My slowly growing collection of Heroclix figures has once again lead me to check out the Marvel Super Heroes RPG. I mean, where else can you play with a bunch of Marvel characters and also have most of them with stats – at least for the mid-80’s when the books for the game were coming out.
Unfortunately I’ve discovered the dark secret about how these stats were generated and how we lost national wheatcakes icon, May Parker.
In a shocking turn of events, online-embedded Nerdcenaries writer, Ziah Grace, has gotten some breaking news on the identity of the new Spider-Man set to debut in January’s Superior Spider-Man #1. The identity is under the cut, and SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS.
I think that Marvel and DC has some series that I’ve never heard of called Sexy Robin and Sexy Batgirl and Sexy Iron Man 2 and Sexy Thor and also the spinoff Sexy V for Vendetta because otherwise – what the hell is going on here? Is there some series designed to sell Sexy Superhero Halloween Costumes (and I ask because there is now that Ame-comi series which started out as sexy superhero costumes and now … getting off track).
Work has brought me into the world of Halloween superhero costumes with all of the neat kid’s costumes with fake muscles, the teen costumes made to scare people and then the adult costumes where they are pretty much poorly made dresses that usually are attached to some property – especially ones where it makes no sense. The sexy V for Vendetta costume has no mask. It shows the wearer is female with that cleavage window – I mean how does that make sense?
A few weeks ago, the LCS got a call from someone who wanted to inform us that he had a book out in Diamond and to encourage us to order it, which is fine for a local creator to do. Unfortunately, he said something that I imagine a lot of people do, and they need to stop: “Yeah, I turned my screenplay into a comic because I thought it would be more impressive that way.”
Ok, this is some absolute bullshit. Comics and Movies are two very different mediums! You can’t just turn one into the other, and unless you’re reading a late 2000’s Mark Millar comic, you can’t just make a comic entirely out of storyboards.
I was flipping through the zero issue of Talon today in the shop, and I noticed something that I couldn’t believe, bothered me, made me laugh, and then made me furious, in that order. This right here:
And, look. I’ve been pretty dispassionate about the Before Watchmen thing because, hey, DC is wearing it on their cooperate sleeve about how skeevy it is. Otherwise, they might have had even one inkling of shame about putting this out.
And people, just a reminder; that thing wasn’t a joke, or a parody, or anything else. DC straight up put that shit in Previews and sent it to retailers to possibly order, which is fucking insane. But, on the same token, you kind of have to respect the sheer chutzpah of that. Oh, you liked the most widely-read comic of all time? HAVE SOME GODDAMN TOAST.
This, though, is just… it’s missing the point in a way that’s past baffling to the point of “well, hey maybe it’s a parody”. Hit the jump to see the rest. [Note- I’m not going to scan any pages of Watchmen, because, look, you’ve all read it. You know what pages I’m referring to.]
So I actually made a file pertaining to Amethyst/Sword of Sorcery #0 as soon as I read it on Wednesday. But then later I saw Chris Sims had written (almost) exactly everything I wanted to say, and I felt alright about maybe not writing a post. But then this guy decided to prove how ignorant people can be, so now I’ve gotta address it.
On one hand, I’m thankful for jerks giving me writing opportunities I’m passionate about.
On the other, SERIOUSLY YOU MAKE MY BRAIN SHRIEK WITH RAGE LIKE MILLIONS OF NAILS RAKING A DESERT OF CHALKBOARDS.
It took me a while to get past my initial rage (I quote, “I will pull this guy’s lungs out through his urethra”), but I think I’m calm enough to evaluate him objectively. After all, I don’t think he’s a bad guy. His heart seems to be in the right place, his head’s just wedged securely up his ass.
I never want to make exceptions when it comes to rape. I never want to say “rape is never good except…”. Rape is a horrible thing. It is something that I wish our culture never had. I wish that we never had a society where people felt so much more important that they’d rape another person, male or female. I wish that comics didn’t use rape, or at least they’d having gravity and I wish Alan Moore didn’t use rape as well as he does because it inspired other people to do the same. Rape does not equal mature comics. It equates the sexual molestation of another person with robbing a bank, blowing up the White House or sending an army of alien invaders to kill the hero. It is a horrible crime that leaves the victims scarred, the criminals free most of the time and it can’t be dealt in a way that respects the victims a majority of the time. Adding it to children’s entertainment doesn’t help and it is simply a horror that we should not have in society, media or entertainment – not in that we avoid the discussion, but in that we should forcefully reprimand those who do it to dissuade all others.
Reading Tom Strong brought the issue to me and there will be spoilers ahead for volume one and volume five so if you care more not spoiling a 10 year old comic and a fill in writer’s very poor taste then please, by all means stop reading and return to whatever more important things you might be doing.
OMAC isn’t my favorite Kirby comic but like pretty much every Kirby comic there are some great ideas behind it. I mean we get exposed to these big ideas from the start – the big government Global Peace Agency with the masked agents so they could be anyone of any race from anywhere – that idea is amazingly progressive! The idea that these people fight threats to the rest of society without fighting – following the idea of peace – so what do they do then?
They get Buddy Blank and turn him into OMAC, the One Man Army Corp to fight where they can’t. A man with the strength of one hundred men – until he needs more! And then Brother Eye will just beam him code and rays to reunite his genetics! One man to take down armies of explosive couples, to stop cities where the rich literally can rent them out and to save the lives of people who’d be turned into meat suits for those who can afford it.
