing these icons together is going to be compelled to find out.

However, in television and the movies there are no big crossovers. 20th Century Fox’s X-men simply aren’t going to run across Columbia’s Spider-Man or Regency’s Daredevil.

While in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, Luke Cage gained super strength and bullet proof skin in a tragic accident. Danny Rand, orphaned son of an American industrialist, was raised in Tibet to become the world’s deadliest martial artist, a living weapon with fists of iron. Together with ex-NYPD officer Misty Knight and the idealistic Colleen Wing, Luke and Danny are employed by the Nightwing Restorations detective agency. They investigate cases too strange for the police, exploring the hidden corners of the Marvel Comics universe and coping with their very unusual lives. They are Heroes for Hire.

Think Angel meets Se7en. The baddest man in Harlem and a kung-fu white boy team-up to fight ninjas, crime lords, serial killers and old Spider-man villains.

(1 hour action drama)

It's Heroes For Hire, coming fall of 2009 or, more likely, never.

Henry Simmons as Luke Cage

Chad Michael Murray as Danny Rand

Gina Torres as Misty Knight

Carly Pope as Colleen Wing

And Dennis Dun as Professor Wing.

Pitch... Pilot script... Series bible. Hey, a guy can dream, can't he?

And, should the series take off I've got a couple of people in mind for guest stars and recurring villains. Examples:

Tamoh Penikett as The Taskmaster (recurring, Season 3)
Peter Dinklage as Maynard Tiboldt, The Ringmaster (Season 1, Episode 8)
Masuimi Max as Lilah Cheney (Season 2, one episode)

And with the big finish, Fictional Comic Book Movie Casting Call Week comes to a close.

Casting Call Thursday: Solo Avengers!

2007-09-27T15:38:00.000-05:00

Yeah, that's right. Solo Avengers. Save your laughter until the end.

Ron Livingston as Clint Barton/Hawkeye
David Boreanaz as Simon Williams
Diane Farr as Bobbi "Mockingbird" Morse

Clint Barton's hot temper and clashes with authority have led to his current "reserve" status with Earth's premiere super-team. But he hasn't laid down his bow. Clint's staying busy in Southern California, freelancing as a bounty hunter and super-criminal skip tracer.

Federal agent Bobbi Morse works out of the LA field office as the Avengers' west coast government liason. If the Rhino or Electro test California, or if a spare Ultron robot gets loose, she's the one stuck with the assignment of bringing them in. More often than she'd like, this requires her to call in Clint Barton for assistance.

Simon "Wonder Man" Williams is a former super-hero turned Hollywood action hero. His days of three picture deals and 100 million dollar opening weekends are behind him though. On the down side of both careers, Simon's desperate to recapture his fading spotlight. He now hosts a "Cops" style reality show that follows Hawkeye around, taping his exploits and clashes with the super-criminal element.

It's Magnum PI meets Cops meets the Marvel Universe. It's Solo Avengers.

Dream Cast (Not the Video Game System)!

2007-09-26T12:46:00.000-05:00

This time Fictional Comic Book Movie Casting Week is going to tackle a real project, coming to your living rooms next year.

Buckle up, it's Preacher!

Matthew McConaughey as Rev. Jesse Custer
James Marsters as Cassidy
Cameron Diaz as Tulip O'Hare
Gary Oldman as Herr Starr
Maggie Gyllenhaal as Featherstone
Ray Stevenson as Saint of Killers
Chris Cooper as Hugo Root
Johnny Galecki as Arseface
Val Kilmer as John Wayne
Christopher Meloni as Jody
Clint Howard as TC

With Piper Laurie as Marie L'Angelle and Ian McDiarmid as the Voice of God.

Not the Cameron Diaz from "The Sweetest Thing", but the Cameron Diaz from "A Life Less Ordinary".

Marsters might be a bit of type casting, but he'd nail the hell out of the part.

Fictional Casting Call. Spoilers Ahead!

2007-09-25T09:09:00.000-05:00

Fictional Comic Book Movie Casting Week rolls along with a look at the alternate Earth IMDB page for David Fincher's Suicide Squad.

George Clooney as Rick Flagg
CCH Pounder as Amanda Waller
Helena Bonham Carter as Nightshade
Idris Elba as Ben Turner
Matthew Settle as Floyd Lawton
James Nesbitt as "Digger" Harkness
Tatum O'Neal as Karin Grace
Gina Torres as Mari McCabe
Dean Winters as Tom Tresser
Claudia Black as Duchess
Matthew Lillard and Eva Amurri as Punch and Jewlee

And Steve Buscemi as Arthur Light

Pounder and Torres were perfection in JLU. Why mess with what works? Plus, I (heart) Zoe Washburne.

When Punch gets offed during a mission for being a dumbass, who better for the audience to cheer when they get killed onscreen than Lillard?

Lawton was the hardest pick of the bunch, but I think Matthew Settle, who protrayed the dead inside Lt. Speirs in Band of Brothers, would be perfect as the cold-hearted Deadshot.

Spoiler Alert! Fictional Casting!

2007-09-24T13:53:00.000-05:00

Fictional Comic Book Movie Casting Week opens with a bang.

52: The Series. A special one year HBO event.

Paul Walker as Michael Carter
Ciaran Hinds as Teth Adam
Steve McQueen as Vic Sage
Gina Gershon as Renee Montoya
Nathan Fillion as Adam Strange
Jay Harrington as Buddy Baker
Tricia Helfer as Starfire

With Anthony Stewart Head as Will Magnus and Ed Norton as Ralph Dibny

Yeah, I know Steve McQueen is dead. He's still a perfect Question.

I'm going somewhere with this actually. Friday's imaginary casting call will tie into a pilot spec script I've written for a pair of Marvel characters who's films have been in development hell for nearly a decade.

Tomorrow: David Fincher's Suicide Squad

Casting News! Spoiler Alert!

2007-09-21T11:00:00.000-05:00

Steve McQueen, Edward G. Robinson, Ann Margaret, Karl Malden and Tuesday Weld.

Watched my DVD copy of The Cincinnati Kid again last night and realized that it has the perfect cast to star in "Steve Ditko's The Question", the imaginary movie set to open in my head next summer.

Steve McQueen as Vic Sage would've been bad ass.

In fact, I think next week might be Fictional Comic Book Movie Casting Week. This being the first post in almost a month (Damn you Irregulars. Why do you vex me so?), fake casting news for fake movies should be light enough to get me back into the groove while not taking time away from those in progress issues of the comic.

So on that note, stay tuned* for Monday's announcement of the cast of "52: The Movie"

*stay tuned all one (two?) hits I'm still getting.

Avalanche of Villainy

2007-08-27T14:03:00.000-05:00

In the second arc of The Irregulars our heroic trio will face off against the villain I hope will become their arch-nemesis. And before you ask: no, I'm not done scripting the first arc yet. I'm lazy and I drink, so back off. Actually, I'll probably be done with the first six issues in a week or two. My brain's not always linear, so the second arc's been intruding on the first's time. First six issues are looking to take three months to complete, but issues seven through twelve should only take half as long.

Anyway, arch-nemesis. Prof. Gordon Saimiri, the world's smartest monkey, naturally needs an arch nemesis and the opposite number villian is a long establish tradition. The mysterious space aliens that disassembled Gordo and reassembled him as the super-intelligent Prof. Saimiri, it turns out they did the same thing when they picked up Laika's space capsule the previous year. Unfortunately, they put Laika back together wrong. Who better than a super-intelligent, deformed and insane evil communist canine to challenge Prof. Saimiri, our flamethrower-toting simian college professor, his robot and his girl?

So, that's our nemesis and part of Laika's plan to destroy The Irregulars is to assemble an army of villains (that in no way is inspired by the Legion of Doom) and have them all attack Los Angeles at once. Who are some of the players in this army of 35 villains that I plan on introducing in a single, bone-chilling two page splash panel?

Glad you asked.

Atomic Weight. Professor Emil Avogadro, longest tenured member of the physics department at USCLA, was driven insane in the lab accident that gave him his powers. He sees the world only as swirling patterns of protons and neutrons and is able to mentally multiply the number of isotopes in inanimate matter.

The Humidity! Master of super-heated water vapor. It's not the heat, it's The Humidity!

Ramses CDXVII. Egyptian despot and the 417th in an unbroken line dating back to Ramses I. Possesses the combined experiences, guile and intelligence of the previous 416 Ramses (Ramseses?).

Herr Zorn. Seven feet of blonde crew-cut and muscles, the super-strong Herr Zorn absorbs the anger of others as sustenance.

Ms. Limpid. Sultry, 40's Hollywood style femme fatale. Ms. Limpid projects an aura of calm. Her victims remain frozen in their tracks until they're nothing but transparent, glass-like statues.

Tyrannosaurus Reginald. Half man, half dinosaur, all polite. T-Reg kills and eats his human victims with a prehistoric appetite and the salad fork on the left. Please. Thank you. Kill!

Battalion. Mercenary with the power to replicate himself up to 1,200 times.

The Jam Band. Members: Inspiration, Comet Dust, Marble and Tina. Together, when playing their instruments, they weave a pied piper-like spell that mesmerizes those that hear the music, aurally lobotomizing them.

The Spangenhelm. A demonic medieval war helmet that possesses the wearer, slowly absorbing their body and turning it into spectral blue flame. Black helm, boots, gloves and cloak with a body of fire. Armed with a sword in each hand.

Occult Archer. Dressed in an all white Robin Hood outfit, the Archer carries no arrows. His enchanted longbow fires arrows composed of the ghostly forms of deceased criminals. Content with the life of a bank robber and career criminal, the Occult Archer does not suspect that his soul is doomed to become a spectral arrow for the next individual who wields the bow.

The Sirens. Peisinoe, Aglaope and Thelxiepeia are three sisters whose long skirts conceal their bird-like legs. Together, their singing voices have the power to hypnotize any who hear them. Typically they drown their victims and rob the corpses.

Brigadier Chatsworth. English big game hunter, dressed in colonial military attire. A pith helmet covers his bald pate, but he can psychically manipulate his long mustachios to do a range of actions, from firing a rifle to picking locks to crushing his prey like pythons.

Highbrow. Once the world's 53rd smartest man, a series of gristly murders, no two alike, has moved him up to 39th. Fourteen down, thirty-eight to go.

The Archivist. A bibliomaniac with a fixation on historical criminal records, the Archivist is the curator and head librarian of the secret Borgia Library, the moral and ethical antithesis of the Great Library of Alexandria. The Borgia Library is the greatest repository of criminal knowledge on earth.

King Khepri. USCLA professor of Egyptology who, after a tragic accident, believes himself to be the resurrected Egyptian god of the dawning sun, Khepri. King Khepri commits his crimes dressed in ceremonial garb with a headmask in the shape of a dung beetle. He has no super powers.

Dr. Cassiopeia. A stunningly beautiful woman, by day she's a respected clinical researcher. At night she is cursed to float upside down, from sunset to sunrise, as the invulnerable and criminially insane Dr. Cassiopeia.

Leo Lobelia. LA gangster who dresses in pinstripes with a purple lobelia flower in his lapel. Has nausea inducing powers, which form the basis of his extortion rackets.

Count Miasma. European nobleman who can mentally control clouds of noxious black fog. Displaced from his homeland, he's attempting to take over enough land in the states to rebuild his lost fiefdom.

The Tessellator. Dick Spilsbury is a puzzle obsessed criminal who, after an industrial accident, can transmute any object he touches into hundreds of tiny puzzle pieces. He wears a spandex unitard with a logo on his chest that's the outline of a jigsaw puzzle piece and he frequently commits puzzle related crimes.

The Faceless. Escaped from a luinatic asylum, the Faceless is a serial killer who conceals his disfigured visage with an endless series of carnival masks.

Ezekiel Euclid. The smartest and most dangerous criminal mind of a two dimensional universe. Exiled to a three dimensional prison, our earth, by their Supreme Tribunal as a last resort. Disoriented and reeling still, once he's adapted he'll be ready to take over this new dimension. Ezekiel Euclid exists as a 2D apparition, possessing only height and width. Evil has no depths.

These last two are not my own, but contributions from my brother and a friend.

Derrick. An offshore oil rig worker. Laid off from his job, he constructs a lumbering suit of oil rig themed armor and uses it to enact his revenge, and commit crimes. Belching grease and smoke, with a shoulder mounted crane. The crane has different attachments, like a wrecking ball and a giant hook.

Baroness Ape. Old gorilla in a cocktail dress, lipstick and holding a cigarette holder. Think simian Miss Havesham. Antiquities dealer, grave robber and the worlds richest non-human. Keeps human prisoners in a zoo habitat, feeding them bananas.

Some are good, some are lame but will work for the purposes of the plot and some are awesome, at least to me. I love the visual of The Spangenhelm and can't wait to write future appearances of Ramses CDXVII and the Occult Archer.

Batman and The Outsiders

2007-08-24T16:25:00.000-05:00

Here are my picks for a new Outsiders roster, followed by Batman's thoughts on each team member.

Katana, Tatsu Yamashiro. "Tatsu has proven herself time and time again. I'll need a lieutenant."

The Question, Vic Sage. "I know I can trust him because he doesn't trust anyone."

Metamorpho, Rex Mason. "Rex is a good man, and his knowledge of the four corners of the globe rivals my knowledge of Gotham."

The Creeper, Jack Ryder. "I may not like it, or him, but I've fought enough madmen to realize that there's value in unpredictability."

Animal Man, Buddy Baker. "Buddy's never really fit in with a team environment, as his short stint with the League's European branch proved, but he's willing to sacrifice for his family. I can use that."

Deadman, Boston Brand. "There are few places I can't get into on my own. That's where Boston come in. Useful. Hal and Barry's friendship. I always saw it as a liability in the field, but with Boston I just can't help liking the old ghost, even despite his annoying habit of possessing random strangers and using them to break into Wayne Manor, raid Alfred's wine cellar and get drunk in front of the TV."

Green Arrow, Connor Hawke. "All of his father's talent with none of his... failings. The kid proved himself with the League and could be useful, from time to time. Taking advantage of his naivety will be simple."

Manhunter, Mark Shaw. "There's no denying his talent even if I can't stand the man or his motivations. A check of his bank accounts reveals that he's thrown the Mirror Master back in jail enough times to buy half the real estate in Star City. Time to find other motivations for him. He really, really hates Kobra. So we have that in common."

Marvin & Wendy. "American college kids, backpacking abroad on their parents dime. Ubiquitous enough to be invisible. Inexperienced, but so was Tim once."

Not quite a full pitch, but I've got a few ideas kicking around. Maybe I'll elaborate on them when time permits.

Black Lightning I'd leave off the team because his profile's too high (Secretary of Education, Meltzer's JLA). Katana fills the lieutenant role nicely and ties to the original team.

Same with Metamorpho. Original team, experience, can fill the heavy hitter role and I'd love to showcase some crazy applications of his powers.

Bats has a history of training children and "Wendy: Agent of the Bat" has badass potential all over it. Wendy and Marvin would be the "Outsiders in plain sight".

I loved Ostrander and Yale's Manhunter series. Plus the guy really hates Kobra and you gotta respect that.

Connor is exactly the kind of guy Batman would use for 20 issues or so until the scales fall from his eyes and he realizes Batman's been playing him. "Of course I've been playing you. I'm Batman." Talented but naive.

There's another character, long deceased, who I'd bring back as an unoffical member of the team as Deadman's new sidekick. I'd build up the character's return slowly, at first only through Deadman's dialogue, making comments and references about the "new kid" he's showing the ropes. Can you guess who it is?

Finally, the line that demands to work it's way into the first issue: "I'm the god damn Creeper."

This is a book I'd love to write. Love to write.

Spider-Man: Divorcé

2007-08-08T16:35:00.000-05:00

Sigh. I suppose the arguement could be made that a Spider-Man who's single and has trouble with girls, maybe one who's still in high school, is more relatable for a younger audience. I'd agree with that. Spidey's always been the guy who's a great hero but crap at managing his personal life. Pretty much from the start it's defined who he is. He's the wise-cracking (and smart) smart-ass who stops the Sandman and Electro from robbing banks, but during the day has to dodge bullies and Aunt May's wheatcakes.

Marvel still publishes Ultimate Spider-Man and Marvel Adventures Spider-Man, don't they? And they're widely available in places like Target where kids can get to them?

I know, I know. With great power... Uncle Ben... Gwen Stacey...

These things are also a major part of the Spider-Man mythos. Hell, if you're reading this then you've read the banner at the top of the page. Spider-Man's guilt may motivate him, but it doesn't consume him. If it did then Peter Parker couldn't ever be the wise cracking Spidey we fell in love with during The Electric Company or Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, or while he was tooling around in Gerry Conway's spider-mobile. He'd be Batman.

I'm not convinced that the storytelling options with a widowed or divorced Spider-Man are greater than a happily married Spidey. Could any of the other MacGuffins that Marvel Editorial might employ, like mind-wiping Mary Jane or imprisoning her in the Negative Zone or having her whisked away to Red Raven's hidden island to raise their baby, be more palatable? Somehow I doubt it.

"Hey, where's Mary Jane?"

"Who?"

"The hot redhead from the movies. You know. Weren't they married for 20 years?"

"Nope. I have no idea who you're talking about. This is a swinging, single Peter."

The readership isn't likely to forget and the storyline that removes her from continuity isn't likely to have any permanence.

Morbid, violent "616" Spider-Man, who dresses up in the clothes of the guy who tortured his wife, or ex-wife, with his toxic stingers and magic healing blood, he bears little resemblance to the fun loving and fun super-hero I remember as a child.

But, you're about to say, comics weren't as innocent as your faulty memory thinks they were. I'll agree. They dealt with mature subject matter, like death and suicide and Emma Frost's corsets.* "Kraven's Last Hunt" played out over six issues across three titles, published over just a couple of months. It didn't take 5 years to play out and, while it was a grim story, the villain acted like a villain and the hero was heroic, coping with the challenges thrown at him.

Uh oh, I'm starting to rant here. Time to steer back towards the point. I'm highly suspect of the direction Spider-Man's being taken.

I read stories about Batman when I want to read about a grim avenger, driven by loss. I read stories about Spider-Man when I want to read about a man that perseveres against all of the crap that life and circumstance and Dr. Doom can throw at him, and he does it with a smile, because he's got the love of his aunt and his wife to keep him going.

Granted, I dropped Amazing not long after the "Sins Past" story, but if I only had "One More Day" at this point I'm pretty sure I wouldn't spend it reading Spider-Man comics.

Iron Man's a villain.

Captain America's dead and buried.

Spider-Man's wearing a serial killer's "skin" and his marriage is weeks from falling apart.

Unrelated, but I'm also hesitant to spend $2.99 on a DC comic that might not even be in continuity in six months.

If I love comics, then why does my pull list keep getting shorter?**

.
.
.

Oh, shit. The final panel of "One More Day" is a green skinned MJ holding her jacket in Peter's front door, proclaiming "Face it, Tiger. I'm a Skrull." isn't it?

Crap.

*The White Queen's and Black Queen's fashion choices did nothing to influence my taste in women. Nope. Nothing at all.

**but I'm also enjoying the hell out of titles like Astonishing X-Men, Immortal Iron Fist, Daredevil and Agents of Atlas.

De-luxe Power Girl

2007-08-03T17:08:00.000-05:00

POWER GIRL 13 INCH DELUXE FIGURE

"Feel the Power! POWER GIRL is the newest female addition to DC Direct's line of realistically proportioned, super-heroic 1:6 scale figures! This deluxe collector figure comes clothed in an authentically detailed fabric costume and includes a display stand. Packaged in a deluxe 4-color window box with a fifth panel."

You know, I really have nothing to add. The description for DC's realistically proportioned Power Girl says it all, and sincerely. Although her eyes do kinda creep me out.

