An Open Letter To Marvel Comics

Dear Marvel,

My name is John Seavey, and for a long time, I've been a customer of your company. Since I was a small child, I've been purchasing Marvel's brand of periodical publications, and I've come to associate the 'Marvel' logo with a certain quality, and more importantly, a certain identity in entertainment. Much as I expect to see light-hearted family entertainment when I watch a Disney film, I've come to expect that when I pick up a Marvel comic, I can be assured of upbeat, family-oriented, fast-paced adventure stories. You've published books in a wide variety of genres, something I admire and respect, but I've always felt that Marvel knew what its strengths were and played to them well. You've almost always done an excellent job in shaping a solid stable of continuing characters, and choosing writers and artists who publish new stories in keeping with the tone and ethos of your publishing history.

Recently, though, you seem to have forgotten what your customers are looking for--a fact that isn't simply dissatisfying, but actively worrying to me as a consumer. Your writers (and more worryingly, your editors) seem to be more interested in indulging their own personal whims than in maintaining a stable of characters and stories that have a long-term publishing future; the recent 'Civil War' storyline is a perfect example, in which both Iron Man and Captain America, two of your flagship characters, were portrayed in a light so unsympathetic that I have difficulty imagining myself wanting to read about them in future. Perhaps this was an interesting individual story, but was it really worth trading on the brand identity Marvel has spent so much time and money to establish?

Your company has worked very hard in associating its trademarks and logos with certain expectations; indeed, in an industry where "hot" writers and artists come and go, these expectations are the only thing of real, permanent value you have. When you sell a comic that I, as a consumer, expect to be "upbeat family enterainment", and when I read it, it's "bleak, depressing adult storytelling", you are essentially using my goodwill as a consumer to line your pockets. This is not to say that I do not read adult stories, or that I have no stomach for thought-provoking tales. But if that is what I wanted, I know where I can find it. I purchased your comic in good faith based on expectations you have worked hard to establish; if you're unwilling to live up to those expectations, you should not be surprised to see your consumer base shrink.

Goodwill is not available in an unlimited supply, nor is its supply predictable. What causes a sales spike now (out of belief in your company's future performance, buying habit, or simple morbid curiosity) will not last indefinitely; I can't predict exactly when or how, but I guarantee you, if you continue to neglect the publishing ethos that made Marvel a success, your company will founder. And, due to its position, it may well take an entire industry with it, a tragedy nobody wants. Marvel should tell the stories it's best at, not the stories that the "writer of the week" is most interested in.

I'm not going to conclude this with a statement like, "I'll never read Marvel again!" I will continue to read the comics that I enjoy, those that live up to my expectations of Marvel comics as a brand and as a company (such as your 'Marvel Adventures' line, or your collections of archived material). But the "Marvel Universe," the flagship line of publications you have worked so hard to nurture over the decades, is traveling in a direction that I have no interest in, and that I do not wish to spend money on...and unfortunately for you, I consider myself to be a reasonable barometer of customer opinion. Perhaps you are telling the stories that you want to tell right now. But at this rate, you might not have anyone left to tell them to.

Post-Civil War Predictions

So, the dust has settled, the smoke has cleared, and the Civil War is over. Captain America is in prison, Iron Man is in charge of SHIELD (and by extension, every super-human in the United States), and Registration is the law of the land! Huzzah...wait a second, doesn't that kind of seem like a depressing ending? And doesn't it kind of mean that the entire seven issues were a complete waste of time? Oh, well. It sold, right?

So now the obvious question is, "What happens next?" Here it is, my absolute infallible predictions on the future of the Marvel Universe post-Civil War.

Within five issues, Captain America will either break out or be broken out of the Negative Zone prison. Probably, he'll be the "new Ronin" they're talking about in the pages of 'New Avengers', since the "take up a temporary identity" gimmick is one they've done before for Cap, and it makes a certain amount of sense; he doesn't want to restart the big war, and Cap's a big, tangible symbol of the Resistance. But he's obviously not going to stay in prison for long, because he's got his own series.

Within two years, it will be revealed that Iron Man is either mind controlled, an impostor, or just plain went insane. It will be further revealed that he orchestrated the explosion at Stamford, CT (by maneuvering either the heroes, the villains, or both into that spot) to create the furor that pushed the SHRA into law, all to consolidate super-heroes under his personal control. There'll be another big crossover, Iron Man will be defeated, and the SHRA will be repealed now that everyone sees how dangerous it is to give so much power to one man.

Within five years, there will be a tremendously unconvincing storyline in which Peter Parker pulls a scam to make everyone think that the revelation of Spider-Man's identity was, in turn, a scam; everyone will believe this new scam hook, line, and sinker, allowing Peter to return to his old job at the Daily Bugle.

Within seven years, if Tony Stark was revealed to have just plain gone insane, it will at this time be revealed that he was either mind controlled or an impostor all along, and the real/normal Tony Stark will come back as Iron Man.

Within ten years, Aunt May will be back from the dead, if she was in fact fatally wounded and not just wounded at the end of the latest issue of Spider-Man.

In other words, my prediction for 'Civil War'? In ten years, it'll be as if none of it ever happened. Because there's either two options here. Either one, this is Act One of a grander story that will end with a return to the status quo, or two, Marvel's editorial staff has just made a colossal mistake that they will spend the next decade burying.

You decide!

The Big Mistake

I've been thinking about the latest generation of console wars lately, ever since Penny Arcade talked about it on Monday. (Penny Arcade is this little webcomic, kinda deals with videogame-related humor. You might have heard of it.) They basically discussed how Sony's Playstation 3 isn't selling well, and how Sony seems to be dealing with the problem by lying about it.

But all that, I think deals with the situation from the perspective Penny Arcade has, which is the "hardcore gamer" perspective--that is to say, the people who think of videogames as one of their primary interests, and who are willing to shell out the vast majority of their free time and discretional income on videogames. To them, the problem is "Sony's lying." This is like finding out Mommy and Daddy lied to you about giving that puppy to a nice farm where it's much happier.

But I, like many others, am a "casual gamer". For me, videogames are an interest, but they don't consume a lot of my free time (no, I will not tell you how much time I spend playing 'City of Heroes'. It's not much, and I can stop anytime I want.) And they certainly don't consume a lot of my free money--I buy perhaps one video game every couple of months, and I'm not likely to buy more than one video game system. To me (and the people like me), the problem is, "Sony's charging WHAT for a video game system? What does it do, clean the house while I'm asleep?"

This is Son'y big mistake. They simply do not understand their own industry very well. To them, the target market is the "hardcore gamer", the person for whom the lure of newer, faster, better technology is in and of itself enough of a lure to get them to spend a near-unlimited amount of money on a new system. They think all they need to do is say, "It's the Playstation 3. It's better than the Playstation 2, and newer. What are you waiting for?"

But the facts argue against this. When you look at the jump from the Super Nintendo to the Playstation, or the Playstation to the Playstation 2, you see an immediate, shocking, dazzling improvement in the quality of the games and the gaming experience. You see something that immediately convinced you, "This is a much better system." That's not out there with the new generation of systems. The PS3 is better than the PS2, the XBox 360 is better than the XBox, the Wii is better than the GameCube, but not eye-poppingly so.

But the price differences are (for two of the above three.) A Playstation 2 is $130 right out of the box. A Playstation 3 is $600. That means that the Playstation 3 has to be almost five times as good as a Playstation 2 in order to justify buying one. And it's clearly not.

Nintendo understands this logic. They've been paying attention to video game history, and know that what's killed systems isn't quality or lack of same, it's price. The 3DO died at seven hundred dollars, the CD-i died at seven hundred dollars, and the Sega Saturn lost out to the Playstation despite only a one-hundred dollar difference in price. Why? Because to the casual gamer, a hundred bucks is a lot of money to spend on a video game system, and...

(Wait for it, this is my point...)

The casual gamer, not the hardcore gamer, determines the success or failure of a system. Nintendo gets this, Sony doesn't, which is why the Wii is punishing the PS3 in sales right now. Because the average person looking to buy a new video game system sees "System A, $600" and "System B, $250", and says, "I think I'll buy the $250 one, thanks. $600 is a lot of money to spend on a video game system." (This also applies in the hand-held realm, where the Sony PSP is $200 and the Nintendo DS is $130. Sure, the PSP is no doubt better...but seventy dollars is a lot of money to the casual gamer.) And while the hardcore gamer spends a lot more of his or her disposable income on videogames, the numbers of casual gamers so overwhelm those of hardcore gamers that it's a better marketing strategy to aim at the casual gamer than the hardcore one. You can make more money by selling a cheap product to every household in America than you can by selling an expensive one to one out of every 100.

Of course, in an ideal world, Sony would be able to use its initial sales to drop prices, and eventually bring the PS3 down to what a casual gamer would pay. But when you start with a $300 handicap, that's going to be very difficult. Most casual gamers wouldn't even pay $300 for a new system, preferring to wait until the price gets closer to the $200 mark (or even less); this means that the Wii treads close to the casual gamer's price point at launch, while the PS3 has to cut their prices to a third of what they're charging now to catch up. (I've not mentioned the XBox 360 much, because the PS3 charges more and therefore makes a better example of the economics involved; but since it's $400, assume it's somewhere between the Wii and the PS3 in terms of its situation. If the history of the console wars is ever written, though, it'll be very important--Microsoft's charge at "hardcore gamers" with the XBox made Sony get into the "hardware wars" instead of "price wars" to begin with.)

Does this mean that Sony is doomed? Probably not. Everyone predicted disaster for them with the PS2 launch, after all, and they weathered that storm fine. (Although note that the PS2 launched at $300.) But they could be unpleasantly surprised at the speed at which the Playstation's dominance in the video-game industry gets overturned; Nintendo lost its hold in a single generation, when the Playstation overthrew the N64, and history could be reversing itself.

Question of the Day

If Green Arrow had named his sidekick "Junkie", would he have become addicted to amphetamines?

Cult Fiction

I seem to be finding myself in a never-ending hall of mirrors when it comes to talking about pop culture; I've now written six columns talking about "storytelling engines", which was at least six more columns than I expected to be, and my discussion of golden ages in pop culture threw up the "archive factor", and while I was talking about that, I wound up coming up with the term "cult fiction." God help me if I come up with some new weird term this time; I already feel like I'm babbling self-indulgently as it is when I talk about this stuff, and this paragraph isn't helping one little bit.

