Well, it's that time of month again! Lootcrate is on the prowl and have delivered a fresh box off wonders onto my doorstep and into my heart. I found last month's crate to be extremely agreeable, with plenty of fun stuff (and one magnificent t-shirt! That I've worn since and is incredibly comfortable) but also a fair bit of filler that I'm still shrugging over. Although I think I need to apologise to MLG just a little, because their armband was utterly fantastic at keeping my PICC line in place and not flapping around when I went out. So good job and thank you guys! But that was last month, this is this month, so let's crack it open and see what's inside!
First of all, I am utterly enamoured with this box. I don't know if they're all the same and it's printed on, I think it must be for the amount of work it would require otherwise, but I love the markered on style and every joke on there hits the mark. I especially love the Killing Joke homage on the camera. You have to give these guys respect when even their boxes are tiny little works of joyful artwork.
And then we come to the contents, and I can tell you already that I love that t-shirt. I can't even see it all, but that design made me smile like the Joker when I saw it and I cannot wait to wear it. The rest also looks fairly tantalising under there, mind...
Here we go! The main design in all it's glory. My friend and I debated endlessly about this t-shirt, speculating it was either going to be Loki, Ledger Joker or the big daddy of them all - Darth vader. I have to admit I'm surprised it's not Darth, considering the high comic focus of the rest of the box (spoiler!) but I'm very happy with this. It's a great compromise between the big two, a really fun design and both villains really blend into each other into an intriguing concept. My only complaint is that the t-shirt itself isn't of as good a quality as the previous one in the Transform box, the material feels thinner and it just doesn't feel as robust. Then again, it's by no means poorly made - In fact, this was the quality I was expecting from the Transform t-shirt, and that one bowled me over, so I figure last month was just special.
But the good times with clothing don't stop there! Marvel seems determined to kit me out for my trip back to the ward tomorrow, as there's these wonderful Deadpool socks! I don't really have much to say about these, other than I love them and this is the kind of thing I invested in Lootcrate for. Great, geeky merch that I never knew I wanted to own, but now I do own them want the whole world to know I own.
A gaggle of assorted bits and pieces, including this months badge, which I'm hoping will act as the mirror of next months badge, two fantastic trinkets in the Bowser fridge magnet and the Darth Vader keyring. Bowser has joined my Batman and Kano magnets in the part of the fridge I seem to be cultivating for geeky nonsense.
And a documentary from DC, which I'm very much looking forward to watching back on the ward. Again, hopefully we might see it's sister in a crate next month! Speaking of DC, their other contribution to the crate is perhaps the only thing in it that really misses for me.
I'm not really into Harley Quinn or the Ledger mouther Joker that's spawned since The Dark Knight so these don't do anything for me, but they're still nice pieces of art in their own right. If anybody feels like they want to give them a good home, give me a shout!
Then we pull out the pre-advertised star of the show, the Lootcrate exclusive issue of Rocket Racoon. It's a lovely cover indeed, and the comic itself is a lot of fun. I love Skottie Young's art and his style really fits Rocket and Groot. Not sure it hooked me in enough to get the next issue, also kind of thought the swear words censored by various symbols was a little distracting - But then it was nice to see a comic that could be enjoyed by a younger audience so I'm glad they didn't go all out on the language. Besides, how can you dislike a comic that has such great sound effects?
FRAGBABOOM indeed!
Heck, even when you get to the very last item, this is a box that just keeps on giving!
I really can't fail to love this one. The items and the box art really enforce the Villains theme and give it a great touch of personality. If I was to be picky I'd say that a comic about Rocket, that doesn't really feature a big villain as focus, perhaps wasn't the best choice - But then again, it was very savvy marketing and I'm not complaining. One could also make the case it's a little too comic book focused, but that doesn't bother me one bit. Besides, if there's a genre that's defined by its villains it's comic books - Most of the classic, memorable and well developed icons of evil rise up from their pages and I have no problem with them being paid homage too here. This crate has been utterly fantastic, though, and I can only hope next months Heroes themed one matches up!
If there's one topic that keeps popping up in terms of superhero movies lately, it's the idea of 'racebent', 'colourblind', or whatever other term you wish to label it with casting. This became something of a minor issue for the original Thor movie, when Heimdall, a character who traditionally looked something like this...
Wound up looking more like this...
And overnight became the number one way of telling who was a petty racist in the world of comic books and the movies that surround them.
Of course, when the movie came out and the rest of the world saw what anybody who'd seen Idris Elba in anything did with the character, any murmur of the character being the wrong colour was soon forgotten (or at least sidelined to the point where the only rebut you'll ever need is a clip of Elba as Heimdall doing anything on screen) and it's also not the first, or last, time something like this has happened. Say what you like about Daredevil, but Michael Clarke Duncan's portrayal of Kingpin may well be the best representation that character we can hope for. Then of course there was Laurence Fishburne as Perry White in Man of Steel, an actor who sadly wasn't given the time to show us what he could do with that character, and the more high profile casting of Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. Yes, I know it's a direct lift from the Ultimates universe, but still the point still stands. All these actors took on characters that are traditionally seen as white, and not only did the world not come to a horrific end, but the vast majority of them were nothing short of superb.
Now the debate rides again, coming about as a more high profile white character, the Human Torch, has been cast as black actor Michael B. Jordan. Now I have to admit, I don't really have a horse in this race. The only thing I've seen with Jordan in is Chronicle and that was a movie with problems far beyond it's acting talent. Of course, the new Fantastic Four movie also has problems of it's own beyond the race changing of a single character that worry me, but I've been catching little pieces of the debate from time to time and when I heard that John Byrne had chimed in? Morbid curiosity got the better of me and I decided to go have a look. I refuse to link to that man's forum, but here's a Bleeding Cool link that about covers it.