I wonder what Ragnell thinks.

Unpublished Comics Cavalcade

2007-08-02T17:35:00.000-05:00

After a few sputtering starts and stops, I'm back hard at work on Prof. Simian and the Irregulars, taking breaks only for drinking, gambling and researching which show I should prep a second spec script of, in case of the million-to-one shot that the Disney/ABC people come calling. Thanks, by the way, to the estimable Jane Espenson and her lunch-a-riffic blog for the warning.

It'd be a lot easier to write without the imposition of the day job. Actually, maybe not easier. But I'd rather have 10 hours a day to write than only 2-3.

If you don't want the outline for the first twelve issues of a comic book that might never get published spoiled for you, don't highlight the text below.

1) Introduction. In the can.
2) Jungle fight. Xenon vs Irregulars
3) Venus flashbacks, Prof Saimiri on campus
4) The terraformed jungle is contained thanks to comic book science. Just when they think they've won, enter Xenon Sunday's army of Labori.
5) LA gets overrun by an army of malevolent organic Venusian robots.
6) The big showdown, monkey brain power vs. Venusian world conqueror guile.
7) One-off, "Batgirl Becky" spotlight issue, Batman TV villain, ends with the "bananas and engine grease" line.
8) Becky tangles with Laika. Prof Saimiri: "Where have you been for 50 years?" Laika: (growls) "Planning."
9) Laika origin issue. Soviet Russia in the 60s.
10) The Irregulars race around the city, two steps behind the evil communist canine.
11) Reveal Laika's agents, a Legion of Doom's worth of Keane-verse supervillains.
12) Twenty-three pages of face punching and face kicking. One page of lemonade drinking.

There's lots of really fun crazy brewing and I'm really happy with the direction of the series so far.

Should I start posting excerpts or just hang onto it until I can find a penciller? Readership of Three, you decide!

Beat To The Punch

2007-07-23T11:11:00.000-05:00

So Erik Larsen is releasing a line of comics featuring updated versions of public domain Golden Age characters. Read about it here.

Sigh. What are the odds? I mean, what are the odds other than pretty good?

I don't suppose I could get Mike Allred to draw my version of the Clock.

Oh well. Great minds, right? I guess I should take this as a sign that at least I'm thinking in the right direction. Still, if books featuring The Concordia, super champions of the European Union, the World's Smartest Monkey, or a Hawkeye/Top Dog team-up start showing up I'm gonna be pissed. Especially since I'm halfway through scripting the first arc of Prof. Simian and the Irregulars.

Speaking of which, anybody know any unemployed pencillers that want to draw monkeys, robots, hot chicks, classic cars and alien jungles?

Classic Cover of The Week

2007-07-19T12:38:00.000-05:00

Yet another issue that I distinctly remember pulling from the spinner rack and reading on the spot before plunking down my hard earned 75 cents. How could I not? "Holy crap!! Spidey's got a new costume??? And it's black!!!"

Yeah, I spoke and thought with multiple explanation points in 1984. I was ten and I'd learned grammar and punctuation at the feet of Stan Lee and Steve Gerber. Excelsior!

Let's break for a quick aside here. The newsstand where I bought this comic had the "Hey Kids, Comics!" spinner rack and sold packs of Big League Chew but their primary hustle was cigars, chewing tobacco and adult magazines. The place had a perpetual cloud of cigar smoke pressing against it's yellowed drop ceiling tiles. Was I the last kid to buy comics from a cranky old man who'd roll his lit stogie from one corner of his mouth to the other as he took my allowance? Maybe.

Anyway, back to the action. We join our heroes as they regroup after an assult on Doom's fortress. Haggard and tired, Spidey's wishing that the Beyonder had also kidnapped a couple 3-packs of Hanes when he sees...

Now, my first thought is "That is Awesome!!!" Again, ten. On subsequent readings though, my brain couldn't help but come up with some legitimate questions. Did Thor use the same machine as Spidey?

"What If... Thor's hat and cape were evil symbiotes?" I must have missed that issue.

That leaves two other possibilities. A) Hulk and Thor knew what would pour out of that machine onto Spidey's hand and the two of them get together for a couple of beers and a chuckle every time Venom kidnaps Aunt May. B) The mystery aliens keep their sewing machines in the same room as their ectoplasmic containment units. Poor planning or a lack of storage space. Either way, that can't be childproof.

The more I think about it, the more I want to read about Thor's evil hat and cape possessing some poor schlub.

Luke Cage's Car

2007-07-16T15:14:00.000-05:00

A hero's gotta represent, right? 300 lbs. of attitude and bullet-proof skin don't use a bus pass.

Google's not much help and his wikipedia page is shockingly missing this crucial information. Maybe it's because I'm hungover or maybe just because it's a Monday afternoon, but this might be the most important question on the internet.

We know how Cage rolls, but how does he roll?

Now, your first instinct might be the obvious answer. "Mike, Cage is hittin' the clubs in his pimped out 2009 Cadillac Escalade*. Black. Tinted windows. Gold custom rims. DVD in the back. GPS in the front. The AC and the T.I. both cranked to eleven." I have to disagree. That might be fine for punks like Night Thrasher or Rage, sweatin' their image, but not for my man, Power Man.

He wears a t-shirt and jeans to work. You think he cares what anyone thinks? Hell no.

That's why I've gotta think that he used the infamous $200 Doom paid him** as a down payment on this ride right here:

The 1978 Mercury Cougar RX-7. Aww, yeah!

Pristine condition and fully restored with a souped up engine. On the stereo? Either PE's "It's Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back" or P-Funk's "Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow"

How's he lock up this sweet ride? 8-balls.

And in the back seat?

You're damn right it's rear facing.

And that's Luke Cage's car. Am I wrong? Dispute it in the comments section.

*2009 Escalade? He's a freakin' super-hero and he's in the Avengers. He could probably get his hands on a 2015 Escalade if he wanted.

**Plus, Luke Cage burned what? Several thousand dollars worth of FF pogo-plane rocket fuel in order to get in Doom's grill over $200? Damn straight he's gonna be particular about his wheels.

Groovy, Man

2007-07-05T20:01:00.000-05:00

How can that not make you feel good? Well, unless you're a Sith Lord and you're lamenting the switch to open recruitment from fielding clones exclusively.

Time to get back to work on "Prof. Simian & the Irregulars" #2. The adventures of the world's smartest monkey aren't gonna write themselves, ya know.

Back From the Dead?

2007-07-05T12:07:00.000-05:00

No, not really. I'm still only partially unpacked from moving into a new place this past weekend. In addition to the move, I also had to scramble to meet the deadline for the Disney/ABC Writer's Fellowship. A deadline that was on THE VERY SAME DAY as the day I had to move.

In between packing all of my stuff (an act in which I finally resolved to divest myself from the closet full of Star Wars toys) and writing a spec script for "How I Met Your Mother", something had to give.

So to all both of you that still check this site, I apologize.

Expect posting to resume a pace more frequent than never with each subsequent box that I unpack.

Classic Cover of The Week

2007-07-05T11:52:00.001-05:00

Perez = Bad Ass. This is pretty much the perfect cover.

I loved this cover as a kid, picking up the last 4 or 5 issues of "Crisis" on the newstand after having missed the start of the series. I stumbled across it again yesterday at a friend's house, while leafing through his copy of the trade after gorging on burgers, dogs and various salads.

It's like someone kicked over my container of DC villain Heroclix and they're pissed.

Classic Cover of the Week

2007-06-14T23:45:00.000-05:00

"He'll Never Make Me Cry"

Chris Claremont has taken a lot of flack in recent years for certain quirks of his writing style but his run on X-men is largely responsible for so many things that I think are awesome. Not to mention responsible for the still growing number of long boxes in my closet. This issue, in particular, is the one that I'll hold up as defense exhibit A when people knock Claremont.

Its a beautifully crafted issue that addresses the fall-out from previous stories, advances sub-plots and tells a done-in-one tale, mixing character bits with a knock down, drag out between Colossus and the Juggernaut. The comics trifecta. Everything in it works. From Kitty's pain, to Kurt and Logan's attitude towards Peter, to the handling of Cain Marko and Selene (1st appearance), this is Claremont in his prime. Uncanny from around 158 through 228 is the high point, for me, of Claremont's X-men. And this issue is just note perfect. Its a level of storytelling I'd love to reach some day.

Oh, and even though it has nothing to do with this issue, in the crazy alternate universe where I get to write a run of X-men comics I'll be dropping a reference to Rogue's poppy allergy. And a shiny Selective Continuity No-Prize to the reader that picks out the reference.

The Phantom Menace

2007-06-10T11:51:00.000-05:00

It's on HBO today, and well... I'm the kind of guy who tends not to do himself many favors. I realize what the real lesson of the movie is though.

Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should.

Gungan speak. The underwater sequence. Poodoo humor. Little orphan Ani. Cartoon aliens. Obi-Wan disappearing for the entire second act. Midi-fucking-clorians. C-3P0's secret origin. Anakin's vigin birth. "Wizard!" Pit droid humor. The Padme/Amimdala dupe that fooled no one. The Sidious/Palpatine dupe that fooled no one. The clumsy way Shmi got left behind on Tatooine. Padmé is the 14-year-old democratically elected Queen of Naboo. Seriously? The senate sent the Jedi to mediate the dispute, but didn't call them to session to report on the situation? Why doesn't Qui-Gonn use the virgin birth as a selling point to the council? Anakin tagging along in a war zone. Every time Jar-Jar opens his mouth. The Gungan cartoon army and it's energy shield technology. A child flying a starfighter. The plot device energy shields that separate Obi-Wan from Qui-Gonn and Maul. The boy is too dangerous, but it's okay for a freshly minted Knight to train him?

There is some awesome though. Cutting through a blast door with a lightsabre. Droidekas. Natalie Portman and her sexy, sexy kabuki make-up. Qui-Gonn's attitude. The honestly touching parting of Shmi and Anakin. Theed. Darth Maul. The music. "Wipe them out. All of them." The N1 Naboo starfighter. Kiera Knightly. Wow? That's it?

You know, I think I just made one of those "should we stay together" lists. And with a final tally of 23-11 it looks like "The Phantom Menace" and I are breaking up. I guess the only appropriate thing to do, since I'm on the rebound, is to get drunk and make out with my "Firefly" DVD boxed set.

If only Anakin was, at the least, 15. If only Amidala was, at the least, 21. If only Jaxxon had the Jar-Jar role. If only Maul didn't go down like a bitch, succumbing to cliched falling bad guy syndrome. If only the movie was't so jarringly different in tone and style (and I'm looking at you here, Preponderance of Special Effects) from the Holy Trilogy.

Sigh. If only.

Classic Cover of the Week

2007-06-07T23:28:00.000-05:00

So, there was this comic book store that opened up in my hometown when I was a freshman in High School. It was a cool little store front that encouraged the local skateboard punks (myself included) to hang out after school. It was sitting in the battered leather chair in that shop where Grant Morrison first blew my mind with this very comic.

Posting will be light while I try to make a script deadline. Yeah, I know, like that's any different from how?

Tom's Still Mad He Got The Shaft

2007-05-30T13:54:00.001-05:00

My brain is too fried from the workload to do anything more than post an outdated joke about Tom Bombadil not being in the "Lord of The Rings".

Go look at Chris' site.

My Brain Hates Me

2007-05-29T13:18:00.000-05:00

So, I was looking at the slate of projects I have in mind and what I want to finish writing by the end of summer. It's looking pretty daunting at this point. I'm going to have to sit down and prioritize some things.

Here's a quick rundown of what I'm working on at the moment:

An hour-long drama set in the Marvel universe. I don't want to say the title for fear of jinxing it, but it features some fairly popular 2nd and 3rd tier street level characters. I'm writing all the scripts for a 13-episode first season, the series bible and pitch treatment. I've been working on this for a while and the project is shaping up to be around 750 pages, all on spec. Yeah, I know.

"Prof. Simian and the Irregulars". Issue one is finished and just looking for a penciler. Issues #2-12 are plotted and outlined. Scripting on Issue #2 begins tonight.

A rewrite on "The New Americans", least the first 6 issues. This is a comic book from a couple years ago that never got past the script stage. Thanks to "The Irregulars" I'm dusting off this project and giving it new life.

"Get Away Clean", Slushpile Challenge pitch number 14. I'm adapting this as a crime-noir screenplay instead of a comic book.

"Whiskey: A Romantic Comedy". Just like the title says. The plan is to tackle the 90 page romantic comedy.

Also on the slate:

"The Secret Adventures of Clint Barton", Slushpile Challenge pitch number 12. It just won't leave me alone. I'm going to have to develop at least the first four issues.

"The Ghastly Folios of James K. Polk". Currently, it's just a title and some random, crazy ideas. But then again, that's how everything starts.

And finally, there's the pilot script for a detective show featuring a pair of retired Sam Spade types adjusting to their new circumstances in a retirement home.

I'm looking at around 10-14 pages per day If I want to finish all of these by Labor Day. When I'm really kicking ass I can crank out about 5 pages a day. The math it does not add up.

Why am I doing this to myself?

Happy Birthday, Bully

2007-05-25T18:08:00.000-05:00

2 years young.

Oh yeah, I have a blog!

2007-05-17T10:53:00.000-05:00

Playoff hockey is exhausting. Believe it. And I'm only watching the games. Holy crap they're some exciting games. It doesn't help at all that I've hitched my wagon to the myocardial infarction that is the Buffalo Sabres.

Between the Sabres quest to win the big shiny thing and writing the first arc of "Prof. Simian and the Irregulars" the web log posting has kind of ended up on the back burner.

In leiu of actual content, how about a sneak preview random panel from issue one?

PANEL FOUR

Angle on Prof. Saimiri, sideways in mid-air and firing both revolvers at one of the troglodyte monsters. His suit jacket's come undone and his tie is flying loose.

SFX: BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

PROF. SAIMIRI: BECKY! SET THE TIMER ON THE PHOSPHOROUS BOMB! NOW!

Slushpile Runoff

2007-05-03T10:46:00.000-05:00

All the pitches are in. Which ones will get the full script treatment? Only you can decide!

Update: I've taken down the poll.

Slushpile Challenge Day 20: Villainy is Cool.

2007-05-01T17:14:00.000-05:00

Topic: Books centered around villains don't do well, historically. Editorial wants you to give it another kick at the can. Pitch a super-villain book.

"Hellfire: Do What Thou Will"

Since 1746, the Hellfire Club has catered to society's elite. For some though, status and wealth is not enough. The lust for power drives the Hellfire Club's Inner Circle. From politics, organized crime and weapons trafficking to murder, vice and black magic, there's nothing the Hellfire Club is not involved in.

The series follows the Machiavellian dealings of the Inner Circle. Its wheels-within-wheels intrigue and scheming, equal parts Godfather and Sopranos.

Sebastian Shaw, mutant with the power to redirect external force into internal strength. Shaw is the will of the Inner Circle. He sets the agenda, ensures that business gets done and metes out punishment when it's not. He's DeNiro from the Godfather Part II reimagined as a super-villain.

Selene, mutant sorceress and temptress. Purported to be millennia old, Selene is the most powerful and dangerous member of the inner circle. She maintains her unearthly beauty by draining the life force from others. She can also use this energy to animate inorganic matter, manipulate flame and influence the minds of others. Selene's lust for power is only distracted by her bacchanal desires. The other members of the Inner Circle may be evil, but she is Evil.

Daimon Hellstrom is the Inner Circle's voice of temperance. Hellstrom's seen true evil and knows what comes of it. He's maneuvered himself into a position of power within the Circle in order to steer it in a new direction or, failing that, bring it down. If the others knew his true intentions he'd be lucky to survive the hour. The character's presence gives someone for the reader to root for, if not identify with.

Regan Wyngarde, also known as Lady Mastermind. She has a talent for projecting hypnotic illusions. Ms. Wyngarde is rapidly ascending through the ranks of the Hellfire Club and is a more recent addition to the Inner Circle. She's driven to succeed within the Hellfire Club where her father failed. What she lacks in experience she makes up for with a callous distain for others.

Cole, Reese and Macon are three of the Hellfire Club's most competent veteran agents. Acting alternately as private bodyguards, enforcers or assassins, they've seen it all and aren't afraid to get their hands dirty. The three bear numerous scars and cyborg replacements, indicative of their long and dangerous careers.

Other characters will come and go as needed. Life in the Hellfire Club offers many rewards but the risks can be high and life, short.

Opening arc, "The Dilettanti". Introduction to the new status quo of the Hellfire Club. In the first issue, Cole, Reese and Macon assassinate a US Senator who's membership with the Hellfire Club was "revoked". The arc unfolds with the fall-out from the assassination and the Inner Circle's machinations to fill the vacuum with their own man.

Second arc, "The George and Vulture". Flashbacks show the origins of the Hellfire Club and it's earliest incarnations. Meanwhile, Hellstrom is backed into a corner and must endorse a plot of Selene's that, furthering her ends, would murder an entire family tree but (unbeknownst to her) ultimately save hundreds from certain death.

Sample:

ISSUE 1, PAGE 1. SPLASH. THE SUN IS SHINING DOWN, BRIGHT AND CHEERFUL, ON THE STONE MANSION THAT'S THE HEADQUARTERS OF THE NEW YORK BRANCH OF THE HELLFIRE CLUB. BEHIND THE WROUGHT IRON GATE, IS AN IMMACULATE FRONT LAWN DOTTED WITH SONG BIRDS AND A CUTE LITTLE BUNNY, NIBBLING ON SOME GRASS. THE FRONT GATE BEARS THE CLUB'S COAT OF ARMS AND, BELOW IT, THE LEGEND "FAY CE QUE VOULDRAS". THE CAPTION BOX SHOULD BE CENTERED AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE.

CAPTION: EVIL.

PAGE 2, PANEL 1. SELENE LIES SPRAWLED ACROSS AN ENORMOUS BED. SHE'S DRESSED IN LITTLE MORE THAN LEATHER STRAPS AND RED SCRATCH MARKS. THE HEADBOARD IS A MASSIVE THING OF EBONY, ALL GIANT WINGS AND CARVEN TEETH. THE REST OF THE ROOM IS RED DRAPERY. THE FLOOR IS STREWN WITH NAKED BODIES, UNCONSCIOUS OR CORPSES SHOULD BE UP TO THE READER TO DECIDE. A SIDE TABLE NEAR THE BED HAS A SPEAKER PHONE ON IT.

SPEAKER PHONE: MADAME SELENE?

SPEAKER PHONE: REESE REPORTS THAT HE AND AGENTS COLE AND MACON ARE IN POSITION. THEY'RE READY TO PROCEED WITH YOUR GO AHEAD.

I wanted to pitch a team of Black Adam, Zoom, Grodd, Black Manta, Deadshot, Cat-man, Mr. Mind and Sinestro but realized that the only place it works is on a Heroclix table. I still like the idea of a new Legion of Doom, put together by Black Adam after the WWIII event.

Oh, and I know what Teth-Adam's new magic word is, since Batson changed it.

What else would be both creepy and in keeping with a classic DC feel than Teth-Adam having to whisper "Mazahs" in order to call down the lightning?

Postscript: This is my final entry in this edition of the Slushpile Challenge. I know I promised it to you faithful readers yesterday but, in my defense, I drink. And let me tell you, twenty different pitch ideas in a month is an exhausting brain-marathon.

We're now moving on to the judging round. Friend of the site Jere Dolan is the unoffical arbiter of the challenge but I'll be opening up a poll for readers of the site to select their favorite (or least hated) pitch in a day or so.

As always, thanks for reading and go Sabres!

Slushpile Challenge 19: "What if... DC?"

2007-04-30T15:17:00.000-05:00

Penultimate challenge topic: DC has decided to do it's own spin on the "What if..." comic. Pitch one.

"What if... Barry Allen had survived the Crisis?"