But I do think I'm onto something with this "cult fiction" idea, because I think there is a certain common thread that links movies, TV shows, books, et cetera, beyond just "it's science fiction", or "it's fantasy", or "it's action-adventure." There's a certain ethos to them that seems to attract a certain sort of person; sit a person down who likes science fiction in front of a TV set showing 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail', for example, and odds are it will be exactly the sort of thing they're into, even if they didn't necessarily know it before they watched it. There's a common thread that links 'Firefly', 'Doctor Who', 'Alias', 'Heroes', 'Mr. Show', 'Shaun of the Dead', 'Rumble in the Bronx', 'Casino Royale', Harry Potter, the X-Men, and 'Better Off Dead' in such a way that geeks like me will give them a look, even if they turn out not to like them. But what is it?

Ultimately, I think the only thing they have in common is that they all present the world, in some way, as stranger than real life. This is most overt in science-fiction, which is why I think that it all tends to get lumped in as sci-fi, but even the non-science-fiction series like '24' or 'Alias' show a world which is bigger, more dangerous, more exciting, and more vivid than the one we live in every day. (And sketch comedy shows, almost by definition, explore a "stranger than life" idea to its logical conclusion--like the Lumberjack sketch, for example.) I think this is what we're attracted to, the idea that we live in a super-interesting universe, and that these are looks around the corner to the bits that we don't usually see. Bits where kids can build a working space shuttle out of stuff they send away from on cereal boxes, bits where hidden wizard academies teach the sorcerers of tomorrow; bits, in short, that we can always imagine ourselves just about to stumble into.

"Stranger than life." It's as good a definition for "cult fiction" as anything.

The Archive Factor: Can It Raise The Dead?

(First, a brief hello to anyone who's coming to this from 'Comics Should Be Good'--if you're wondering about the update schedule, new "Storytelling Engines" are on Mondays, and Thursdays are my normal entries, which are not guaranteed to be comics-related, geek-related, or even necessarily worth reading. I've had a tradition of self-deprecation since the first post, and I'm not about to stop now.)

Today's post, though, is geek-related. Specifically, it relates to a post I made a couple of weeks ago, in which I talked about all the ways this is a wonderful time to be alive. (And every fan of 'Yamara' always finishes that with, "Archers, commence firing!") I discussed, in specific, something I called "The Archive Factor", the recent commercial trend of putting out collections of sci-fi/fantasy/action/adventure/...let's just call it, for lack of a better blanket term, "cult fiction" out for release. When I was five, if you wanted to read the complete Lee/Kirby run of Fantastic Four, you had to have more money than God. Nowadays, it'll cost you less than a hundred bucks. The ephemera of pop culture has become an accumulation, almost a museum of cool. (With new exhibits added daily, natch...Penny Arcade Book Three just came out yesterday!)

This has a lot of upsides; for one thing, it means that you can start telling more complex stories because you can work on the assumption that future audiences will be able to look up your backstory. This is a double-edged sword, as I've commented on in the past, but you can see the benefits of being able to do less recapping of previous stories and more storytelling. (Even so, writers shouldn't overlook the need for good exposition.)

The second factor, which edges closer to the heart of this column, is the idea that cult fiction generates cult fiction; people who are into science fiction tend to be predisposed to like new science fiction series, people who are familiar with the basic tenets of a fantasy universe won't feel so put off or confused when they see a new fantasy story, et cetera et cetera. And since all this stuff is available now in archived form, it's easier to get the necessary cultural priming to enjoy cult fiction. (In fact, I think we might have achieved some sort of critical mass in the last two decades, where cult fiction is now the dominant paradigm for fiction. Being a geek is now not just socially acceptable, it's downright cool. You can even chart this on a year-by-year basis by watching "The Simpsons", and keeping track of how casually surreal the series has gotten over the last fifteen years as audiences have become more accepting of it. The societal tipping point, obviously, is when "Lost" became the hot water-cooler show.)

But the third, and most important to my mind, is the way that archiving of cult fiction has changed the commercial strategies of production companies. Because this stuff is no longer ephemeral, it can take all the time it needs to build an audience, and then return as a commercial success once it's got a broader fanbase.

This isn't an entirely new concept, of course; "Star Trek" and "The Twilight Zone" were both series that got cancelled after relatively short initial runs, but which built a strong, broad fanbase through syndication and eventually returned. But the time was, these were exceptions to the rule. That's because other series that might have been able to build similar fanbases weren't able to do so; syndication of a series like 'Firefly', for example, just wasn't an option, because it only had thirteen episodes.

The Archive Factor has changed all that. You can make a movie like 'Slither', and be confident that you'll make your money back even without a big initial return, because it's such a good movie that people will still be watching it two decades from now. (You do own a copy, right?) 'Firefly', 'Family Guy', and 'Futurama' all got (or are getting) new stories after their supposed demise, because studio execs all noticed that these were strong sellers on DVD. Since nothing's ephemeral anymore, good ideas might get buried in the archives, but they won't be thrown in the garbage anymore. Sooner or later, when the time is right, they'll return. No good idea ever dies anymore.

Which means that all I have to do is wait, and I'm getting another 'Hawk and Dove' series.

This Is Funny (Trust Me)

The Minnesota Vikings hired a new wide receivers' coach yesterday, and I'm picturing him meeting with his players on the first day of his new job.

COACH: Alright, guys, starting today, we're going to go back to the basics. I want to work with you on the fundamentals of catching the football, from--

TROY WILLIAMSON: Sorry, coach, but, uh...whatting the football?

COACH: Catching.

TROY: No, sorry, still not getting it.

COACH: Catching? You know, you catch the football when it's thrown to you?

MARCUS TAYLOR (doubtful): I dunno...that's not what the last guy said.

COACH: Of course you catch the football! When your number's called and it's thrown your way, you catch it!

TROY: Pffh. You won't get me to start talking crazy like that. Marcus Robinson started saying stuff like that, and they cut him.

Take my word for it--if you were a fan of the Minnesota Vikings, you'd be laughing hysterically right now.

Unwrapping DC Showcase Presents

(See the clever thing I did in the title, there, using the other meaning of the word "Presents"? That's what we writers call, um...clever, I think. There's probably a technical term for it, too.)

Originally, I didn't think I was going to do a DC equivalent of http://fraggmented.blogspot.com/2006/11/potential-essential-confidential.html in this blog, mainly because I didn't think I knew DC history well enough to make any good suggestions. But on thinking about it, DC's reprint program is so new, it's like shooting fish in a barrel. Even a relative DC novice like me (I started reading DC comics in 1991) can come up with a bunch of good choices for reprinting, because they haven't even gotten around to Wonder Woman yet.

So without further ado...

Honorable Mentions: DC's got a lot, actually, because (again) their list of what's actually out is so small. They could do more war comics (Blackhawk, The Losers, Enemy Ace), more of their classic heroes (Superboy, Wonder Woman, Swamp Thing, Firestorm, Plastic Man, Martian Manhunter), or some of Jack Kirby's contributions (The Demon, New Gods, Kamandi.) There's still horror out there (like The Witching Hour)...heck, I think they even have the rights to Mad Magazine. But for the top fifteen...

15, Sugar and Spike. Yes, there are people looking at me funny, saying, "Why would you want to reprint a kid's humor comic instead of 'Firestorm'? But S&S is well-regarded, it'd probably sell well as a black-and-white reprint, and it's the sort of thing that might not get reprinted anywhere else, because it doesn't have the hardcore nerd appeal.

14. The Outsiders. Or, as it was known for much of its early run, 'Batman and the Outsiders'. It's a concept that's had legs for a while now, it's still being published today (albeit with no Batman, and a completely different team line-up), and there's a lot of 70s nostalgia in there to be tapped.

13. World's Finest. One of those concepts that was always a no-brainer; "Hey, you got your Superman in my Batman!" "No, you got your Batman in my Superman!" Since they've got a Superman line and a Batman line, this one seems to be the natural extension.

12. Sgt. Rock. Easily DC's most famous and recognizable "war comic" character, and yet 'The Unknown Soldier' beat him to the punch. This is the sort of thing you don't want to get worse; better reprint him before things get out of control and 'Girls in Love' has a volume while the Sarge is still stewing in limbo.

11. House of Secrets. If you've got 'House of Mystery', you've got to have 'House of Secrets'. What's Cain without Abel?

10. Warlord. Mike Grell's 70s sword-and-sorcery epic has tons of devoted fans out there, all of whom would no doubt snatch up collections of the comic. Not to mention, I have a strong suspicion that Grell's art would look great in black and white.

9. Supergirl. I have to suspect that plans for this one are already afoot, given that they published the volume of Superman that introduced her, but didn't give us any of her back-up stories. In any event, Supergirl's probably more popular than ever, so this one's a no-brainer.

8. The Question. If they're going to make this one relevant, they'd better hurry--it doesn't look like he's got long left. (That's a '52' reference for those of you not stopping at comics stores; the character has terminal cancer.) The reprints could probably cover the entire Ditko era before the first volume finished, then go on to the Denny O'Neil stuff that's probably got a bigger following.

7. Suicide Squad. Technically, there's not enough material of the "classic" Silver Age Suicide Squad to fill a volume, but that's alright, because what everyone's really jonesing for is the 80s John Ostrander Suicide Squad, the one with all sorts of B-list DC villains and death around every corner. It made Captain Cold seem bad-ass, so it has to be impressive.

6. Hawk and Dove. Again, there's not enough actual Silver Age Hawk and Dove material to fill a volume, but spice it up with some of their key Titans appearances, and then the uber-classic early 90s series by Karl and Barbara Kesel, and you've got a slice of good comics. (I don't know how to make an umlaut in this format, by the way, so just draw two little dots on your screen with Magic Marker over the "u" in "uber".)

5. Doom Patrol. In the Marvel list, things got closer to the present as they got higher up, because I wanted the comics I remembered as a kid; here, they get older, because I want to see the roots of DC's Silver Age. The Doom Patrol is best remembered now for Grant Morrison's weird 80s run, but I think that the 60s version has a lot of potential for reprints.