Now I have to admit, I went into reading this expecting to roll my eyes at best, or want to punch my monitor at worst, but despite missing the point in places, providing a genuinely awful example of this kind of casting in other kinds of movies and eventually devolving into the worst excesses of comic book fan entitlement that he blames the public representation of fans for in an earlier paragraph there are points I actually agree with him on, and I think it's one of the most sane and reasonable things I've read from the man on this kind of issue. I mean, he didn't brand a whole gender of a single race hookers just for the colour of their hair this time, so it's progress right? I suppose if I really wanted to take him to task, I'd argue that Stan Lee is big enough and old enough to speak up for himself and a man who writes a story about Big Barda being brainwashed into making hardcore pornography is the very last person who should be lecturing others on respecting Jack Kirby's characters. So wheeling out the whole 'Spirit of what Lee and Kirby intended' is just... Bollocks, quite frankly. But I digress.
The two things I really took away from all this is the complete agreement that Marvel and DC should be doing more to promote their minority characters. Cripes, doing more to promote their female characters would be wonderful. However I don't think giving Nick Fury an obscure, coloured SHIELD agent as a sidekick is really as powerful a step forward as having one of the top black actors of our time playing the character who is most associated with counter-intelligence in the Marvel universe. Yet I do feel like Marvel in particular could be doing so much more with the minority characters they've already introduced. While War Machine and Falcon are unlikely to be able to support their own movies (yet!) I do have to ask, why wasn't War Machine in Avengers? Pepper Potts was, and she's not even Tony's superheroic partner! Or more importantly, why is there seemingly no sign of Falcon in Avengers 2? He was still with Steve at the end of the movie, surely if there's anyone Rodgers would want to have his back it would be the man who helped him save SHIELD from itself simply because it was the right thing to do.
The other thing Byrne's comments left me pondering was exactly what makes race important to a character, and how interchangeable it is. Hollywood is pretty ruthless with changing nationalities, or casting actors of one nationality to play a character of another, is this really any different? To me, the answer seems to be 'it depends'. Does it really matter what colour Johnny Storm's skin is? Not really, although it would be nice if they cast Sue as the same race. Yes I know even biological siblings can have different skin colour, but to be honest I'd rather they just cast them both black or both white than having to waste movie time explaining why they are as they are. The important part of Storm's character comes from his firebrand, fun loving personality and the powerful bond he shares with his family - And that's something that transcends skin colour. Heck, somebody in the comments on that article mentioned Reed Richards being played by Denzel Washington and I have to admit... I would be all over that.
But as I climbed down the rabbit hole, there were some characters where a change of skin tone would fundamentally change them at the core. This became most apparent with time locked characters. Technically as leader of the Howling Commandos, this should have been Fury. But naturally you can't have him stealing Cap's shtick on screen, and I think this, more than his race accounts for a lot of the problems with the character Byrne brought up. He doesn't have his history, his dyed in the wool pedigree like he does in the comics - It simply doesn't work here. So really, we know very little about him other than the fact he lurks around the Helicarrier and gives orders. It's something I'd love to see them expand on, and I'm very glad he finally got some great focus in The Winter Soldier.
Speaking of Cap though, how different would that movie have been at it's very core had they cast a black actor as Steve Rodgers? How many social issues would they have had to tackle head on or look silly for straight up ignoring? His back story could almost be untouched, just take on a more poignant element for the fact that not only are big, dumb jocks getting him down for being too weedy to do well... Most anything really, but society itself is telling him he's a second class citizen. So this runty little guy with no prospects whatsoever decides the only way he can make anything of himself is by joining the army. Literally, the only way.
Of course, this is where the movie could perhaps borrow a lot of elements from the backstory of Isaiah Bradley, an African American who was part of a test program to recreate the super soldier program during World War II. Now you might ask why not just make a movie about Isaiah Bradley, then? Because I think there's something inherently more interesting about the government choosing to test their maiden voyage with this project on minorities, and then rolling it out to get their golden haired, blue eyed, perfect Aryans and other assorted pretty white boys once they knew it was safe. The problem with Isaiah Bradley is he's never going to have the same impact as Captain America, because they already have their perfect product. If that initial experiment that Thorin Oakenshield was so discourteous to disrupt with explosions had only produced a single, solitary super soldier - And he was a person of colour? Well, where does the American government go from there?
Can they still use him as a propaganda piece like they did with Rodgers in the movie? Or do they just package him off on secret, behind enemy lines mission and be content they have a pretty powerful weapon in the war - Just one they'd rather not everybody see! You also have to wonder what Cap himself would do. Would he just roll with whatever his military superiors told him to do, or choose to use his new found power and influence to fix some things at home as well as abroad? There's a great sentiment in the first Captain America movie, where after a life of being pushed around and watching other people be pushed around, Steve Rodgers has dedicated the rest of his days to fighting bullies big and small and sees very little difference between Red Skull and his cronies and the big, dumb guys who made his own life hell other than the scale on which they work. What happens when the people who made your life hell have the law on their side in some circumstances? Hrm.
Now, I just want to be clear I'm not advocating that this movie should be made. I personally find the idea fascinating, and if pulled off well it would definitely be a thought provoking and potentially eye opening piece. But for somebody who's favourite superhero movie so far is, indeed, Captain America the first, it wouldn't really make for a good punchy, dynamic comic book action movie. Plus I'm a big fan of keeping characters true to their source material on a basic level, I like all the core elements and broad brush strokes to be there to make the character recognisable, while film makers can go wild on the less important things. I just think that when it comes to race? If changing it is a big deal or not really does depend on the extent it effects the character.
