House to Astonish Episode 107
New month, new podcast, and Paul and I have got comicsy natterings for you on Rebellion’s limited Zenith hardcover (and the legal implications thereof), Paul Jenkins leaving Marvel and DC for BOOM!, the ever-expanding cast of Guardians of the Galaxy and Marvel’s wranglings with Fox over the cinematic versions of Quicksilver. We’ve also got reviews of Supermag, The Wake and X-Men, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is a first-level magic user. All this plus Hose to Astonish, Ronan Keating the Accuser and golfing in a general sense.
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Few points on Zenith.
I’m pretty sure Morrison’s objection to reprinting Zenith is purely on the grounds of rights. Before the Titan Reprint fiasco he came back to 2000AD in the early noughties to write a modern-day Zenith one-shot.
I’m also not sure its as clear-cut as there was a one-off period where contracts weren’t properly written with 2000AD. I think it was more that 2000AD basically worked off the old Marvel (mentioned in the episode) of claiming that by endorsing cheques writers signed away their rights. IIRC most of these they have the proper rights to retrospectively when they went to creators and demanded they signed contracts outlining the royalities they would be due if their films were successfully licensed during the ‘Fleetway Films’ era.
This makes the legal arguments much more important to 2000AD because in theory it could unpick their rights to all their characters.
Finally Steve Yeowell was the strip’s artist but he wasn’t actually the creator. Editorial hired Brendan McCarthy to do the character designs. This really is the key about Zenith – it was very much an editorially driven comic. Editorial went to Morrison asking for a Superhero Strip, Editorial hired an artist to design the characters, Editorial chose the artist for the strip. Morally Morrison has never had a leg to stand on but given how many creators have been screwed out of their moral rights due to poor contracts you can’t begrudge him giving it a good go.
Today’s show the mirror, mirror version of the pod: House of Digression. 🙂
Pushing a new comic made me think of how wrestling companies try and make new stars, often as successfully as comic companies.
They are giving Guardians “the Goldberg push.”
I wonder if people knew there was a Defenders movie coming out, would it would succeed as well as Guardians 1 has done?
The verb most associated with golf shots is “drive.” “Jack Nicklaus drove that shot 275 yards.” Insert stereotype about golf and Scottish people here.
Attorneys To Astonish
Is the PDF of Supermag you used a review copy? It doesn’t seem to be available digitally anywhere I can see.
I was looking at the Wake in the shop this afternoon and it looked to me like, at the end, the device attacked the person iin the cave, not that they put their own eyes out
@Paul: Yes, we had a review copy.
I gave up on Jenkins’ The Dark Knight very quickly, but I never got the feeling that this was a book that was being shaped by the way editioral wanted the Batbooks to be. It felt more like a book that was being allowed to do whatever the hell it liked, but probably shouldn’t have been. If later issues reined back on this, then I think DC were right.
Interesting about the non-exclusive licence situation. Remember the Daredevil movie, where they could use Ben Urich, but he couldn’t work for the Daily Bugle?
I read that about Jubilee’s colour-scheme somewhere as well. I think it gets lampshaded in Marvel vs X-Men, where she compliments Tim Drake’s fashion sense (and then of course, Amalgam happens and they become Dark Claw’s sidekick Sparrow).
According to the Marvel Wiki, the Darkhold Redeemer who became Jinx’s guardian was actually his grandmother, so it’s slightly less random than the Official Handbook makes it sound. I do like the idea of Intern Strange.
It’s Zen-ith because it’s Grant Morrison & Brendan McCarthy, thus hippies.
After all the talk of GotG (what a waste of Gillan), I think we should find a way to get Waid to do a Ronan The Yakuza arc in DareDevil. What with Ronan being an Accuser and Murdock being a ninja-cum-public defender.
Golf superhero…The Birdie? JUSTICE HAS NO HANDICAP. Like a sort of Scottish Green Hornet in tartan plus-fours, with a Caddy who was the real power behind the mask. Some kind of magic golf bag full of speciality clubs for different fairway crimefighting scenarios. Trick balls. DRIVING CRIME INTO THE ROUGH. The baddie could be called COLONEL BOGEY or THE ALBATROSS and they could have a base called The Black Bunker, The Secret Bunker, The 21st Hole, etc.. Turbo-charged golf carts, an outdated attitude to women, Oscar Wilde, Donald Trump, etc., etc., etc..
And every time they saved the day, there’d be a polite ripple of applause.
//\Oo/\\
I was surprised at how much I’ve been enjoying Deathmatch, which I expected to be shit on toast given the promotion. Not liking it enough to pay $4 rather than wait a month and pay half price, but enough to keep buying it a month behind.
I can say with certainty that one of the last things I was waiting for was for Marvel to give Guardians of the Galaxy to Bendis.
Odessasteps is right about the wrestling comparison. Marvel heavily promoting a character or book isn’t a guarantee of success any more than it is for a wrestler. Marvel shoving Sentry down people’s throats, for example. The best Marvel can really do is try to find the sweet spot between dooming a character through neglect/bad booking and handicapping a character through overpushing. Unfortunately, Marvel may actually be worse than Vince McMahon in that ability, and Vince is downright abysmal.