4. The Metal Men. Another one that's actually pretty topical at the moment, since their creator, Will Magnus, is popping up now and again in '52' (he doesn't have terminal cancer. He's manic-depressive. Gosh, isn't DC fun for kids nowadays?) Fun book, cool robots, it's a snap.

3. Adam Strange. Another '52' alum (both eyes gouged out--no, I'm not kidding), Adam Strange is practically synonymous with the Silver Age. He's a space hero with a jetpack, a laser gun, and he's even got a fin on his head! How he hasn't been reprinted yet is beyond me.

2. The Atom. Another Silver Age icon whose absence is surprising, this would be another topical pick, since there's a new 'Atom' series out there (he's not in '52', though, and is probably breathing a heartfelt sigh of relief.) It'd be good synergy to reprint this one, since the current 'Atom' series deals with Ray Palmer's successor, and kind of assumes you know something about the Silver Age Atom (like, for example, the fact that his real name is Ray Palmer.)

1. The Flash. The absence of a 'Showcase Presents The Flash' is absolutely bizarre to me. Comics historians actually date the beginning of the Silver Age from the first appearance of the Flash, in 'DC Showcase'. He's the definitive Silver Age hero. To have a 'Showcase Presents' line without the Flash is like Marvel's Essentials line not having gotten around to putting out a Spider-Man book yet.

So, there's the list for DC to match Marvel...again, licenced titles were excluded, which is a real shame. Because who wouldn't, if they had the option, want to pick up 'DC Showcase Presents: Jerry Lewis'?

ConBestiary #4

Cosplay Succubus: This offshoot of the succubus family feeds solely on the attention of men; thus, the convention environment, with its wildly skewed male-to-female ratio, provides a perfect feeding ground. By dressing up in skimpy, geek-culture themed costumes, the cosplay succubus ensures that simply walking down a hallway draws crowds of socially awkward males to them. The cosplay succubus is essentially harmless, although some men have been known to injure their brains wondering if the girl dressed as Witchblade is single. If you need to escape from a cosplay succubus for any reason, get someone to ask to take their picture--cosplay succubi are absolutely unable to resist the lure of a photo opportunity, and will freeze in position for hours if they believe that someone is taking a picture of them.

A much rarer and deadlier creature is the cosplay medusa, and unfortunately, the only way to tell them apart is by visual inspection--by which point it's too late. These sad, deluded creatures believe themselves to be a cosplay succubus, but insist on dressing in a ludicrously unflattering costume. The cosplay medusa will not turn you to stone, but after seeing a 40-year-old man dressed like Sailor Moon, you may very well wish it had.

The Golden Age?

So let's see...Doctor Who is moving towards its third season after smashing its competition in the ratings, Joss Whedon is writing a new Buffy comic that picks up where Season Seven left off, 'The Invasion' is finally coming out on DVD with animated versions of the missing episodes, and this summer sees the third installment in the Sam Raimi-directed 'Spider-Man' series and a live-action 'Transformers' movie. As some point, the question has to be asked: Is this the best time to be a geek ever?

The gut instinct says, "Yes!" Doctor Who Christmas specials alone seem to demand it. But hold, I say to myself. It is far too easy, as a geek, to fall in love with the new and shiny and neglect the memories of yesteryear. Let's look at some of the other candidates, first.

The 1960s: Doctor Who first starts, Star Trek makes its appearance, lots of big-name sci-fi writers are doing the work that will make them legends, and oh yes, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby are working on some comics for that company that keeps switching names. "Marvel" sounds better than "Timely" or "Atlas", though... It's a pioneering time, and very impressive, but much of the work is more pioneering than great in its own right.

The 1970s: Two words: Star Wars. It's a point at which a quantum leap occurs in special effects technology, changing audience expectations of what science-fiction is capable of and raising the standards for all subsequent geek TV and movies.

The 1980s: Comic books are now available in special shops instead of having to grab what you can on newsstands, and home video means you can actually see old Star Trek episodes without having to just tune in while they're showing repeats and hope it's not one you've seen a thousand times before. 'Crisis on Infinite Earths' finally blew the lid off of stodgy old DC, and movies like 'Terminator', 'Aliens', and the Indiana Jones series keep raising the bar for "cool".

The 1990s: A strong candidate for 'Golden Age' status. Sci-fi TV finally explodes, with Babylon 5, Highlander, X-Files, two Star Trek series at once (NextGen and DS9--one of the best things about the mid-1990s was that Voyager hadn't happened yet), Xena, Hercules, and even some cult gems like Forever Knight all jostling each other on the airwaves. The Simpsons were in their prime, Neil Gaiman was doing Sandman, Bone was coming out, and the Internet was just starting to flex its muscles. Doctor Who was producing the New Adventures, the finest TV-tie-in line ever written, and we even got a TV movie and the hope of a new series someday. Hong Kong action movies started to hit it big in the States, which meant that the bar for "cool action sequences" was about to be notched up to a height only Jackie Chan could leap over. Oh, and the Playstation came out.

So, what is it about now that manages to trump that stellar line-up? It can't just be seeing K-9 come back (maybe that it was in the same episode where Anthony Stewart Head played a villain...nah, still not enough.) Ultimately, what makes now better than any of the thens mentioned above, and what makes this truly the Golden Age of the Geek, is what I call:

The Archive Factor.

Because let's face it, that's the big difference between now and any previous time. We've finally made our voices heard, and archives of all the classic geekery has been made available to us. Monty Python, Highlander, Star Wars, Star Trek, the Avengers, the other Avengers, Spider-Man, the Hulk, Looney Tunes, Doctor Who, Rocky Horror, Shaun of the Dead, all three X-Men movies, the non-Special Editions, every era of Transformers, the Muppet Movie, the best years of the Simpsons...it's all available to you, as close as a DVD or a trade paperback. The newest video game system, the Wii, has in addition to its own line-up of games, a feature that allows you to download classic video games and play them all over again. What was once ephemeral, something to catch once or miss forever, is now archived to enthrall future generations of geeks in addition to their own, newer, equally exciting stories. Geek culture now welcomes casual viewers, because the world has finally caught up to the rest of us. Is this the best time ever to be a geek?

No. Because in ten years' time, it'll be even better.

The Worst Joke I Have Ever Told

MAN #1: Hey, you got your peanut butter on my monkey!

MAN #2: Hey, you got your monkey in my peanut butter!

BOTH: Hmmm...

ANNOUNCER: Try Rhesus Peanut Butter Cups.

Just Look At The Title

Everyone discusses how George Lucas' recently-completed Star Wars prequels are a commentary on George W. Bush's Presidency. (Well, for a given value of "everyone" and "recently-completed", that is. And "discusses", come to think of it.) Palpatine manufactures a war, then uses it as an excuse to claim dictatorial powers, et cetera, et cetera.

But recently, it struck me that 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade' is a far more incisive, and indeed prescient commentary on Dubya's two terms. Jones, the protagonist who serves as an analogy to George W. Bush, is a man who has a somewhat shaky reputation in his chosen field, and who lives in the shadow of his famous, emotionally distant father (who named his son after himself.) Encouraged by a group of major figures in the field who are closer in age to his father (many characters in the film, including Brody and the Grail Knight at the end, serve as metaphors for Bush Senior's contemporaries in government), he embarks on a quest for the legendary Holy Grail that eluded his father his entire career (in this case, peace in the Middle East and a stable, democratic Iraq.)

Indy/Bush goes to Europe, and romances the same beautiful, bewitching, treacherous siren that seduced his father (presumably, this is a metaphor for the Presidency and the American people, unless we someday discover something about Barbara Bush that I, personally, never ever ever ever want to know.) He is both helped and hindered in his quest for the Grail by various Middle Eastern powers, and finally winds up leading his forces to the heart of the desert land himself. After a series of battles in which he vanquishes a military power, he finds himself involved in a series of more complex tests. Eventually, he finds the Grail, reconciles himself with his father, and seems poised for victory...

But he winds up screwing up, lets the beautiful woman and the Holy Grail plummet into a bottomless, murky pit for all eternity, needs to be rescued by his dad, and winds up devastating the entire region while an old guy glares at him disapprovingly. Then, seemingly oblivious to his total failure, he rides off into the sunset like he's accomplished the mission he set for himself.

It's downright eerie.

I Wish It Was Real

(Int. Hospital Room. A PATIENT is lying on the bed, very near to death, attended by a DOCTOR.)

DOCTOR: I'm sorry, sir, but I'm afraid...there's nothing more we can do. What religion are you?

PATIENT: I'm...a strict Calvinist, sir.

DOCTOR: I'll send the priest in immediately.

(The DOCTOR leaves. After a moment, a PRIEST enters.)

PRIEST: It is time, my son. Have you led a virtuous life?

PATIENT: Yes, Father.

PRIEST: Have you fought the temptations of evil?

PATIENT: Yes, Father.

PRIEST: Have you touched all seventeen bases while holding the Calvinball and hopping on one foot?

PATIENT: Seventeen? There were only sixteen bases!

PRIEST: You forgot about the super-secret base, then? Oh, dear. I'm afraid that means you're going to be damned to Hell for all eternity.

PATIENT: But you forgot to sing all the verses of the Tiger song, so that means that today is Opposite Day! Which means I'm really going to Heaven!

PRIEST (relieved): Then go, my child.

(The PATIENT closes his eyes, and expires. After a moment, his spirit rises ethereally from his body, moving up through the ceiling of the room to where an anthropomorphic TIGER is waiting next to a cardboard box turned on its side. Through the cardboard box, a light can be seen.)

TIGER: Step into the light, my child, for it is the transcendent and ethereal passage to Heaven and all the wonders within.

PATIENT: But I thought that this was the Celestial Chariot, in which the Great Prophets traveled to Earth to deliver their tidings of hope and joy?

TIGER: That was when it was right side up. Now it's on its side.

PATIENT: Oh.

(He passes through the arch. For a moment, he hesitates...but the TIGER pounces on him, sending him tumbling through.)

ANNOUNCER: Won't you consider the Church of Calvin? We believe in virtue, hope, truth, and not eating gross stuff at dinner.

