The Comics Cube!

It Came from Comics: "Jeep"

2013-05-23T21:00:00.000+08:00

Welcome to another installment of It Came From Comics, a new series of indefinite length exploring everyday terms that were popularized by comics. Click here for the archive!

Today's term is "jeep"!

A while back, I posted up some scans of the 1958 Encyclopedia Americana entry on comics, which stated that among the terms that have been popularized by comics over the years, "jeep" was one of them. So I looked up the etymology of the word at the Online Etymology Dictionary, and this is what it gave me:

jeep (n.)
early 1941, American English military slang, from G.P. "general purpose (car)," but influenced by Eugene the Jeep (who had extraordinary powers but only said "jeep"), from E.C. Segar's comic strip "Thimble Theater" (also home of Popeye the Sailor). Eugene the Jeep first appeared in the strip March 13, 1936. The vehicle was in development from 1940, and the Army planners' initial term for it was light reconnaissance and command car.

So that's pretty interesting. It was a "general purpose" car, so they shortened it to "G.P.," and then further to "jeep," because of Eugene the Jeep from Thimble Theater, the same comic that starred Popeye and Alice the Goon! Eugene the Jeep was a mysterious animal-like creature from Africa with the power to teleport, and who only ever said the word "jeep."

Although he appeared first in March 1936, the term didn't become widespread until 1941, so Eugene's appearance in the Popeye cartoon probably has more to do with the use of the term than the comic.

But still... it came from comics!

I now want to call everyone with the initials "G.P." jeep, including former NBA superstar Gary Payton and my favorite artist, George Perez. I won't, though.

Pop Medicine: Fast Like a Train

2013-05-22T09:00:00.000+08:00

Pop Medicine is a "visiting" column by Travis Hedge Coke for the Comics Cube! Click here for the archive!

Fast Like a Train

Pop Medicine

Travis Hedge Coke

“I’ve been to Georgia on a fast train, Honey.
I wasn’t born no yesterday.
I got a good Christian raising
And an eighth grade education
And there ain’t no call in y’all a treating me this way.”
Billy Joe Shaver, “Georgia on a Fast Train”

"Rock and Roll? Why, man, that's the same kind of music we've been playin' since 1928!”
Bob Wills, quoted in the Tulsa Tribune in 1957

I’m losing my patience with the folks who complain about storytelling techniques that have been around for twenty years, or three thousand. I’m tired of people complaining that a comic is moving too fast when it’s static words and static pictures frozen on a page that never changes. My tolerance for people who complain adamantly about the unfairness of being expected to actually read some words in a comic or look at what’s going on in a panel, is lessening. It’s not unreasonable to expect a reader to intuit that when you see a train speeding towards a bridge and then someone duck with someone else gone, they were knocked off. That stopping a largely action-to-action story to show thirty pages of tidal waves and decimated buildings, it could, just possibly, be because the destruction is important, that the destruction is immense and not a blip but a lasting, unending terror.

I’m burnt out readers on who demand their comics go I Can Read mode, who insist the comic flinch for them, because they are too lazy to flinch for themselves. They don’t even want an I Can Read book, because even little kids’ books don’t always tell you the moral of every moment. I’ve never read a little kids’ book about Batman –I’ve read a few; I like the simplicity of children’s literature, not young adult, but books for the three to twelve market, the openness, the way it’s pared more than coiffed – I’ve never read a children’s book with Batman that felt the need to detail an exercise regime for him, or provide the name of everyone he studied under, to present the CV of Batman. CV of Batman, or an un-messy biography of Batman isn’t I Can Read, it’s I Have No Imagination Only a Feed In and Store Feature.

I like a guidebook, a trivia list, or fictive diagrams and family trees, but I don’t care if the family tree actually lines up so long as it looks like it lines up. It’s in the service to something, for me, in the service of a fictional lineage, with the lineage mattering, the idea and the characters, more than the actual dates and branching mapped out. I’ve known this ever since, as a teen, my friends and I tried to actually play some of the RPGs we used to pick up at used book stores and we realized that playing a Palladium game is time consuming and strict and nearly as much fun as extrapolating mad shit based on the half-formed suggestions they make in those books, the prompts they give. Sabermetrics, stats guys, that’s all good, and I’m happy for you having fun, but it isn’t my world. I don’t want to know the weight of the USS Enterprise, I want to see it kick into warp and then maneuver like a glorious albatross while incredibly naïve Shakespearean future people engage in single-shot unarmored conflict on her whatever-deck-they-happen-to-say-it-is.

I’m not criticizing folks that want a fully-built world or who enjoy fiction that makes lists or diagrams, like Richard Condon or Alan Moore. But Condon doesn’t slow up The Manchurian Candidate to detail every minute of Major Marco’s training when he’d first enlisted. Condon, Moore, Michael Crichton or Chuck Dixon use semi-facts, maps and figures to establish veracity, not because the figures themselves are useful. I doubt Chuck Dixon cares if the tensile strength or burn-resistance of materials actually bears out, even if he gives an exact figure, because the figure isn’t being applied to a scene, it’s being used to gloss over the scene.

The worst thing Alan Moore’s ever done, in fiction, is in my favorite Moore comic of all time. Black Dossier has a ton of excellent pastiches, including a cod-Shakespeare who writes pretty accurately cod-Shakespearean plays, and a fun Jeeves, Wooster, and Lovecraftia story that kills itself by spending its last paragraph or three explaining the final joke. It’s poor pastiche (Wodehouse would never have done that), it’s bad for the humor, and it insults any reader paying attention.