And yet, instead of just turning OMAC onto missions, the GPA gives him a family – one designed for him through tests that are more telling of the future than most comics. They give OMAC a voice and intellect! He’s a give star general, he’s intelligent and he is in control. He isn’t mindlessly following order and all the while the satellite Brother Eye watches over him. This is a world we could see in the future where one man armies protect us instead of sacrificing lives. When the divide between the rich and the poor leads to entire oceans being stolen. When genetic transformations are used to turn exes into monsters.
Those make for some great comics and all of that happened in 8 issues! So I’d heard good things about Dan Didio’s OMAC update, I decided to get the book on sale and I got disappointed pretty quickly. The comic isn’t horrible but it is disappointing, lifeless and somehow between the explosions, there isn’t any truth behind the comics.
OMAC isn’t doing what he’d done before. Gone was the One Man Army Corp, replaced with the One-Machine Attack Construct – cyber blue skin replacing that of man to make him more of the digital machine he was. Gone was the world to come – this was the world we’d never reach with superheroes and technology that could never become part of our life. Gone was the Global Peace Agency – instead Brother Eye was now a rogue satellite bent on fighting Cadmus for it’s own reasons, neither good or bad ultimately. Now Brother Eye dragged OMAC/Kevin Kho across the country, tossing him into situations without any warning. This wasn’t justice as far as I could see, this was a robot forcing a man into his petty war without reasons. And seriously – if you are going to be fighting a giant sky satellite, tell Superman (who shows up for some reason) to just punch it from the sky!
And now I am a big fan of Jack Kirby. I’m bringing this up because I honestly believe Dan Didio likes Jack Kirby. If we met, we could talk about our favorite moments in his comics and we’d have a great time. I don’t think he honestly understands Kirby though, he doesn’t get why Kirby put in his ideas, he doesn’t get pushing comics beyond basic good and evil and he doesn’t seem to get the soul of the character.
OMAC is littered with Kirby comic references – they types of things that would be fantastic if they were easter eggs in films are tossed in recklessly and relentlessly. Why is Cadmus working with Dubbilex, the alien from Kirby’s Jimmy Olsen run, Mokkari the geneticist from Apokolips and even the Build-A-Friend from the original OMAC. The Build-A-Friend which is no longer a friend, the tie that had made Buddy Blank originally keep going in his life as a loser, is now in no way a friend, in no way a tool – just a mindless reference tossed in with a machine guns. When Lashina appeared as “Sweet Leilani” in a single panel she ends up referencing her Granny, the Female Furies and “that black-haired bitch that leads us” aka Big Barda, it almost got too much. And then they went to the zoo and pulled in new teen hearthrob of Kirby’s Kamandi, Tuftan the Prince of the Tiger Men. A randomly genetically altered tiger – I don’t recall an explanation for why there were free roaming animals before “Command D” showed up to get killed by his son, Tuftan and … god.
The threats in the series come without reason. There is no character in OMAC besides the random lines he repeats like a parrot. Kevin Kho’s one chapter where he gets backstory is blindly plastered over an action scene. The 4th World stuff is building up along with references to the old continuity that can be painful to fans of the classic stuff and just confusing to the new readers. When the third issue lauds the return of Maxwell Lord – how are new readers supposed to know who he is? What has he done? It is just reducing the world that is to come into a world that is a cumshot. Brief pleasure but no love or life behind the strang and durm.
The series ends with Kevin Kho’s sentience overrunning OMAC’s body and Kho resolving himself to do his duty, not even fighting for love, not even being a man. This isn’t even poetic. Kirby ended his run with Brother Eye encased in stone above Earth and the island OMAC was fighting on destroyed in an explosion what OMAC was simply Buddy Blake.
Area Man Tells Comics Retailer He’s “Really Into This Indie Comics Dude Named ‘Rob Liefeld'”
Area Man Tells Comics Retailer He’s “Really Into This Indie Comics Dude Named ‘Rob Liefeld'”
Area Man Tells Comics Retailer He’s “Really Into This Indie Comics Dude Named ‘Rob Liefeld'”
Area Man Tells Comics Retailer He’s “Really Into This Indie Comics Dude Named ‘Rob Liefeld'”
Area Man Tells Comics Retailer He’s “Really Into This Indie Comics Dude Named ‘Rob Liefeld'”
Area Man Tells Comics Retailer He’s “Really Into This Indie Comics Dude Named ‘Rob Liefeld'”
Area Man Tells Comics Retailer He’s “Really Into This Indie Comics Dude Named ‘Rob Liefeld'”
Area Man Tells Comics Retailer He’s “Really Into This Indie Comics Dude Named ‘Rob Liefeld'”
Area Man Tells Comics Retailer He’s “Really Into This Indie Comics Dude Named ‘Rob Liefeld'”
Area Man Tells Comics Retailer He’s “Really Into This Indie Comics Dude Named ‘Rob Liefeld'”
Area Man Tells Comics Retailer He’s “Really Into This Indie Comics Dude Named ‘Rob Liefeld'”
Area Man Tells Comics Retailer He’s “Really Into This Indie Comics Dude Named ‘Rob Liefeld'”
Area Man Tells Comics Retailer He’s “Really Into This Indie Comics Dude Named ‘Rob Liefeld'”
Area Man Tells Comics Retailer He’s “Really Into This Indie Comics Dude Named ‘Rob Liefeld'”
Area Man Tells Comics Retailer He’s “Really Into This Indie Comics Dude Named ‘Rob Liefeld'”
Area Man Tells Comics Retailer He’s “Really Into This Indie Comics Dude Named ‘Rob Liefeld'”