Random rantings about the industry Article by aviewaskewed, 03:28 AM 31st Oct Disclaimer: The following column is entirely the opinions of the author (even at that we aren‘t sure), any similarity to the opinions of any other staff or affiliate of theendlesscrew.com is entirely coincidental and unintentional. Unless specifically noted otherwise, all creator comments have been gleaned from other sources and no creators have actually endorsed any aspect of this column. Happy Halloween bitches! I don’t really have much in the way of a defined topic this week, just a bunch of thoughts kicking around as it relates to the comics world, so you’ll just have to settle for one of my “cleaning out the notebook” weeks here. Stephen King at Marvel: It’s been a hot bit of speculation since last summer, and Friday confirmed it. This is pretty damn huge, and no matter how jaded you are towards this business, and the “stunts” we’re so used to seeing in it, you have to admit this is a great, great boon for Marvel, and comics in general. King brings a certain amount of “respect” and fan base, not to mention The Dark Tower is a work of his that even people I know who hate his work admit is very good. It’s a good opportunity for Marvel to really get the real world humming, and if other publishers are smart, they will try to pony up some cash to get ad space in this book. I hate to say this WILL lead to a new renaissance of comics respectability, but it could certainly be a big step towards it, as it might perhaps work as a catalyst to bring new fans in, and not feel self-conscious, and also remind lapsed fans why they love the medium. A good deal all around so far I think. Geoff Johns: Reading GL: Rebirth finally. I am not a fan of Hal Jordan as GL, I do like him as The Spectre though, I read about the way they explained Parallax and thought it was going to be stupid, and only picked this book up because of how much it changes the DCU, and effects characters I hold fairly dear. About halfway through it so far, and wow, Johns has totally done it again! He’s made an idea that in a less capable writer’s hands would have been completely ludicrous and easily let Hal Jordan off the hook, and therefore mar a return that many fans have clambered for all these years. He’s made it work, and even a hardened non-Hal fan like me is tempted to maybe pick up the new book, and root for the man to take back his life. Kudos to Geoff for being DC’s absolute MVP writer these days. Bendis and Maleev rocking out the door on DD: Brian and Alex are telling an incredible DD tale, it’s all come down to this one kids, and they are pulling out absolutely all the stops and doing what great comics, nay, what great STORIES, do: Forget that there’s a writer and an artist and completely buy the reality and immediacy of the story. I’ve never hated the Kingpin more, or feared for Matt Murdock the way I fear for him now, and that last page? Chilling, and at the same time exhilarating, even if it’s the only thing out that week next month, I’ll be nearly racing into the door of my local shop to fetch my next copy. Great job guys! You’ve made the book like a monthly dose of crack again! Lack of Halloween comics: It’s rather disappointing to me how “business as usual” the big publishers have been about Halloween here. I realize that Marvel and DC have major events in motion they need to push, but at least Marvel made an attempt to put out a holiday themed book in “Howling Commandos”. I’m not saying I need every single book in the line to suddenly drop what it’s doing for the sake of a holiday, but you know? I don’t think there’s a real excuse not to get such issues out there when you see a writer like Geoff Johns squeeze out Thanksgiving and Christmas stories for the JSA. Or at least settle for trotting out a compilation of some of that horror or spooky material that I KNOW they’ve got (what better time to put out a compilation of Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, DC? Maybe next year?). Hopefully they’ll blunt my disappointment next year. JSA: Classified: I can’t BELIEVE I am saying this but Geoff Johns totally ripped us off. I’m serious, here we have the mystery of Power Girl’s origins, built up for about three years or so in JSA (I got into the series in trade, and have only been monthly with it in January, so I apologize for the guess work involved in exactly how long John’s has teased this), and when he finally gets around to letting the cat out of the bag, not only does he do it in a slow build, but he does it to wrap into a giant crossover which, by the nature of the first issue, absolutely left no doubt in our minds that Power Girl was going to have her status as the Supergirl of Earth-2 restored. I’m not saying I’m unhappy with the reveal, as I’m in the same camp a friend of mine (our soon to be returning TV Columnist LatinoHeat, plug, plug), in that the most lingering problem coming out of Crisis on Infinite Earth’s is that character’s who were left over from it lost pieces of their history (in some cases, like Power Girl, they’re ENTIRE history) I can understand DC felt the need to streamline things, but I think they streamlined it way too much. It’s good to see it coming back, but when something is purported to be “the real origin” or whatever of a character, and it’s been all but given away by the company somewhere else, you just feel like your spending your money for nothing. Not to mention it doesn’t feel like the story “ends” and rather just feeds into Infinite Crisis, which will hurt it’s overall re-readability. Slow news weeks: With everything that is simmering in comics, does anybody else feel like we seem to have hit a period where (with the exception of the Stephen King announcement) we’re all just kind of waiting for the next “big announcement” to come along? I mean, aside from maybe the next issue of Infinite Crisis, there’s not much out there to overall get excited about in the immediate future, which is obviously bad from the perspective of a site like ours that is trying to provide you with free content every day, but also from the fan perspective. Maybe there’s things out there that get you excited that we just don’t cover here. If that’s the case, drop us a line and let us know, even better, see if you can’t donate some of your time to be put on staff here, I’m always looking for intelligent folks with a particular area of expertise in the comics world to pitch in. And on that note of pure shameless plugging, I think I’ll call it a week, this one is much shorter then last week I know, but that’s just the way it goes, hopefully next week I’ll get a topic floating, and we can get somewhere between this quick hitter, and that big monster of last week. Keep your finger’s crossed, and drop me a line with any thoughts, comments, concerns, demands that I just fire myself already. Back to Rants