Synopsis:

Barry Allen outraces the Anti-Monitor's anti-matter cannon and dismantles it, ensuring the heroes that confront him in the anti-matter universe can acheive victory. Unlike established history, Barry Allen survives the encounter.

The issue spotlights Barry Allen's effect on the Post-Crisis DCU.

Barry answers Dr. Fate's call for heroes to oppose the forces of Darkseid's henchman, Glorious Godfrey, and thus is part of the new Justice League. Barry is a veteran role model for the more inexperienced members of the new League. He acts as an intermediary between Guy Gardner and Batman and helps hold the League's initial line-up together longer.

The Flash's experience is key also, as he uses his super speed to distract the monster Doomsday. As the last possible instant, Flash pulls the injured Superman away from the killing blow. He hides the Man of Steel away in the Fortress of Solitude, where can convalesce. This doesn't avert the "Reign of the Supermen" from happening, but Kal-El does recover from his injuries in time to prevent the destruction of Coast City at the hands of Mongul and Hank Henshaw, the Cyborg Superman.

Barry and Hal Jordan were friends going back to the inception of the League. It's this closeness that clues Barry in to the fact that all might not be right with Hal. When Hal Jordan goes berserk, seeking revenge against Mongul and the Cyborg Superman for their attempted destruction of his home, it's Barry that organizes a response. He's not the fastest man alive for nothing. Barry, Wally and the heroes of Earth track down Jordan and drive the yellow-impurity Parallax entity from his body.

After the events of Infinite Crisis, the Flash is separated from the Speed Force and spends a year as one of the "space-lost" heroes with Adam Strange, Animal Man and Starfire.

But Barry Allen is not the only Flash.

Out of the shadow of the Flash legacy, Wally West is able to come into his own. An adult, he is no longer a "kid" Flash. Wally now calls himself the Streak and, in a nod to his mentor, wears an updated version of his old Kid Flash costume. He remains with the Titans and his presence helps avert the terrible mid-nineties incarnations of the team. Under Wally's leadership the Titans take their place as equals alongside the JLA.

Wally's Titans roster: Streak, Red Arrow, Starfire, Cyborg, Changeling, Raven, Hawk and Dove (Hank Hall and Dawn Grainger-Hall were married not long after the Titans defeated Monarch, but that's another story).

Wally also is there to catch the warning signs of Frances Kane's emerging multiple personality disorder and gets her the help she needs. Frances' Magenta persona never emerges and, while she doesn't use her powers as a super-hero, Wally and Frances remain a devoted couple to the present day.

Also operating out of Titans Tower is a second team, The New Teen Titans, under the tutelage of Wally and the senior group. Currently, this roster is lead in the field by Robin (Tim Drake) and consists of Wonder Girl, Superboy (Connor Kent survived the Infinite Crisis, but that's another story), Captain Marvel Jr., Joker's Daughter, Kid Devil and the alluring Miss Martian.

Sample:

PAGE 1, SINGLE PANEL SPLASH. THE INSANITY OF THE COSMOS. SWIRLING GALAXIES AND ALIEN WORLDS, SURROUNDED BY A MAELSTROM OF KIRBY DOTS. IN THE FOREGROUND, EXPLODING OUT OF A BOOM TUBE, SITS METRON ASTRIDE HIS MOBIUS CHAIR. HE'S ADDRESSING THE READER AS HE SPEAKS.

CAPTION: NOTHING'S EVER CERTAIN ANYMORE. NOTHING'S EVER PREDICTABLE LIKE IT USED TO BE. THESE DAYS YOU NEVER KNOW WHO'S GOING TO DIE...

CAPTION: AND WHO'S GOING TO LIVE.

METRON: FROM THE SOURCE WALL, TO THE ANTI-MATTER REALM OF QWARD, TO THE THIRD PLANET OF SOL...

METRON: I, METRON, HAVE TRAVELED THE UNIVERSE IN MY MOBIUS CHAIR IN AN ENDLESS SEARCH FOR KNOWLEDGE.

METRON: BIRTHS. DEATHS. THE END OF TIMES AND NEW BEGINNINGS. I HAVE WITNESSED IT ALL IN MY LONGING FOR THE TRUTHS ON THE UNIVERSE, INCLUDING A REALM WHERE THE HERO YOU CALLED BARRY ALLEN...

METRON: LIVED!

The Streak? Yeah, I don't know either. I needed another name for Wally to use. Zoom was taken and Impulse is dumb. I was gonna go with Crackerjack but then I realized that it's not 1942.

Like it says up top, this is the penultimate topic in the sometimes thrilling Slushpile Challenge. The goal was twenty pitches for the month of April. Well, stay tuned, True Believers! April isn't over until midnight.

Check this very space later tonight for Selective Continuity's final entry in the race to twenty crappy ideas.

Slushpile 18: "Prof. Simian and the Irregulars"

2007-04-27T18:15:00.000-05:00

Challenge topic 18: talking monkeys and robots. You have 24 pages to remind the reader why they used to love comics. And... go.

"Prof. Simian and the Irregulars"

Professor Gordon Saimiri was the first monkey shot into space. Before the fateful morning of December 13th, 1958, the professor was an ordinary squirrel monkey named Gordo. Something out there (cosmic rays, curious aliens, the Kree, whatever) picked up the Jupiter AM-13 rocket. When the capsule returned to Earth, Gordo had been changed. No longer an ordinary monkey, Gordon Saimiri is four feet tall and possesses an IQ over 200. Now, armed with his multiple doctorate degrees and a flamethrower, Prof. Saimiri travels wherever adventure takes him.

S.T.E.A.M. E.N.G.I.N.E. Built by Prof. Saimiri using parts of the Jupiter AM-13 capsule and powered by an atomic Muller device, S.T.E.A.M. E.N.G.I.N.E. is an eight foot tall sentient robot. Steam's hulking robotic frame has the power to tear a car in half like a phone book and impenetrable alloy skin. The robot's piercing red eyes are equipped with an array of high-tech sensors. Steam's a gregarious sort though. He loves sports betting, being around people and sobs like a baby at the movies.

Becky Goodnight is a blonde bombshell in the 1940's Veronica Lake mold and Prof Saimiri's assistant. She has degrees in journalism, abstract paleontology and conjectural engineering to compliment her keen eye and deductive mind. Becky answered the professor's campus ad for a teaching assistant and has been with him ever since. An amateur boxer and the daughter of an Air Force pilot, Becky's convinced she's got the best job in the world.

The world's smartest monkey, his robot and his girl travel the world seeking adventure in the unexplainable corners of the globe. Along the way they'll fight alien invaders, monsters, demons and the internet.

Sample:

PAGE 1, PANEL 1. WIDE ON A DARKENED BEDROOM. FAINT MOONLIGHT BARELY OUTLINES THE OBJECTS IN THE ROOM. NIGHTSTAND. DRESSER. CLOTHES ON THE FLOOR. AND A BED INHABITED BY A LARGE, SHEET COVERED MOUND. ON THE NIGHTSTAND IS A TELEPHONE. A SLIM FEMALE HAND IS REACHING TOWARDS THE PHONE FROM UNDER THE COVERS.

SFX: RING! RING!

PANEL 2. MATCHING. THE PHONE CORD IS PULLED TAUT, DISAPPEARING UNDER THE COVERS.

BECKY: MMM... HELLO?

BECKY: WHAT IS...? WHAT?

BECKY: NO.

BECKY: SURE. THE PROFESSOR'S... OH. MY. GOD.

PANEL 3. BECKY GOODNIGHT IS THROWING BACK THE COVERS, REVEALING THE OTHER OCCUPANTS OF THE BED: PROFESSOR GORDON SAIMIRI, A FOUR FOOT TALL SQUIRREL MONKEY, AND S.T.E.A.M. E.N.G.I.N.E., AN EIGHT FOOT TALL STEEL PLATED ROBOT. THE GIRL, THE MONKEY AND THE ROBOT HAVE A POST-COITAL LOOK ABOUT THEM. THEY'RE NAKED BUT SHADOWS COVER THE TRIO IN JUST THE RIGHT SPOTS. BECKY'S HOLDING THE PHONE OUT TOWARDS PROF SAIMIRI.

BECKY: GORDON, WAKE UP! I

BECKY: IT'S PROF. KEANE AND I THINK YOU BETTER TAKE THIS.

PANEL 4. GORDON'S SITTING UP IN BED HOLDING THE PHONE AND RUBBING THE SLEEP OUT OF HIS EYES. THE ROBOT'S REACHED OVER AND IS TURNING ON THE LAMP. YELLOW LIGHT ACCENTS THE ROOM.

PROF SAIMIRI: HMM-- THIS BETTER BE GOOD KEANE. YOU CAN'T IMAGINE THE DREAM I WAS HAVING.

"Challengers of the Unknown" is taken and I can't think around a better title than that. I'll be updating this post when I think up something better than "Prof. Simian and the Futurenauts"

Update: changed title to "Prof. Simian and the Irregulars"

Any suggestions? Leave them in the comments section.

Slushpile Day 17: "Luxembourg, Luxembourg"

2007-04-26T19:37:00.000-05:00

Challenge topic 17: Pitch a Captain America story that features a done-in-one team-up with new European superteam The Concordia. Caveats: must kick ass and must use the "competing" Concordia pitch, not your own.

Plot Synopsis, 24 page single issue fill-in:

Arnim Zola and his All-New All-Different Masters of Evil try to knock over the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg. The new line-up consists of the Wrecking Crew, Hydro-Man, Tiger Shark, Gypsy Moth and the like. The daylight attack on the bank is primarily a distraction. Zola's real target is the bank's computers. No one in the 21st century carries away dollar-signed bags of cash anymore.

Captain America is conveniently nearby in an Avengers Quinjet. He teams up with The Concordia, Europe's premiere superteam. This is the first appearance but will be played as if they've been established in continuity for a couple of years.

The issue will spotlight the members of the Concordia as they interact with Cap, his reactions to their methods and the different members of the team matching up against Zola's Masters of Evil. It's still a Cap story though, so he'll be right in there laying the smack down on Zola's crew. Also, Cap will figure out that the robbery was successful and Zola gets away with millions.

Issue will serve as springboard for a future arc dealing with why Zola needed the money (isn't he beyond the need for cash?) and the evil plan he's using it to finance. Also, the Concordia will now be some new toys in the Marvel sandbox, available for further appearances in "Captain America" or elsewhere.

Sample:

PAGE 1, SPLASH. ANGLE ON A WINDING COBBLESTONE STREET IN A QUAINT MOUNTAIN-TOP EUROPEAN CITY. TWO WOMEN IN CLASSY CIVILIAN CLOTHES ARE SITTING AT A TABLE OUTSIDE OF A CAFE, ENJOYING AFTERNOON COFFEE. ONE OF THEM, CHARMEUR, IS NINE FEET TALL, OBVIOUS EVEN THOUGH SHE'S SITTING. HER COMPANION IS ANPASSUNG. VISIBLE IN THE BACKGROUND SHOULD BE A TOWERING 21ST CENTURY SPIRE.

CAPTION: LUXEMBOURG CITY, LUXEMBOURG. HOME TO EUROPE'S COURT OF JUSTICE, THE EUROPEAN INVESTMENT BANK, AND THE EUROPEAN UNION.

CAPTION: RISING ABOVE THE CITY'S SKYLINE: FLECHE D'CONCORDIA, PUBLIC HEADQUARTERS OF THE CONCORDIA, DEFENDERS OF THE CONTINENT AND SUPER-POWERED AGENTS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION.

CHARMEUR: I DON'T KNOW, ILSA. DANCING AND I, WE DO NOT OFTEN GET ALONG.*

ANPASSUNG: LORAINE, DON'T BE SILLY. I KNOW THIS LITTLE NIGHTCLUB JUST BEYOND THE PASSERELLE--

ANPASSUNG: WHILE WE'RE THERE I WILL TEACH YOU HOW TO DANCE.

CAPTION: *TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH.

PAGE 2, PANEL 1. TWO SHOT ON CHARMEUR AND ANPASSUNG.

CHARMEUR: I FEEL LIKE I'D JUST BE ALL KNEES AND ELBOWS--

PANEL 2. A NEARBY PART OF THE CITY. THE FRONT ENTRANCE OF THE EUROPEAN INVESTMENT BANK EXPLODES.

SFX: KA-BOOM!

PANEL 3. BACK TO CHARMEUR AND ANPASSAUNG STANDING UP, REACTING TO THE SOUND. ANPASSUNG HAS HER CELL PHONE IN HAND ALREADY.

ANPASSUNG: CHARMEUR! DID YOU HEAR?

CHARMEUR: OUI!

ANPASSUNG: I'LL CALL IN THE OTHERS! LET'S GO!

PAGE 3, PANEL 1. CHARMEUR AND ANPASSUNG ARE RUNNING DOWN THE STREET TOWARDS A PLUME OF SMOKE BILLOWING OVER THE ROOFTOPS. CHARMEUR IS PULLING OPEN HER BLOUSE, REVEALING HER UNIFORM UNDERNEATH. ANPASSUNG HAS ONE SHOE OFF AND IS KICKING OFF THE OTHER.

ANPASSUNG: WEARING YOUR COSTUME UNDERNEATH, MY DEAR? HOW AMERICAN OF YOU.

PANEL 2. THE SMOLDERING RUBBLE THAT WAS THE FRONT OF THE BANK BUILDING. ADMIRING THEIR HANDIWORK IS THE WRECKING CREW.

BULLDOZER: HAW! HAW! HAW!

PILEDRIVER: EUROPE'S GREAT!

WRECKER: LET'S GO SEE HOW THE OTHERS ARE MAKING OUT INSIDE, BOYS.

PANEL 3. PULL BACK TO SHOW CHARMEUR AND ANPASSUNG. CHARMEUR IS IN FULL COSTUME NOW.

CHARMEUR: UN MOMENT, YOU AMERICAN CLODS! I BELIEVE ZE AUTHORITIES WOULD LIKE A WORD WITH YOU.

PANEL 4. ANGLE FROM ABOVE. THE WRECKING CREW, CHARMEUR AND ANPASSUNG ARE SQUARED OFF, READY TO FIGHT. VISUAL EFFECT OF ANPASSUNG GROWING IN SIZE TO MATCH THE REST OF THE COMBATANTS.

WRECKER: IF YOU SKIRTS KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR YOU--

PANEL 5. CLOSE ON PILEDRIVER, LOOKING PANIC STRICKEN. HE'S PULLING ON THE WRECKER'S SLEEVE AND POINTING UP AT SOMETHING ACROSS THE STREET.

PILEDRIVER: AH, BOSS... WE GOT TROUBLE!

PAGE 4, PANEL 1. STANDING ON A ROOF TOP, SURVEYING THE SCENE, IS CAPTAIN AMERICA. HE'S ALL BUSINESS.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: LADIES.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: GENTS.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: YOU'D BE SURPRISED BY HOW FAST THE NEW QUINJETS ARE.

There's more. Highlights include:

The Monocle: "Don't let's fight, Captain. I can see that we'll just end up working together to stop Zola's minions anyway."

And The Lictor beating the crap out of Gypsy Moth.

I was going to do a couple panels spotlighting each member, but this is getting pretty long. Besides, it loses something if you haven't read G.Bob's competing pitch. Of course if he ever updated his site...

Spidey says what?

2007-04-26T10:51:00.000-05:00

We're taking a quick intermission from the Slushpile Challenge while I await delivery on today's challenge topic.

In the meantime, enjoy this participatory effort in Chris from the ISB's Spider-Man meme.

Check back later today for pitch number 17 in the sometimes thrilling Slushpile Challenge!

Challenge 16: Demon Dogs! It's Thundarr the Barbarian!

2007-04-25T16:32:00.000-05:00

Topic: GI Joe. Transformers. Revive another 80's cartoon property as a licensed comic book. Extra points for t-shirts sold by Hot Topic after your comic hits the stands.

"Thundarr the Barbarian: Strange New World"

The show was Conan, Chewbacca and hot chick in a bathing suit fighting Kirby monsters and giant robot monkeys atop the ruins of Mount Rushmore. With the minds of Steve Gerber, Alex Toth, Jack Kirby and Roy Thomas involved in the creation and development of the original Saturday morning cartoon, it's presumptuous to assume that I could reimagine it into something better.

"Thundarr" is a property that doesn't need fixing, just exposure. To that end, the "TtB: Strange New World" series will serve to built on what's come before. Characters' personalities and motivations will be explored and given depth that 23 minutes on Saturdays doesn't allow.

The opening arc (6 issues) will provide a definitive origin story for our three heroes and how they got where they are when the show started. Future stoylines will tie together moments and characters from the cartoon, showing the reader the larger world Thundarr and his friends inhabit.

Series Leads:

Thundarr was raised among the plains people of North America where he became an accomplished horseback rider. A confident and capable warrior, Thundarr is a man wihtout a home or a people. The series opens with him, friendless, as a slave and gladiator. Thundarr's boastful and a bit arrogant but has the skill to back it up. Unfortunately, he's also a bit of a knucklehead and is often oblivious to the subtler things. Think equal parts Conan and Jack Burton. His signature weapon is the Sunsword a, well.. it's a lightsabre.

Princess Ariel, magician and walking encyclopedia. The princess grew up in the palace of her stepfather, Sabian, learning the secrets of the ancient pre-cataclysm world and unlocking the mysteries of magic. Ariel hates the brutality she's witnessed. Princess Ariel is, in fact, the real hero of the story. She's on a quest and is committed to making the world a better place. Thundarr and his pal Ookla are just a couple of thrill seekers along for the ride. Ariel's weakness is that she's head over heels for Thundarr, even if he's too thick to see it.

Ookla the Mok. "Argh! Argh, argh!" One of the many new sentient species on Earth to rise from the cataclysm, Moks are lionine bipeds. Tall and strong, Moks are known as loyal and ferocious warriors. An insular people, if kept in captivity too long a Mok will revert to a bestial state, becoming little more than a killing machine. Ookla and Thundarr are inseperable friends, sharing their loves of drink, combat, action and their pasts as captives of Sabian.

Villains:

Sabian, evil wizard and Ariel's stepfather. The antagonist of the first arc, he uses sorcery to hold sway over a realm of monsters and pits slaves against each other in gladiatorial combat.

Gemini, the most powerful wizard on Earth. His domain streches up and down the Atlantic seaboard. There's nothing he hates more than meddlesome troublemakers wandering about and inspiring hope among the people. He'll stop at nothing to destroy Princess Ariel and her knucklehead companions. Gemini's magics has animated the Statue of Liberty and it now patrols Gemini's tower, a symbol of terror on never ending guard duty.

Caroks, a warrior race of crocodile men.

Captain Kordon, Queen of the River Pirates. Because every post-apocolyptic actaion adventure needs crazy pirates.

Simius, ruler of the ape-men of Los Angeles. He has a giant robot monkey he uses to terrorize the local populace.

Sample:

ISSUE 1, PAGE 1. SPLASH. ALONE ON THE DIRT FLOOR OF A COLISEUM STANDS THUNDARR, FACING THE READER IN A FIGHTING STANCE. HE'S HOLDING A CRUDE AXE IN ONE HAND AND A NET IN THE OTHER. THE COLISEUM STANDS ARE PACKED WITH MISSHAPEN FREAKS, MUTANTS AND ALL MANNER OF KIRBY-ESQUE MONSTERS. BEHIND THUNDARR, IN A PRIVATE BOX SURROUNDED BY HANGERS-ON AND VIZIERS, IS THE WIZARD SABIAN. HE'S STANDING AND POINTING DOWN AT THUNDARR.

CAPTION: "THE YEAR: 1994. FROM OUT OF SPACE COMES A RUNAWAY PLANET, HURTLING BETWEEN THE EARTH AND THE MOON, UNLEASHING COSMIC DESTRUCTION! MAN'S CIVILIZATION IS CAST IN RUIN! TWO THOUSAND YEARS LATER, EARTH IS REBORN...