But, I can’t help but suspect there’s a very real audience who need that explanation. They can’t have jokes that aren’t explained. They can’t even have policies against killing or bowties in their fiction without having them explained, in detail, ad nauseam. They need reassurance on exceptional levels.

Everyone likes a little reassurance in their entertainment. It’s good to be sideswiped or feel left alone in the cold once in awhile, with entertainment, but if every movie, every song, each television program and short story we encountered was wildly unpredictable and constantly felt alien and risky we’d probably drop dead from anxiety. Or, stop reading and watching that stuff for a bit.

I’m not a huge fan of Nolan’s Batman movies, but what he did get right isn’t that the movies are realistic – they are not realistic, not in any mature sense. What he got right is that he reassures us of things just enough to skate us over the chasms of doubt before we even notice there’s pitfalls there. In Batman Begins, Batman says aloud he doesn’t kill at least twice, in memorable moments that occur right before he very directly assists in the deaths of others, first with a big fight and explosion and later by point blank refusing to help a man about to die when we all know he could pull it off. He refuses to save a man just to prove that he can refuse to save him. But, we – the average moviegoer sitting watching this scene – don’t care, because what we heard was “I won’t kill.”

Movies are generally very good at reassuring the audience this way, and of reiterating information over and over, but they have to: once a line of dialogue or a visual has passed, it has passed. Movies are, traditionally, not designed with rewind or pause in mind. Movies developed a set of techniques very good for coping with that temporality, but also use it as a strength. They can use a line of dialogue or a cut to obscure something questionable or too intense that’s going on, such as the aforementioned intentional deaths in the aforementioned Begins.

A common technique in Hollywood movies is to remind the audience of important information a minimum of three times in short succession, to make sure it is lodged firmly in the short term memory of the audience. That’s more and more going to change (Hello, Twixt and your shortchanged home version release!) as movie-makers have ceased so much to be filmmakers and are embracing the fact the home player, and sadly, probably the cell phone is how people are getting their movie fix more and more, not the theatre. But, it’s still part of our training, on how to enjoy movies. When Luc Besson’s adaptation of the comic, The Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec came out, several critics were concerned that it’s outright comedy was not treated more seriously, such as Adele not being arrested for putting on funny costumes and breaking into a prison repeatedly or the first resurrected Egyptian mummy speaking flawless, contemporary French. No matter how ludicrous, if they’d shoved in a snippet of dialogue saying the mummy had overheard so much French from museum patrons, those critics would probably have been satisfied.

But, comics are not movies. A comics page makes it very easy to glance back a the previous panel. When you pause a movie, you lose the sound, including dialogue, but when you stop and have a longer look at a comics panel, it’s just there, all of it. Everything you can see in a comics panel is there every single time you look at it, no matter how you look at it (unless there’s a glow in the dark or 3D effect that isn’t being looked at in the dark or with glasses on, but pretend I’m not that pedantic and didn’t distend this sentence just to include a parenthetical about glow in the dark interiors and 3D glasses).

If you are unsure of an important piece of information in a movie, traditionally you couldn’t go back and check just that bit. This has never been the case with comics and it never will be. It is not in the nature of the medium to be transitory in that sense. You can always flip back a panel, or flip back seven pages, and reread to remind yourself. You can sit with a single scene, a solitary panel, for as long as you like. You don’t have a preset speed at which you must read a comic or any part of it.

I spend part of every week at a local children’s library, with the little kids. Just today, I sat with a little girl and, together, we read about half a dozen books about girls who are flowers, and we read a couple about airplanes who are people, and a robot Christmas parody with mechanical milkmaids and steel reindeer she assured me go “Whiirr. Click. Destroy.” These books, lamentably, never once try to explain in serious diagrams why a robot milking device need to be shaped like a woman or wear a costume, never justify a bipedal flower’s decision to wear blue jeans with flower patches on the knees. And, somewhere in the midst of reading these and throwing stuffed bears at each other, she explained to me step by step, how you figure things out you might not get the first time you read them. You’re supposed to consider each one, and if it helps you, stop there. If you need more, proceed.

Step 2: Read it again.

Step 3: Sound it out and think about it in context. Maybe it only seems like something you don’t understand.

Step 4: Look in the dictionary or online for more information.

But, it was Step 1 that put the smile on my face.

Step 1: Do you need to know right now? Or will we find out on the next page?

Back Issue Ben: Guarding the Galaxy, Part 14: It Begins!

2013-05-20T21:00:00.000+08:00

Back Issue Ben is a column written by Ben Smith for the Comics Cube! See his archives here.

GUARDING THE GALAXY: EXPLORING THE MARVEL COSMIC UNIVERSE

Part Fourteen: It Begins!

Following the success of Annihilation and Annihilation: Conquest, I can only assume Marvel asked themselves the same question I’ve been asking, what if all of these great reinvigorated characters all starred together in one ongoing book? Well, that’s exactly what happened, and it’s the book I’ve been eagerly teasing since we started this long journey. We got a glimpse of it with the Annihilation: Starlord mini-series, but now we get the real deal in the ongoing Guardians of the Galaxy series. How would Starlord, Adam Warlock, Drax, Gamora, Rocket Raccoon, and Quasar work together? As a comic book, excellent, but as a team, not so well.

So, let’s get started, and see if I’ve overhyped this book to levels it can’t possibly reach.