Nobody is going to care if Aquaman isn't white. Heck, with the casting of native Hawaiian Jason Momoa as the king of Atlantis I think we're going to confirm that for a fact very soon indeed. He's Atlantean, he could technically be any colour he liked. But when you start messing with characters who have very strong connections to a certain culture, time period or geographical area? Then things start getting tricky, as you risk changing that character beyond recognition. The most obvious examples are the minority characters that already exist to try to bring some diversity to the titles, but if we want to step back to the Fantastic Four, think about Doctor Doom. He's the ruler of a small, Eastern European country through hereditary ties, could he really be anything else than what he is and still have it believable?
At the end of the day though, it's all about one thing - Casting the best man or woman for the job at any given time, and if comic book movies can keep that up? Like they did with Sam Jackson, Michael C. Duncan and Idris Elba? Yeah, I can be a happy bunny and not get too pent up about this issue. Of course, if they don't, I choose less to think of it as an example of 'forced token casting' ruining our movies, and more just flat out bad casting period. I hope whatever happens with the new Fantastic Four movie, Michael B. Jordan is able to prove he's anything but that.
Over the past decade superhero movies have become so prominent that they're pretty much synonymous with the Hollywood blockbuster. Just this year we've had Captain America, Amazing Spider-Man, X-Men and later Guardians of the Galaxy, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Sin City shall be upon us and those are just the big guns, leaving aside more stealthy adaptations most people probably assume aren't drawn from comic books such as I, Frankenstien and ones with tenuous links to their original works like 300: Rise of an Empire. This doesn't seem to be changing any time soon, with Marvel claiming they have plans well into the next decade and Warner Bros/DC finally pulling their finger out of whatever orifice they've had it in these past few years and deciding they need to make a concentrated effort to catch up. I personally can't say I approve of the method they're going by to catch up, but I guess it's nice to finally seem them get over the self-inflicted wound that was Green Lantern and do something.
Looking at the television schedules lately, it looks like the comic book adaptation isn't happy with it's lot as the king of cinema and it's coming for the smaller screen. We've already seen this in dribs and drabs, with The Walking Dead continuing to shuffle on, the wildly entertaining Arrow bursting into its second series with a gusto and Agents of SHIELD - A much maligned show that I'll happily defend to the death, coming to an initial close and all set up for a second series as well. True it had a slow start, and the initial few episodes suffered from characters who carried all the traditional Whedon stereotypes and very little of the associated charm, but over time it's built itself into a thrilling mammoth of a series, and I hope they can carry that momentum forward into their much deserved second outing.
TV series based on comic books are often mooted, but like so many movies of the same ilk (anyone remember the proposed Magneto or Silver Surfer spin-offs? The Flash movie that was rolling around in development hell with Wonder Woman post DC crawling into a hole when anything without a bat in it wasn't working out for them?) they often fall flat on their face. Despite their best efforts, Wonder Woman will have to remain Lynda Carter on the small screen for awhile longer and the often talked about Fables adaptation (canalised as it was into Once Upon A Time) seems to constantly wind up off and on the table as the years roll by. But something extraordinary happened these past few weeks. We got trailers. A whole host of trailers.
I already covered Gotham in a previous blog, but in the same rough time span we saw a glimpse of what was to come for two other DC properties that are coming soon. These are The Flash, based on DC's première scarlet speedster, and Constantine, the smarmy, no nonsense demon hunter who you wouldn't want to trust with your daughter. Or anyone else. Possibly not even your worst enemy. I have to admit, I'm very excited for both of these, but let's take a look!
Well... I have to admit I have mixed feelings on this one. The man they have playing Constantine, visually, is spot on. The only way you could get a better representation of the character is inventing a time machine and stealing 1980s circa Sting. There was also a moment in the trailer that made me jump out of my skin, immediately followed by a 'Feck me that's gross!' which is exactly what you want from something relating to Hellblazer. However. However. I can't help but get a nagging feeling about this. Maybe it's how the trailer is cut, but this does have the whiff of... Well, let's not beat around the bush, there are parts of it that reminded me of Charmed and other rather dubious 90s shows that featured heavily signposted plots and relationships and passable acting from anyone who didn't have a major role. That scene with the mum talking to her daughter is a prime example, and made me cringe a little. But the information landfill that was the conversation with the angel he had was pretty bad too.
I also can't seem to get used to Constantine himself. Everytime I've seen him he's either been stand-offish or extremely sarcy and enigmatic, yet here there's something of the cheerful jokester and emotional guardian to him. Again, this is snippets and not a whole representation, and it's true that even though he's terrible - Constantine does strive to be a good person. The inherent tragedy of the character is that for as much good as he tries to do, more people around and close to him seem to suffer. That'll take anyone off the rails, and maybe this version of the character just hasn't suffered enough yet. But I think it'll still take me awhile to get used to him.
I was also going to complain about the accent. I'm not sure where the accent comes from, and can only assume it's Matt Ryan's own, but it's... Very Welsh. With possibly the slightest hint of Irish (making him all the more jaunty!). However, considering Constantine is supposed to be a scouser, it could've been far, far worse I suppose. C-C-Constantine Vision! Demonic runes to me, demonic runes to you, and other jokes that will be lost on our international friends. I'm sorry guys. It happens sometimes.