CAPTION: "A STRANGE NEW WORLD RISES FROM THE OLD: A WORLD OF SAVAGERY, SUPER SCIENCE AND SORCERY!"

SABIAN: DESTROY THE HUMAN!

Slushpile 15: The Concordia

2007-04-24T14:35:00.000-05:00

The challenge: Create a foreign team of superheroes who are not terrible stereotypes but still reflect the cultural zeitgeist of the nation they hail from.

The Concordia. Europe's supreme super team, the Concordia are the super human agents of the European Union, tasked with defending the continent from threats both internal and external. Domestic terrorism or alien invaders, the Concordia stands between them and the people of Europe. I'm thinking it's pretty much a classic Avengers-style big action book.

The line-up:

Two siblings represent Germany. They are Frau Trude and Der Froschkonig, the premiere super heroes of Europe. The siblings are typically recognized as the Concordia's leaders and they often take turns as field commander. Frau Trude has the ability to transform anything she touches into wood, hard as ash or soft as balsa. Der Froschkonig's powers are similar. He's a shape changer who can transform himself into any animal native to Germany.

Belgium's most famous super hero is Fleming, who patrols the Flanders region in Northern Belgium. Fleming's powers are directly effected by the population around him. He draws strength from the presence of others; the denser the population around him, the stronger Fleming becomes.

Chevalier is the government appointed champion of France. A member of the Legion d'honneur, he wears the emblem of the Grand Cross in battle. Chevalier is a master combatant, proficient in everything from the rapier to savate. He is a devout French patriot and, unbeknownst to his superiors, a converted Muslim.

Il Driver is the team representative from Italy. He's a replacement for the team's first Italian member, who died on an early mission. Il Driver is able to make any vehicle he operates move at super speed. Unfortunately, his speed powers do not work unless he's in contact with a vehicle of some kind.

Donar, the Stormbringer hails from the Netherlands. He has absolute control over the weather and wears a pair of mystical iron gloves, which grant the wearer great strength.

Doktor Allwiessend is Luxembourg's premiere scientific mind. His fast scientific knowledge is augmented by his precognitive talents. With few combat oriented skills, the good Doktor serves the team in more of a support role.

These are the founding members of the Concordia, admitted based on the founding nations of the European Union. The team's membership has expanded in recent years to include the next round of EU admissions with Demark, Ireland and the UK.

Red Macha, protectress of the Republic of Ireland. She's the reincarnation of the first queen of the Celts, and possesses all of the speed, strength and stamina of the fiercest warrior woman in Irish history. As long as she wears the Emain, the Broach of Macha, no physical weapon can harm her.

The Jutlander is Denmark's entry into the Concordia. Few can resist the Jutlander. Cloaked in black and employing an array of classical Viking weaponry, the Jutlander's greatest weapon is his indomitable will.

The Lion of Britain. Over the years many men have held the mantle of Lion of Britain. When the time comes, the monarchy selects a successor from amongst the most capable subjects of the realm. The current Lion is Henry Thorpe, a highly decorated agent of MI-5. Thorpe wears the red and blue cowl of his predecessors and carries the quartered shield of England's royal coat of arms as defender of the realm. What would the queen mother think of his illicit affair with Red Macha?

Future roster additions would follow the order of admission to the EU until each member nation is represented.

I didn't select today's topic but I think with an afternoon to work with I rose to the occasion.

Slushpile Challenge 14: Sex! Murder! Intrigue!

2007-04-23T16:27:00.000-05:00

The challenge: write a crime comic. B&W or color, it has to have a cast of original characters and be sustainable for at least 66 issues.

"Get Away Clean"

A black and white crime drama, heavy on the blacks and grays. Story arcs will subscribe heavily to the tropes of all great film noir. Harsh lighting. Flash backs. Flash forwards. Unrepentant characters. Femme Fatales. Death. Crime. And moral ambiguity.

John and Marlene Alton, series leads. Happily married, high school sweethearts, con artists and career criminals.

John Alton's been in and out of trouble since junior high, where was regularly kicked out of shop class for smoking. John's actually a smart guy with a real knack for understanding mechanical and electronic devices. In high school John quickly graduated from breaking into students lockers to boosting cars and selling fake IDs. After a summer spent in juvie, John learned his lesson. He hasn't been picked up by the cops since he was fourteen, not even so much as a traffic ticket. John Alton is an accomplished thief, lock pick, gambler and con man who can drive anything with wheels.

Marlene Alton was the rebellious prom queen. Adored by teachers and parents (not just her own), she was notorious amongst her peers. If there was something bad to do, odd are Marlene did it first. Shoplifting by age nine. Booze and pills at twelve. An abortion at thirteen. Homecoming queen at fifteen and Prom queen by sixteen. Marlene's a smitten kitten, with eyes only for John since that first cigarette under the bleachers, and she's perfected the art of the false front. Since high school, only John knows the real Marlene. Best described as an undiagnosed sociopath, she cares not a whit for anyone but herself and John.

The series will follow John and Marlene's criminal careers as their lives, in true crime fiction fashion, completely unravel.

1st Arc, "No Consequences". Introduce the Altons and their world. Through flashbacks we see their lives when they're not "working". John and Marlene put up a front of being "citizens": the house in the burbs, grocery shopping on the weekends, dinner parties, the works. They even pay their taxes. We'll see the Alton's real work though, as they successfully pull of a heist right under the noses of their suburban community.

2nd Arc, "Good Night, Good Morning". John and Marlene spend the night is a strange hotel room, traveling home from an out-of-town job. They wake up to find that the town they've stopped in is a complex place. Getting away will be more complicated that just hopping in the car and aiming for the nearest highway on-ramp. Cast of characters expands to include more of the Alton's friends and adversaries in the criminal community. They're also being pursued by a stranger who could be on either side of the law.

Final Arc, Issues 61-66. The thrilling conclusion. All the different interlocking mysteries of the series have been building to this. People live! People Die! Answers will be revealed!

Sample:

ISSUE 1, PAGE 1, SPLASH. FULL PAGE IMAGE OF JOHN ALTON, A GOOD LOOKING MAN IN HIS EARLY 30'S. HE'S LYING ON THE FLOOR IN A DIRTY MOTEL ROOM, GUT SHOT AND BLEEDING. HE'S MOMENTS FROM DEATH. SUNLIGHT FROM OUTSIDE LEAKS THROUGH THE BLINDS, CASTING SHADOWS LIKE JAIL CELL BARS ACROSS HIS PRONE FORM.

CAPTION: WELL, I CERTAINLY WASN'T EXPECTING THAT.

CAPTION: AND WE WERE OFF TO SUCH A GREAT START TO.

Slushpile Challenge 13: The King of the Sea

2007-04-21T11:10:00.000-05:00

Challenge topic: The good news is that you've been given a comic series. The bad news is that it's Aquaman. You have 4 issues to turn sales around or you're fired. Pitch those 4 issues that will make Aquaman a decent seller.

Post Infinite Crisis, the DCU is a complex and dangerous place. The new status quo has shown that hero and villain alike can and will die violent, brutal deaths. It's a place with no easy answers. It has also seen the return of the storied multiverse.

Arthur Joseph Curry has reluctantly picked up the mantle of Aquaman and found himself quickly mired in both the previous Aquaman's complex history as well as the deepening mysteries surrounding his own life. Nothing has come easy for the young hero, but he's risen to meet every challenge... so far.

King Shark. "You will protect him. You will be my agent in his camp. Close enough to guard against others who seek to control him. And close enough, when I decide the time is ripe... ... to strike, and kill him without warning." The King Shark is a bloodthisty engine of destruction who's been biding his time at the new Aquaman's side. He's Iago with a dozen rows of razor sharp teeth, and the time has come.

"Kings of the Seas"

Issue One: On the heels of Black Manta's first clash with this new Aquaman, he has new reason to hate the interloper who's taken it upon himself to protect Earth's undersea realms. Swearing revenge, Black Manta has gathered together a collection of the greatest of the previous Aquaman's foes. Together they ambush Arthur Joseph Curry, intent on dealing a final blow. King Shark, sees his opening and betrays Arthur, striking him down from behind. Just as the killing stroke is about to be dealt, help arrives from an unexpected corner... Aquaman, clad in his classic Siler Age garb, green gloves and all, and riding Stormy the seahorse with Tusky at his side.

Issue Two: The Aquamen make a narrow escape from Black Manta's trap and regroup in the safety of the JLA's new Hall of Justice. We learn that this new Aquaman is, in fact, the Aquaman of Earth-2. He's an amalgam of all the best aspects of the Silver Age Aquaman, plus the version from the cartoons. It's Aquaman at the height of his powers and with none of the convoluted history.

Issue Three: Arthur and Aquaman gather their forces for the big showdown with Black Manta. Aquaman also presents Arthur with a gift, the blue camouflage suit. "Wear it in the coming battle. It suits you far more than it ever did me."

Issue Four: This is it. The Aquamen of two worlds lay the smack down on everyone who ever crossed them. Oh, and King Shark brutally murders Tusky on panel, with plenty of gore and blood in the water because damn it, he's King Shark and that's how he fucking rolls.

It's Aquaman starring in a giant widescreen action movie and at the end we're left with an Earth-1 Aquaman who's battle tested and sure of himself. He'll also have a new arch-enemy in King Shark.

The door will also be left open for future stories set on Earth-2, where the Aquaman of that world is one of, if not the premiere superhero in all of his seahorse riding, orange shirt glory. Future stories with Earth-2 Aquaman will take place there, giving DC readers a place to go to experience the new Earth-2 first hand.

Slushpile Challenge 12: Star Comics

2007-04-19T13:39:00.000-05:00

Today's challenge topic: Star Comics. Pick a defunct property and revitalize it as a true all-ages property, something kids and adults would want to read. Bonus points for the more goofy or obscure the original. Caveat, "Peter Porker, Spectacular Spider-Ham" is off limits.

"Top Dog is a talking dog who befriends a human child named Joey Jordan. Top Dog goes on to live with Joey, who promises not to expose the fact that Top Dog can speak. The duo go on to have adventures involving spies, criminals and mad scientists."

So it's the story of a talking dog and his boy aimed at kids who still read Richie Rich. Hmm...

Okay, so this is the story of a boy and his dog. In this case, the boy is a young Clint Barton and his dog, who only Clint knows can talk and just might be a space alien pooch.

"The Secret Adventures of Clint Barton"

8 year-old Clint Barton is a precocious kid with a mop of blond hair and knack for getting into trouble, similar to Dennis the Menace and Calvin. He's basically a good kid though. Clint's hardly ever seen without his trusty slingshot sticking out of his back pocket. It's a toy with which he displays almost preternatural accuracy.

Top Dog just happens to be an Inhuman mutated by terrigen mists to look like a dog. Or possibly he's an intelligent canine Skrull. It's not important, but what is important is his friendship with Clint. The two are inseparable, like any good boy-and-his-dog team should be. "Top Dog" is exactly the kind of name a kid would come up with, and it's the one Clint's given him.

Lizzie Barton is Clint's older sister and an almost constant obstacle. They fight more often than not but if Clint were ever in real trouble, Lizzie would be there to defend him.

Clint's Mom and Dad appear in the series irregularly. They're your typical parents, understanding of Clint's wild nature but only willing to let him run amok to a point. Their ultimate fate, and Lizzie's, will not be dealt with. This is a kid's comic after all; not really the place for a family killed by dad's drunk driving. That said, an observant adult reader who knows Clint's back-story might pick up on a clue or two along the way.

Barney, the brother who's already established in continuity, will not appear in the series although he might be mentioned. This will keep the focus on Clint and Lizzie when sibling rivalry is called for.

Waverly, Iowa is a surprisingly interesting place for a town with fewer than 10,000 people. Clint and Top Dog will run into all sorts of nefarious characters, including spies, criminals, space aliens, neighborhood bullies, and mad scientists.

Mervin Megabucks is the richest kid in town. He's pretty much a spoiled brat version of the Richie Rich archetype and a good object lesson for young readers that getting everything you ask for isn't always a good thing. If an 8 year-old could have an evil moustache, this one would. Issue #5 probably involves Mervin stealing Clint's slingshot. Mervin really needs to learn how to share.

Dirty Dog is a mangy mutt who's followed Top Dog to Waverly so he can continue bullying him.

Frank and Stein are a strange couple of kids. They spend most of their time in their tree house laboratory building the crazy contraptions that win them every science fair. When Frank and Stein's homemade robot runs amok in issue #6 it'll be up to Clint and Top Dog to save the neighborhood. Adult readers might see a distinct resemblance between young Stein and a certain Silver-Age arch-enemy of Ant-Man.

Mr. Invisible is young Clint's nemesis. He's as close to Evil as we're going to get. In fact, Mr. Invisible is the bogey man, there to frighten children. Clint's got his slingshot, but you can't shoot what you can't see.

Action in the series will follow the general guidelines of cartoons like Batman: The Animated Series or Teen Titans. Similarly, stories will have enough layers to interest adults and a kid friendly tone and lesson in each done-in-one issue.

Sample:

NEXT PAGE, PANEL 1. WIDE ON A SUNLIT PATH THROUGH THE WOODS. TOP DOG AND MANGY MUTT HAVE SQUARED OFF, FANGS BARED. MANGY MUTT'S FUR IS MATTED AND DIRTY AND HE'S NOT WEARING A COLLAR. HE'S ALSO BIGGER THAN TOP DOG, LIKE MOST BULLIES.

TOP DOG: GRRR!

MANGY MUTT: HEH. HEH. SO, YOU'RE TOUGH NOW-- NOW THAT YOU'VE GOT A NEW HOME?

MANGY MUTT: WE'LL SEE ABOUT THAT.

PANEL 2. EXTREME CLOSE UP OF A SLING SHOT. THE RUBBER BAND IS PULLED BACK AND READY TO FIRE. IT'S LOADED WITH A GREEN PLASTIC ARMY MAN.

PANEL 3. WIDEN OUT TO SEE THAT IT'S CLINT HOLDING THE SLING SHOT AT THE READY. HE'S STANDING UP ON TOP OF A ROCK AND HIS BANGS ARE FALLING IN HIS EYES.

CLINT: HEY! STAY AWAY FROM MY FRIEND!

Yeah, I just pitched Marvel Team-Up starring Hawkeye and Top Dog. What of it?

Slushpile Challenge Day 11: "Graekos"

2007-04-18T16:00:00.000-05:00

Today's challenge topic: Byzantine empire. Super Hero adventure.

Disclaimer: I know nothing of the Byzantine Empire except what I vaguely remember from 10th grade religion class. The guy who picked today's topic, he's a bastard.

"Graekos"

The year is 1304 since the founding of Rome. A new calendar, in place by Imperial decree, tells us it's 550 A.D. The strength of the Roman Empire lies in the capitol of Constantinople. More specifically, in the person of Justinian I, Emperor.

Callinicus Leonides was born the son of a soldier. As he grew into manhood he developed speed, strength and stamina that far outstripped even the most accomplished of Imperial champions. By his eighteenth summer he could pull a weight it took a dozen oxen to move. Blows from a gladius would glance harmlessly off of his skin, and wounds from arrows would heal seemingly overnight. Callinicus could run the distance of the marathon in less than the passing of an hour.

His father Leontius, a proud Graekos, was not enamored of Christianity and it's hold over his lands. He viewed his son's talents as gifts from the Hellenic gods themselves and suspected that the Empire would treat his son with suspicion and fear. It was for this reason that he encouraged Callinicus to hide his gifts and not draw attention to himself.

Recurring Characters:

Justinian I, driven by the singular purpose of restoring the former glory of the Roman Empire. Juntinian is god on earth, the most powerful man alive.

General Flavius Belisarius, tactical genius with a knack for being out manned and under supported yet still being able to seize victory. Perhaps he's got some help?

Nonnus, epic poet and chronicler of the tales of Gods and Heroes. Nonnus will follow Callinicus around and comment on the story.

John Philoponus, philosopher of Alexandria. He's the wise old man, offering council even when it's not asked for.

Eusebia, a Gryphon who takes Callinicus under her wing. She's one of the last of her kind and is more than a little bitter over the fact. Eusebia and John often give Callinicus conflicting advice.

Series Antagonists:

Vandals, a shadow of their former power. However, a broken people can still bite.

Ostrogoths, Germanic conquerors of Italy and their commander Totila. He's Belisarius' greatest adversary.

Sclaveni, Slavic raiders into Imperial lands.

The series follows Callinicus in true Joseph Campbell style from his days as a youth in the streets of Constantinople through his tutelage under first his father and then John Philoponus, until he takes his place as the favored weapon and secret champion of General Belisarius. Along the way he'll run into all sorts of Byzantine Age craziness (precursor of Silver Age craziness) balanced against the battles and intrigue of what will become known as the Byzantine Empire.

Callinicus will not always be a hero, occasionally falling in with pirates, Persians and cutthroats. His story will take him to the edges of the Roman Empire. To some he'll be a demi-god. Others will call him a champion. Even the church will, for a time, consider Callinicus the "Sword from Heaven", sent by God to strike down it's enemies.

Fourteen hundred years before superheroes there was a super hero.

Sample:

PAGE 1, PANEL 1. ANCHORED NOT FAR FROM THE ROCKY SHORES OF THE CASPIAN IS A PERSIAN VESSEL. A ROW BOAT IS UP ON THE ROCKS, WATCHED OVER BY SLAVES AND SOLDIERS. WALKING THE SHORE IS A PERSIAN OFFICER. HE'S HOLDING THE LEASHES OF A PAIR OF LIONS.

PANEL 2. CALLINICUS, IN SANDALS AND A SOLDIER'S TUNIC STANDS BEHIND THEM.

CALLINICUS: LOST ARE WE?

PANEL 3. TWO SHOT ON THE OFFICER, HOLDING THE LIONS BACK, AND CALLINICUS.

OFFICER: PEASANT! STATE YOUR NAME SO I'LL KNOW WHO IT IS MY MEN HAVE KILLED.

PANEL 4. CALLINICUS, THE GRIN FALLEN FROM HIS BEARDED VISAGE.

CALLINICUS: I DON'T THINK SO, HEATHEN.

PAGE 2, PANEL 1. CALLINICUS SURVEYS HIS HANDIWORK, ONE HAND HOLDING THE LIONS' LEASHES. AROUND HIM, THE UNCONSCIOUS BODIES OF THE PERSIANS.

PANEL 2. PERCHED ON SOME ROCKS ABOVE THE SCENE IS A MASSIVE GRYPHON, IDLY CRUNCHING ON SOME BONES.

PANEL 3. CALLINICUS SHIELDING THE SUN FROM HIS EYES WITH HIS FREE HAND, EYES THE SHIP.

VOICE (OFF PANEL): SO WHAT ABOUT THE KITTENS?

CALLINICUS: I HAVE AN IDEA.

PANEL 4. ANGLE ON ONE OF THE LIONS, TERROR STRICKEN AS IT HURTLES THROUGH THE AIR TOWARDS THE SHIP.

PANEL 5. THE DECK OF THE SHIP, LION'S P.O.V FROM ABOVE. SAILORS, UNDER A PAIR OF CAT SHAPED SHADOWS, POINT TO THE SKY IN HORROR.

PANEL 6. ANGLE CALLINICUS ON THE BEACH, PLEASED WITH HIMSELF. BEHIND HIM EUSEBIA THE GRYPHON LAUGHS HYSTERICALLY.

EUSEBIA: BWAH-HA-HA-HA!

CALLINICUS: NOW LET'S GO GET A DRINK.

EUSEBIA: DRINK, NOW THERE'S A GREAT IDEA.

EUSEBIA: LIONS! THAT'S THE BEST THING I'VE SEEN IN YEARS.