Guardians of the Galaxy #1. Writers: Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning; Pencils: Paul Pelletier; Inker: Rick Magyar; Editor: Bill Rosemann

Starlord, Rocket Raccoon, Phyla-Vell, Adam Warlock, Drax, and Gamora are locked in combat against a group of followers aboard a Universal Church of Truth templeship.

(Intercut between the scenes are testimonials from various members of the team.)

Two weeks ago, Starlord pitches his idea to Nova and Phyla, for a proactive force ready and assembled to take on threats before they happen. Two devastating wars in short succession have left the galaxy reeling, and he doesn’t believe it can withstand another one.Nova is too busy, being the last surviving member of the Nova Corps, but he suggests Gamora and Drax, who both could use a purpose in life.

Back to present day, the team humorously tries to decide on a team name, while in the middle of combat.

Flashback, two days after the end of the Phalanx Conquest, Starlord enlists the services of Rocket Raccoon, while the two of them enjoy some drinks.

Back to the action, Adam Warlock clears a path through the crowd. The next room is a massive chamber that houses the U.C.T.’s faith generators, which literally soaks up the faith of their worshippers and converts it into energy.

Three days after the end of the Phalanx invasion, Drax and Phyla meet at the grave of Moondragon. Since he accomplished what he was created to do by killing Thanos, Phyla offers him a new purpose by joining the team.

Back to the templeship, the team has been working to close a fissure in space, which, exacerbated by the templeship’s power battery, is tearing open a sub-fissure.

The U.C.T. occupants of the ship, afraid for their lives, teleport out, leaving behind their followers.

Four days after the end of the war, Nova talks to Gamora about joining the team (who is upset because she thought he called for her up for some post-war lovin’).

Back to their present predicament, the templeship has already breached the fissure. The team has to neutralize the font, and render the craft inert before it ruptures the fissure. Before they can do anything, a massive alien monstrosity appears out of the fissure.

Adam and Phyla hold back the creature, while Rocket Raccoon neutralizes the font with a large explosive device.

Rocket blows up the font, while Phyla and Adam absorb the released energy and use it to push the creature back to where it came from.

Five days after the end of the conquest, Adam Warlock addresses the team. He talks about how space has been damaged. The Annihilation Wave was so destructive, it weakened the fabric of space-time, creating fissures in space. The structure of the universe is in danger of falling apart. Things that exist outside of our universe now have an opportunity to pry their way through these fissures.

Adam believes Starlord’s idea of a proactive force is a good one, and is desperately needed to keep the galaxy stable.

On Sacrosanct, the homeworld of the Universal Church of Truth, one of the individuals that abandoned the templeship addresses their Matriarch. He tells her that the templeship was attacked by super-powered individuals, and that they slaughtered eighty-nine members of the crew.

She orders him to summon the Cardinals, to speak to her about this problem.

The team regroups at their new control center on Knowhere. Its continuum cortex is an ideal method for them to respond quickly anywhere in the galaxy.

Cosmo, head of security (and telepathic Russian dog), greets them upon their return.

A fully recovered Mantis, watering a still growing Groot, greets them when they reach their quarters.

Rocket offers more suggestions for a team name. Mantis, in her confessional, reveals that the team will agree on the Guardians of the Galaxy in three hours. Also, nine months from now they will be betrayed and killed by one of their own.

Adam is reviewing the deep-range monitor, and discovers a temporal fissure in the vicinity of 56 Hydronis. The team prepares to move out to investigate.

During his confessional, Starlord comments that thankfully their first mission wasn’t some complicated alternate reality situation.

Meanwhile, on the floating frozen rock near 56 Hydronis, a figure holding the shield of Captain America is trapped in the ice.

My brain thoughts: See, I told you it would be great if all of these characters were in one single book. I remember being initially disappointed that Bug didn’t get the call, but it’s a lot of characters to handle as it is. Plus, I told you Cosmo, Knowhere, and Paul Pelletier would make it over from the Nova series, and here they are. Pelletier does an excellent job on the pencils. (He’s a nice guy to boot. I met him at Megacon in Orlando, FL, and he drew me an awesome sketch of Groot.) The implementation of the “confessionals” turn out to be a useful storytelling technique, used for both exposition and humor.

Guardians of the Galaxy #2. Writers: Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning; Pencils: Paul Pelletier; Inker: Rick Magyar; Editor: Bill Rosemann

The team arms up, action movie style, and prepares to depart for 56 Hydronis.

When they arrive, the fissure is noticeably worse than they had anticipated. Something is aggravating it.

Adam Warlock attempts to divine the answer. He’s not able to determine the cause, but he does know the mass they are standing on is not native to their reality. The rock is frozen in time, “limbo ice” as he refers to it.

Phyla senses a structure inside the ice and melts it away to see. What they find is the front gate to the Avengers mansion. The team is shaken by the uncertainness of the situation.

A disgusting alien creature breaks free from the ice and attacks.

Phyla’s blasts accelerated the thawing process, and now the things entombed in the ice are waking up, including, the mysterious figure holding the shield of Captain America. The team fights against the giant beast. Suddenly, Cap’s shield comes sailing through, freeing Adam Warlock from the creature’s grasp.

The shield returns to the person that threw it, Vance Astrovik, also known as Major Victory of the original Guardians of the Galaxy.

He collapses. Adam tells the team to prepare to leave. The mass itself is what’s aggravating the fissure, a concentration of frozen time that is expanding as it thaws. He’s going to try and disintegrate the mass completely.

The rest of the team bugs out, while Adam and Phyla stay behind to destroy the mass. They activate their passports and teleport out just as the rock explodes.