The Church of Calvin: Now allowing girls!*

*Except for Susie Jenkins.

Entertainment News #1

CONFUSED 'DOCTOR WHO' FANS CONTINUE TO DEBUNK RUMOURS OF NEW SERIES

The Internet was rocked today by yet another series of articles appearing at a variety of 'Doctor Who' fansites attempting to debunk the "spurious rumours" of a new television series of 'Doctor Who'. The series, which originally ran from 1963 to 1989, generated hundreds of hoaxes, imitations, fan productions, and ill-fated attempts to revive the series during its fifteen years off the air, a saga which has apparently left some fans so jumpy they continue to write off the existence of the new series as "wishful thinking".

Bryce Harlington, President of the "Campaign For House Calls", says he is "saddened" by the rumours. "As a savvy fan, I've learned to disbelieve the more outrageous claims I've heard about Doctor Who's return to our screen. Claims of big movie stars like John Cleese or Christopher Eccleston attaching their names to the project are clear signs of either a 'whoax' or a delusional fan who just misses the series too much to give it up. And of course, the companion rumours are always about the latest piece of eye candy. Every single one of the Spice Girls, for example, had their turn at the rumour mill, just because they were good-looking young pop stars. I hardly think that a producer would leap at that chance."

When confronted with numerous pieces of evidence of the existence of the new series, Harlington became defensive. "A 'Radio Times' cover for the final episode of series two? Oh, yes, and I see they're claiming it's just as exciting as the World Cup match. And the description of the plot? Purest fan-fiction of the lowest grade."

And yet, Harlington remains optimistic. "I do think that the BBC will someday see the deep and abiding affection that fans retain for the series, even now. They have to, because it won't go away. Why, just the other day, I found some bootleg fan productions online. They look just as good as some professional TV science-fiction series out there, and they're all done by Doctor Who fans with credits in the industry--Russell T Davies, Mark Gatiss, even Steven Moffat took some time out from his professional TV work to do a couple of episodes, and they're every bit as good as anything Big Finish ever made."

When it was pointed out that Moffat won a Hugo Award for his work on the new series, Harlington responded, "Oh, sure. And I suppose it swept the National Television Awards two years running."

All You Need To Know About Civil War

Marvel's latest crossover, 'Civil War', is supposed to be a big fight between Marvel's super-heroes over the idea of deputizing themselves as government agents; a fight where there is no "right" or "wrong", but where both sides have legitimate points to make. It's kind of failing miserably at that, because so many different writers are handling the same characters that it's hard to maintain a consistent tone--one second, Iron Man's a cheerful fascist who's setting up a police state, and the next, he's agonizing over his fights against his friends in the name of justice.

The schizophrenic nature of the crossover can be summed up in a single scene: At the end of an issue of Amazing Spider-Man, Spidey, who's been pro-reg, changes his mind and prepares to leave. Tony Stark, as Iron Man, comes crashing through the wall, body-tackling Spidey and saying, "I thought you knew what side you were on."

The scene is continued in Civil War #5, where Iron Man faces off against Spider-Man and says, "Peter, why are you acting like such a lunatic? All I want to do is talk!"

I really wanted Peter's response to be, "Door's over there, Tony."

ConBestiary #3

Gibbering Mouther: These pathetic, yet savagely dangerous creatures stalk conventions looking for unsuspecting victims they can attach themselves to. Anyone who pays them attention rapidly becomes their prey, as they latch onto the poor soul and begin an endless, one-sided conversation about the Mouther's personal geek-related obsession (which can be anything from his brilliant Magic deck to his theories on what the writers of Lost are really thinking to the super-cool character he made for Dungeons and Dragons that only bends the rules a little but is sooo bad-ass.) Once a Gibbering Mouther attaches itself to a fan, it can take hours to successfully extricate oneself--if indeed you can. Convention staff find upwards of twenty dead bodies every year after every con, gruesome victims of Gibbering Mouthers with gaping holes in the back of their heads where the poor fool's brain force-evolved teeth and chewed its way out through its own skull to escape the conversation.

But the worst thing about Gibbering Mouthers isn't the horrible, debilitating effect they have on their prey. The worst thing is that due to the symptoms--total obliviousness to one's own dullness, a tendency to assume everyone is interested in everything you have to say, and a blanket assumption that failure to shout, "SHUT UP!" at you and run away means that you should continue talking--you may already be a Gibbering Mouther and not even know it.

Potential Essential Confidential

(Been waiting two weeks to use that title...)

For those of you who don't know, the "Essentials" series from Marvel are trade paperbacks that reprint their classic comics; they print them in black-and-white, on cheap paper, in order to reduce costs, which means that you get about twenty-five issues of story for the price that an eight-issue collection would cost in color on glossy paper. They're great ways to get big, hefty chunks of reading material for a relatively low cost (in fact, some of the Wolverine and X-Men collections might actually be less than cover price, on a per issue basis.)

Marvel's been putting the Essentials out for a while now, and they've got a very nice library of titles built up (the DC counterpart, "Showcase Presents", is much newer and has only a relative few), but there's still room for more. So, without further ado, I present...the Top Fifteen Comic Book Series That Should Get "Essentials" Trade Paperbacks*!

Honorable Mentions: Captain Marvel (a character that will probably get an Essential someday, but one who's more famous dead than alive); Solo Avengers/Avengers Spotlight (a title I enjoyed as a kid, but I still have enough of the issues that I'm in no hurry to see it collected); Cloak and Dagger (interesting, but did they ever live up to their potential?); Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD (I'm sure this is much higher on somebody's list); Web of Spider-Man (will probably get one no matter what I say); Shogun Warriors (it sounds like fun in the "Godzilla" mode, but I'm not sure what the licensing status is. See the footnote at the bottom of the list.)

15. Dazzler. Sure, it was a silly series. Sure, she started out as "The Disco Dazzler." Sure, Marvel worked overtime to make her seem like a major player by bringing in guest stars from Doctor Doom to Galactus. But let's face it...all that just makes you want to read it more, doesn't it?

14. Champions. Another series that is sort of "famous for being famous", this was the LA super-hero team that featured Hercules, Ghost Rider, Angel, and a few other super-heroes...basically, whoever was in LA and not doing much at the time. They always had a rep as "bargain-basement heroes", but I'd be interested in seeing exactly what got them that rep.

13. Shang-Chi, Master of Kung-Fu. This probably deserves to be much higher on the list, to be honest, because he's a bad-ass martial artist who fights his father, Fu Manchu, using kung-fu. And that sentence alone makes him crazy-cool. But I'm an 80s kid, so I don't have the kind of personal nostalgia for the title that would push him higher. (In fact, I remember reading an ad for his comic when I was four, and not realizing that "Kung-Fu" wasn't a person. I just figured "Kung-Fu" was a guy, and "Shang-Chi" was another guy who could beat him up.)

12. Ms. Marvel. She's really more well-known to me from her time in Kurt Busiek's Avengers and her role as Binary in Claremont's X-Men, but I would like to read her classic stories to see what all the fuss was about.

11. Micronauts. This might fall victim to licensing issues, but I suspect not, and this is a series that I know has a huge cult following. They could also use it as an opportunity to collect the "X-Men Vs. the Micronauts" limited series, which would just plain rock. But again, I never got much of a chance to read it myself.

10. Adam Warlock. I never got the chance to read the classic Adam Warlock stories from the 70s, either, but I remember reading recaps of them in "Marvel Age" and the Marvel Universe Handbook, and thinking that they sounded like the coolest, trippiest thing ever. Adam Warlock fights Thanos, the man in love with Death, and the evil empire established by the Magus, his own future self? Whoa. A lot of the mythos established here would come back to the forefront years later, and it'd be nice to make it all available.

9. New Warriors. Ah, now that we're into the top ten, you can start to see where my love really lies, can't you? The New Warriors practically defined late 80s/early 90s comics, and it'd be great to see it all put down in big thick chunks of black-and-white goodness. It had some great artwork, Fabian Nicieza doing fun soap-opera writing as a labor of love, and it brought back Nova, Speedball, and Firestar. Where's the bad?

8. Power Pack. To be honest, I wish this could be much higher. From a strictly commercial stand-point, it probably should be; this was a series that had great kid appeal. Four pre-teens with super-powers, guest stars galore, the X-Men, the FF, sleep-overs with Franklin Richards, and power swaps every twenty-five issues. Power Pack just plain rocked.

7. West Coast Avengers. Hawkeye led the team. Nuff said.

6. Alpha Flight. Another one of those titles like New Warriors that had a big, crazy soap-opera epic feel to it that would work much better in large chunks than single-issue stories, this would be excellent for collection. And John Byrne's art looks beautiful in black and white.

5. ROM. Every comics fan above the age of thirty is nodding right now. Not as they read this, as I type this--just my thought of "The Essential ROM" is causing their brains to vibrate with sympathetic resonance as they remember how freaking cool ROM was. A lone alien warrior, fighting a war against the evil shapeshifting body-stealing Dire Wraiths (a war that spilled out into the whole Marvel Universe towards the end--almost a crossover without the hype)...oh, it was the best. Actually the fifth best, but still very cool.

4. Quasar. I remember that I absolutely was not collecting Quasar as a teenager. Really, I wasn't. Oh, sure, I'd pick up an issue or two...or four...or seven...but really, I wasn't collecting it. I didn't have the time to add another title to my list. I just was buying it. A lot. And with a new Quasar series on the horizon, it'd be nice to not collect it again, in trade paperback format this time.

3. New Mutants. Actually, how is it that this hasn't already been collected as an Essentials series? They've got two X-Men Essentials (one for the Lee/Kirby era, one for the Claremont fans who weren't willing to wait three volumes to get to the good stuff), X-Factor, Wolverine...where's the New Mutants in all this? MIA, that's where, and it has to stop!

2. Excalibur. Everything from #2 applies here, but with added exclamation points at the end of every sentence, because Excalibur was just that much better.