I'm not happy with this one. It's got some good stuff but is pretty slapdash on the whole.

Slushpile Challenge Day 10: "Mechanicsburg"

2007-04-17T13:54:00.000-05:00

Today's challenge: Not all comics are capes and tights power fantasies. Pitch a limited series or OGN with original characters that's rooted in a genre other than superheroes. Horror. Crime. Historical. Sci-Fi. Romance. Western.

"Mechanicsburg"

This is a story about growing up in small town America, specifically upstate New York. Mechanicsburg, pop. 21,375.

When you're eleven in the summer time the world consists of bikes and sports. Building forts and swimming down at the old rock quarry. Reading comics. School's the furthest thing from your mind and even girls are still a nebulous thing, outside of your vision for at least another summer or three.

The series follows eleven year old Ted Carter and his pals Jon, Andy, Jeff and the girl, Steph. It's the last summer before junior high in small town America. The year is 1958, but could just as easily be 1985 or 1943 as far as the kids are concerned. The outside world doesn't effect the long summer days of exploring the woods outside of town, dodging bullies, getting into and back out of trouble again and talking comics.

When you're an eleven year old kid with a bike and some comics everything's an adventure.

Interludes from the main story come in the form of pages taken from whatever comics the kids are reading that issue, western, crime, horror, sci-fi adventures. Whatever. Occasionally, the story the kids are reading may even pertain to the story they're in, but it won't always.

Sample:

PAGE 1, SPLASH. LOW ANGLE, MAIN STREET OF A DUSTY OLD WEST TOWN. WOODEN STORE FRONTS HIDE UNDER PEELING PAINT FROM THE DESERT SUN, HUGE AND YELLOW IN THE SKY. IN THE FOREGROUND, HIS BACK TO THE READER, IS SHERIFF DOBBS. OPPOSITE HIM, IN THE DISTANCE, IS BART "CACTUS" MERRILL. IT'S A SHOWDOWN.

PAGE 2, PANEL 1. CLOSE ON SHERIFF DOBBS. HIS WHITE TEN GALLON HAT SHADES HIS EYES FROM THE SUN. HE'S A GRIZZLED, YET HANDSOME VETERAN. THE BADGE ON HIS COAT GLINTS IN THE SUN.

SHERIFF DOBBS: GIVE IT UP, CACTUS. COME QUIETLY AND IT'LL GO EASIER ON YOU.

SHERIFF DOBBS: I CAN'T BE HAVING BANK ROBBIN' AND CATTLE THIEVIN' IN MY TERRITORY.

PANEL 2. ANGLE, CACTUS MERRILL.

CACTUS: "GIVE IT UP" JUST MEANS I'LL HAVE A ROPE AROUND MY NECK BY DAWN, SHERIFF.

PANEL 3. TWO SHOT, THE MEN SQUARING OFF. CACTUS MERRILL'S DRAWING HIS REVOLVER AS HE SPEAKS.

SHERIFF DOBBS: THAT'S TRUE, BUT I'LL MAKE SURE YOU GET A HOT MEAL FIRST.

CACTUS: I'LL DIE 'AFORE I LET THAT HAPPEN!

PANEL 4. CLOSE ON THE BARREL OF DOBBS' COLT .45, FIRING.

SFX: BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

PANEL 5. SHERIFF DOBBS, SPITTING INTO THE DIRT, HOLSTERS HIS WEAPON.

SHERIFF DOBBS: YEP, I RECKON.

PANEL 6. CACTUS MERRILL'S BLACK HAT LANDS IN THE DIRT, FRESHLY VENTILATED WITH SMOKING BULLET HOLES.

PAGE 3, PANEL 1. ELEVEN YEAR-OLD TED CARTER IS SITTING ON THE FRONT STEP OF A SMALL TOWN 5 AND DIME STORE. NEXT TO HIM IS A GLASS COKE BOTTLE WITH A STRAW STICKING OUT OF IT. HE'S DRESSED IN JEANS, T-SHIRT AND CHUCK TAYLORS AND HE'S ENGROSSED IN THE COPY OF "TWO-FISTED WESTERN TALES" HE'S READING.

TEDDY: COOL!

Well, this is a little more open-ended than a limited series but I can see an ongoing that covers the summer of eleven and going until the kids are maybe 15 or 16.

Slushpile Day 9: "Mind If I Show You Around the Solar System?"

2007-04-16T14:50:00.000-05:00

"Something borrowed, something new"

The challenge: take an established character who can't sell a book on his or her own. Create a brand new character to add to the book that will give it new life.

Bonus criteria for judgment: Bonus points for originality of new character, and for hopelessness of the old character being able to carry a book.

943. 1727. 1839. 1895. 1951. 2007

Every fifty-six years the power of the Comet returns to Earth and takes on a different form. In 1951 a man named Adam Blake was imbued with the powers of telepathy and telekinesis and reborn in a super evolved form. In 1895 Archie Sandalford, professor of letters at Cambridge college, was bathed in the comet's light and for the rest of his days saw portents of doom for those around him and would glow with an unearthly light. Throughout the past, other comets have cast their light upon the unsuspecting.

Now the year is 2007. Biela Peshtigo is a 27 year old architect of mixed Aboriginal/European descent living in Tasmania's capitol of Hobart. Coming home after a late night of partying with her friends, Biela was struck by an extraterrestrial light. She awoke the next morning in her own bed with no memory of how she got there. Tattooed on her forearm was the mysterious designation "C/2007 K1 Peshtigo".

Soon afterwards, Biela discovered she'd been granted incredible power, including flight and super speed. As the new Comet, she also has the ability to survive in a vacuum (outer space) for extended periods of time and can exert mental control over rock, dust and ice down to a molecular level.

Fun Facts: The Biela Comet was believed to have caused the Peshtigo Fire the same day as the nearby Great Chicago Fire, one of the largest recorded firestorms.

"Firestorm and The Comet"

Our series leads are the Ronnie Raymond/Prof Stein classic version of Firestorm and new superhero Biela Peshtigo, The Comet.

The series focuses on her adapting to her new powers and the developing romance between Firestorm and a character who's a novice hero although she's an intelligent, capable woman who's every bit as powerful as he is. Along the way the series will revisit classic Firestorm villains (stretching the definition of "classic", I know) through the Comet's eyes, updating them along the way, as well as introducing new threats.

With two powerful characters, stories can be Earth bound or cosmic in scope with equal ease. In fact, a future arc will explore the origins of the comet powers, their cyclical nature and Biela's place in the cosmos.

Firestorm, always viewed as a rookie hero, even twenty years after his first appearance, will now get to mentor and train someone who's very similar to how he was when he started out.

Sample:

NEXT PAGE, PANEL 1. THE COMET AND FIRESTORM ARE FACING EACH OTHER IN LOW EARTH ORBIT. BIELA IS WEARING HER NEW COMET COSTUME: SILVER BOOTS AND GLOVES, WITH A BODY STOCKING THAT'S A BLEND OF SILVER AND SWIRLING, ROCKY PATTERNS. IN THE BACKGROUND IS VISIBLE THE MOON, THE SUN AND BEYOND. THE VASTNESS OF SPACE.

FIRESTORM: HEY THERE. TAKING IN THE VIEW?

PANEL 2. BIELA'S P.O.V. CLOSE ON FIRESTORM'S TORSO AND ER... MAN AREA.

PANEL 3. SHE'S BLUSHING.

THE COMET: YEAH. IT'S PRETTY UM...

THE COMET: SPECTACULAR OUT HERE.

PANEL 4. TWO SHOT OF BIELA AND RONNIE LOOKING AT EACH OTHER. IS THERE A SPARK?

PANEL 5. CLOSE ON FIRESTORM. BEHIND HIM, PROFESSOR STEIN'S FLOATING HEAD.

STEIN: CLEAN THOUGHTS, RONALD.

FIRESTORM: QUIET, YOU.

PANEL 6. TWO SHOT AGAIN.

BIELA: WHAT?

FIRESTORM: TALKING TO MYSELF.

PANEL 7. FIRESTORM'S FLASHING HER HIS BEST WINNING SMILE AND OFFERING HER HIS HAND.

FIRESTORM: SO, MIND IF I SHOW YOU AROUND THE SOLAR SYSTEM?

Slushpile Day 8: Uncanny Fun Comics

2007-04-13T22:20:00.000-05:00

Challenge #8 was to do a Golden Age riff on the X-men.

"Uncanny Fun Comics #7, April 1942"

Published by Timely from May 1941 to Sept 1947, each issue of Uncanny Fun Comics contained a 8 page main story followed by 3 backup features that ranged from 2 to 4 pages each. After the end of WWII, sales steadily declined as the focus shifted from Nazi bashing to stories featuring more and more space alien antagonists. Eventually, the series was cancelled but not before the most memorable post-war story, "The Magnetic Menace from Mars!" was published.

Private Summers, U.S. Army. All-American quarterback Scott Summers wanted to do his part for victory in Europe. The army made him a motorcycle bike-messenger. One night, while carrying orders to the front, a rocket shell exploded in the road and knocked him from his motorcycle. Pvt. Summers was knocked unconscious into a trench that was full of a mysterious red mist. When he awoke in the morning, the mist was gone and Pvt. Summers' eyes now emitted a strange red light. Anyone that the light touched would become instantly paralyzed. Now, Pvt. Summers uses his motorcycle and his mysterious light to sneak behind enemy lines, taking the fight to the very heart of Berlin itself!

The Avenging Angel. Society fop Warren Worthington III spends his days enjoying London's high society. At night he climbs into his private plane, a custom black and yellow P-51 Mustang he calls "The Angel", and patrols England's skies. The Avenging Angel backup stories were usually 2 pagers, lacking the space to explain thing like where Worthington got his money from, as the character was clearly very wealthy, or why he wasn't in the army. The only other character to appear more than once was the German ace Red Raven. Worthington and the Red Raven engaged in several dogfights over the years, with neither gaining the upper hand.

Hank McCoy: The Boxing Beast. Aboard an aircraft carrier in the South Pacific is Navy Chief Hank McCoy, college boxing champ. Anywhere else on earth and Hank McCoy would be feared and shunned by society due to his simian visage and squat tank-like body. Aboard ship though, with his fellow sailors he's known as The Boxing Beast and is respected for his fighting prowess and knack for rescuing his fellow sailors. The Mystic Mind of Xavier, a voice only he could hear, sent messages to Hank McCoy, alerting him of danger or telling him where his services would best be needed.

Ice-Man. Ice water runs in his veins. For Don Drake, U.S. Army sniper this saying is true. He literally has ice water in his veins thanks to a freak accident while on a mission in the Great White North. Don Drake is a crack shot with an icy demeanor and when the military needs a special target taken out they send in the ice man. Many of Don Drake's backup tales involved him being assigned an impossible target, often taking on Nazi soliders 20 to 1.

This is the weakest of the lot so far. In my defence, I woke up this morning with a 103 degree fever and spent most of the day in bed. I needed two shots of a day time medicine whose night time version is the green elixir you take when you want to knock yourself unconscious without the messy head trauma.

Depending on how delirious I am tomorrow I'll polish it and include a couple sample pages.

Slushpile Day 7: Yo, What Time Is It? You Down With The 711?

2007-04-12T13:03:00.000-05:00

Today's Challenge: Revive an obscure Golden Age character that has never had a chance in the modern age. Extra points awarded for obscurity of character, and how out of place he seems in comics today.

The Clock

"The Clock fought crime, wearing a business suit and a full-face mask, and that was it. He usually left a calling card, which depicted a clock accompanied by the words "The Clock Has Struck". Later, when he was appearing in larger chunks, there was space to show he was former district attorney (and current society fop) Brian O'Brien, whose qualifications as an action hero included a background in college football and polo. There was even room for an occasional supporting character, such as Pug Brady, Brian's exact double, who served as his sidekick for the first couple of years. Toward the end, he took on a teenage girl named Butch in that role."

711

"But in the daytime, he hung around the jail where he was a convicted inmate.

Of course, the fact that he was a resident of a jail cell with the lucky number 711 at Westmoor Prison, from which he obviously derived his superhero name, was just a ghastly mistake. In fact, when he was known as Daniel Dyce, he was a district attorney. But he had a pal named Jacob Horn, who looked exactly like him, and Jacob was in the process of going down for a crime he actually did commit. Just before he went to trial, Jacob begged Daniel to let him out for just a little while, so he could be at the hospital when his son was born; and what the heck, Daniel was a big enough idiot to let him do it. Since they could pass for each other, and since Daniel had an "in" with the system, they simply traded places for the evening.

But Jacob never made it to the hospital. He got hit by a car on the way, so nobody came to relieve Daniel. The dead guy was identified as the D.A., and the one that was left wound up in the slammer. Fortunately, the prisoner was able to dig a tunnel from his cell, through which he could come and go at will. He had a fine time all night as the scourge of the criminal class, but was always back in time for morning roll call. He even handed out fancy cards, supposedly showing the crooks what fate awaited them, but in reality, they represented the fate that had already befallen the masked hero."

"Number 711 and The Avenging Clock"

Brian "BB" Williams grew up in Marvel's Los Angeles a high school football star and self proclaimed "gangsta". In and out of juvenile detention halls, he met assistant D.A. Daniel Dyce who saw promise in the kid and kept him out jail. While BB was starring at tailback for ESU, his little brother and sister were gunned down in a drive by shooting.

The deaths of his siblings changed BB Williams. Gone were the hip hop records and gangsta attitude. In it's place, the conservative suits, horn rims and bow tie typical of Muslims in America.

Brian Williams new persona is a cover though, meant to distract attention. At night he dresses in the gangsta gear, complete with Flava Flav-style oversized clock, and hits the streets to fight crime, avenging his siblings' deaths. He conceals his face with a black mask and wields twin pistols of the make and model that slew his siblings.

"The clock has struck, sucka! And your time is up!"

Meanwhile, assistant D.A. Daniel Dyce has fought crime his entire life from within the system as one of Los Angeles most determined prosecutors. Dyce had a secret though. His desire for justice was fueled by the fact that his own people, mutants, rarely got any of their own.

Daniel Dyce is an omega-level teleporter, able to transport himself or any object he touches across vast distances, even across dimensions.

In the fall out from Marvel's Civil War, D.A. Dyce protested what he saw as an unfair law and found himself locked away in the Negative Zone's Facility 42. Now Daniel Dyce spends his days languishing away in cell #711, bound to abide by a law he doesn't believe in. But at night he teleports to The Avenging Clock's side and continues his fight for justice as Number 711!

Sample scene:

NEXT PAGE, PANEL 1. A DARK ALLEY AT NIGHT. ANGLE LOOKING UP AT THE CLOCK, WHO'S STANDING AT THE EDGE OF THE ROOFTOP, AIMING HIS PISTOLS INTO THE ALLEY BELOW, ALMOST AT THE READER.

THE CLOCK: YO, BITCHES! GUESS WHAT TIME IT IS?

PANEL 2. A GANG OF GANGSTA THUGS IN THE ALLEY REACT TO THE CLOCK'S SUDDEN APPEARANCE. THEY'VE BEEN CAUGHT IN THE ACT, MUGGING AN OLD MAN. THE LEADER IS POINTING UP AT THE CLOCK.

THUG LEADER: THA-- THE CLOCK!

THUG LEADER: CAP HIM!

PANEL 3. THUG#2 IS RUNNING AWAY.

THUG #2: SCREW THAT NOISE! THE CLOCK PLAYS FOR KEEPS.

PANEL 4. REVERSE ANGLE. THUG #2 IS RUNNING RIGHT INTO THE CRIMSON CLOAKED ARMS OF NUMBER 711.

PANEL 5. A CLOUD OF RED SMOKE IS ALL THAT REMAINS OF THUG #2.

NUMBER 711: ENJOY RYKER'S, SCUMBAG.

So, the challenge was to revamp one GA character but I combined the two as a "hip-hop plus a white guy" riff on Cloak and Dagger because well...

When Tha Clock speaks I know what time it is.

Kurt Vonnegut

2007-04-12T12:02:00.000-05:00

The man was a genius and he'll be sorely missed.

I hate it when my world gets smaller. This is the same feeling I had when I heard about Jim Henson.

My excitement over today's pending entry in the Slushpile Challenge and Game One of the Sabres playoffs tonight has definitely had a damper put on it.

Slushpile 6: "Wonder Woman: Deeds, and Words"

2007-04-11T11:11:00.000-05:00

Year One. Dark Knight Returns. Killing Joke. The Long Halloween. Man of Steel. Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? Superman for All Seasons.

Batman and Superman have gotten the star treatment for years. DC says that Wonder Woman is an icon on equal footing with the rest of their "Trinity" yet every high profile Wonder Woman story is a team-up, a crossover or guest stars Bruce and/or Clark.

Shine the spotlight on Princess Diana. Pitch an OGN that can stand alongside the "classic" Batman and Superman tales. This should be the story people refer to when they explain why they're a fan of WW.

Caveats: no Batman, Superman or JLA guest stars. The villain or villains must be from her Rogues Gallery.

What’s the simplest explanation of the character? How do you describe her to someone who’s not familiar with the character?

Superman is the last son of Krypton. Faster than a speeding bullet, he leaps tall building in a single bound.

Batman, the dark knight detective. Young Bruce Wayne witnesses his parents murder and now uses his vast fortune and indomitable will to fight crime.

Wonder Woman shows us there’s strength in compassion. Princess Diana is a champion for those without might, an example that there’s a better way.

wonder, n. One that arouses awe, astonishment, surprise or admiration; a marvel.

My Wonder Woman doesn’t carry a sword or snap necks. Her weapons are defensive. Like Captain America with his shield, Princess Diana wields the Lasso of Truth and Gauntlets of Victory in battle. She’s super strong and incredibly fast. Why does she need a sword? You don’t have to put a sword in her hand to make her strong.

She’s beautiful because she’s confidant, strong, intelligent and compassionate. The art in this project should reflect this. Diana’s bearing and posture, her attitude on the page, should convey intelligence and a dry wit. These are the things that make her beautiful and sexy. No cheesecake. She’s above the cheesecake and sexier for it. I don't have a specific name in mind but I'd opt for a painted art style, instead of the normal inked lines. It'd have a more timeless feel, and if there was was a woman willing to paint my Wonder Woman story, all the better.

The costume is iconic and should remain so. Play up the red and gold, regal aspect of the costume. The double W logo. The boots and the tiara. Give her a tunic that partially covers her. Visually the tunic will draw the reader’s attention away from the tits and panties and towards the things that matter; the bracelets, the lasso, and her face, framed by the hair and tiara.

Bondage and the Invisible Jet. Accept everything that’s come before and acknowledge it. But do it without snickering. Like Diana the jet can be a force of nature, represented by sound and wind and light. Diana uses her power, and the lasso, to get villains to submit because there’s a better way than Batman inflicting excess pain or Superman’s ridiculous strength that never hurts anyone. Cops use handcuffs. The lasso is faster and a better visual.

Paradise Island. Wonder Woman sacrifices a life in paradise because she sees tragedy in the real world and cannot abide it. She is a Champion and the price she pays is that she cannot go home until the job is done. Clear cut motivation. Done.

I'd also downplay the focus on the Greek Gods. They're there and we know they're there, but the story's not about them. I think she appeals to a wider audience if they don't have to spend too much time thinking about Greek mythology.

"Wonder Woman: Deeds, and Words"

Wonder Woman faces a series of challenges (parallel Heracles 12 tests); ramping up the threat level each time. As the action unfolds she faces down Doctor Psycho, The Cheetah and Felix Faust, among others. It's not until after she bests the first couple of challenges that the reader, with Diana, finds out that they're interconnected.

Diana's Rogues Gallery has learned that another female champion is due to rise up to fight alongside Wonder Woman. Fed up with the years of losing to her already, they're working together to make sure this new champion doesn't survive long enough to take her place in the pantheon of heroes. Even if it means killing all the first born girls in Greece.