On Sacrosanct, the homeworld of the Universal Church of Truth, the Matriarch meets with Cardinal Raker. She tells him of the attack on their templeship, and provides him footage of the attackers. One of the attackers in particular, they find unsettling, and she orders him to bring her confirmation of his or her identity.

Back on Knowhere, Phyla takes some time off to shop for some groceries, accompanied by Cosmo. They run into Drax, having just returned from the continuum cortex and acting strangely.

In the team control center, Starlord wonders if finding Major Victory won’t be the catalyst for the team in the same way the Avengers finding Captain America was.

Rocket comments that the Guardians of the Galaxy is a cool team name. Mantis has finished her examination of Vance Astrovik. She theorizes that he is very old, his suit is the only thing keeping him alive, and that he is temporally dislocated.

She talks to Vance, who can’t remember anything, but is very concerned with the current date. He knows he travelled back through dimensions outside time for something really important, but he can’t remember what.

Gamora discovers another fissure on the deep-range monitor, at Binary Stasis Twelve, which is a Dyson Sphere. The team arrives on the sphere, which is a sun enclosed within an artificial shell. They land in the habitable zone, which is protected by the tinted sun shield. An incoming teleport announces the arrival of Raker, and the other Cardinals of the Universal Church of Truth.

My brain thoughts: The Universal Church of Truth is a fanatical and intolerant religious empire, originally founded by Adam Warlock’s evil self, the Magus. The U.C.T. made its first appearance in Strange Tales#178. Created by Jim Starlin, it originally was a not so-subtle representation of Starlin’s opinions on organized religion. In order to keep myself out of as much trouble as possible, I will refrain from saying anything else about the subject. (Politics and religion, avoid them in social conversations unless you want to start a fight. Money too, I guess. The horribleness of Quasar and Superman are fair game though. That’s right, I put Superman on the same level as Quasar.)

(Duy here. Damn you, Smith.)

Guardians of the Galaxy #3. Writers: Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning; Pencils: Paul Pelletier; Inker: Rick Magyar; Editor: Bill Rosemann

The Cardinals are powered by belief, drawing on the energy stored in the Universal Church of Truth’s “belief batteries.” Basically, they can do anything if they believe they can. The Guardians are not faring well in battle against them. Drax and the others do what they can to fight back, but the Cardinals are too powerful.

Suddenly, a giant amorphous blob full of skeletal remains comes rumbling up behind them.

Mantis and Vance continue to talk, while she sprays a still re-growing Groot.

A flash of light appears, revealing a figure that blasts Vance to the ground.

The man attacks Mantis, knocking her out, but gives Vance time to counterattack with his shield. Vance is surprised that he knows the man’s name is Starhawk.

Back on the Dyson Sphere, the team flees from the approaching blob. A Cardinal is swallowed up and killed by the unknown substance.

According to Adam Warlock, the blob is all fifty-two hundred residents of the Sphere, fused into one dreadful biomass. They had been conducting genetic research, and opened a fissure in the structure of their own DNA.

The biomass has now engulfed two Cardinals and their belief power, which is accelerating the entire biomass to critical. They have to destroy it before it opens a full-on fissure. Before they can, the Cardinals confront them again. They accuse Adam of summoning the mass, and attack Starlord with a blast, sending him reeling. When Adam rushes to save Starlord from falling into the mass, the Cardinals stab him in the back.

With the both of them laying there bleeding, the Cardinals depart.

With Warlock out of commission, it’s now up to Phyla, Drax, Gamora, and Rocket to figure out a way to destroy the mass.

Back on Knowhere, the fight between Vance and Starhawk rips through the facility, spilling into the continuum cortex. Starhawk teleports away, but too much damage has already been done to the teleportation batteries, leaving the Guardians stranded.

Back on the sphere, Starlord comes up with a plan to lift the sun shield, frying the biomass as well as everything else. They locate the controls and open the shield. The biomass ignites, as the team runs in the other direction. Unfortunately, their passports are not working, and they are stuck.

Phyla seals them in an energy field, but she won’t be able to hold it for long. The biomass is fried, so Drax asks Phyla to shield him while he returns to the control panel to lower the shield back down. Phyla isn’t sure she can shield anyone, and before anyone can make another move, Gamora runs off into the flames. Phyla protects her as much as she can, but the rest is going to be up to Gamora’s healing factor.

Her body burning to a crisp, Gamora makes it to the control panel and lowers the shield.

Later, in their confessionals, the team praises Gamora’s dedication and heart. Cosmo regrets that the team was stuck for fifteen hours while the continuum cortex was repaired. A crispy-fried Gamora hides under a cloak. Adam is recovering, and angry that the U.C.T. interfered with yet another one of their missions.

Back on the homeworld of the Universal Church of Truth, Raker confirms the identity of Adam Warlock to the Matriarch, using the blood and tissue samples he obtained when he stabbed him.

Leaving them to wonder, if the true Adam Warlock is working with the Guardians, then who is it they have in their cocoon?

My brain thoughts: Just like in the Starlord mini-series, the full wonderfulness of the book can’t be determined just by a beat-by-beat recap of the events of the books. The special sauce comes in the characters interactions with each other, and the humor. The confessionals really provide a great vehicle for humorous commentary throughout the action, and insights into characterization. Old school Guardians of the Galaxy fans (like that Tano — [Duy here. Yes, I admit it. I have an almost full run of the 90s Guardians series.]) should be intrigued about the inclusion of classic characters like Vance Astrovik and Starhawk. (I know I read old Guardians comics as a kid, but I couldn’t tell you if it was the ‘70s/’80s appearances, or the more popular ‘90s version. Regardless, I remember next to nothing about any of them. They had their shot, and they blew it. It’s time for Rocket and friends to shine.)

