X-Force is #1 on the sales charts, Larry Stroman is on X-Factor, we have another Invasion!, and Valiant's restarted.
Deja vu, anyone?
Then again, I always felt that everything in comics eventually comes around again. It's just part of that "it's a small world after all" thing.
I loved the art on the new "X-Force," but spiritually I find it the sibling of the Liefeld orginal. It's all about fight!fight!fight!fight!cool!cool!cool!cool!
We can criticize certain comics, but look at the numbers.
The best-selling DC comic is All-Star Batman and Robin. We can laugh at it all we want, but the fact is that many many comic book fans are buying this comic, and most probably a lot of people who do not classify themselves as fans. The top selling comics, I have to believe, attract readers outside of the fandom.
Why All-Star Batman and Robin is a top-selling book:
a) It's a Batman book not tied up in continuity
b) Jim Lee has name cachet
c) Frank Miller has name cachet beyond comics
Again, we can criticize books like ASBAR and JLA, but they are bringing in the cash for DC.
Which brings me to DC's newly-announced 2nd JLA book, Justice League.
Two Justice Leagues sort of apes Marvel's new Avengers -- but then again, DC did this successfully (at least for a while) in the late 80s.
There was also the attempt to extend the JLA franchise with Justice League Elite, which I think failed because its desire to be so very "different" from the regular book, with a lack of iconic characters outside of Green Arrow and Flash. The issues that became another JLA spin-off book, JLA Classified, were originally assigned as arcs for the regular title.
I think having James Robinson pen this new JLA book is interesting, given his work on Starman, but it is hardly a slam-dunk. Starman was an awesome book but came out some time ago. The question becomes: can he bring that magic to Justice League, and will the mass market who have propelled ASBAR and JLA to such heights cotton to his direction on the title?
As for the inciting incident that helps form this new team:
"That event? A murder. Unsurprisingly, neither DiDio not Robinson are saying who will be taking the upcoming dirt nap, only that it’s tied to Final Crisis, and that the League’s response causes a schism."
Which brings us to another deja vu moment:
Meanwhile, the Marvel/Stephen King cash cow continues with an adaptation of The Stand. Remember how Marvel used to adapt all that Clive Barker stuff and it really didn't seem to make much of a splash What happened? With books like Dark Tower, Anita Blake, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and World of Warcraft, licensed material seems to have made a strong comeback.
So will DC's new Chuck book suck or not?
I know there has been some snark about how some retailers are selling the Buffy issue where she has lesbian sex as "come and get your Buffy lesbian sex comic right here, yeah!"
Back when Northstar "came out" in the early 90s, retailers, at least in Brooklyn, did the same thing. "Teh gay book, it might be worth money some day, come buy it!" You know, except Northstar didn't have any gay sex in that book, because gay male characters aren't allowed to have that in comics (only hot women).
Finally, I love the way some male comic readers freak out at the faintest suspicion of penis on their covers:
I say: more penis on DC's covers! More penis!
See, this all leads back to why we don't have more comics where male characters wake up in bed with each other after having sex.
And that's all I got.
I bought X-Force but won't be coming back for issue 2, I did like the art too though.
ReplyDeleteI'm interested enough to try the new Justice League, but I'm going to guess it debuts around 70k. The premise sounds kinda dumb actually but the interview with Robinson (whom I've never read any of his stuff) made it sounds pretty interesting.
Yeah, I have to say that the whole "New Avengers/Mighty Avengers" thing is more of Marvel aping DC then DC aping Marvel.
ReplyDeleteThen again, you could always agrue that DC's various Justice League titles were an aping of West Coast Avengers.
Which in itself could be argued was an aping of Titan's West.
Who knows? You can pretty much trace every single idea back to another.
And the description I have heard about Roberson's "Justice League" sounds very suspiciously like a book from the 90s that DC did called EXTREME JUSTICE.
All the way down to the fact that the team leader is a character that once went from a hero to a villian who wanted to reshape all reality into what he perceived as 'proper'. (Hal Jordan and Capt Atom).
The line-up sounds interesting (Hal, Green Arrow, Supergirl, Ray Palmer, Batwoman, Starman, and....and.... Congorilla.)
Congorilla.
Jeez.
I don't think Justice League Elite was ever solicited as anything more than a limited series, so I don't know if it's accurate to classify it as a "failure". I seem to recall (if memory serves, and it may not) it sold in solid, if unspectacular, numbers.
ReplyDeleteYou do realize that it's a token penis- and it's 80-year old Golden Age Green Lantern penis, at that?
ReplyDeleteSure, he's de-aged, and all, but does one geriatric penis balance the scales?
Is it fair to equate the new X-Force with the old? The old series certainly glorified and reveled in violence, but I don't think that Kyle's & Yost's does.
ReplyDeleteThe new X-Force, like the two well-written and excellent X-23 miniseries before it, seems to condemn the violence which saturates its pages. Nowhere in the comic are its events characterized as anything but a tragedy.