Hell yeah moments, and a couple sentimental moments. Iconic moments: Mother, Protector, Champion.

Sample:

PAGE 1, SPLASH. WE'RE IN AN OFFICE BUILDING, A SKYSCRAPER AT NIGHT. THE LARGE OPEN ROOM IS OCCUPIED BY ROWS AND ROWS OF DESKS. FLOOR TO CEILING WINDOWS ARE COVERED WITH HORIZONTAL BLINDS. FAINT MOONLIGHT SEEPS BETWEEN THE BLINDS. A DOZEN GUNMEN, ARMED WITH AUTOMATIC WEAPONS, ARE IN THE ROOM ALONG WITH A YOUNG GIRL, WHO'S TIED UP ON THE FLOOR.

CAPTION: BEAUTIFUL AS APHRODITE, WISE AS ATHENA, STRONG AS HERCULES AND SWIFTER THAN MERCURY. SHE IS WONDER WOMAN.

PAGE 2, PANEL 1. ANGLE ON GUNMAN #1, LOOKING AT HIS WATCH.

GUNMAN #1: DOC PSYCHO SAID HE'D BEEN HERE TO MEET US.

GUNMAN #2: IF WE GOTTA WAIT AROUND ANY LONGER I SAY WE JUST ICE THE KID AND COLLECT HALF THE FEE. THIS IS TOO HIGH PROFILE AS IT IS.

PANEL 2. THE OFFICE IS SHAKING. WINDOWS. DESKS. EVERYTHING IS SHAKING LIKE THE BUILDING IS BEING UPROOTED. THE GUNMEN REACT, GRABBING ON TO DESKS. ONE FALLS TO HIS KNEES.

SFX: ROAR.

PANEL 3. MATCHING. BLINDING WHITE LIGHT FLOODS THE ROOM, COMING THROUGH THE BLIND COVERED WINDOWS.

GUNMAN #1: WHAT THA--?

PANEL 4. ANGLE BEHIND THE GUNMEN, THEIR ATTENTION DRAWN TO THE WINDOW. STANDING THERE IS WONDER WOMAN IN HER CLASSIC COSTUME. SHE'S TALL, REGAL AND DETERMINED.

CAPTION: MEN, THEY'RE SO EASILY DISTRACTED. THAT'S ONE REASON I KEEP THE JET AROUND.

PAGE 3, PANEL 1. ONE OF THE GUNMEN HAS SPOTTED HER, IS POINTING.

GUNMAN #3: LOOK OUT!

PANEL 2. THE GUNMEN BRING THEIR WEAPONS TO BEAR, FIRING WILDLY.

PANEL 3. WONDER WOMAN CHARGING ACROSS THE FLOOR. NONE OF THE BULLETS COME NEAR HER.

PANEL 4. PRINCESS DIANA, LAYING THE SMACK DOWN. SHE'S A FORCE OF NATURE. WIDE ANGLE, SO THE READER CAN SEE SHE'S TAKING THEM DOWN TWO AND THREE AT A TIME.

PAGE 4, PANEL 1. ONLY TWO ARE LEFT STANDING, WONDER WOMAN AND GUNMAN #1. THEY'RE ABOUT FIFTEEN FEET APART. THE KIDNAPPED GIRL IS AT THE GUNMAN'S FEET. IT'S A STAND OFF.

PANEL 2. WONDER WOMAN RUNNING TOWARDS THE LAST GUNMAN, DEFLECTING HIS BULLETS WITH HER BRACELETS.

PANEL 3. SHE SLAPS THE WEAPON OUT OF HIS HANDS.

PANEL 4. DESPERATION TIME, HE PUNCHES HER. CONNECTING RIGHT ON THE CHIN.

PANEL 5. ANGLE ON WONDER WOMAN, GRINNING AS SHE RUBS HIS PUNCH OFF HER CHIN WITH THE BACK OF HER HAND.

WONDER WOMAN: DIDN'T ANYONE EVER TEACH YOU NOT TO HIT GIRLS?

PAGE 5, PANEL 1. SHE PUNCHES HIM OUT.

PANEL 2. THE LITTLE GIRL STARES UP AT PRINCESS DIANA, WONDER IN HER EYES.

PANEL 3. WONDER WOMAN, GIVING THE GIRL A WINK AND A SMILE.

And, because this is already crazy long and I just can't stop, a scene from the climactic battle...

NEXT PAGE, PANEL 1. DIANA STANDS ALONE ATOP THE WALL. SHELTERED IN THE CITY BEHIND HER ARE THE COLLECTIVE FIRST BORN DAUGHTERS OF GREECE. DRESSED IN THE CLASSIC COSTUME, COVERED IN HER TUNIC, SHE'S ARAGON AT THE BATTLE OF HELM'S DEEP. PULLED TAUGHT BETWEEN HER FISTS, SHE'S HOLDING A COILED END OF THE LASSO IN EACH HAND.

PANEL 2. THE CLASSIC GUNFIGHTER'S SHOT, FROM BEHIND WONDER WOMAN'S RIGHT HIP, WITH ENOUGH OF THE COILED LASSO VISIBLE IN PLACE OF THE GUN AND HOLSTER. IN THE BACKGROUND WE GET A FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE HORDES ASSEMBLED AGAINST HER.

PANEL 3. WIDESCREEN SHOT. IT'S FELIX FAUST'S ASSEMBLED ARMY OF MYSTICAL CHEETAH PEOPLE, CHARGING AS ONE TO STORM THE GATES.

WONDER WOMAN (IN GREEK): ΔΕΝ ΘΑ ΠΑΡΕΤΕ ΑΛΛΕΣ ΠΡΟΕΙΔΟΠΟΙΗΣΕΙΣ! ΠΛΑΤΗ ΣΤΡΟΦΗΣ, ΤΩΡΑ!

CAPTION: YOU'LL GET NO MORE WARNINGS! TURN BACK, NOW!

PANEL 4. CLOSE ON WONDER WOMAN. HER EYES SQUINT AGAINST THE WIND. PRINCESS DIANA, CHAMPION, STEPS OFF THE WALL TO MEET HER FOES HEAD ON.

I really hope that I don't have legions of Diana fans clamoring for my head. I'm sure this take is right now, as I type, making someone angry.

Oh well, I tried.

Slushpile Challenge, Day 5: "Bob Lerna: Agent of HYDRA"

2007-04-10T13:01:00.000-05:00

Bob Lerna is a decent enough guy who loves his wife and kids, he just happens to also be a mid-level HYDRA agent. Fun Fact: Lake Lerna is the dwelling place of the Hydra in Greek mythology.

1st arc: "Performance Review" we meet Bob, who's a reasonable guy. He's evil, but not Evil. $100k in school loans and a Masters in electrical engineering. Why'd he join HYDRA, an evil terrorist organization bent on world domination? His uncle Ben convinced him it'd be a good idea, Ben Lerna. Be a sleeper agent, kid. Pay off your school, sock a little away for a rainy day, get a nice house in the 'burbs. One weekend a month, two weeks a year. They never mentioned the dislocated shoulder thanks to an uru hammer or the trick knee that locks up every time it rains, courtesy of a Wakandan king in black tights.

2nd story arc: "The Secret Origin of Bob!" Early days of Bob, what he was like as a kid. We see Bob in college, an undergrad at ESU, living in the dorms. He's constantly woken up in the middle of the night, or being interrupted when he's trying to study, by the party dude across the hall, Johnny Storm. Witnessing the Avengers in a classic battle. Rescued by Starfox as a building's about to fall on him. " Wow, he's pretty hot. Wait. What? He's a dude!" Little Bob, admiring his Uncle's HYDRA uniform, all green and cool. Arc ends with Bob signing his papers. Induction ceremony ends with Bob wearing "the greens" and standing in the classic formation. "Hail HYDRA? What was I thinking?"

3rd arc: "Promotion, Deadly!" Bob's up for a promotion, two of them. The 9-5 job likes his work and is willing to move him into the corner office. The weekend job has an "unexpected vacancy" it needs to fill in its upstate NY LMD design facility, thanks to some cape and tights jerk wearing Quantum bands. The wife doesn't want to move, she likes it where they are, but can Bob say "no" when Baron Von Stucker sends you a "request"?

The series is narrated by Bob through 1st person caption boxes.

Bob's a regular schlub, not a cartoon villain, so he makes mistakes and gets in over his head. He progressively gets eviler (more evil?) at the series advances and he gets deeper into the organization. At first the things he'd tasked to do by HYDRA seem harmless enough. No one he knows is getting hurt and, like Uncle Ben often reminds him, "Hey, HYDRA's working to change the world, kid." After Bob sees first hand the Evil of HYDRA the scales fall from his eyes and he has the "My God, what have I been doing?" moment.

At this point the series really takes off. Bob's in deep and personally responsible for multiple atrocities. There's no leaving HYDRA, not alive anyway. This is when the series will shift in tone and we'll follow Bob as he tries to sabotage HYDRA from within while maintaining appearances and keeping up with all the right paperwork. We're a couple of trades in and now Bob's using HYDRA's tech and resources to actually do some of the world changing he imagined and make amends without attracting attention from the management.

Man vs. Environment. It's a regular guy who's in over his head, seeking redemption and trying to balance his home life, his work and the evil he has to keep doing (and undo) to stay alive.

The LMD Facility Bob gets transferred to is an amalgam of the Globex Corporation and an evil Project Pegasus.

Series regulars:

Uncle Ben Lerna, bad advice incarnate. He's the polar opposite of Ben Parker.

Janet Lerna, Bob's wife and source of consternation. She loves the extra money from Bob's "weekend job" but how's she going to react when she finds out what he does to get it?

Rick Lerna, Bob's son. A regular kid and the reason Bob gets out of bed in the morning.

Victor, Agent of HYDRA. Bob's foil at work. Victor's bought into the HYDRA philosophy completely. He embodies the typical HYDRA soldier and loves wearing "the greens" around the office. His business cards actually say "Victor, Agent of HYDRA" on them.

Along the way we'll also have run ins with more notable HYDRA personalities and some "famous faces" of the Marvel Universe.

ISSUE ONE, PAGE 1, SPLASH. BOB LERNA, MIDDLE AGED REGULAR GUY WITH A BIT OF A PAUNCH IS SITTING ON THE TABLE IN A DOCTOR'S EXAM ROOM.

CAPTION: HI. MY NAME'S BOB. BOB LERNA.

CAPTION: I'M SURE YOU'VE SEEN THESE GUYS ON THE NEWS IN THE GREEN AND YELLOW JUMPSUITS. HYDRA SOLDIERS. USUALLY THEY'RE GETTING THE CRAP KICKED OUT OF THEM BY CAPTAIN AMERICA OR THE AVENGERS.

CAPTION: ME? I'M ONE OF THOSE GUYS.

PAGE 2, PANEL 1. A DOCTOR IN A WHITE LAB COAT HAS ENTERED THE ROOM. HE'S HOLDING A MEDICAL CHART.

CAPTION: EVERY YEAR I HAVE TO GO IN FOR A PHYSICAL. PART OF THE JOB.

DOCTOR: MR. LERNA?

PANEL 2. TWO SHOT OF BOB AND THE DOCTOR.

CAPTION: AND EVERY YEAR IT GETS WORSE

BOB: THAT'S ME, DOC.

BOB: WHAT'S THE PROGNOSIS?

PANEL 3. ANGLE THE DOCTOR.

DOCTOR: WELL, YOUR KNEE'S NOT GOTTEN BETTER SINCE THE LAST TIME YOU WERE IN. I'M AFRAID ITS GOING TO KEEP GIVING YOU PROBLEMS, ESPECIALLY IN BAD WEATHER.

PANEL 4. BOB, FROWNING.

CAPTION: THANKS YOU WAKANDAN JACKASS. SO MUCH FOR RUNNING AROUND WITH MY KID.

PANEL 5. TWO SHOT AGAIN. THE DOCTOR'S READING OFF THE CHART.

DOCTOR: AS FOR THE SHOULDER, THE MRI'S NOT GOOD. WE CAN REPAIR THE TISSUE DAMAGE WITH SURGERY EXCEPT...

DOCTOR: LET'S SEE...

DOCTOR: YOU WROTE DOWN HERE "URU HAMMER" AS THE CAUSE.

PANEL 6. MATCHING FROM PREVIOUS. BOB'S SUNK LOWER ON THE TABLE, ABSORBING THE BAD NEWS.

DOCTOR: UNFORTUNATELY, YOUR HMO DOESN'T COVER ACTS OF GOD.

DOCTOR: YOU'D HAVE TO PAY FOR ANY SURGERY OUT OF POCKET.

PAGE 3, PANEL 1.

CAPTION: ONE WEEKEND A MONTH, TWO WEEKS A YEAR. I EVER SEE MY RECRUITER AGAIN, I'M GONNA DUMP HIM IN THE NEGATIVE ZONE.

BOB: WONDERFUL.

Slushpile Challenge Day 4: "The Coldest Time Of Winter"

2007-04-09T12:27:00.000-05:00

It's a one-shot Christmas tale starring Captain Cold.

Merle Haggard's "If We Make It Through December"

If we make it through December
Everythings gonna be all right I know
It's the coldest time of winter
And I shivver when I see the fallin snow

If we make it through December
I got plans of bein in a warmer town come summer time
Maybe even California
If we make it through December we'll be fine

I got laid off down at the factory
And there timings not the greatest in the world
Heaven knows I been workin' hard
I wanted Christmas to be right for daddy's girl
Now I don't mean to hate December
It's meant to be the happy time of year
And why my little girl don't understand
Why daddy can't afford no Christmas here

If we make it through December
Everythings gonna be alright I know
It's the coldest time of winter
And I shivver when I see the fallin' snow

If we make it through December
I got plans of bein' in a warmer town come summer time
Maybe even California
If we make it through December we'll be fine

Leonard Snart is Captain Cold, blue collar career criminal and longtime member of the Flash's Rogues Gallery. The story opens with Captain Cold walking alone across the Arctic tundra at night (think Jack Londron's "To Build A Fire"). He's stranded there with no transportation and nothing but his cold gun.

Inside the framing story of him trying to get to civilization, we get a series of flashbacks which reveal the main story. Cold's stranded after a heist gone wrong, a job he tried to pull that was too dangerous, too risky. A job he never would attempt normally. But why?

Cold's past has caught up with him. He has an illegitimate daughter, the product of a drunken one night stand. He pulled the job so he can give the girl enough money to get out of the abusive foster home she's stuck in. Cold's a villain, but his heart's made of stone not ice. Family's important to him, even family he didn't know existed (see past history re: Golden Glider).

So, we've got Captain Cold trying to survive in the cold (get it?) and the little girl and the heist gone wrong. The flashbacks end where the main story starts, with Cold getting stranded, and the main story ends with the hanging question of does he make it though December? It's a sad, sad Christmas tale.

24 lines in the song. Each page of the comic begins with a caption box of the song's next lyric.

PAGE 14, PANEL 1. COLD'S POV LOOKING DOWN AT HIS FEET. THE SNOW IS ALMOST UP TO HIS KNEES. VISIBLE IN THE PANEL ARE COLD'S HANDS, FINGERS CURLED UP AND NUMB. LYING HALF BURIED WHERE HE DROPPED IT, IS THE COLD GUN.

CAPTION: "IT'S MEANT TO BE THE HAPPY TIME OF YEAR..."

PANEL 2. COLD'S DROPPED TO HIS KNEES AND IS REACHING FOR THE GUN WITH NUMB FINGERS.

PANEL 3. MATCH SHOT OF A LITTLE GIRL, KNEELING IN THE SAME POSITION. SHE'S IN A SPARSE, MOONLIT BEDROOM, KNEELING AT THE BED AND SAYING HER PRAYERS.

GIRL: "AND IF I DIE BEFORE I WAKE..."

PANEL 4. MATCH SHOT AGAIN, THIS TIME IT'S CAPTAIN COLD ON HIS KNEES FIRING HIS COLD GUN AT A PAIR OF SECURITY GUARDS, FREEZING THEM WHERE THEY STAND. BEHIND COLD, REACHING IN FROM OFF PANEL TO GRAB HIM ARE A PAIR OF HANDS WEARING FAMILIAR RED GLOVES WITH A YELLOW LIGHTNING BOLT DESIGN.

COLD: "YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE! DON'T YOU KNOW I'M COLD!"

The Slushpile Challenge Explained

2007-04-08T10:43:00.000-05:00

If you're a reader of this site, and Sitemeter tells me that at least a couple people stumble through here, than you've seen the comic pitch ideas from the last couple of posts. Here's the lowdown.

Last Wednesday, a friend of mine threw down the gauntlet with an interesting challenge: write a proposal/pitch for a new comic every day for the month of April. Each pitch must relate to that day's topic and we take turns selecting daily topics. Fairly straightforward. At the end of the month we'll have 40 unique pitches for either new ongoings, limited series, OGNs or one-shots, twenty of which (mine) will be posted to this site. If there's motivation and/or demand for it, we'll be setting up a joint site with the combined pitches.

Once the daily challenge rockets to its thrilling conclusion, long-time comics reader, and friend of the site, Jere Dolan will be acting as final arbiter. He'll be reading all the submissions in the Selective Continuity slush-pile and selecting the best of the bunch. The winning pitch will then get written up in complete script form by myself and the challenge dropper himself, G. Bob.

Coming in late? Pull up a chair, pour a scotch and light a smoke, it's the topics so far!

Day 1: Infuse a laughingstock character with cool. Who'd I pick? "Doc Druid".

Day 2: Salvage an extreme '90s Image property. My Answer? "Yellowknife" (Admittedly, this qualifies by the most tenuous of margins).

Day 3: Turn a '70s sitcom into a comic book. My reply? "Invasion: Alice!" because I think "Kiss my grits, Lobo!" is funny , funny shit.

Monday's topic for day four of the challenge: develop a comic book based on the lyrics of a country song.

What's it going to be? Stay tuned, True Believers!

Invasion: Alice!

2007-04-06T10:53:00.000-05:00

Continuing the comics challenge, today's hurdle was to pick a '70s sitcom and adapt it into a comic book. As always, results vary.

"Kiss my grits, Lobo!"

Aspiring country singer Alice Hyatt was accompanying her trucker husband on a cross country haul when fate cruelly intervened. An errant Zeta Beam struck the highway in front of their semi, causing it to leap the concrete divide and crash head-on into oncoming traffic. Don Hyatt was killed instantly in the wreck, but Alice was trapped in the Zeta Beam's pull and whisked across the galaxy. One moment Alice's life is flashing before her eyes, a split second from death, and the next she's shaking in the fetal position on the floor of Mel's Diner, orbiting the planet Rann.

Mel Sharples, retired Khund mercenary is a veteran of the Invasion of Earth. Taking his back pay and pension he owns Mel's Diner, a restaurant and interstellar shipping rest stop orbiting the planet Rann. Mel's a grizzled old fry cook who hides the fact that he's a soft touch with a grim exterior. After his time on Earth during the war he grew to like humans... on the bone, with a brown sauce.

Mel's soft touch is reflected in the collection of cast-offs and misfits under his employ. The head waitress, who's also the head waiter (depending on who she's sleeping with at the time), is Flo Castleberry, a sassy, sex-hungry Durlan shape shifter.

Ver Go-man is a neurotic, scatterbrained Psion exile. Ver's trapped in the characteristic Psion loop of self denial, but lacks the typical Psion talent for science, hence a life of slinging Thanagarian hash at Mel's.

Rounding out the cast is an aquatic Gil'dishpan dishwasher and Mel's line cook, a snarling cyborg, one-armed Okaaran who served with Mel during the war.

Recurring characters will include Adam Strange and his wife Alanna, and Lobo, intergalactic '90s stereotype.