That being said, the idea of starting the character out in an asylum is pretty inspired (and the chaos that goes on there looks fantastically fun!) and some of the supernatural elements were pulled off well. But on the whole I think I'll be stepping into this one a little cautiously, not only because of everything listed above, but because compared to the other two trailers released recently - This looks to be the less polished of the lot, and I was really hoping for some fantastically visceral and creepy set pieces from this one.
That said, it could really surprise me, and hey! At least there's no Keanu Reeves in sight!
Now this is more like it! I have to admit, I've been looking forward to this one for awhile and from the glimpse above it doesn't look like it's going to disappoint. I instantly fell in love with Grant Gustin during his cameo on Arrow, and the team behind that show has won an awful lot of good will with me over the course of its run. Like Agents of SHIELD, Arrow got off to a rocky start but soon pulled itself out of the rut with compelling plots featuring the mysterious island and John Barrowman. Seriously, John Barrowman is a power player of this series, and I'm over the moon he's coming on full time for series 3.
The minds behind that series are some of the few over at Warner Brothers I trust to deliver me compelling, comic book action I actually enjoy and from the trailer above? It seems like they've got the foundation for something good. On the downside there seems to be a lot of elements from more current comic book lore creeping in, Geoff Johns' ridiculous grimdark origin story for Barry Allen, for example, which doesn't even fit the television version of the character from what we've seen of him. But I did love the slight glimpse we got of Thawne! He looks fantastic. It also seems like we're going to get a set of Rogues who instead of relying on tricks and costumes and their own personal charm are going to gain actual powers from being mutated by roughly the same force as Barry himself.
I can't say this doesn't rub me the wrong way, mostly because if that's the connection they are going with then guys? Hey guys, Speed Force doesn't work that way! But I'm not despairing quite yet. Arrow's treatment of heroes and villains alike have been slightly off kilter to their comic counterparts, but the personalities and quirks always shine through in the end and it's wound up being the most faithful and exciting series for comic book fans lately. Deathstroke and Deadshot seem to come more and more alive and in line with their characters the more we see of them, for example, and even Count Vertigo as a deranged drug pusher worked in it's own way. Besides, having everything neatly tied together (much like Oliver's Island list) makes for better TV I suppose. Ultimately the important thing about the Rogues isn't going to be their powers or how they came about, it's going to be their personalities and if we ever see them band together in a dysfunctional family. That'll make or break them, and I urge the creators not to screw it up.
Other than that, I have to say I'm very impressed. From a technical point of view, it's certainly the trailer with the most eye candy. While Constantine barely looks polished in places, Flash looks slick from the outset and the special effects are beyond passable. Barry's movement, for example, just looks like it was torn right from the pages of the comics and is masterfully done while the super speed stunts look impressive in themselves, though I have to wonder how many bones Barry broke pulling off some of them.
The premise and performances seem solid as well. Barry being backed by STAR labs makes more sense than him jobbing it alone (Ollie can afford his hobby, a police scientist? Perhaps not!) and opens up a whole new element of the TV universe for them to explore. Hopefully this element doesn't get in the way of Barry's superhero antics and personal life, as if I'm honest that's what I really want to see, but it's an interesting addition none the less. Weather Wizard's power set seems spot on too, even if there's little in the trailer to distinguish him from ever other cackling super villain on Earth, and from the brief glimpse we got of her the lady they cast as Iris West seems perfectly charming in her own right as well. So we'll hopefully be spared the initial teething pains of Ollie's family being the most grating thing in the world in the early episodes of Arrow.
Of course, the show itself could be awful and the trailer only the very best, hand selected portions of the lot (it certainly had a better editor than Constantine's!) but I'm optimistic. The ultimate question, I suppose, is if it's going to turn out more flash than substance?
So there you have it. Walking Dead, Arrow, Agents of SHIELD, Gotham, Flash, Constantine and then of course the Netflix Marvel shows, the proposed Sandman television series and many others beyond that we'll either see... Or we won't. Comic books are coming for the small screen in a big way, and hopefully they'll wind up on par with the kind of movies we're being treated too now, and not the TV equivalents of Catwoman.
I received a parcel today. It was as tall as my torso and cavernous enough that I'm fairly sure if I opened the bottom of it I could wear it as a cardboard breastplate. I haven't actually tried this, dear reader, but know that I'm tempted too. Really, really tempted too.
I was expecting a delivery, and if it was what I suspected I'd actually been expecting this delivery for months. I felt the twinge of excitement as the post van rolled up outside, I was at the door before the postman had even knocked, but when I saw the box my spirits sank somewhat. This couldn't be it. It was far too big, unreasonably big. I had no idea what it could actually be otherwise, but I knew it couldn't be what I was so eagerly awaiting. Upon opening the top, my spirits rose once more as two figurines rested on yet another box inside. I removed the forms of Omega and a Cyberman from the top, encased in moulded plastic like Han Solo in carbonite, and pried the inner box from it's larger brother.
I almost sliced my finger open getting into it, but upon peeling back the cardboard flaps Angels began to sing and somewhere a tinny voice demanded extermination!
Inside, in more pieces than he should have been (but nothing a quick ring of super-glue couldn't fix) lay the Emperor Dalek. The single most ambitious figure I've ever seen Eaglemoss produce. For those who don't know, Eaglemoss are a publishing company that have been producing partwork magazines (fortnightly magazines that build up, issue by issue, into a larger whole) for longer than I can remember. I was rummaging in my wardrobe a few months back, and found a few issues of Spinechiller magazine, a collection of horror stories that came with pop up cardboard monsters, and was surprised to see their logo on the front. In recent years they've been involved with a number of licenses from popular fantasy and science fiction franchises including Harry Potter, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings and a number of comic book themed projects for DC and Marvel. Late last year they released their latest venture, The Doctor Who Figurine Collection and I love it.