1. Guardians of the Galaxy. At this point, mad props must go out to Jim Valentino, who took these characters that I'd just heard about and that I thought sounded cool, and made them into the best thing ever. In the 30th century, the alien Badoon have enslaved humanity, and a band of rebels from across the solar system must band together to stop them! And then, once they stop them, they become wandering adventurers, traveling through time and space to learn about what became of Earth's legendary super-heroes! And then...well, then they got cancelled, and have been in comics limbo ever since, which was a shame. But there's plenty of great material for several Essentials in there, and it might just lead to a revival. (Plus, we'd get to see more of Nikki, team hottie. Damn. Girl was so hot, her head was on fire!)

So there you go, Marvel. Get cracking. Oh, and keep putting out more of the ones you're doing already, too. And get Karl Kesel to write Fantastic Four. Seriously, he'd be great at it!

*This excludes comics that Marvel is precluded from collecting due to the lapse in licensing agreements with the companies who owned the properties in question; so, for example, the Essential Transformers, Star Wars, and GI Joe are all off the list because Marvel can't do them. The Essential Conan already got scuttled--if you see a copy, snap it up because it's out of print.

Depressing Folklore

(Or, as I really wanted to title it, "Steel Drivin' Corpse")

I've never really understood why they teach little kids the story of John Henry in school. (For those of you who are entirely self-educated, John Henry is an African-American folk hero, who may or may not have been real, who hammered in steel spikes on the railroad tracks. One day, management brought in a steam-powered hammer that could do the work faster than any man, but John Henry bet the foreman that he could out-pound the steam hammer. He did just that--but keeled over dead right after winning the race.)

Let's face it--after reading the previous paragraph, you probably take my meaning right there. It's always presented to kids as showing how important it is to strive on, even against impossible odds, because you can do things you never imagined if you try...but really, that kind of overlooks the fact that John Henry keels over dead, while the steam hammer will be up and ready to go the next day. It seems more like the message is, "Try to stand in the way of progress, and you'll end up taking a dirt nap while machines do your job. Go learn how to run a steam hammer if you want to get somewhere in this world, kid."

Which, now that I think about it, is probably a pretty good thing for kids to learn sooner or later.

Never mind.

Bold Predictions

Michael Vick will not only never win a Superbowl, he will retire from the NFL never having gotten to the Superbowl. If you can find a bookie who takes bets of this nature, go and put a modest sum of money on it and I feel confident you will see a return on your investment.

The reason is simple: He's just not a very accurate passer. Sure, he dazzles with his legs, but every good defense knows that the way to beat the Falcons is to stack up against the run, keep a disciplined pass rush, and dare Vick to beat you throwing. He can't do it, and he's never going to be able to do it because he's surrounded by a crowd of people telling him that he doesn't need to learn that--he should just "let Michael be Michael".

Against a disciplined defense, "Michael being Michael" is indistinguishable from "Michael running around in the backfield like an idiot, then getting tackled for an eight-yard loss."

Next time, on Bold Predictions: Matt Millen will go down as one of the worst GMs in NFL history!

Still Needs No Words

More Comics Marketing Ideas

Aren't you bored yet? Tough.

So, I've mentioned here earlier the 'Marvel Adventures' line of comics--self-contained, single-issue, kid-friendly comics that are just what the Doctor ordered (he's a big fan of comics and wants to see the market expand. Don't ask.) My only problem with them is that they're still only available in comics stores--sure, they put a few in Targets and bookstores, but go try to find one and you'll discover just how under the radar they are--and crucially, you shouldn't need to "try to find one" at all, they should be readily available as impulse purchases, something that your kid sees while you're checking out and begs you to buy, and you give in because you've seen that X-Men movie and both you and your kid liked it.

So, here's the marketing idea. You take the digest editions they're publishing, which are seven dollars and collect four issues. You put them on cheaper paper, newsprint for the interiors and magazine stock for the covers. You knock a buck or so off the price--more, if you can afford it. Maybe even put in ads. You want to get these things as close to four bucks as you can without losing money. (Because "Four issues for four dollars!" looks great as a little sunburst on the cover.) Then...and this is the clever bit...you expand the range. They're currently publishing three titles (Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and Avengers); you expand it to sixteen (my ideas for the other thirteen are below) and put them in every supermarket, drugstore, and Wal-Mart/K-Mart/Target in America.

Why sixteeen? Because there are four weeks in a month, and four months in a digest. With sixteen titles, you'd have a new edition on the stands every week like clockwork. This means that every week, when Mom or Dad goes grocery shopping and brings the kids, they see at the
checkout line a brand-new comic. Sure, they might not recognize every character, but they recognize the "Marvel Adventures" logo as being family-friendly, safe entertainment. The kid gets a comic every week for four bucks, he/she learns about the Marvel characters and gets hooked on comics, and of course at the end of every book, you've got the "Find the comic store nearest you! Call 1-888-COMIC-BOOK! Don't worry, Mom and Dad--it's FREE!" ad to get the kids into the comic stores buying comics. (Which should be under "Yet More Comics Marketing Ideas"--Marvel reps who go from store to store teaching owners how to decorate to entice casual buyers.)

Ta-da. Kids happy because they get to buy comic books, parents happy because their kids are buying family-friendly entertainment, comic stores and publishers happy because parents don't know their kids are only taking the first step on a life-long addiction.

*The Other Thirteen Titles:

Disclaimer: These are just my ideas, I'm no expert on what sells or what can be made into a series. But that's the great thing, it's not set in stone--if Doctor Strange isn't selling, cut it after 24 issues and start up Man-Thing. So long as you keep to the sixteen titles, you can try out new stuff.

1. X-Men. Surprised they're not doing this one already, to be honest; I expect it's on the agenda, since it's probably Marvel's most high-profile property after Spidey. The trick is getting the "soap opera" feel while keeping each issue self-contained (hey, Claremont managed it up until about issue #200.)

2. Hulk. Again, surprised they're not doing this one already--go with the "Banner on the road" motif, be reminiscent of the old TV show, and parents will probably force it into their kids' hands. Sure, it means taking the Hulk out of the Marvel Adventures: Avengers comic, but kids need to learn that Avengers line-ups change.

3. Daredevil. If you're going down the route of "have public visibility", then this one has to be on the list; he's also had a movie, and that means a greater chance of an impulse buy. (And get Karl Kesel to write this. He knows his stuff when it comes to "light-hearted Daredevil".)

4, 5, and 6. Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man. The holy trinity of family-friendly, high-profile Marvel good guys, each of which can carry their own book in a heartbeat.

7. New Mutants. Every X-book needs a spin-off, and you can play this one with a nice "Hogwarts" vibe to draw in Harry Potter fans. Kids learning to use their mutant powers at the mutant academy...tell me that can't sell.

8. Firestar. You should have at least a few female-centered titles to act as positive role-models for girls who want to read comics; sure, Firestar's kind of obscure to comics fans, but a) she's a female hero who isn't "She-[insert male hero here]", and b) to non-comics fans, she's actually probably better known than some A-list heroes. "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends" ran for a long time, and kids then are parents now.

9. Black Cat. Another female hero, she's an anti-hero (anti-heroes are more popular with kids than adults like to remember)...she robs from rich villains, gives to poor noble people, and skims a bit for herself. What's not to like?

10. Doctor Strange. This one sounds like it'd be a bit tricky to do and stay family friendly--the key would be to look to series like 'Goosebumps' for inspiration, keep it scary while not being out-and-out horrific. And, of course, having Doctor Strange always save the day helps there.

11. Ghost Rider. Another "spooky" super-hero (again, kids love that stuff more than adults want to remember), and one with a movie coming out soon, which puts him on the list with Daredevil, Hulk, Spidey, the X-Men and the FF. And the look is just awesome.

12. Ms. Marvel. Another good choice for a female hero (arguably, she is a female version of Captain Marvel, but I think at this point, she's more famous than he is); decorated Air Force hero who gets super-powers from aliens, hard to go wrong with that story. (It should probably go without saying that both her and Iron Man's kid-friendly comic should steer clear of the "alcoholism" thing. Kid-friendly=no booze.)

13. Marvel Team-Up. Sure, to us sophisticated adults, this is a lame gimmick title, but come on--when we were kids, wasn't it neat to see Spidey team up with a different hero every issue? And can't you just imagine how cool it would be to pick up a digest and get him teaming with four different heroes in four exciting stories? Plus, it makes a good showcase for more obscure characters to see if they could handle a solo book.

Geek Alert!

Warning: The following anecdote requires, at minimum, a mild degree of science geekery to understand. If you cannot dredge up your memories of high-school science, specifically the unit on temperature, you will not only not get the punchline, you will not even understand that there is a punchline present. You will assume that I'm missing the last paragraph, or worse, that I'm one of those people who just blogs random incidences of their life on the assumption that everyone is interested in me and what I do. Warning over.

So Tony, one of my room-mates, has had a character on 'City of Heroes' for a while now by the name of "Calvin Zero". He's an ice/ice blaster, and if that doesn't make perfect sense to you, go re-read the warning at the beginning of this entry. (Calvin was based on an old RPG character he had back in college, and I think the origins of the character go back further than that, but I digress.)

Tonight, we were playing 'City of Heroes' (Tony was not logged in as Calvin Zero at the time, more's the pity) and we passed another ice/ice blaster, this one named "Celsius Zero". He had a decent costume, and a good bio entry...

...but even so, we all had to agree that Tony's character was way cooler.

The Meaning of Lobdell

In honor of Douglas Adams, I now present a list of terms for phenomena in comics that everyone has noticed, but nobody has thought much about because there was never a word for it before. I name them after X-Title creators pretty much totally at random, because naming them after cities seemed just silly.

Claremont (n): The death of a villain at the hands of another villain (usually a new villain) solely to demonstrate how powerful and ruthless the new villain is. The Upstarts, for instance, began their string of appearances in the X-titles with the claremont of the entire Hellfire Club, while Stryfe demonstrated his power with the claremont of Apocalypse. Virtually without exception, claremonts are performed by weak, incompetent, or otherwise unexceptional villains; their spectacular performance against villains never seems to allow them any advantage against heroes. The obvious conclusion to draw is that they're in the wrong line of work--while they might be unexceptional as bad guys, they'd make excellent super-heroes.