My final brain thoughts: Enclosed suns, crispy-fried Gamora, limbo ice, alien monsters, angry Starhawk, talking Russian dogs, bomb-tossing raccoons, and religious cults of death.

It’s entirely possible I may have overhyped this book to disappointing levels for you, but I doubt it. If you don’t like this book there is something wrong with your brain. (Or you just don’t like good comics. Or you don’t like the comics I like, which is the more sane and logical answer, but those things have no place on the internet. I say good day to you sir. I say good day!) Reading the books all the way through, going all the way back to the Drax mini-series, really helps you develop a deep appreciation for every single character in the book, which only makes it that much more satisfying when they all combine together into one team. The only thing you could even compare it to is when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby assembled the original Avengers into one spectacular comic all the way back in the olden times. Even then, I don’t think those characters had the years of development at that time, that the Guardians got throughout the course of two crossover events. It’s really quite impressive. Anyway, if you can’t get excited about a comic starring a talking raccoon, a telepathic Russian dog, a walking tree, Mantis, the decapitated head of a Celestial, and a hot green woman wearing a bikini, then you need to find another hobby. (May I suggest coin-collecting?!) All that, plus a distinct lack of Marv Wolfman and Tobey Maguire, what more could you ask for?

Next time, Skrulls!

Back Issue Ben kept typing "Adam Strange" instead of "Adam Warlock" throughout this. I'm convinced he did it to give me more work to do. In the meantime, you can get the TPB of the series here:

Great Back Issues: Daily Bugle #1–3

2013-05-16T21:00:00.000+08:00

I was rifling through my back-issue bins, most of which house stuff from the 90s when I was really collecting, and I ran across the 1996 miniseries Daily Bugle, by Paul Grist and Karl Kerschl. As the title suggests, this three-issue series focuses on the crew of the Daily Bugle, Marvel New York's most prominent newspaper. This would have already been unusual for 1996, as it was a series focusing on supporting characters, but the real catch is that it's in black and white.

Paul Grist, then known for his independent crime comic Kane, tackled the staff of the Bugle in an ensemble fashion, giving the principal characters — Betty Brant, J. Jonah Jameson, Robbie Robertson, Angela Yin, Ben Urich, Charlie Snow, and Ken Ellis (I wonder where those last three are now? I stopped reading Spider-Man comics for about a decade) — all something different to do. Grist is accompanied by the shadow-heavy work of Karl Kerschl, and his work here may be a revelation to those more used to his lighter stuff, like the Flash feature in Wednesday Comics.

Kerschl uses a wide range of emotions and body language to get the story across, and it's the mood he sets and that aforementioned body language and expressions that really make this one worth tracking down, since I don't think the actual plot of the story is anything to write home about. Betty Brant goes to cover the opening of a new restaurant called The Food Factory, only to find out that it's mired in a lot of dirty business. Charlie Snow is dealing with a drinking problem, Ben Urich is being Ben Urich and trying to dig up the dirt on some mobsters, and Jameson is trying to keep Spider-Man off the front page by undertaking an investigation on his own regarding a series of burning buildings. The final issue, in which Betty Brant is kidnapped, brings most of the stories to a head.

There's no Spider-Man in these issues, save for an appearance as a front-page headline, and Peter Parker is only there sparingly, so for all intents and purposes, this is very much a street-level, "no superpowers" comic, much like, I suppose Gotham Central, which focused on the Gotham City Police Department over at the Different Company. This doesn't really give the series much in the sense of genuine suspense (since at least four of the main characters would have been untouchable anyway in terms of any permanent changes), but Grist makes up for it by taking us into the issues, both moral and legal, that the Bugle journalists have to deal with. In the first issue, Ben and Angela find out that a congressman with otherwise good intentions is having an affair with a porn starlet, and when they run the story, Angela wonders what they've really accomplished, since the bad guys are still on the loose and one of the politicians against them now has his dirty laundry out there. Jameson tries to explain the Bugle's position to the congressman, essentially espousing truth as freeing him at the end of it — that way, he can't be blackmailed.

Check out how quickly Kerschl changes Jameson's expression there.
He goes from the buffoonish curmudgeon you're used to as a Spidey
supporting character to a superserious main character.

In the second issue, Jameson tries to keep Spider-Man off the front page by investigating a series of burning buildings. When he finds out that the landlord has been negligent in terms of safety and security, he pays him a visit and sets fire to an architects' model of a new building (to replace one of the burned-down ones) in his office. This leads to Robbie telling Jonah that he's unable to run the article, even though it's really good.

Great character work, moral ambiguity, and appropriate art to match. Daily Bugle reads like the start of something more, something that would last, something that would define any or all of these characters. It didn't happen. This is what we got, which is why, if you see these things in the back issue bins, don't hesitate to buy them.

Pop Medicine: Idle Comparisons

2013-05-15T09:00:00.000+08:00

Pop Medicine is a "visiting" column by Travis Hedge Coke for the Comics Cube! Click here for the archive!

Idle Comparisons

Pop Medicine

Travis Hedge Coke

Sacred cows. Cherished idols. Things everyone knows. Sometimes things are simply understood, the prevalence of the understanding making analysis or quantifying unnecessary and questioning feel either pointless or offensively pointless. Comics, as any field, has more than a few, and I thought I’d go around and test the brakes, trace the wiring, and kick the tires on a few, because why not? What, but our illusions, do we have to lose?