NEXT PAGE, NEXT PANEL. WIDE ANGLE OF A DINER. IT'S A TYPICAL GREASY SPOON BY WAY OF THE MOS EISLEY CANTINA. OUTSIDE THE WINDOWS IS THE BLACKNESS OF SPACE. CURLED UP ON THE FLOOR IN THE FOREGROUND IS ALICE. SHE'S DISORIENTED AND TERRIFIED. SURROUNDING HER IS THE ZETA BEAM'S FADING GLOW. STANDING OVER HER, DRESSED IN THE OUTERSPACE VERSION OF A 1950'S WAITRESS UNIFORM, IS THE REDHEADED DURLAN FLO, BALANCING A TRAY OF STEAMING PLATES.

FLO: TABLE FOR ONE, SUGAR?

Pulling from the Comics Scrapheap: Yellowknife

2007-04-05T13:44:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, the challenge was to pick a comics character who’s generally thought of as a joke and infuse some cool. Today’s challenge is to pick out a (some may think) terrible ‘90s Image comic and redeem it. What’s my pick?

Direct from Wikipedia:

"Bloodpool is a fictional group of superheroes and a comic book series created by Rob Liefeld. It was published by Image Comics in 1996 under Liefeld's Extreme Studios. The team's roster includes Rubble, Task, Seoul, Psilence, Wylder, and Fusion. They are the cyborgs and the psychics, the warriors, the channelers, and the alchemists. The kids who have made breaking up into an offensive art. Underage superheroes recruited by the government for the eventual inclusion in the prestigious Youngblood team. They were poked, prodded, trained and enhanced. And when a new administration cut funding, the members of Bloodpool were out on the streets."

Gods, it makes my brain hurt just reading the description.

Yellowknife

The year is 2107 and Korea's borders reach from the western tip of the Great Wall in what was once China to the edge of Great Slave Lake in Canada's Northwest Territories. Abandoning nuclear power and turning its collective might to the field of genetic engineering, Korea owned the second half of the 21st century, single handedly forcing Rand-McNally to redraw the globe. Seoul is the largest city on earth, with a population edging towards 45 million.

In the border city of Yellowknife, Canada, five teenagers are doing everything they can to live "off the grid", eschewing cell phones, GPS, and RFID tags, avoiding all technology. Genetically engineered refuse, Jack, Sally, Kim, Johnny and Li were grown in Seoul's Bloodpool to be soldiers in the Korean army but tossed out with the rest of the garbage when they failed quality control testing. Superpowers that were supposed to develop on their 13th birthdays never manifested.

On one side is a Korean Empire seeking to bury any evidence that its clone army is imperfect. On the other is a collective United Nations that would like nothing more than to dissect these anomalies and find out what kept their powers from kicking in.

No powers. No costumes. No technology. Just 5 teenagers trying to make a home and doing whatever it takes to avoid attracting attention. It’s “Runaways” via Bladerunner.

ISSUE 1, PAGE 1, SPLASH. EXTERIOR, CITY STREET IN WINTER. WALKING OUT OF A COFFEE HOUSE ARE JOHNNY AND KIM, BOTH 16. THEY'RE BUNDLED UP FOR THE WEATHER IN WINTER COATS AND MIRRORED SUNGLASSES. KIM HAS MAORI-STYLE FACIAL TATTOOS AND SHE'S TALLER THAN JOHNNY BY ALMOST A HEAD, BUT RAIL THIN. JOHNNY CARRIES HIMSELF WITH A SWAGGER. IN THE BACKGROUND, A PAIR OF MOTORCYCLE COPS FLY OVERHEAD.

CAPTION: YELLOWKNIFE, CANADA. BORDER CITY ON THE EDGE OF THE KOREAN EMPIRE. FIVE TEENAGERS, ORDINARY IN AN EXTRA-ORDINARY WORLD, FIGHT TO KEEP FROM BEING NOTICED.

KIM: SALLY WANTED A PIZZA.

JOHNNY: SHE ALWAYS WANTS A PIZZA. TELL YOU WHAT, IF SHE MANAGED TO CLEAN THE LOFT AND DRAG HERSELF OUT OF THE HOUSE AND FIND REPLACEMENT DUMMY RFID TAGS THAT ARE CODED TO LAST LONGER THAN A MONTH...

JOHNNY: IF SHE DID THAT THEN I'LL BUY HER A PIZZA. I'M SICK OF BEING THE ONLY ONE WITH A JOB.

Success? Failure? It's not as strong as "Doc Druid" lighting invisible monsters on fire, but I think it works.

Anthony Ludgate, Doc Druid

2007-04-04T17:51:00.000-05:00

"Sometimes it's best to be forgotten."

The heroes of the Marvel universe are being organized into an army for the 21st century. Forgotten though are the nightmares of the previous age. Hidden evil sleeps under the earth, inside the hearts of men and beyond the far side of the moon. The demons and aliens of the Silver Age, long thought vanquished, are slowly returning. As their power grows so does their influence.

Anthony Ludgate, former Avenger, has been forgotten by this new century. Once a powerful telepath and magician, his powers have faded, grown unreliable. But only he can sense the trouble that's rising. Only he can see the invisible monsters around us. Ludgate has only his creaky magics and the scavenged technology of a forgotten era with which to battle this growing danger.

The series follows Doctor Druid as he wanders the earth combating Marvel's crazy Silver Age monsters, starting with the ones from pre-Spider-Man "Amazing Fantasy". Think Kolchak vs. The Badoon.

Sample:

NEXT PAGE, SINGLE PANEL SPLASH. A SUBURBAN SUPERMARKET PARKING LOT. SHOPPERS HEAD TO THEIR CARS OR INTO THE STORE, THE PICTURE OF NORMALCY. EXCEPT FOR IN THE FOREGROUND WHERE DOC DRUID STANDS IN STREET CLOTHES, WAVING HIS ARMS WILDLY. DOMINATING THE PANEL IS THE FORTY FOOT MENACE OF TIM BOO BA. NOTE: TIM BOO BA (AMAZING FANTASY #9) SHOULD BE DRAWN ONLY AS AN OUTLINED COLOR EFFECT, SO THAT THE READER CAN INFER THAT ONLY THE DOC CAN SEE HIM.

DOC DRUID: "EVERYONE! GET OUT OF THE WAY!"

NEXT PAGE, PANEL 1. MOTHER PUSHING HER SON IN A CART.

SON: "MOMMY, WHAT THAT MAN YELLING ABOUT?"

MOM: "DON'T LOOK AT HIM SON."

PANEL 2. CLOSE ON TIM BOO BA'S LAUGHING VISAGE.

TIM BOO BA: "ONLY YOU CAN SEE ME, DOCTOR. THE CATTLE WILL NEVER REALIZE THAT IT WAS I, TIM BOO BA, WHO SENT THEM TO THEIR MAKERS!"

PANEL 3. THE DOC'S HANDS ARE RAISED, DRAWING ARCANE SIGILS IN THE AIR.

DOC DRUID: "NOT WHILE I STAND, DEVIL!"

PANEL 4. CLOSE ON TIM BOO BA AGAIN.

TIM BOO BA: "HA! HA! HA! YOUR MAGICKS HAVE NO POWER, OLD FOOL."

NEXT PAGE, PANEL 1. DOC HOLDS UP A GAS CAN. HIS OTHER HAND IS HOLDING A ZIPPO.

DOC DRUID: "BURN."

PANEL 2. HE SPARKS THE LIGHTER.

PANEL 3. CLOSE ON THE LIGHTER AS IT SOARS THOUGH THE AIR.

PANEL 4. DOC DRUID WALKING TOWARDS THE READER. BEHIND HIM, EXPLODING MINI-VANS AND THE BURNING INVISIBLE MONSTER.

Classic Cover of the Week

2007-03-28T13:15:00.000-05:00

From the magazine that respects your intelligence, "Nothing can match the terror of Tim Boo Ba!"

Amazing Adult Fantasy #9. Not a comic I own, or have read, but it's certainly an eye catcher. There's enough going on there that you can write your own joke.

I'm Starbuck's Bitch

2007-03-26T14:26:00.000-05:00

2008? At least I have Starbuck playing cards to hold me over during the 10 month wait until my questions will be either answered or plot threads get dropped with Claremontian abandon.

Remember, the Cylons have a plan.

World War Hellcow

2007-03-22T15:57:00.000-05:00

Because you demanded it! The All-New, All-Different Sinister Six:

Dr. Bong, teleporting evil geneticist!

Hellcow, the terrifying undead cow of Dracula!

The Space Turnip, deadly symbiote with the power to kill with it's mind!

Pro-Rata, accountant of the mystic arts!

Salty Kong, The Ape Shaker! Simian engine of saline destruction!

Le Beaver, Parti Québécois member powered by his robotic beaver-themed exoskeleton!

Marvel's summer '08 blockbuster crossover starts here! A new incarnation of the Sinister Six has been brought together for a single purpose: final victory in the war between hero and villain! No more to be laughed at or mocked, Dr. Bong has revamped for the 21st century and amped up the power level on a threat to make Zemo's Master's of Evil working over Jarvis look like jaywalking. The very foundations of the 616 Marvel universe will be shaken to their core next summer, as the new Sinister Six run amok, leaving nothing but destruction in their wake.

Now heroes and villains alike will tremble with dread as Dr. Bong's Sinister Six wreak vengeance on Iron Man and S.H.I.E.L.D, The Avengers, The Thunderbolts, Spider-man and The Fantastic Four -- and anyone else who gets in their way. More powerful than ever, driven by a plan and determined to proclaim final victory, the Sinister Six will conquer the globe or destroy it. Some will live! Some will die! Heroes! Villains! No one will be safe! The conflict to decide the fate of the 616 Marvel universe begins here with this special double-sized issue.

It's World War Hellcow!

Who's side are you on?

Man, I am so completely behind this idea. What do I have to do to make a deadly, threatening version of Howard the Duck's rogues gallery the antagonists in Marvel's next big crossover event?

Meanwhile, in the first of many crossovers:

WWH: Frontline: While Count Macho and his street urchin army terrorize Cleveland, where is Beverly Switzler? This nine part mini-series follows Ben Urich and his side-kick, Sally Floyd's MySpace Page, as they learn the true civilian costs of World War Hellcow.

Comics Mash-up Challenge

2007-03-20T20:41:00.000-05:00

So I'm a couple days behind the curve, but in my defense I love Jameson. Especially on and around March 17th. While I was busy being drunk, Erin Palette was busy being creative and challenging with her awesome "Literary Mash-up Challenge." The idea's such a good one I had to pick up the gauntlet. So here it is:

"Ernest Hemingway's Black Panther"

We were the only two Europeans staying in the village’s tiny six roomed hotel but not the only whites. Our second floor room faced towards the mountain ridge line that bordered that most private of African nations. Outside the hotel were big leafy palms growing near the public well. The streets are packed earth. In the evening we dine with the others in the hotel and at night we drink until all the others are gone.

“The Great Hunter,” that’s what they tell me.

“I don’t like the look of those men,” Lady Ambrose says. She grips my arm a little tighter. I smell juniper berries.

“Don’t worry,” I say. “These men take travelers into Wakanda every day. We’ll be fine,” I lie to her. To myself.

“Is that what we are? Travelers,” she asks. I avoid her question by fixing my gaze on the high, straw colored grasses that line the road past the village gates and the brick colored mountains beyond them.

The boy must be no more than ten. He loads the rest of the wooden crates of ammunition into the truck. He reaches for the last crate. “Leave that one,” I say. “I’ll get it.” That one has the whiskey. I can’t chance some local dropping it or worse, hearing the clink of the glass bottles. Not this far from civilization.

The heat of the day has failed to ebb. I have to shield my eyes against the red glare. Last night’s gin wore off around mid-day and Lady Ambrose has been sleeping off and on as the road and bouncing truck allow. I took the chance to slip one of the greasy glass whiskey bottles into my own pocket but it’s not helped the heat.

Along the ridge line is where I first see the lion. I order the driver to stop the truck. With a grinding of gears and a lurch it stops. Two hundred yards away, I take aim and fire. The shot takes the big cat high in the shoulder and down it goes. That’s when the natives start shouting. “Another silhouette on the hill,” they say and they’re leaping out of the truck and running.

And I see the Panther. I see the King of the Jungle.

I leap off the open back of the truck and my boots kick up miniature clouds of dust. I drop to one knee and my fingers fumble reaching for another cartridge. I taste the dirt in my mouth and nostrils. The silhouette is charging me, crouched low as a cat and moving faster than a man. I rub the sweat and afternoon glare out of my eyes and throw the bolt on my rifle. Lady Ambrose is yelling something I can’t hear but just now I think of how she smelled under the mosquito netting, of vanilla and cigarettes. I reload the rifle and squint, taking careful aim.

The last thing I see is the sun high overhead. It hangs red and blinding and I remember what it was the villagers had said.

“T’challa.”

Another Tragic Loss

2007-03-12T20:09:00.000-05:00

They're trapped, and I can't help them because the swamp is swallowing up my robot body!

And the world is a saner, safer place and we're worse off for it.

Cheap Death Week Continues!

2007-03-07T18:07:00.000-05:00

Really?

No, I mean, Really?

Well, I guess I don't need to take your word for it. I'll just ask Jean Grey.

Or Bucky Barnes.
Or Aunt May.
Or Hal Jordan.
Or Reed Richards.
Or The Doom Patrol.
Or Professor X.
Or Oliver Queen.
Or Clint Barton.
Or Superman.
Or Supergirl.
Or Norman Osborn.
Or Jason Todd.

Or, I don't know, whoever the hell else has died in comics.

Kara Thrace and Her Special Destiny

2007-03-07T15:26:00.000-05:00

"Mrs. Thrace I've seen your daughter's future and she's destined for something special, very special. However, it's very important that you raise her in preparation to accept and fulfill her purpose."

"Tell me, Oracle. What plan do the Gods have in store for my Kara? Is she going defend the Colonies and mankind from extinction? Will she lead her people in the hunt, striking down the enemies of Caprica? Tell me, will my daughter take up the mantle of Artemis?"

"Sadly, no. The Gods require you beat and abuse your daughter, to physically and emotionally dismantle her. She must become a broken and self destructive adult, someone who, despite all of her heart and talent, will think only of lashing out at the world around her. In humanity's greatest time of crisis, while they are being pursued by an implacable foe, she must be ready to commit suicide for no other purpose than to prove she is ready to accept death. This, this is your daughter's destiny."

"Yeahbutwha?"

Frakking religion.

This is why I don't trust oracles. The whole thing was just so pointless. I refuse to accept the rationalization that Starbuck's purpose on the show, and by extension Kara Thrace's lot in life, was to be an object lesson justifying suicide.

Suicide is the act of a coward. Weak and selfish people commit suicide.

The Kara Thrace I've known for the last three years had her problems, anyone who watched the show could see that. Those faults helped make her a great character and, at times, a brilliant extension of the original character concept. I'll admit that I loved the hard-drinking, hard-living pilot. The woman was willful and combative and all too happy to punch life square in the nose. Her flaws made her and make every other character on the show human.

Starbuck punched out Tigh. She drank and fought and defied authority. She frakked Baltar for the hell of it. She flew back to Caprica to steal the Arrow of Apollo and then she flew back to Caprica again to rescue her man. She shot or shot down countless toasters. Every time she leapt into her Viper's cockpit she did it with a reckless almost sexual abandon.

Was Starbuck's sole motivation for doing any of these things, for doing anything in life, a desire to be killed by them because she was too scared to kill herself?

Did Kara Thrace put Zak Adama behind the stick of a Viper because she hoped it would come back to kill her? And then did she frak over Lee on New Caprica because she hoped he'd kill her?

If the answer is "yes" then I wildly misread the character.

She walked out on an abusive parent and everything that's happened to her since then, from her time with the fleet to Cylons maybe stealing her ovaries to the mind games played on her by Leoben, it was all building up to Starbuck forgiving herself for hating her abusive mother so she could drive her Viper into a gas giant.

I seriously feel like Starbuck's story was stopped but it wasn't finished. Her issues with her mother may've been resolved but it boggles the mind to think that "Maelstrom" was the planned payoff for three years worth of character development.

Was the reason Starbuck was written off of the show really because the dream sequences/visions with Not!Leoben (maybe he is, maybe he isn't) resolved all the plot threads tied to Starbuck?

More importantly, will the remaining Battlestar Galactica stories be better off without the show's most engaging Viper pilot?

"All this has happened before and will happen again."

I have to imagine that we're going to see Kara Thrace again. Did Apollo really see the bogey Heavy Raider? It seemed like he did. And she did have her hand on the eject lever. Although, the podcast for this episode states that showing Kara inside the Heavy Raider after ejecting was nixed initially for budgetary reasons and then amended after the fact for story concerns.

Also, the podcasts point out that the scenes with dog fighting are incredibly expensive to shoot. It's one of the reasons why a good chunk of all the dogfights are reaction shots of the crew in CIC listening on the radio and reacting. The cost of the show was a major consideration in SciFi almost not greenlighting S4. Fewer Viper pilots equal cheaper episodes, which equals staying on the air.

And this brings up Kat's death only seven episodes ago. How's that conversation at the bar going to go?

"Hey, remember how Kat sacrificed herself to bring that ship through the solar flare and kept the people aboard from starving to death? Everyone, raise your glass and drink one for Kat!"

"Hey, remember how Starbuck committed suicide? Um... yeah."

Frakking Kat.

10% of this season's episodes were about killing off Viper Pilots. Yes, Seelix did just get promoted but the show's also lost two thirds of its interesting Viper pilot characters (I can't count Stinger after appearances in only two episodes). This leaves Hotdog, Seelix and morose Apollo to carry the load for all the dog fighting or C.A.P. scenes in season 4. That's just... meh.

Instead of a drama about an aircraft carrier we're slowly getting a drama about a submarine. The "Maelstrom" podcast even alludes to the crew of the Galactica as "living in a metal tube."

I know the story isn't over. There's more to tell. Maybe once I've see the complete story I'll understand why Kara had to go to make the show better. Maybe I'll change my mind then.

I suppose my opinion boils down to this:

Starbuck deserved a better death than "I'm not afraid anymore."

First Pass at a New X-men Villain

2007-02-20T22:17:00.000-05:00

"Your optic blasts are nothing more than harmless colored light. The truth is, Cyclops, I'll be hitting you and your trashily dressed girlfriend very, very hard now." -Occam

Occam, a.k.a. Edmund Ockham. Sociopath and mutant threat. Power of "Epistemic Belief". If Occam believes it then it's true, or at least the truth for him. The simpler an explanation he can imagine, the more powerful he becomes. The closest analogy to how his powers work would be a combination of Proteus and the Purple Man, but instead of effecting the world around him, Occam's abilities are internal, effecting himself.

"Dr. McCoy, I don't believe that there's anything you or your people, and I use that term loosely, can do to stop me." Occam's goals are purely self serving. He has no interest is either Xavier's dream or Magneto's view of mutantkind's place in society. Occam has self-confidence to rival Doom but none of Doom's drive or lust for power. Whatever he wants, he's going to take and neither human or mutant life means anything to him. Eventually, the growing property damage and rising body count will draw him into conflict with the X-men. It's important though that under no circumstances what so ever will Occam ever be depicted killing anyone with any sort of razor. No. Just, No.

Occam has used his abilities to reshape his body into what he believes is the ideal human form, and in the Marvel Universe this means Captain America. A dead ringer for Steve Rodgers, and dressed in hand tailored suits and designer sunglasses, Occam kills with philosophy.

This is my first pass at creating a villain specifically for the X-men. It's odd. Now that I think about it, after all the years of being a fan of the X-men and writing unreleated stories of my own, I've never scribbled anything specifically for this franchise. Going back and reading my initial take on this character I think I might hate the idea. We'll see how I feel in the morning. This post might be heavily rewritten in the next 24 hours. Click the comments link below to tell me how much this concept both sucks and blows.