Lobdell (v.): To inadvertently reveal one's greatest secret by telling it to the one person sure to blab it to everyone; namely, the reading audience. The greatest example of a character lobdelling comes from Guido Carosella, who revealed to Doctor Leonard Samson and the audience that his powers caused him chronic pain and heart trouble. Within months, a wide variety of characters stumbled onto the information independently and without talking to Doc Samson. Clearly, the audience blabbed. (The same phenomenon also occurs with the secret mindwipe of Batman in 'Identity Crisis'...a secret kept perfectly up until the time the readers found out about it.)

Madureira (n.): A character brought back from the dead despite the seeming total indifference of the reading audience to their deceased status. For example, Bucky. By definition, a madureira must first be a portacio, unless the character has been dead for an extremely long period of time. It will probably take at least another three decades for Barry Allen to become a madureira.

Morrison (v.): To appear in so many titles at the same time that even the most naive reader wonders when the character finds time to sleep. Currently used almost solely in regards to Wolverine, but during the 1990s, the Punisher, Ghost Rider, and Lobo morrisoned regularly.

Portacio (n.): An obscure character brought back for a guest appearance who is obviously going to be killed off over the course of his or her guest appearance in order to "shock" the readers. Why any writer would think their readers are going to be shocked by the death of a portacio, when their imminent death is so obvious, remains a mystery.

Silvestri (n., pl.): The assorted minor characters that have accumulated over the years in the X-titles, which readers are expected to remember even though they might not have appeared for months, years, or even decades. Polaris is a noted silvestra, as is Havok, and by this point the entire original cast of 'New Mutants' qualify as silvestri.

Whedon (n.): A character who is popular enough to be given their own book, but not popular enough to sustain it; the character winds up getting a regular series several times, each time not lasting more than a few years before cancellation. (Notable whedons or wheda--either is correct--include Hawkeye, the Martian Manhunter, Doctor Strange, and the Thing. Note that in all cases the whedon remains a high-profile and active character even between iterations of his/her series.)

ConBestiary #2

Phantasmal Stench: As we are all aware, convention attendees have worked long and hard to change their behavior in the face of stereotypes of them as unwashed, smelly and disgusting. If you poll con attendees, they'll all tell you that of course they shower and change their clothes every day of the convention. So why, then, in the face of all these truthful and hygenic conventioneers, do we still catch a distinctive and unpleasant scent of human body odor?

The answer, of course, is that the stench has endured for so long that it is now self-perpetuating and sentient. The sheer amount of body odor pumped into the air at cons over the years has created an intelligent stink--one whose personality is naturally formed from hundreds of con attendees, and which therefore loves to hang out at cons. It particularly loves the dealer rooms; even though it has no money, it likes to "window shop". It also enjoys hanging out at gaming sessions and all-night anime rooms.

If you find yourself walking through a pocket of the phantasmal stench, simply breathe through your mouth and mutter that you think you saw a bootleg copy of the 'Dungeons and Dragons' cartoon on the other side of the dealer room. (The phantasmal stench loves that show.)

ConBestiary #1

Escalator Gremlins: These tiny creatures are a sub-species of the common gremlin (subhominus dahlen) which believes itself to be benevolent. Unlike its malicious cousin, it tries to help humans by sabotaging dangerous machinery. Unfortunately, its small cranial capacity (the average escalator gremlin is only three inches long from head to toe) has led it to the erroneous conclusion that escalators are dangerous. They do look dangerous, after all--they're all ominous and black, and they move in a vaguely disturbing way (as any small child who's worried about being sucked into one can attest.) As a result, the escalator gremlins make it their mission to disable escalators in high-traffic areas.

Contrary to popular belief, escalator gremlins have no grievance against elevators--in fact, they find the little chime that sounds when the doors open to be quite soothing. They do everything within their power to ensure that said chime occurs at every single floor, whether the elevator is going up or down.

Vacating

Just a note to say I'll be on vacation for the ensuing week, and will probably not have an entry next week (and really, this is it for this week too, and it ain't much either. Then again, let's face it, none of this is exactly Shakespeare.)

So I leave you with this thought: Why, in this gender-equal world in which we live, do we not hear as much about teamstresses and seamsters as we do about teamsters and seamstresses? Misters and mistresses get equal time--although you don't really hear about a woman having an affair and keeping her "mister" in an apartment across the street--but the proud, hardworking teamstresses get nothing.

To say nothing of how even the most politically correct child doesn't check their pet's gender to determine whether to call it a hamster or hamstress...

The Bestest Paradox Ever

November, 2002. The Oval Office. GEORGE W BUSH, the President, sits at his desk.

Enter OLDER GEORGE W BUSH.

YOUNG GEORGE: Am I seeing double? You look more like me than my dad, or even my brother Jeb! And that's saying a lot!

OLD GEORGE: I am you--I'm from the future, the distant year of 2008. A man gave me a time machine, said I could use it to fix my mistakes and make the world a better place. So I came back to here to warn you not to invade Iraq. It'll be a huge mistake.

YOUNG GEORGE: Well, I dunno about that...all my experts have been telling me this should be a slam dunk.

OLD GEORGE: They're wrong! I know, I was there!

YOUNG GEORGE: Seems to me I've heard that kind of negative talk before--you can't focus on the filter, George. You gotta listen to the important stuff, like the things that Karl and Dick tell me. And they're saying that the invasion's gonna go great.

OLD GEORGE: But I'm telling you it'll go bad! Look, I even brought a newspaper! See, we fail miserably!

YOUNG GEORGE: Now, you know I never read the papers. I get all the news I need from my advisors. They do good work.

OLD GEORGE: But it's me! I'm you, and I'm telling you it fails! I was there! I saw it! You have to listen to me, I'm you!

YOUNG GEORGE: I think I'd rather listen to what my heart is telling me over what my future self is telling me.

OLD GEORGE: God, I was an idiot six years ago.

YOUNG GEORGE: Dunno what you're so smug about--which one of us screwed up the war in Iraq?

OLD GEORGE: Oh, that's it. Bring it on!

OLD GEORGE kills YOUNG GEORGE, then promptly vanishes from existence in a poof of temporal logic. Oval Office is vacant except for a dead YOUNG GEORGE.

MAN WITH TIME MACHINE: "Fix mistakes"...check. "Make world a better place"...check.

OK, Needs a Few Words

The post below is part of a fad that's been sweeping comics websites--Marvel's doing a big crossover called 'Civil War', in which their superheroes are divided over a controversial law that makes them register their activities with the government. Iron Man believes that it's important to regain the public trust, while Captain America calls it a violation of civil liberties. And Marvel decided to release little "banner" images you could put on your own website, one with a picture of Captain America that says, "I'm with Cap", one with Iron Man that says "I'm with Iron Man".

Then some guys modified the image to be a shot of Ms. Marvel...from behind...from about waist height...and changed the slogan to "I'm Following Ms. Marvel". It kinda ballooned from there.

The image below is part of my tiny contribution to the fad. I'd post the other two, but several people who read this still haven't seen Season Two, and I don't want to spoil a big plot twist.

So now you understand not just the context, but my allegiance. Because really, whichever side Doctor Who takes is the side that's going to win anyway.

Needs No Words

The Punk Comics Manifesto

Time, I think, to synthesize several thoughts I've been having about comics as a medium and an industry into a single statement. My hope is to get this read and seen as a movement--the Punk Comics Movement, if you will--however, I'm uncomfortably limited in my experience of starting movements, so I'll probably settle for posting this everywhere they won't take it down and hoping people pass it on. Which I freely give permission to do, by the way--I give anyone who wants permission to copy and repost this in any forum, anywhere, so long as the contents are unaltered. I'd like you to give me credit, but I'm sure it'll get dropped off somewhere along the line--that's OK, the ideas are more important, and if anonymity is the price of fame, then so be it.

The Punk Comics Movement can be summed up in two simple statements, one for the artistic side of comics, one for the business side. (Once you read these two statements, it may or may not be apparent to you why I'm calling it "punk comics".) The artistic Punk Comics Manifesto is, "Write this comic like it was the only one anyone was ever going to read." The business Punk Comics Manifesto is, "Everyone should be reading comics." Those two statements might seem mutually exclusive, but read on.

1. "Write this comic like it was the only one anyone was ever going to read." You can break this statement down into two parts--first, assume that the comic you're writing is the first one that someone has ever read, and second, don't expect them to be picking up the next one you write. A good comic should always be self-contained.

There was a time when this was virtually taken for granted in the comic industry. Reader turnover was considered to be complete every two years, and so it was assumed that anytime you wrote a comic book, you were writing it for an audience that didn't know about anything that happened more than two years ago. In addition, with spotty newsstand distribution, it was considered to be so difficult to follow a comic for more than a few months that issues had to be self-contained to avoid reader frustration. These two notions have been almost totally abandoned over the years; in much the same way Punk Rock went back to the roots of the genre and simplified the message, Punk Comics aims to do the same thing.

A. Assume the comic you're writing is the first one that someone has ever read. You should assume that, really--more than assume, you should hope it. You should always hope, as a writer, that every comic you write is attracting a new reader, at least one, and you should write with that new reader in mind. Which means that you have to, absolutely have to, write an issue that a first-time reader can pick up and immediately understand. If you're writing an issue of the Flash, make sure somewhere in that issue is an explanation of who the Flash is and what he's all about--it doesn't have to be long, or elaborate, but it needs to be there. If you're bringing back Electro, explain who he is and why he's dangerous--even just a brief, "Uh-oh, it's Electro again! Last time we fought, he nearly killed me with his electric blasts!" is better than no explanation at all. Characters with backstories so complicated they need elaborate, lengthy explanations (or worse, stories with no point beyond explaining backstories from existing characters) shouldn't be involved. Simplify, simplify, simplify, and assume that your reader knows nothing.

B. Don't expect them to be picking up the next comic you write. A comic takes an enormous amount of time and effort to produce, meaning that there's a substantial wait on the part of the reader for each individual comics story. Producing a story with no pay-off, a story that ends on a cliff-hanger, is essentially telling the reader, "This story is so special that it is worth an entire month of your time to wait for the ending." Producing a ten-part story is telling the reader, "This story is so special that it is worth ten months of your time and thirty dollars of your money to wait for the ending." That's a lot to ask of the reader, and you should do it only rarely.