Or at least, I've come to love it. My excitement for this collection has been a slow burning thing, that only really sparked off a few months ago. I've been with this collection since day one, and for years it's been something that I've dreamed the company would do, and yet as the figurines rolled in I was finding that I wasn't as excited as I thought I'd be. I'd take the figures out of the box, admire the craftsmanship, and flick through the magazine but I wasn't eagerly awaiting the arrival of each one like I had with the DC collection in the past. It wasn't until I began to look for previews of future figurines that a realisation struck me...
All the Cybermen figurines we've seen are almost in the exact same pose. From Invasion, right through to Nightmare in Silver they have this determined, unstoppable, marching gait that wheedled it's way into my imagination and threw up vivid images of an entire shelf of Cybermen lurching forward, blank faced and gleaming silver, in an unstoppable march. It was a powerful image, and I realised that it was the first thought I'd had towards the logistics of displaying this collection.
Image from http://merchandise.thedoctorwhosite.co.uk/
While the DC Collection had been easy to organise by team and title association (all of Batman's villains go with Batman, all of the Green Lanterns go together, etc.) Doctor Who contains so many monsters and side characters that stand alone, that it had been harder for me to think of them in terms of groups. There's no rhythm or reason to putting a Silent, an Ice Warrior and a Silurian together. But there is a very sound, and somewhat unnerving, logic to an army of silver warriors striding off your shelf. Once I had this down, the ideas just kept coming.
The Time Lords? Grouped around the TARDIS! Easy!
And when I saw the scale of the Emperor Dalek I knew exactly where my Dalek display was headed too.
It was all falling wonderfully into place. A shelf of Cybermen, accompanied by an army of Daleks. That is no exaggeration, we're only fifteen issues in and as you can already see I have four recruits to my legion of pepper pot Nazis so far, with many more soon to come! With ideas for displays now buzzing in my brain, I eagerly awaited the delivery of each issue and excitedly tore through the magazines. I'd found what I loved about this collection, what was going to define it, and I was extremely happy. Although I can imagine that many of you out there are puzzled right now. Unable to understand how I can get so excited over little lumps of resin shaped into characters from one of my favourite TV shows. Well, the short answer is that it's a mostly solid product that comes with an informative magazine and I'm a massive fan. Fans are irrational and do strange things, it's why we draw their descriptor from the word fanatic.
If you want the long answer, then I'm afraid we need to go a little more in-depth and step back in time!
You see, I've dabbled in a couple of lines from Eaglemoss in my time. I have a couple of Hobbit figures here, a handful of Batmobiles there and even a shelf of Marvel figurines proudly on display. But my true love was the DC Figurine Collection. A series of lead figures based on the DC comics universe. If you pushed me to proclaim my allegiance to one of the big comics companies, I'd pick DC every time. You can roll out the old 'But Marvel's characters are more human and interesting than DC's!' argument all you like, and when it comes to the big draws you may well be right. But DC always had the best, obscure characters. The New Gods, the Doom Patrol, the Legion of Superheroes, Flash's Rogues, I love them all and the idea of having the entire DC Universe on my shelf, at an affordable price point? That was like a dream come true.
The character you're seeing to your left right now is Ambush Bug. Ambush Bug is, for better or worse, my favourite superhero. He's fairly obscure, but I always believed he had enough of a cult following to gain a place in the collection. So I campaigned and I made impassioned pleas and I may, just may, have made a few sneaky (read: very overt) suggestions to then editor and now very good friend Sven Wilson to include him. Eventually it happened, and I can't help but take a measure of pride in the finished product. It's absurd, I know. I didn't sculpt him, I didn't paint him, but I did input a few design ideas and I think that if I hadn't been out there, shouting into the darkness, making the case for this cult hero, this figurine wouldn't exist today.
And this is exactly what I loved about the DC Collection. It truly was a representation of the entire universe, in miniature, and the doors were wide open to anyone. No character too new, no character too obscure, the big guns would happily rub shoulders with the little guys in a way that no other collection of the same quality was managing. And as a fan who loved the lesser known characters as much as the characters everyone loves, this was important to me. It's why I was excited in the first place, and I truly believe that the DC Collection lived up to this ideal right up until it's all too premature end. An end I'm still in two minds about. On the on hand the new costume designs from the New 52 were making the collection an inconsistent hodge-podge, but on the other hand for the first time in the history of the collection both Wildstorm and Vertigo were wide open, and with most of the big guns down, the list of characters to choose from was more exciting than ever.
The excitement I feel for the Doctor Who collection is entirely different, though. I think the reason I wasn't initially as involved in the collection was because I don't really have much investment in what characters come next. Even the most banal of characters or monsters usually have interesting designs. The Vashta Nerada spacesuit is on it's way soon, a monster that I never felt had all that much impact on the show and is really just the animated remains of an archaeologist controlled by dark bacteria. There's also the Siltheen, which I think are some of the worst alien concepts to crawl from the Russell T. Davies era but I'll be damned if they both don't look fantastic!
The only thing I'd love is for the editors to relax their iron focus on Time Lords and monsters and let the companions get some love too, but beyond that I probably wouldn't be able to give you a top ten list of characters I want for this collection like I could routinely rattle off for the DC line. No, the excitement lies in seeing the history of the show come to life on my shelf. When I went to the Doctor Who Exhibition in London, they had these marvellous displays that would depict Daleks, Sontarans, Ice Warriors and Cybermen through the ages. All standing side by side, showing a direct comparison through the, then, almost fifty years of the show. When I had my epiphany about the Cybermen, it brought into focus that I could have something very much like this in miniature on my shelf. A time line of the various designs throughout the show's history, and all I'd have to do to see it is tilt my head up from my desk. As a fan, it's a truly intoxicating idea. And no, I don't care if you judge me for it.