Classic Cover of the Week

2007-02-20T20:03:00.000-05:00

A double shot of classic covers while I got Marvel's Merry Mutants on my mind.*

Issue forty-four, the first X-men comic I ever read.

And issue one seventy-five, the first issue I bought for myself using my allowance.

#44 is no longer in continuity as I barely remember Roy Thomas' story from this one. However, the sheer awesome beauty that is Claremont and Smith's work on #175 is firmly in continuity.

*Alliteration, I know. Sorry.

My Terrible X-men Ideas

2007-02-20T19:47:00.000-05:00

In the total and complete never-in-a-million-years possibility that I got to do what I wanted with the X-men franchise, here's where I'd start:

Astonishing X-Men
Cyclops, Emma Frost, Beast, Kitty, Colossus

Big Things Happen. If Apocalypse were to eat the M'krann Crystal or an army of Deviants show up and turn Chicago into an all-you-can-eat barbeque, it happens here.

Uncanny X-men
Storm, Nightcrawler, Rogue, Warpath, Darwin, Rachel Summers, Angel and Iceman.

Hatred. Bigotry. Fear. But the X-Men are working to change the world. They're the public face of mutants' rights, reacting to disasters and policing the mutant population like a two-fisted version of the Red Cross.

I see the Blackbird flying overhead of a disaster area. Storm and Angel rescuing survivors and contain the damage while Rogue and Warpath are on the ground punching out looters. Meanwhile, Nightcrawler is passing out Hostess Fruit Pies to kids wrapped in emergency blankets.

When the X-men aren't working as mutant-kind's ambassadors they're fighting their own crazy soap-opera lives. I'd explore the idea that a mutant isn't just a human with superpowers. A mutant's life is different from a regular person's; the way they think, act, deal with relationships and perceive the world should be mutated as well. Otherwise, in a world that gives the FF and Avengers parades, why the anti-mutant bias?

100% on these facts: Ororo Munroe is sporting the mohawk and leather vest. She is not sporting a wedding ring. Rogue is wearing the new retro costume. Angel does not have blue skin. Iceman is a man covered in ice, not a man made of ice. Rachel Summers is wearing her mother's classic green costume and sometimes forgets to use her telepathy to hide her hound tattoos. And Darwin is awesome.

New Mutants
Professor X with Cannonball, Dani Moonstar, Husk, Hellion and Dust. The students have become the teachers. Fill out the rest of the roster with a rotating focus on the kids from "New X-men" mixed with Morrison/Whedon's kids and former New Mutants. The school. The Danger Room. Teen angst with two scoops of fun. Opening story arc: "Welcome to Xavier's, Hope You Survive the Experience!"

Banshee, Agent of SHIELD
One of the original pitch ideas for the All-New All-Different X-men was to have an international cast traveling the globe in a flying base, reacting to threats to mutant kind (Roy Thomas' idea). This would be the 21th century update of that unused concept.

Sean Cassidy, ex-Interpol and current SHIELD agent, gets top billing but it's definitely a team book. Globe spanning espionage action and mayhem. Banshee's team is an integrated mix of SHIELD personnel and former X-men, given a helicarrier and tasked as first responders to superhuman threats.

Team Leaders: Banshee and Mockingbird. (Isn't she dead? To riff on a line from Claremont: She was. She got better.)
Field Team: Bishop, Deadpool, Skids, Sabra, Gambit and maybe characters like Pete Wisdom, Puck and Sunfire. Plus a group of SHIELD agents (mix of mutants and humans) who have no ties to Xavier's school. Field team rosters can be custom tailored to the mission, drawing from the pool of agents living on the helicarrier.
Helicarrier Support Team: Forge, Cecilia Reyes, Sharon Friedlander, Tom Corsi and Roger Bochs.
Plus we'll have the SHIELD presence: agents, techs, medics, the post CIVIL WAR version of "cape killer" soldiers and interaction with people like Agent Brand, Maria Hill, Val Cooper, Gyrich, Fury, etc.

Cross-pollenization book, so your villains are Mystique's Brotherhood teaming up with Arnim Zola and the All-New All-Different Masters of Evil.

PAD's X-factor
Don't touch a damn thing.

New Excalibur or Exiles
If Claremont deserves a "thanks for everything" book then he gets one of these and the other one get's the axe. If not, they I'd pull them both from the monthly slate.

But, wait. Where the hell's Wolverine? Glad you asked. With a solo book (guess which of the current two I'd axe) and a day job with the New Avengers, there's not enough time in the day. Let the rest of the X-men shine without the old Canucklehead for a while.

Classic Cover of the Week

2007-02-09T23:31:00.000-05:00

When I think of the X-Men this is the image that first comes to mind. The best line-up. The best creative team at their at-each-other's-throats creative peak. This is the defining story along with, for my money, "God Loves, Man Kills" close on it's heels. Twenty-five years later, and it's still a key foundation of the X-men mythos.

When I first read this story it was in this graphic novel format with this cover, and hot on it's heels came Uncanny X-men #175 a more than fitting follow-up tale.

Simply classic.

Oh, and if you haven't done it yet, do yourself a favor and listen to the Comic Pants X-men podcast.

Star Wars vs. Backstory

2007-02-06T14:49:00.001-05:00

So there's 3 year-old me, wearing footie pyjamas in the back of my dad's station wagon and gaping wide eyed as Han Solo runs away from those stormtroopers on the Death Star. Over the years I've lost count of how many times Han's chased those troopers down that hallway only to come running back the other direction. But today he's doing it again on HBO and the digital cable program description made me stop and watch.

"Robots and other allies help a youth and a space jockey rescue a rebel princess and battle dark forces bent on intergalactic rule."

You're damn right they do.

Unfortunately, after all the years of related toys, comics, books and prequels there's no way I can just watch Star Wars and enjoy it for what it is. This isn't a dig at the prequels, which had their moments, or the all the good, bad and terrible (I'm looking at you, K.W. Jeter) Expanded Universe novels. I'm just lamenting that my selective continuity midiclorians aren't strong enough where I can just enjoy a braless Princess Leia in the garbage smasher with a bowl of popcorn without being reminded of Jacen, Jaina and whatever the name of that floating nursemaid-bot at the end of "Sith" was called.

I don't need to know the name of the guy who taught Han to hot wire a speeder bike. No one does. All we need to know is that he's an arrogant pilot who's loyal to his friends, loves his hunk of junk spaceship and is willing to gun down Greedo in cold blood.

Star Wars is a prime example of the too-much-of-a-good-thing corollary. The movie works best on its own or supplemented with just the two sequels and maybe just a couple of the books and comics, no more. The stories that matter lose their importance and get bogged down by minutiae if you, at some point, don't stop lumping backstory on them.

It's impossible to unsee Yoda with a lightsabre or armies of cartoon Gungans.

Unrelated to the point: "Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no excuse for a good blaster at your side, kid." Thanks, Han. I'll try to keep that in mind.

In No Particular Order

2007-02-03T01:52:00.000-05:00

Eliza Dushku
Firefly
Wonderfalls
Laura Prepon
God Loves, Man Kills
Kari Byron
Jameson
Steak
The Ultimates
Bendis' Daredevil
Masuimi Max
Bettie Page
Grant Morrison's New X-Men
MovieMagic Screenwriter
Playin' cards
Battlestar Galactica
Jenna Fischer
Guinness
Amazing Spider-Man #248
How I Met Your Mother
Rage fueled regret
Rosalind Russell
The ISB
Jenna Fischer
Scarlett Johansson
"The Beautiful and Damned"
Sabres hockey
Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol
Lucy Liu
A complete run of "Power Man and Iron Fist" fighting a complete run of "Suicide Squad" in a duel to the death.

And if you were left off the list, rest assured this is by no means a final or complete rundown. Your time will come.

... ...

2007-02-03T00:24:00.000-05:00

... ...

Not Dead. Yet.

2007-02-02T23:43:00.000-05:00

January 23rd? Is ten days without a new post long enough to declare a fledgling blog deceased? Man, I hope not. I do have the built-in excuse though of an honest-to-Kirby paying writing gig to explain the lack of postitude. But deadline met, project turned in and check in hand, I'm ready to get caught up on slacking off.

Quick thoughts:

Joss Whedon's Wonder Woman dies stillborn. And yet Nick Coppola's Ghost Rider is still barrelling toward its release date unchecked. I really am starting to fear that the miracle run of comic book film adaptations to going to derail itself.

"Shazam: The Monster Society of Evil" is on the pull list of my heart, sight unseen. Wow, that came out of the ether but "the pull list of my heart" might work it's way into heavy rotation.

Is Sci-Fi Channel's "The Dresden Files" a majorly reworked pitch idea for a Dr. Strange TV show? No? Because, damn, it sure feels like it wants to be.

I'm the last one to the party, but I sat down this morning and read the first trade of "Y: The Last Man". Hell yeah is all I've got for now. BKV is a badass.

Oh, and my dream casting of the absolute dream writing job I could ever hope to land: Henry Simmons, Chad Michael Murray, Gina Torres, Carly Pope and Dennis Dunn.

Which reminds me, now that the paying writing is out of the way its time to get back to the spec scripts. And the drinking.

Go Sabres.

Classic Cover of the Week

2007-01-23T09:24:00.000-05:00

Chris Claremont and Barry Windsor-Smith in 1986, using Wolverine to remind us all that Katie Power is the baddest 6 year-old on the planet.

Ronin: Hank Pym or Robbie Baldwin?

2007-01-22T19:21:00.000-05:00

Bendis says: “It’s someone with a long history in the Marvel Universe. There are quite a few people it could be, and it’s not necessarily the person you immediately go to, but it’s someone I have an affection for who also has a history of donning a guise that best suits his or her mental tone. And this is his or her mental tone right now. And it just so happens there is a costume that needs filling and a person who can fill it, and so it’s taken."

So, yeah...

Yeah?

Yeah. I'm thinking that it's gotta be Hank.

Pym?

Of course Pym. Who did you think we were talking about?

Um, Speedball. I thought...

Nah, Robbie's hiding in his BDSM costume. This is a ninja costume.

That someone's hiding in.

That Hank Pym (you know Yellowjacket, Giant-Man) is hiding in.

And you're reading all this from the "history of donning a guise that best suits his or her mental tone" remark? Isn't that...

A reach? I guess we'll find out.

Um...

You'll see.

Sure.

Why Aren't They The New Defenders?

2007-01-22T16:21:00.000-05:00

Dr. Strange, Power Man & Iron Fist, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Spider Woman, Ronin and Echo. Read all about it.

Wow. Except for the last two characters, who didn't exist, and the absences of Moon Knight and Gargoyle, this is the exact super team who's adventures I wanted to read in 1986.

Actually, after the initial story arc, it'll probably come time to fill out the roster with some new members. I'd add my boys Marc and Issac along with Valkyrie, Hawkeye and Mockingbird.

Mockingbird's dead, you say? Yeah, so's Jean Grey and Bucky Barnes. Oh, and Future Michael from 2008 just hopped off the Cosmic Treadmill, made a snide comment about Uncle Ben and Mary Jane being still "deseased" as well, and then disappeared. I hope that doesn't mean what I think it does.

Captian America may have said, "You're The Avengers, dammit!" but calling this team "The Defenders" isn't a reach either.

While we're discussing this, here's my beef with Ronin. He (or she) is just a cypher. The character is nothing more that a cool looking ninja costume. For the costume's previous appearances, it was Echo wearing the duds. Now she's got separate billing, so we have someone new dressing as a ninja. Since the A-team is ostensibly mint jelly* already, what further good does it do for the person wearing the Ronin mask to hide their identity? Rampant wide, wide world of web speculation has it that it's really Captain America wearing the ninja drag. It wasn't that long ago, two or three story arcs tops, that "Who is Ronin?" was the big mystery and now we're retreading that same plot device. Sigh. Hopefully, it's not just Cap in double secret hiding.

This time the person wearing the mask ought to be the "real" Ronin, someone with an origin story, secret identity, discinct set of powers, and personality. Otherwise the guise will rapidly devolve into parody. "Who is Ronin this time?" My guess is Speedball, or maybe Hank Pym.

Or maybe Ronin's real identity goes by the initials Brian Michael Bendis. No, I don't think that needs a Spoiler Alert! tag.

* Because they're on the lam. All credit to Abe Simpson.

So Where the Hell's Abin Sur Already?

2007-01-13T14:44:00.000-05:00

Your results: You are Green Lantern

Hot-headed. You have strong will power and a good imagination.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero am I?" quiz...

Classic Cover of the Week

2007-01-12T11:25:00.000-05:00

Flash #326, October 1983. So, it's a month shy of my tenth birthday and I'm in the local book store checking out the comics rack.

Actually, I'm gonna stop right there and let that sink it for a second. Comics in a book store. In a mall. No, that's not the ghost of Rod Sterling standing behind you with his hand on your shoulder.

Anyway, so there's ten year-old me in the book store checking out the rack and debating which comics deserved my allowance when there it was, Flash #326. This cover stopped me dead in my tracks. "How can the Flash be under arrest? He's a good guy!"

Now, I was a Marvel kid. Introduced to the X-men early on, and from there to Spidey, the Thing, Hawkeye, Moon Knight, and Power Man and Iron Fist. But this was the Flash, from Superfriends! All I knew of those "other comics" was what that I knew from "Superfriends", the Adam West "Batman", and the "Plastic Man" Saturday morning cartoon.

And I knew that Falsh was a good guy. How could he be under arrest? I had to know. Needless to say, there was no way I was leaving without that issue. Just a great classic cover and to this day every time I spent money on a DC comic I blame it on this cover.

Sixty cents well spent.

More Trouble in Little China

2007-01-08T12:37:00.000-05:00

"You know what old Jack Burton says at a time like this?"

Not yet, but my mind is reeling at the possibilities.

Go Sabres!

2007-01-08T02:23:00.000-05:00

Nothing else to see here. Move along.

Civil War #6 and The Big Reset Button

2007-01-05T18:29:00.000-05:00

It's sitting right there on page 14, panel 2, and I can't believe I didn't pick up on it in the character's previous appearances. Damn you, foreshadowing! You're a cruel mistress. Marvel Editorial and Mark Millar have given us a status quo restoring "out" should they need it. If I had a scanner I'd post a scan of the image to go along with it.*

MIRIAM: "I REALLY WANT TO THANK YOU FOR ALL THIS. NOT JUST THE MONEY. I MEAN, ALL THE WORK YOU'VE DONE TO PUSH MY BIG IDEA."

Wow. It's too bad I'll have to wait for the deluxe trade edition to see any of Millar's script for the issue. I'd be really surprised if the panel description for page 14, panel 3, is anything other than:

PANEL 3. CLOSE ON TONY AND REED. THEY GAZE LOVINGLY AT MIRIAM WITH THE BEATIFIC SMILES OF THE MIND CONTROLLED.

Granted, I have no idea how the story is really going to play out. That said, here you have a built-in escape clause for a sales backlash against CIVIL WAR, all of the ancillary tie-ins and the post-CIVIL WAR Marvel universe. If the books weren't doing gang busters the easiest thing in the world to do would be to reveal Tony and Reed as being mind controlled. Why else would they be acting so wildly out of character? Other characters, like Hank Pym and Spidey haven't had the direct telepathic whammy put on them so their opinions can vacillate, convictions waver.

Here's how I see it going down at some point in the future, forgoing precise page numbers:

NEXT PAGE, NEXT PANEL. TONY AND REED IN STREET CLOTHES ARE MEETING WITH MIRIAM AGAIN TO UPDATE HER ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE 50 STATE INITIATIVE AND GET THEIR LATEST MARCHING ORDERS.

NEXT PAGE, SINGLE PANEL SPLASH. IN A FLASH OF ELDRITCH LIGHT APPEARS DR. STRANGE, TELEPORTING HIMSELF ONTO THE SCENE. DR. STRANGE FLOATS ABOVE THE TRIO, HOLDING FORGE’S NEUTRALIZER PROTOTYPE.

DR. STRANGE: "I'M SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS, MIRIAM.”

DR. STRANGE: “BUT IT ENDS HERE.”

NEXT PAGE, PANEL 1. HE FIRES.

PANEL 2. MIRIAM CRUMPLES TO THE GROUND. SFX OF HER POWER BEING STRIPPED FROM HER VISUALLY CALLS BACK TO UNCANNY #181 AND ORORO.

MIRIAM: “NO!”

PANEL 3. TONY AND REED, THE SCALES FALL FROM THEIR EYES.

REED RICHARDS: "MY GOD, TONY. WHAT HAVE WE DONE?"

EPILOGUE: A PSYCHIATRIST’S OFFICE. ANGLE ON THE GRIEVING MOTHER. MIRIAM SITS ON THE COUCH AND WEEPS, HER FACE IN HER HANDS. SHE’S BEING COUNSELED BY ONE DOC SAMPSON.

Granted, there’s some gaps and leaps missing to get to this point. However, I think you can see what I’m trying to get at. This would be a satisfying ending to the story, and an emotional one. It would also tie up nicely everything that’s happened so far and give additional weight to the characters as they work to atone for their actions. Not only are Tony and Reed guilt ridden over what they’ve done, but they’re essentially innocent in the eyes of readers, freeing us to remain fans of the characters. Additionally, the secondary characters caught up in CIVIL WAR have learned the lesson of what blind patriotism brings. It’s a lesson both sides can use to help guide their actions going forward.

This leaves multiple story arcs just waiting to be developed. Tony and Reed’s atonement, rounding up all the freed super-villains, cleaning up after the “50 stater” super teams, etc.

And Captain America, the embodiment of true American values, was right all along.

The End.

*But then again, the 3 people that know about this blog can either read their own copy or borrow mine.

Cheaper Than A Doctor Bill

2007-01-03T01:18:00.000-05:00

Not only is this the best house ad in all of comics, but it's almost single handedly responsible for my continuing man-crush on Luke Cage and Danny Rand.

A Few Minor Clarifications

2007-01-02T18:18:00.000-05:00

In continuity: Danny the Street

Out of continuity: Superboy-Prime and the universe's punchable walls.

Soon-to-be out of continuity: Spidey's unmasking and Iron Man's Neo Con ego trip.

Internet Manifesto: Or Everyone Else Is Already Doing It.

2007-01-02T17:49:00.000-05:00

So, here’s the theory I’m running with when it comes to New Year’s resolutions in aught seven. Max Afinogenov’s shooting percentage is 19.8 as of January 1st. Chris Drury’s is 18.9. I’m not gonna take as many shots as they have so far but two out of ten? I think I can stick with two out of ten resolutions, or better yet 4-for-20.

This dumping ground for all the pablum that leaks out of my brain is one of the twenty. It’s also a distraction from the real writing I’ve been dragging ass on. So when procrastination is beating on the script that should I should be well into a second draft on, now I have another distraction to blame.

“Selective continuity?” you ask. Yeah, because do you remember when Reed and Sue Richards were in the Avengers with the likes of Gilgamesh, Doctor Druid, and Sersi? Me neither. Never happened. Scott Lobdell’s Uncanny X-Men? Who?

Captain Hero killed Danny Rand? Them’s fightin’ words, mister.

I do remember Ostrander’s Suicide Squad though, and the JLI. How about the time that Kurt and Logan stood back and finished their beers while the Juggernaut brought the whole bar down on Colossus’ head? Here at Selective Continuity that happened just a couple of months before Morrison’s run.

So I’m gonna blather about comics, ignore things I don’t like, try to restrain my gushing praise for the Sabres, and vent the random bits that don’t belong on the script page or in my head. Along the way I hope to hammer the spec scripts I’m working on into a submissible form.

As for the rest of the twenty, maybe the list stays where it belongs, in my head. Maybe it ends up here, where it doesn’t really belong.