Instead, the medium should fit the message. If you have a comics story that will be 200 pages long and paced like a novel, write it as a 200-page graphic novel. Don't break it down into ten 20-page chunks just to fit a century-old idea of how comics are sold. If you're publishing a monthly 32-page comic, put a pay-off in at the end of every thirty-two page issue, even if you're also establishing longer plot threads that will pay off more for the returning reader. If you're worried that you're providing a "jumping-off" point for people to stop reading, then you don't have enough faith in your writing talent. Tease them into buying more, yes; entice them, lure them, interest them. But don't expect their continued patronage, and certainly don't demand it by writing a story that never seems to end.

(And yes, people will point to Alan Moore or Neil Gaiman, both of whom wrote serialized graphic novels--but both Moore on Swamp Thing and Gaiman on Sandman had quite a few stand-alone issues, too. And, of course, with two exceptions, you're not Alan Moore or Neil Gaiman, so you probably can't get away with what they can.)

2. "Everyone should be reading comics." The comic book industry has sunk into a ghetto. Their marketing muscles have atrophied from long disuse, and they no longer even seem to have an awareness that there's a world outside of the comic store; they consider it a far-reaching, radical step to put their product in bookstores, in the little section for "graphic novels" that's being slowly edged aside by waves of better-marketed Japanese imports. This has to change.

The comic medium has the potential to be the most pervasive in the world. Comics combine the accessibility of television or film with the intellect and ability to express complex concepts of books. They should be able to display the same breadth of subject matter as books, as films, as any other medium out there. And yet, if you look at them now, they are predominantly action-adventure material of a single sub-genre (the superhero) exclusively sold in a single type of store. Whereas books are sold in grocery stores and drugstores, videos are sold in K-Marts and convenience stores, and magazine racks are in practically every store large enough to hold them.

Comics companies need to experiment with format, with price, with subject matter. Start a line of romance digest comics, paperback-sized, and sell them in bookstores next to the Harlequin Romances. Co-produce a line of educational comics with the makers of Cliff's Notes. Create magazine-sized "Treasury" comics that you can sell next to Disney Adventures and Nickelodeon Magazine. Market a line of teen fantasy comics to sell to the girls who buy Tiger Beat, and a boy's action comics line to sell in video game stores. Stop thinking that comics have to be 32 pages long, all the same length and width, and sold in comics stores to the fanboys. Readers are not going to walk through your door and demand your product. You must find them.

3. Conclusion: Comics need to be more accessible. To the writers, this means writing a comic that anyone can pick up and enjoy, not simply an infinitesimal fragment of a never-ending soap opera. To the publishers, this means putting the comic out where anyone can find it, where it is the perfect impulse purchase instead of the province of a dwindling number of devoted enthusiasts.

Punk Comics. This is a pen. This is a pencil. Now start your own.

Top 5 Worst Resurrections

...in comics, that is. I am not discussing Jesus again, especially not in the context of comics resurrections. (Although that one was kinda lame. His dad just zaps him back to life a few days later? Puh-lease. It wasn't even foreshadowed.)

No, I'm talking about the comic-book trend of bringing back dead characters with very contrived explanations, primarily because fans want to continue reading about said character's adventures and won't take "Ack, gurgle, thud!" for an answer. Here they are...

5. Jean Grey. Technically not a very bad one, but it set the precedent for BS "Look, I'm back!" resurrections. Jean Grey's mutant powers had kicked into overdrive, making her telekinesis so powerful that she could snuff out stars--which she did, destroying an entire solar system when he went crazy from having so much power. She nobly decided to kill herself, rather than risk endangering the entire universe should she go crazy again. Resurrection: It turned out that an actual super-powerful cosmic entity precisely duplicated her, and the cosmic entity/duplicate killed itself because That's What Jean Would Have Done. The real Jean was found years later, just fine and dandy.

4. Elektra. She was stabbed in the chest with her own sai by Bullseye (although unlike the movie version, it was in a rivalry over who would become the Kingpin's personal hitman.) Resurrection: Ninja magic.

3. Green Lantern. Hal Jordan went insane after the destruction of his hometown, Coast City, at the hands of the alien Mongul, and tried to gather enough cosmic power to rewrite history and save those victims no matter what the cost to anyone else. To this end, he destroyed the Green Lantern Corps, destroyed and remade the universe, yet still failed at saving the people he cared about the most. Finally, having regained his sanity, he sacrificed his power and life restoring Earth's sun in a heroic and noble moment, and became DC's ghostly spirit of redemption, The Spectre. Resurrection: All the evil stuff he did was because of alien fear parasites, and when he found that out, he got better.

2. Green Goblin. In one of the most iconic and memorable stories of Spider-Man's 44-year history, Norman Osborn's mind reverted to his sinister Green Goblin persona one last time, prompting him to kidnap Peter Parker's girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, and throw her off a bridge. Spider-Man failed to save her, and he tracked down the Green Goblin and beat him savagely--and yet, he couldn't kill him. The Goblin did that himself, when he tried to impale Spidey from behind on his Goblin Glider and Spidey dodged it. The Goblin's own Glider stabbed him through the heart. Resurrection: It just hurt real bad. He's better now.

1. Guardian. Alpha Flight's charismatic leader died in a battle with Omega Flight, a team assembled to take the Canadian super-heroes down. Months later, he returned, explaining that he'd actually activated a prototype teleporter in his battlesuit that teleported him to one of the moons of Jupiter, where he was rescued and healed by a race of benevolent aliens. But this turned out to be a lie covering the return of Omega Flight's leader disguised as Guardian--writer John Byrne cleverly parodied implausible resurrection stories to sucker fans into believing Guardian was back, knowing that the more convoluted and unbelievable the resurrection, the more the fans bought it. The unveiling of Guardian as a villain was therefore a genuine surprise. Resurrection: The whole BS story about the moons of Jupiter and the benevolent aliens turned out to be true. Says it all, don't it?

The Announcement

It's not really a big announcement, since 90% of the people who read this blog are friends and family, and I've already told all of them, but this is the point where anyone who just stumbled onto this blog while looking for Doctor Seuss fanfic and discussions of zombies finds out...

I'm now officially contracted to write 'The Crossover Companion', for TwoMorrows Press, due sometime in 2007. It'll be a comprehensive look at the crossover phenomenon in comics, starting from the earliest idea that each company's stories all took place in the same fictional universe, and moving forward to examine the "event" crossovers that became a permanent fixture of the industry (for good and bad) in the 80s, 90s, and on through the present day. It will also serve as a guide to these crossovers for anyone who wants to know what titles spun off out of 'Zero Hour', who wrote 'Secret Wars II', what happened in 'Unity', and who died in 'Extreme Prejudice' (assuming anyone on this Earth actually cares who died in 'Extreme Prejudice'.)

It'll be about 200 pages, and I'll give details on things like price, cover artist, and similar once they're forthcoming. I hope everyone enjoys it. I also hope they buy it, since I get a cut of every copy.

In Defense of the Status Quo

Let's face it--everyone hates the status quo. People equate the phrase with stagnation, boredom, lifelessness, and a flat unchanging nothing. Everyone insists that stories should "kick against the status quo" (especially in comics, where there's practically a jihad going on between people who hate it and people who love it.) And nobody seems to understand what the damn thing is. So here's a quick explanation of what a status quo is, and why you should love it.

Any series (not just comics series, but TV, movie, video game, manga, what have you--any setting that is designed to tell multiple stories based around a character or group of characters) must have a status quo. That status quo is the baseline setting and context for the series, and it functions as a generator of stories. That status quo can be anything from "a group of people in the workplace that don't get along very well" to "a man with a magic box that lets him go anywhere in space and time" to "a mystery writer who actually solves mysteries" to "a group of mutant superheroes that help a world that fears and hates them." (Obviously, these are just thumbnail descriptions: A real "status quo" for a series involves descriptions of each character, what makes them tick, the world they operate in, their relationships to each other, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.)

That phrase, "a generator of stories," is an important one. It means that there are stories you can tell about these people that come out of the setting and context you establish, stories that are interesting in and of themselves. Obviously, not all status quos are created equal. There are a lot more interesting stories you can tell about "a man with a magic box that lets him go anywhere in space and time" than you can about "a group of people in the workplace that don't get along very well", which is why 'Doctor Who' is still going after 43 years and even a great workplace sitcom like 'NewsRadio' only lasted five. Not all settings and contexts have the same number of interesting stories to tell about them; some have very few.

Now, this is where the comics community has bandied about terms like "real change vs. the illusion of change". There are two factions in comics that each have very strong views about making major changes to a comic book; the "real change" people insist that change is an important, naturalistic element of story-telling, and that by forcing the characters to conform to an unchanging model, they've made them stagnant and lifeless; the "illusion of change" people insist that when you make major changes to a character, you're losing as much as you gain, and all too often you can lose the thing that makes the character special.

But here's where our above definition of "status quo" comes in, because it not only explains away the seeming contradiction between the two, but also explains the existence of the third type of story that neither side seems to acknowledge: The story that is exciting without having either change or the illusion thereof. That type of story is the kind that the status quo generates directly out of its context and setting, and if it's a good status quo, you should be able to tell a lot of those. The X-Men can go out and save the world a lot without needing to make changes in their setting and context, and it'll probably be exciting.

But "illusion of change vs. real change" translates, here, into "deviation from, and return to the status quo vs. transition from one status quo to another new status quo." An "illusion of change" story is one where something happens to upset the status quo, the setting and context of the characters' lives, and their efforts to return things to said status quo. For example, the X-Men went through a very long "illusion of change" story from Uncanny X-Men #200-280, where Professor X left Earth, the team faked their deaths and moved to Australia, the mansion was destroyed, and several characters lost their memories of being X-Men, all before Professor X finally returned and helped set things to rights. (Which brings up an interesting point: That storyline wasn't well received, because it went on for a very long time and people were frustrated that there seemed to be no end to the changes. You can only deviate from the status quo so long and so far because "meaning" comes from setting and context--without a world to ground the story you're telling, it becomes pointless. Status quos are necessary because they provide that context. But I digress.)