Of course, it also helps that despite a few quality control and customer service fumbles, Eaglemoss collections are usually quality products. The magazine is a thing of beauty, that you can learn all sorts of interesting tid-bits from and I'm pretty sure the editors behind the collection have some form of insanity. Not only did they produce a glossy covered small book for the TARDIS magazine, but the model that needed a box big enough for me to wear to get to my door safely? Is the FREE GIFT FOR SUBSCRIBERS. I can't even imagine the logistics it took to make and deliver that thing to so many people, with minimal breakages, and the idea that they're giving it away for free is just beyond the pale. I remember the free subscriber gift for the DC Collection (a much more modest Batman statue) eventually came up for sale in limited numbers at Forbidden Planet. It's going to be interesting, then, to see what price they actually pin on this if something similar ever happens.
Long may this kind of insanity, and indeed the collection, continue though! For more information on the Who collection, check out their Facebook page. It's surprisingly useful for news, answering queries and just a little bit of Who related fun. Also be sure to check out Doctor Who Merchandise for news and information, as well as my old stomping ground the Superhero Figurine Forum for almost all things Eaglemoss. For my part though, I have a giant model to admire and magazines to read!
If there's one thing I love, it's stories that have an element of Frankenstein's Monster about them. Things that rip, and tear, and rend their way through history, classic literature, decades of comic book continuity and then sew the pieces back together into a new whole. I wouldn't say they're my favourite stories, but I love them none the less. Part of this appeal is the 'Where's Wally?' level of fun to be had. Or Waldo, for our Trans-Atlantic friends. One of my proudest moments, when I was still becoming confident enough to tackle more complex, dare I say, 'adult' books was figuring out who Anubis and Thoth were before their true identities were revealed in American Gods and I don't think I've really outgrown the wonder of sifting through works like that, like Fables and like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and either identifying who the various characters are supposed to represent, and if I don't know (as I didn't know Anansi at the time) finding out. Even when you know the general pool that the writer is drafting from, it can still take you by surprise. Afterall, one minute Allan Quatermain and Mina Murray are making love against a tree, the next...
... Is that... Is that Rupert the Bear, Alan Moore?!
I think this is part of the reason I'm as enthralled with superhero comics as I am. This whole notion of taking otherwise disparate characters that may only be linked by the tenuous bond of happening to be published in the same format and genre as the others is the cornerstone of the superhero team up book. Not to mention with most of the big names having seventy years of history, and even smaller tier characters usually having at least a decade or three behind them, one writers interpretation of a character in 1983 could be galaxies away from another in 1960, or even 2014. Stitching together the sordid history of Hawkman, as Geoff Johns attempted in Justice Society, was as much an act of pushing several different characters into one mould as any issue of Justice League or Avengers. I dread to think what would happen if one were to try and blend all of the various identities of the Question from Ditko up into one continuity and one, blank, unstaring face and we've already seen the maddeningly brilliant, and often just plain maddening, results of Grant Morrison trying to make every single moment of Bat-Continuity work in one incredibly disjointed line.
It's an amazing strength, and an incredible weakness really. It allows for even the most minor character to be reinvented anew, for the grand tapestry of continuity to be wound, unwound and rewound again as any writer or editor or artist sees fit, displaying a whole new, exciting work for the audience to behold. Of course, on the downside there are always those who much prefer how the tapestry used to be, thank you very much! And even if one can forgive this, and roll with the punches, after so many alterations and re-airings even the most resilient tapestry starts to become frayed and faded. I'm put in the mind of something Paul Cornell once said regarding Doctor Who, that sometimes it does a franchise good to lay fallow, and the relevance that statement holds to many a big title out there, but that's perhaps a discussion for another day.
Failing all of the above, though, there's always just the ultimate expression of Where's Wally/Waldo? in comic media, the big battle scene/charge forward/team meeting where even if your most beloved character is only known by two people in the entire world, if one of those people is the writer of what you're reading? Chances are you'll find him! JLA/Avengers was practically pornography for this kind of thing, involving characters from across both of the big two in costumes from more eras than you can shake a stick at, and I have to admit... I loved it.
So given my now much ruminated on love of this kind of story, when I saw the Kickstarter page for Code Monkey Save World, I was in.
Code Monkey Save World, for those who don't know, is a comic book project by writer Greg Pak and musician Jonathan Coulton to transform Coulton's musical work into a story of fumbling heroism, inept villainy and unrequited love. You can read more about the project here. For those of you who have no idea who Jonathan Coulton is, well, this may ring a bell...
But he's oh so much more than just that one, albeit rather brilliant, song. Jonathan Coulton is a bard for the new age, a man who in days of yore would be telling grand tales of adventure and love and humdrum office work and the material worth of extremely fancy pants around roaring camp fires. And they'd also be rather amusing to boot! His songs are all quirky little stories in and of themselves, telling self-contained tales of colourful characters that will bloom to life in your imagination and, at the very least, put a smile on your face. The idea of these songs being brought to life in comic book form is alluring enough as it is, and Greg Pak, the writer behind the fantastically excellent Incredible Hercules series, is certainly the man to do it.
So, as the popular internet meme often cries, I shut up and I gave them my money.