While X-23 is impressive as she carries out her acts of violence (the reset of X-Force so far has been markedly less competent), the portrayal of her martial prowess is along the lines of Gary Cooper's Sergeant York: we are impressed by the protagonist's aptitude and ability, cheer for them as they destroy the enemy, but know that what is happening is both tragic and wrong, even if(!) necessary under the circumstances.
Hey Val, I just thought of a question...
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think of the character X-23? To me, I've disliked the character greatly because it's basically a female wolverine.
Does the character fall into that area you were talking about where a comic company just places a new character into an existing legacy instead of creating a new and original name/profile?
To me, I thought the entire concept of her was ridiculous. As it is we have over-kill with Wolverine appearacnes... and now we get to have even MORE since she's a clone... but it's kinda like having Wolverine!
What does anyone think of this?
I could see Mark Millar having some kind of gay scene like that...
ReplyDeleteand you know? some people are gay, get over it!
people have such an "issue" when it's just a fact of life.
i hate the whole "i don't agree with it" bullshit, cause we never asked you a question.
there is nothing to agree or disagree with, it just is.
you know, i really hate comic fans, i think. seriously, all-star batman? really? the heck. of course, i have my fingers crossed that superman going in the public domain will save the day for everyone. i really like comics, but i think having them chained to bussiness interests is a bad thing. sad to say.
ReplyDeletealso man, wishlish, don't be mean to green lanterns penis! so mean!
"All the way down to the fact that the team leader is a character that once went from a hero to a villian who wanted to reshape all reality into what he perceived as 'proper'. (Hal Jordan and Capt Atom)."
ReplyDeleteI'm not really sure where you're getting that, since Extreme Justice predated Captain Atom *really* becoming the Monarch by about fifteen years, and Justice League is coming out about fifteen years AFTER Parallax. But that's a quibble.
Yes, this sort of "extreme team" brand extension has happened over and over again - Justice League Task Force, X-Force v1+2, Fantastic Force, Force Works, Youngblood Strikeforce -- they're often "forces".
And while that makes the hype promising some sort of revolutionary new funnybook concept, does it really preclude the book from being good/popular? There are plenty of hoary old cliche comic book pitches that when executed skillfully are good reads and big sellers. "Hero Dies", "Heroes Unite", "Heroes Fight", "Hero Learns the Ropes", "Hero Seeks Redemption" are all old stories, but people seem to have liked them if you look at the charts.
Chris:
ReplyDeleteI'm not really sure where you're getting that, since Extreme Justice predated Captain Atom *really* becoming the Monarch by about fifteen years, and Justice League is coming out about fifteen years AFTER Parallax. But that's a quibble.
I really wasn't making more than an observation. It's funny how simular the two titles sound... all the way down to a detail such as that.
You're right about the timing... I was really just kind of amused that there are many simularites.
I can show another... a legacy character with name ties to another existing DC character but who has never been a part of a team or has any real Justice League ties will be on the team. For the new Justice League it's Batwoman. For Extreme Justice it was Amazing Man.
Again... just an observation of simularites. Nothing else.
I think it's important to remember that it's not necessarily the idea behind the new Justice League team but rather the execution of that idea. I've heard it compared to a few other titles in DC's past but, really, if you look at those:
ReplyDeleteExtreme Justice - DC trying to do an Image-esque book and get some Image-esque cash.
Outsiders - They were supposed to be proactive, but that only lasted for one storyline before it started to lapse into typical Winnick-isms.
Justice League Elite - Spun out of the JLA proper title but the story it spun out from was really trying to milk a bit more magic from the good press "What's So Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way" generated.
Batman & the Outsiders - Right now it's probably too soon to tell, but Dixon's track record suggests he's much better doing the darker, street-level, black ops kind of stuff. The book might as well be called Batman and the Hired Muscle.
Overall, I see Robinson doing big stories with big ideas behind them, using a mix of characters from the A- through Z-list--which is what I feel a perfect team should be.
In other words, he had me at Congorilla. :)
"See, this all leads back to why we don't have more comics where male characters wake up in bed with each other after having sex."
ReplyDeleteCome on. Lesbians sleep over. Gay men get the boot and/or pack up their stuff at 2 am, leave their cell number and e-mail address, and hightail it home. Of course you're not gonna see a scene of male characters waking up in bed together.
(Yes, that's intended as a joke. Sort of. My last experience with this was at 1 am, not 2.)
It's so sad -- I skimmed over the images before starting to read, and stopped at what turned out to be the Northstar pic and thought, Wait! Why is she posting images of the Man From Atlantis comic from the 70s?
ReplyDeleteDeja vu, indeed.
My first thought when seeing Alan Scott on that cover was "if he's got wood, isn't that going to make his powers shut off?"
ReplyDeleteI am a bad, bad man.