1. Karen Page vs Roy Harper

Karen Page debuted in comics as Matt “Daredevil” Murdock’s secretary. She gained notoriety when, feeling abandoned and ashamed, she became addicted to heroin, had some unwise sexual relationships (including pornography) and sold out her old friends to facilitate her junk habit. She then spent the next decade, after 1985’s release of a single storyline of addiction and misjudgment, building herself back up, kicking her habit for good, choosing better sexual partners, including a long, healthy relationship with Matt Murdock, working as a feminist activist and radio show host until she is murdered. She is called a “whore” at least once a week online, usually under the misguided belief that Frank Miller referred to her as such during his time on Daredevil.

Roy Harper debuted in comics as Oliver “Green Arrow” Queen’s sidekick, Speedy. He gained notoriety when, feeling abandoned and ashamed, he became addicted to heroin, had some unwise sexual relationships (including impregnating a mass-murderer who detonated a nuclear warhead on a country) and sold out her old friends to facilitate his junk habit. Since before 1986, real-time, he has been sleeping with anything that said yes, regardless of how sensible it was at the time, maintained a relationship (including parental) with the mass-murdering mother of his daughter, failing to hold down any job other than superheroing with any functionality, and eventually falling back into addiction and doing sick things with dead cats, until the universe was fundamentally altered.

Harper’s neither slut-shamed nor criticized for his lack of judgment nearly as often or as harshly as Karen Page, despite the fact she’s been dead for over a decade and he’s been continuously fucking up that whole time.

2. Luke Cage vs Captain America

Luke Cage called himself a “Hero for Hire,” but never really ducked out on saving lives for free when in a situation and waived his fee in a surprising number of his (early) adventures. Cage is unwittingly part of the Weapon Plus program. A black man, born poor in New York City, he was unjustly arrested and imprisoned, volunteering to be experimented on in exchange for early parole, gaining unbreakable skin, enhanced strength, speed, agility, and using these abilities in his daily life as a superhero and protector of people in need.

Born poor in New York City, white dude, Captain America doesn’t wait to get paid to be a superhero. He gained super powers, also unknowingly through the Weapon Plus program, via experimentation when he volunteers to undergo experiments in exchange for entrance into the US Army. Cap has consistently received payment from the US Government, the UN, SHIELD, or via an Avengers stipend that at times included an unlimited credit card recognized the world over. He has frequently owned entire buildings equipped with advanced technology and paid support staff with his personal bankroll, which must, by virtue of his expenses, be impressive, while living in rent free apartments provided by whomever is funding the Avengers at the moment.

Cage is mostly remembered for wanting to get paid for taking on rescue missions, bodyguard duty, or other services like any normal human being would. The money and property at Captain America’s disposal is rarely considered by fans.

3. Alan Moore Using Other People’s Stuff vs Other People Using Moore’s

Alan Moore has been quite critical of some film adaptations of his work, and some comics follow-ups and prequels, even flat out asking that Before Watchmen not happen. But, Alan Moore freely uses pre-existing characters. He’s used public domain characters, he has skirted copyright and trademark by using touchstone references or masking elements, given a shoutout to the Oz collage appropriation comic, written real people in fictional scenarios, and never denied that, for example, John Constantine was a characterization and name stuck onto drawings of Sting that were fait accompli.

I don’t think Moore has ever denied the rights to a movie adaptation if the other talent responsible for that comic wanted it to happen, and he’s actually signed over his earnings from those adaptations to the other talent. In terms of Watchmen, Moore has said he’d like to see people just steal the characters and do something good with them, he only did not want DC/Warner Bros to do anything with them.

4. Comics vs Movies

Comics come into a recognizable (American) form in the 1890s. The medium’s slow maturation is often attributed to its being a relatively young form of expression. It is not uncommon for comics appearing in different formats, released, serialized, or collected in different fashions, as being “not comics,” or “not actually comics,” with the monthly release of twenty pages in one particular genre/subgenre (superheroes) being most commonly considered truly comics by a significant portion of the total comics audience. The country or language in which a comic is first produced may, for many, determined whether or not it is a comic.

Movies come into a recognizable form in the late 1890s. The medium tended to be judged by the standards of other mediums for the first sixty to seventy years of its existence, but has since been critically and socially recognized on its own terms, while other mediums may now be judged in terms of movie/television/video criteria. In the 1950s, the distinction between theatrical-release and television-first audiovisual works was significant, but the distinction has become increasingly blurred with the rise of home media players in the late 70s and through the 80s. I have never heard anyone claim a French movie or Japanese television program is not actually a movie or television program.

5. Abstraction vs Accuracy

I think you learn realism first, so that you might intelligently discard accuracy as you like. One of my colleagues at Shandong University thinks you learn basic forms and gradations, and then progress to greater realism. When an abstracter artist takes time to produce finished work, they are often criticized because how long can it take to draw less lines, with less adherence to a real thing? The proliferation of little lines and details is often conflated with drawing more realistically or seriously. Some of our most cherished realist or naturalist artists seem to lack the capacity to subtract or exaggerate the way Jon Muth can. One of the more common admissions you’ll hear from long time comics artists, is that they used to use lots of little lines or block in areas to cover up otherwise weak art. The textures of clothes, and the way they hang on a body in motion is frequently something comics pencilers end up faking. The more accurate the figurework and traditionalist costuming is in a superhero comic, the more bloated and static it all appears. I’ve seen naturalist painters accused of lazy staginess, and seen it suggested that deliberate cartooning is, similarly, lazy. I believe in Carla Speed McNiel’s lines more than surfaces by Alex Ross. This isn’t a real versus because this – so much – is not a spectrum, the elements are so interlinked, intermixed, and codependent.