Fast forward to a few months later, and a non-de-script brown envelope arrived at my door earlier today. Inside, I found the following:
I'd been reading Smoke and Mirrors all afternoon, and it seemed like the perfect antidote to the string of rather unsettling short stories that come after The Goldfish Pool. A literary palette cleanser, if you will. I was fairly excited, I'd only read the first issue on it's own, resolving to experience the rest of the story in one sitting. I'm glad I did, really, it read a whole lot more fluidly than my experience with reading the first issue alone.
You see, Code Monkey Save World is not really the kind of book that demands a keen eye in case you miss a small, hidden away reference or a character you think is an extra is in fact a wink to another song. There are some nice touches, and great detailing in the background. I love, for example, that the SCM company name is featured prominently in the first few pages - Giving those in the know a clue of what's to come, without being entirely too obvious. But for the most part, it focuses it's efforts on bringing to life a few characters and scenarios from a handful of songs with a laser keenness, rather than becoming a menagerie of tit-bits and nudge-nudge-wink-wink references from across Coulton's discography.
Instead it exemplifies the other reason why I love these kinds of stories, the way they allow writers to take existing ideas and characters that were presented in one way and then expose them to whole new elements not possible in their original incarnation. It would be like throwing Sherlock Holmes into Hogwarts, or Darth Vader into King Arthur's court. You may not get anything particularly good from it, you may even be completely dismissive of it in principle, but if it existed and was put into the right pair of creative hands, well, you'd want a peek, wouldn't you? I know I would.
The one thing I think Pak has done extremely well in this project, is to take just the right elements from just the right songs so that all the stories are allowed to interweave and entwine together to make something wholly unique, but still feeling very true to the original voice of the music. This isn't just spot the song reference, it's taking the stories from Jonathan Coulton's songs and carefully stitching them together into something else. To the point where I can happily listen to The Future Soon and imagine, very clearly, that the poor, hapless, lovesick soul in that song, is one and the same person as the maniacal super villain from Skullcrusher Mountain. And to be honest, I think that's a much greater achievement, that must have taken a hell of a lot of careful planning and work connecting the various dots, than a cursory read of the comic would imply.
Couple this with some good, but not perfect, characterisation, an upbeat tone of sly humour throughout and some very clean, very beautiful art from Takeshi Miyazawa and for me, at least, this is something I'm very proud to have had a hand in making happen. I notice the spine of the book has a little '1' on it, and if this creative team intends to do more in future? I'll definitely be game at throwing them some more money, and look forward to seeing what other songs they want to not only bring to life, but breathe a whole new life of their own, into next.
Final verdict? It most definitely puts the rock in the house!
So, something I wrote in my last post got me thinking. It's a topic I'm almost afraid to touch, because I know I have friends who feel very strongly on the matter, and it's hardly timely, but I promised weekly blogs (to myself, if nobody else!) and this is what has been buzzing around my brain this week. So here we go!
Last post when I wrote about Day of the Doctor, I mentioned in passing Doctor Who's inclusivity and how, at it's best, it had something for everyone. This got me thinking about something that got the internet somewhat riled a few months ago, when a snippet of an Alan Moore interview was posted around various comic book sites. In this interview, Alan Moore had the audacity to say... Well, see for yourself...
"I hate superheroes. I think they're abominations. They don't mean what they used to mean. They were originally in the hands of writers who would actively expand the imagination of their nine- to 13-year-old audience... These days, superhero comics think the audience is certainly not nine to 13, it's nothing to do with them. It's an audience largely of 30-, 40-, 50-, 60-year old men, usually men. Someone came up with the term graphic novel. These readers latched on to it; they were simply interested in a way that could validate their continued love of Green Lantern or Spider-Man without appearing in some way emotionally subnormal... I don't think the superhero stands for anything good. I think it's a rather alarming sign if we've got audiences of adults going to see the Avengers movie and delighting in concepts and characters meant to entertain the 12-year-old boys of the 1950s."
You can read the full interview at the Guardians website here, where Alan has a nice chat about the most recent project with his name attached and has a little pop at Grant Morrison to boot. But what you see above is the majority of the "offensive" material, and many comic book sites chose to cut it down even smaller than that, to a sentence or a snippet.
Now, let's make a few things clear. Alan Moore doesn't hate superheroes. I know he just said he did above, right up there, in black and white but he later clarifies he hates what they've become, 'they don't mean what they used to mean... I don't think the superhero stands for anything good'. At the time I also argued that, perhaps, he didn't mean to say that enjoying these things as an adult was emotional subnormal. Afterall, how could he? Alan Moore is a fan of what superhero comics used to be, if not what they are today, and will talk for hours about Shuster, Siegel, Ditko and Kirby with the best of them. In fact, he does so in great detail in this video about Stan Lee's contribution to Spider-Man. If those with a vested interest in superheroes in their adult years are emotionally subnormal, then he must be too. Which can't be right, can it? But in the time since, I've changed my mind. I think Alan Moore meant every word but he doesn't care about appearing emotionally abnormal for the things he loves, and nor should we. Surely, that's the very lifeblood of geek culture, right there?
Stripping away all the bitterness and the purposely confrontational tone, Alan Moore's point is fairly simple. The modern audience for superhero comics has come to expect their entertainment to grow with them and adapt into something that suits their more adult tastes, rather than evolve into something that may capture the imagination of a modern audience of children in the same way that comic books entranced him as a child. Some might see this as a good thing, some might wonder, in the face of competition such as video games and the internet, what else publishers can do but indulge their older audiences but for Moore this is a problem.