"Real change" stories, on the other hand, change the status quo to an entirely new one. They demolish the old story-generating engine, and create a new one. For example, Batgirl got shot in the back, suffering permanent spinal damage that confined her to a wheelchair, and became the tech-savvy Oracle, leader and mastermind of the female super-hero team, 'The Birds of Prey'. That's a significant and permanent change--you're telling a completely different type of story with Barbara Gordon than you told thirty years ago. You have a different status quo.

So, here's where it all comes together. "Real change" fans think that they're advocating "no status quo", but you can't do that, because a status quo is simply a context and setting to your character's continuing adventures, which is absolutely necessary to give the story its emotional grounding. They're simply advocating that status quos should feel free to change. "Illusion of change" fans recognize the point brought up back near the beginning: Not all status quos are created equal. Not all story-generating engines have the same number of stories in them, nor the same quality. (Notice how 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' tended to founder a bit after they left high school? New status quo, not as many good stories in it.) Changing to a new status quo is only a good idea if the new status quo has as many or more good stories in it. Otherwise, you're just closing off interesting possibilities. Which means that changing the status quo shouldn't be done lightly or often, especially in comics--a lot of these status quos have managed to keep going for decades because there are so many interesting stories to tell with them; changing the engine could wreck it, and it takes time and effort to fix something like that. (Witness the 'Clone Saga'.)

There ya go. Why status quo is important, why it should be viewed as valuable, and why you shouldn't tinker with it too much when you're writing an open-ended series (like, say, having Scott Summers get mind-controlled by Jean Grey's ghost into falling in love with the White Queen, right before you leave the series.) And all in just a few hundred easy paragraphs.

"And I'd Survive, Too!"

Unbidden, the memory of reading about the medical condition known as "hyponatremia" popped into my head last night--it's a dangerous medical condition caused by over-hydrating (usually done by marathon runners who are over-eager to prevent dehydration) where the sodium levels in the blood drop too far. It can lead to all sorts of unpleasant symptoms, and can even be fatal.

It got me thinking about marathons in general, and I had to wonder, "How did all this get started?" I mean, yes, we've all heard the legend about the Battle of Marathon, and the Greek soldier who ran all the way from Marathon to Athens, proclaimed the Athenian victory, then keeled over dead.

What I wanna know is, who looked down at the guy's corpse and said, "I bet I could beat his time"?

The S-Word

I read 'X-23: Innocence Lost' and 'NYX: Wannabe' recently, the two books that brought X-23 into the Marvel Universe (X-23 is a clone of Wolverine that, for various reasons, wound up being female). I'm not generally a person who goes into these things seeing any sort of political or subtextual agenda, and I generally enjoy my comfortable obliviousness to said agendas, but...wow, these books are pathetically sexist.

There. I've said it, and I'd say it again if I had to.

Basically, there's a certain element of laziness to X-23's origin story. She's "Wolverine as a teenage girl". Her origin is pretty much exactly the same, beat for beat, except where they felt they should change things to make them more "female". And that's where the sexism comes in. Because, you see, while Weapon X escaped from the project because they were torturing her, X-23 had a female scientist who acted as surrogate mother to the clone and felt all maternal to her (see, she lost her scientific detachment and went all gooey for the girl once she was born, because that's just what women do.) And it was Mom who helped X-23 decide that she needed to escape (because X-23 wouldn't have done it on her own, or something.) Mom dies in the escape, and X-23 is left on her own...

...and when we next see her, she's a hooker.

Do I even need to add anything to that last statement? Do I even need to explain what is so staggeringly, pathetically, loathesomely sexist about the idea that any woman who winds up on her own in a large city for more than a week winds up under the thumb of a domineering pimp, even one who can leave people's body parts in different zip codes and doesn't need money to survive? Do I need to point out that there's absolutely no explanation given for her career move--she just shows up in the book, and hey look, she's a hooker, and the writer (who is also, disappointingly enough, the editor-in-chief of Marvel) just expects us to accept that, no questions asked, because that is after all what women do?

Sometimes I wonder about this medium.

DC Zombies

After reading 'Ultimate Fantastic Four Volume Five' (now a strong contender for Awesomest Thing Ever), I'm fully up to speed on the Marvel Zombieverse--an alternate reality just like the regular Marvel Universe, except that "three days ago", one of the super-heroes got infected with a virus that gave him an insatiable hunger for human flesh. Human, and super-human.

And now, every super-hero in the Marvel Universe is a rotting, insane, super-zombie.

So naturally, that led me to think: How would the DC version of this go? So here's the basic plot of the three issue "DC Zombies" mini-series.

Issue One: Outbreak. Access (the DC/Marvel jointly-owned character who can freely travel between continuities) teleports into Gotham City, looking for help from its heroes. But he's already infected, and by the time he finds Robin, he starts gnawing on him instead of asking him for assistance. Robin fends off his assailant, but a trail of victims tells him that Gotham's already in trouble. The infection spreads through the city, snagging both Nightwing and the Mad Hatter (who are locked in combat at the time.) Nightwing delivers the Mad Hatter to Arkham before succumbing to the infection himself.

At dawn, Batman returns to the Batcave, having narrowly escaped infection several times, and broadcasts word to the JLA that he needs help quarantining the city. Superman arrives, bringing with him Wonder Woman, the Martian Manhunter, and Green Lantern, but it's already too late--isolated reports of infection have come through from Metropolis and Fawcett City, and it appears to be spreading west. Then worse news arrives, as dozens of super-zombie-criminals break out of Arkham, led by a zombie Amygdala and a zombie Killer Croc. The JLA attempt to contain them, but the issue ends with Kiler Croc chomping down on Superman's shoulder.

Issue Two: The Hunt. The battle with the JLA concludes in disaster, as Superman flees the battle, and Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter are both infected. Green Lantern is forced to retreat, and zombie Wonder Woman and zombie Martian Manhunter begin circling the globe spreading the infection. Batman goes into zombie-infested Gotham to find Nightwing and Robin, getting updates from Oracle as he does so. (Oracle is on a Blackhawk plane, circling the globe herself, and is hence safe from the plague, but she's already starting to worry about refueling.) Oracle delivers updates from Coast City, where Hal Jordan tries to hold off zombie Sinestro, from Fawcett City, where Captain Marvel is nowhere to be found (we see Billy Batson starting to shout "Sha--" before a zombie sinks its teeth into his cheek), and all over the world.

Superman, meanwhile, contacts Batman to tell him that his powers aren't enough to hold the infection at bay, and he's losing control to the hunger. When he fled, it was to attain orbit--the more sunlight he gets, the more powerful he becomes and the better he can fight the infection, so he had to get out of the atmosphere to avoid atmospheric scatter. But it's still not enough. He informs Batman that he's flying at top speed towards the sun--he'll either get strong enough to burn out the infection completely, or he'll vaporize in the sun's heat. Either way, the world will be safe from him.

Meanwhile, Oracle continues to receive reports of heroes fighting zombies. Swamp Thing is attacked by zombie versions of Doctor Fate and Zatanna, and is forced to abandon his physical body, only to discover that he's brought the infection into the Green itself. Buddy Baker, meanwhile, finds that he's done the same with the Red. Nature begins to eat itself as the infection spreads.

We cut back to Batman, in the Batcave. The JLA teleporter has been disabled. Nightwing and Robin are pinned to the ground with Batarangs through their hands and ankles, each one muzzled to prevent accidents. And Batman begins working on a cure.

Book Three: The Cure. Oracle acts as pronouncer of the end of the world, from two miles above it. Her reports come in from every city, and she dutifully relays them to Batman. The Green Lantern Corps has abandoned Earth and recalled its ring-bearers. (Back on Oa, we see a zombie Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, and John Stewart slugging it out with the rest of the Green Lanterns, in the first battle of the Green Lantern Corps and the Green Lantern Corpse.) The few people immune to the zombie plague are being killed. (Hawk, Dove, and Black Adam, each with magical bodies, are being ripped apart--literally--by the JSA.) Nobody knows what's happened to Captain Marvel. (We see a young boy, his jaw half-ripped-off, shouting "a-am!" ineffectually through shredded lips.) Poison Ivy's own plants have attacked her, infecting her, and the Floronic Man has spontaneously zombified. Things have gone from bad to worse to worst...

Then they go to the level past worst, as zombie Power Girl and zombie Supergirl each take a wing of Oracle's plane and make a wish. But back in the Batcave, Batman's made a breakthrough. He's got a drug that appears to be able to stem the hunger, like methadone for a heroin addict. It doesn't cure the infection, but the patient becomes rational. He makes the dangerous test of it, releasing zombie Nightwing from his muzzle...but Dick's sane now. He doesn't attack.

Power Girl does, though. She and Supergirl come smashing into the Batcave, its location supplied to them by zombie Oracle. Batman fires darts filled with the "cure" at them, but their bullet-proof skin repels it, and he's forced to flee. Dick and Tim are left behind in the Batcave, the formula for the "cure" unfortunately lost in the Batcomputer that was buried under tons of rubble in the fight, and knowing they'll succumb to the hunger without it.

Batman, meanwhile, flees for his life through zombie Gotham. He manages to elude Power Girl and Supergirl by ducking through lead-lined subway tunnels, and thinks he's escaped...but one of his own Batarangs slicing into his Achilles tendons tells him otherwise. He limps away, expecting to see Nightwing when he turns...but instead it's zombie Oracle, wheeling herself towards him with an evil grin. She pulls him down, and begins to feed...

Two weeks later, and Superman finally returns. He's cured--it took a plunge into the very heart of the sun, a risk he'd never have taken if not for the need to cure the infection, but he's free of it now, and more powerful than ever. He's ready to save the world! But he sees, as he arrives, that it's too late. He's met by the zombie super-hero population, everyone from zombie Ambush Bug to zombie Zatanna. The very trees, the animals, every single form of life on Earth has succumbed to the infection, and the hunger it brings. And then he understands what he must do to save the world. Superman's never unleashed his full power before, but he does now--and he destroys Earth and everyone on it. Alone, in space, the last son of two worlds looks for somewhere new to call home.

And on Apokolips, a boom tube opens. Darkseid himself looks toward the noise, and sees his estranged son, Orion, cross the threshold. But why does he look so...pale?