6. Fan Work vs Work for Hire

Fan art, fanfic, fan work is unpaid labor generating art of some kind relating to characters or scenarios that the maker has no legal right to make works of. These are almost always technically illegal, under American law, but generally permitted due to the unpaid nature and often defended as simultaneously promoting the fandom/product being aped or represented.

Work for hire, in terms of comics, is paid labor generating art of some kind relating to characters or scenarios for a publisher who has a legal right to release works of. There is no such thing as “professional fanfic.” Criticizing Garth Ennis for writing Superman or Captain America if he’s not a massive superhero fan is missing that he’s not hired to be a fan, he was hired to write stories and did.

7. Comics are American! Vs Comics Aren’t American!

American comics, as a recognizable form, begins with the 1890s’ Hogan’s Alley, featuring Mickey Dugan, the Yellow Kid. European comics, as an identifiable, definite form, can be traced back to the early Nineteenth Century and Topffer, whose more advanced techniques are virtually unseen elsewhere in the medium for ages. Japan has a history of telling stories in sequential images featuring dialogue, narrative, motion lines, symbols for emotions or radiance, that extends back as far as the Seventeenth Century. Much is made of the influence that Carl Barks had on the God of Manga, Osamu Tezuka, who revolutionized Twentieth Century Japanese comics (and, by influence, over generations, perhaps comics worldwide), often misattributing Barks’ credit as “Walt Disney,” the owner of the company for which Barks ultimately was working. Little attention, outside Japan, is paid to Tezuka’s Japanese influences, or to his response against much of the American comics and animation markets and industries.

We still cannot decisively narrow down what comics is, what qualifies, what does not, except by eyeballing and “I know it when I see it” methods.

Back Issue Ben: Iron Man vs. The Hulk

2013-05-13T21:00:00.000+08:00

Back Issue Ben is a column written by Ben Smith for the Comics Cube! See his archives here.

The Invincible Iron Man vs the Incredible Hulk

A Battle for the Ages

by Ben Smith

This week, we're taking a break from my neverending look at the Marvel Cosmic universe, to bring you some of that sweet Iron Man deliciousness you love so much.

If you’ve been coming around here for a while, you know I love to find old comics that may not necessarily show up on any “greatest ever” lists, but are hidden gems nonetheless. I picked up the following comics on the promise of an epic battle between the Hulk and Iron Man, and what I discovered was, and I don’t want to overhype it, one of the greatest comic books that you will ever read in your entire lifetime. If you don’t have this comic, get it. If you can’t get it, I have no faith you will be able to live a well-adjusted and satisfying life from this moment on.

Let the insanity begin!

Iron Man #131: Hulk is Where the Heart Is!
Plot/Writer: David Michelinie; Pencil Art: Jerry Bingham; Plot/Finished Art: Bob Layton; Editor: Roger Stern

Our epic tale begins mundanely enough, with Tony Stark being driven home from the airport by his girlfriend Bethany Cabe. However, a traffic jam impedes their progress. Stark takes the moment to thank Bethany for helping him to not be a sloppy drunk anymore, before he notices several people running in the opposite direction.

(Speaking of the alcoholism, I see several people disappointed that the movies never addressed this aspect in full. And I have to say, seeing a super-hero movie tackling the gripping tale of substance abuse, isn’t exactly what I would call a rip-roaring good time.)

Stark investigates to find the Incredible Hulk, eating fruit from an overturned delivery truck. The police have surrounded the area, but Hulk doesn’t seem too concerned, saying “Bah! Hulk is hungry, only wants to eat fruit. But if stupid policemen bother Hulk…Hulk will east stupid policemen!”

Classic! It only gets better from here my friends.

Stark’s heart sinks, knowing he clearly has to get involved, and knowing he’s going to get pounded. (Quite a difference from today’s supremely confident armored Avenger.) He tries to make an excuse to get away to call the Avengers so that he can put on his armor, but Bethany one-ups him by saying she’ll go, because “You’re a well known public figure…your presence here could help ease panic.”

(I don’t know how many times I’ve been in tense situations,
and hoped that my favorite public figure was
there to help diffuse that anxiety.)

The truck owner decides he wants to take care of the Hulk himself (because his fruit isn’t insured, which is just irresponsible) with his pepper spray, which Hulk takes care of with one “flobb” of his arm.

Meanwhile, Stark has found the greatest place ever in the history of comic books to change into his armor, a van with “Love Machine” stenciled on the side.

The police have wisely decided to start shooting Hulk with their guns, which always ends well for people. The police S.W.A.T. helicopter arrives, which Hulk promptly throws a milk truck at.

When I first read the pilot exclaim “what the…milk?!” in my mind,
I read it as “what the milk!” which is now going to be my
favorite exclamation in my daily life going forward.

The helicopter abandons mission, since, in the pilot’s words “our windshields are all scummed up with cow juice!” Iron Man finally arrives on the scene, and just as quickly leaves.

Ethel tries to convince her husband Fred that they should leave, but Fred only has six payments left on their camper, and he’s not leaving it for nothing. Their son Ricky thinks the Hulk is neat. The police pull out a bazooka, firing it at the Hulk. He dodges, so of course it destroys the spot where the camper is, and the Hulk has to jump in and save them from exploding and dying.