And... I'm surprised to find that on thinking about it, I actually agree with him.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm very much a lover of modern superhero comics and until I was forced to slash my comic budget to next-to-nothing I was picking up a good twenty-to-thirty titles a week. While I was collecting, I loved them. I enjoyed the highs of Geoff Johns Green Lantern enough to ignore the lows, I despaired at the cancellation of Doom Patrol and L.E.G.I.O.N. (still two of the best superhero titles in years, in my opinion) and I despaired that the current Legion of Superheroes titles in the new 52 didn't really seem for me. But as I was reading, I started to notice a problem. It first hit me in Batman, and it hit me quite hard years ago, just after HUSH was published. All the stories were becoming very similar, all built around the central pillar of 'MY PARENTS ARE DEEEEEEEEAD!!!' angst that Bruce feels, all concerned with misery and dwelling on mistakes and something very peculiar was happening to the villains. They seemed to becoming more brutal, more savage, embracing taboos such as cannibalism and self-mutilation to make them seem more frightening. They were becoming alarmingly savage, and to be honest... Sometimes it was a very tough read.
Taking a few steps back I started to realise, this isn't something that's particular to Batman. It was rife in the DC titles I was reading. Green Lantern featured Black Hand blowing his own brains out, very graphically, on panel. Supposedly minor characters were being butchered in increasingly gory and creative ways to up the stakes in big events and make the new, big villain look all the more scary and ruthless. Barry Allen, a light hearted man with a healthy relationship with his wife and two parents very prominently in the frame was suddenly made an orphan, now driven by solving the murder of his mother that his father had been wrongly convicted for. Somewhere, somehow, in so many of the titles I was reading - It seemed as though the fun had either gone, or was increasingly being asked to take a backseat to the kind of drama, angst and graphic depictions of violence that, while I'd never say has no place in superhero comics, surely shouldn't be allowed to be this prominent.
Now, to be clear, I can only really talk with authority to what I read in DC comics. When it comes to Marvel, I'm not expert and for all I know, they're a haven of wonderful stories told in a way that's accessible to all. Although considering Sentry tore Ares clean in two in a gore laden double page spread and a couple of other, worrying story beats I caught drift of I can't say for sure. I'm also not saying that all superhero titles need to be child friendly, in fact (before you throw your Tiny Titans collections at my head!) my argument isn't that titles need to be child friendly at all - They should be family friendly. I can't help but think that if I can't pick up the core titles of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Flash, all these staples of the superhero genre and be just as comfortable sharing them with a ten year old as I would an eighty year old, in the same way that I'd very comfortably settle down to watch Doctor Who with just about anyone of any age range without thinking, then surely there's a problem. It's the one point I certainly don't agree with Moore on, superheroes shouldn't be for nine-to-thirteen year old's, they should be for everyone, and right now they're failing even at that.
Now you can make all kinds of excuses for why the comics are heading down this road, and I understand them well, but as touched on in my last post - DC, and in turn Time Warner, are suffering from something more problematic. This attitude of making everything dark, of making everything violent and of creating heroes and villains who live almost solely in the extreme with no balance has seeped into their movies. If you showed the designs for many of Nolan's Batman villains to people with no context, I'm certain few would be surprised if you told them they were designs for the latest slasher movie. Nolan sacrificed much of what made Batman fun and unique, and also the pure charm of so many characters, to chase something that was gritter, more realistic, more... Grown up. Yes, it was a huge sales success, but it ties directly into what Moore was saying above. Man of Steel is almost as bad, it's a movie where nobody smiles and the stakes are defined by how many skyscrapers are toppled and how much visible destruction can be crammed on screen at any given moment. In terms of comic book lore and mythology it's a spot on adaptation, but in terms of heart and mortality? I'm quite convinced it has none. One has to ask the question, who are these films for? What is the prime target audience? And ultimately, is it right that a Superman movie, Superman of all things, is aimed more at teens and adults than at a more family orientated audience?
Never fear though, it's not all bad! Because there is another point on which I break with Moore, and that's on the example he uses. The Avengers, the good old, superhero team up that was years in the making. It's not the best of superhero movies, but it's most certainly one of the most accessible. While Marvel comics may (or may not!) be indulging in the same slow, depressing march to 'maturity' that DC are, their film studios have just been fantastic throughout. Mixing humour, action, the right amount of angst and drama to create fun movies that I believe can be enjoyed by almost everyone. The Avengers is as prime an example of this as any movie out there. While it didn't get all the characters right, and while I thought a couple of the performances and emotional beats fell flat, let's look at what that movie is. Bunch of guys in gaudy costumes get together to fight an evil demi-God in a gaudy costume, culminating in an alien invasion where all the heroes have to come together to ultimately stop a force that looks unstoppable and save the day. That! That right there is superhero comics in their purest form, ladies and gentleman. Add in some fun, light-hearted banter, a layer of sympathy for the villain and an understanding that the stakes aren't tied to the amount of people being torn apart or the number of buildings being toppled on screen and you have a winner.
For as much as I worry about the future of superhero comics, and in what direction we're headed in, Marvel's films give me hope that we're not entirely lost in the quagmire of wanting to be mature and realistic, yet not really understanding what those terms mean or how to pull them off in a mature or realistic way, that other products have been slowly sinking in for awhile. I can fully appreciate what Alan is saying, and I can agree with him, but where he only sees the mangling of superheroes into something ugly and misshapen with no redeeming qualities whatsoever - I see a serious problem that, hopefully with the advent of digital distribution and Marvel's film work, DC's animated products (which have been, by and large, fantastic in keeping a balance between the lighter and darker shades of superhero comics without over indulging in either) and even Warner's own Arrow - Which seems to take just enough from both movies approaches to create a very entertaining program - Will iron itself out as a younger audience becomes more engaged with the characters and these products are easier for them to get a hold of.