Ricky wants to thank the Hulk, so he runs up to him and (this is where it achieves legendary status), asks the Hulk if he wants to play with his Micronauts toys. (Even better, he makes the Hulk be Baron Karza.)

Not only does the Hulk not eat him, he actually sits down and plays with him, calming him down enough to turn back into Bruce Banner. The police move in to arrest him, but Iron Man intervenes. Bruce actually pleads with Iron Man to kill him and end the horror once and for all.

Iron Man picks him up and takes him back to the penthouse of Stark International.

When I saw Iron Man tenderly laying Bruce down on the bed,
and read him say “Maybe it’s time I stopped fighting the Hulk…”
my mind wanted to finish that sentence with
“and started loving him.”)

The next day, Stark and Banner immediately get to work on curing him of the Hulk forever, echoing the bond that would later be depicted so well in the Avengers movie. They would spend the next few pages developing (with some help from Scott Lang) an implant that will regulate and control Banner’s pulse response. Naturally, the best way to test its effectiveness is to strap him to a chair and piss him off.

Fortunately, the implant seems to work, and they believe the Hulk is cured.

The police are happy to get this news, as they immediately move in to arrest Banner for his crimes against humanity. A trigger-happy rookie thinks the best opening gambit is to throw a grenade into the mix, with Iron Man diverting his aim at the last minute. It still lands near Banner though, and as the issue closes, a shadowy figure rises up amongst the smoke.

When the smoke clears, a particularly ripped Banner says “Hulk will smash!”

My brain thoughts: I don’t know if I properly expressed the amount of joy I received from reading the first half of this issue, but I gave it my best effort. It could be the Grande-sized amount of caffeine I’ve ingested, but nearly every line filled me with such excitement I just had to get it down in writing. This is a moment I will remember forever. (Probably not, but that’s why I write things down.)

Iron Man #132: The Man Who Would be Hulk
Plot/Writer: David Michelinie; Pencil Art: Jerry Bingham; Plot/Finished Art: Bob Layton; Editor: Roger Stern

The interesting promise of mass Banner carnage suggested at the end of last issue, is immediately changed as we find Banner strapped into a restraining machine, still screaming Hulk-like nonsense, as Stark and Scott Lang look on.

Dr. Maxwell calls in from Gamma Base with his expert opinion, that they only treated one side of the problem, and not both. (What sense that makes, I don’t know.) Stark’s brilliant plan to fix it involves…headphones with soothing music. (I wonder what they used. Some John Tesh? Sounds of the ocean?) This being ‘80s comic books, it works perfectly, with Banner returning to his normal mental state (which is somber).

Stark tells Banner they’re going to get right to work on fixing him, but that maybe he should hang out for a bit in the metal gauntlets. As Stark and his colleagues discuss how Banner’s heartbeat is rising above the levels that the regulator can control, and that his skin is slowly thickening, a disturbance comes from the room where Banner is being held.

Security bursts in to see Banner pleading, and turning a shade of green. (Maybe keeping the guy prone to anxiety attacks locked up in restraints wasn’t the best plan…) Stark and friends are now second-guessing the decision to implant a regulator powered with nuclear energy, into a man powered by gamma energy (what with his body absorbing all that new energy and all, and keeping him from ever calming down).

The alarm sounds, and Tony disappears so that he can spring into action as Iron Man. Hulk is putting the beat down on the guards, proclaiming that “and men won’t bother Hulk either..when Hulk throws them into ocean!” At which point one of the helpless men says “I-I can’t swim!” (Ha ha! Sorry buddy, that’s probably the least of your worries at the moment.)

Iron Man confronts the Hulk, but Hulk isn’t too happy about being trapped inside Banner for so long.

Iron Man decides to get the Hulk away from all the people, leading him to Stark International’s shipping facility on the water. (Why would he lead him to his own dock to probably get all smashed? That’s civic duty, right there.)

Iron Man waits under the water, until the Hulk is right above him, and then destroys the dock with a repulsor blast. Hulk hits the water, and Iron Man wraps a chain around his neck, hoping to get him to pass out. Hulk easily escapes from this, and hops away.

Iron Man searches for a way to beat him, knowing that if he can’t, everything that happens will be his fault. He finds the Hulk tearing apart what looks like the St. Louis arch at a Stark airfield.

Man, Stark International is everywhere, and Hulk keeps finding those places.

Iron Man flies through the arch, destroying it and sending Hulk falling to the ground.

Iron Man follows that up immediately with a truck fastball, which Hulk bats away with Stark’s favorite Learjet.

“Oh no, not the Learjet! That’s my favorite!” Priorities, Stark.

With the Hulk dazed from the massive explosion, Iron Man finally grows a pair and diverts all of the energy of his suit into one devastating punch.

The gambit works, with the Hulk knocked out cold. Unfortunately, a motionless and silent Iron Man stiffly falls forward onto the ground. He has won, “but…at what cost?”

My brain thoughts: Not as many classic lines this time around, but still a pretty epic bout between two of Marvel’s biggest characters. I hope that poor security guard learns how to swim.

My final brain thoughts: Cannibalism, milky exclamations, Micronauts toys, camper payments, tender Hulk lovin’, the priority of swimming, the St. Louis arch, and broken learjets.

Well, there you have it. I think we can all agree that the first eleven pages of this story may be the greatest eleven pages in comic book history (suck that, Alan Moore!). Even after that, you get a pretty classic bout between Iron Man and the Hulk, so what more can you ask for? Seriously, what more do you readers want?! So demanding!

Next week, Guarding the Galaxy!