As for Bendis and GotG, I cannot help but think of Smackdown years ago. Smackdown was seen as the “B” show, while Raw was Vince’s baby and where the “superstars” were. Being sent to Smackdown was even seen as punishment. But because WWE management ignored Smackdown, it became a place where wrestling could flourish (because it wasn’t a soap opera superstar extravaganza) and new stars could be grown (because you weren’t crushed under the glass ceiling of existing superstars who were out to protect their positions, or the meddling of management). Unfortunately, every now and then Vince would look at Smackdown, and you could tell he was involved because the quality of the show would drop for a few weeks. Also, people who succeeded on Smackdown were eventually “called up” to Raw, where their careers generally hit brick walls. Management and Steph’s soap opera writers didn’t know what to do with them, and there was little room to grow, so they got pushed a short while and then got dropped to jobber or midcard status.
To me, GotG was a “Smackdown” book. It was a niche title, so Marvel management largely ignored it. It had some good workers, and stayed pretty good quality over the years, though it was never going to be a top tier title. But along the way, Marvel management noticed it. Annihilation got attention, and then there was the movie deal. So Marvel has decided to push it as a top-tier book. They gave it a Raw-quality writer (Bendis is a company favorite, a “superstar” name, but is also a lot more flash than quality) and are giving it a big push.
And I don’t think it is going to work. That push is going to die in a year’s time or so. Bendis isn’t going to stay on the book, either. The book might succeed long term, but the odds are going to be low. Even if it does succeed, it might not really be GotG anymore. If it fails, who knows how much damage will be done to it in the process.
It’s rather hard to sympathize with Morrison on Zenith given his rather callow attitude regarding the Siegel and Shuster claim against DC in interviews. Sure, he riffed on the idea a bit in Action Comics, but overall Morrison’s take on creators’ rights is mostly self-serving zig-zagging.
I disagree Omar – I think he’s being perfectly consistent. His point about Siegel and Shuster is that whatever their moral claim to ownership they clearly and repeatedly signed the legal rights away.
He’s claiming he never did that. It’s why I say its Bizarro Watchmen – Legally DC have the right to do what they want with the franchise but morally they probably shouldn’t whereas 2000AD really have a watertight moral argument but may lose on legal technicalities.
If anything by taking such a muscular approach he’s putting the lessons he draws from Superman into use.
Although to be fair that’s damning those who came before for not having the benefit of hindsight. He learnt from what happened to his predecessors and negotiated better contracts
The X-Men #1 comments were spot on. As for the baby, we barely get any explanation of where he comes from or how Sublime’s sister got to him. I assume this will be especially relevant in the future because the baby has to be a robot/machine to even be possessed by Arkea.
Yeah, Jinx’s grandmother was Louise Hastings, one of the Darkhold Redeemers. The DARKHOLD series was awesome; along with HELLSTORM it was the closest Marvel came to doing Vertigo-style comics at the time. The series got gutted by the continuous “Midnight Sons” crossovers of the day, but it had some great artwork by Richard Case post-Doom Patrol and an issue by pre-Starman Tony Harris!
I always thought Druid was the closest they got to Vertigo.
As opposed to Sleepwalker, “sandman done right” according to one Marvel editor at the time.
I wish Marvel would reprint some of their early 90s horror stuff. I’m sure most of it won’t live up to how interesting it sounds on paper (or rather not on paper) but I’m really keen to give it a go.
I agree with Billy’s extended Smackdown/GotG comparison. It’s usually the case that the really good and/or fun books are the ones not being by the company’s (which ever company it is) top writers or being pushed as a big deal.
I’ve probably said this before, but Marvel’s approach to Guardians now is completely backwards. It’s “these characters are getting popular, we’d better put our ‘best’ writer on them” rather than just keeping it how it was (even tho the DnA series had ended) and promoting *that* as a big deal in it’s own right.
I know a bunch of Marvel reading freinds who said the DnA Cosmic books were the best thing being done by Marvelat the time, partially because they were in their own corner and not part of whichever cross-over was going on inthe regualr 616 books at the time.
@Nate S.
Did the book (or an interview) state that Arkea could only possess or control machinery? I assumed that the ability was just an evolution from what Sublime does. Maybe I missed it, but I don’t recall anything statimg that Arkea could only work with machinery.
What Marvel should have done with GotG (and more generally) was to realise they had a hit, writing-wise, and put a big-name artist on it. Wouldn’t GotG by DnA and the ‘superstar’ artist of Civil War have been a hit? Then when that does good numbers you can promote DnA as big-name writers, and you’ve elevated them, rather than continuously going back to Bendis, Loeb, and whoever else is pals with Quesada.
It’s interesting that X-Men get’s so much advanced press regarding being a female team, while Astonishing, which actually has a female writer.(Granted that book got a lot of attention fo he shoehorned gay wedding gimimck) The X-Men have always (or at least since Claremont) has strong female leads, but they haven’t had a great number of female creators. The focus should be on equity of creators as much as characters (which it stands to reason would follow suit.) Which reminds me, Sara Pichelli’s pencils on the Pixie mini….
Also, I seem to recall that Jubes said she picked up the baby in an orphanage? (Not that this would make getting paperwork much easier, but hey.)
Jubilee is pretty clearly moving freely in the day in X-Men – at the very least, she’s on the train in the daytime beside a sunlit window with no curtain or anything of the sort to block out the sun.
I get the feeling the vampire bit has silently been dropped, and it’ll be explained away in a throwaway line in issue 5 or something (“the Phoenixes cured me during AvX” sort of thing. Notably, some of the covers are even showing her powered.)
Incidentally, thing that bugged me about the issue – Rogue apparently borrowed Northstar’s powers to be of use. Why (in-story) didn’t Northstar just go himself, then? They could have had her borrow some of the students’ powers instead, since the whole Schism thing that set up the JGS was that they “shouldn’t” be allowed in the field. (Related: Why was Pixie in-costume?)
@errant: It is stated in the book that she “possesses machine like [sublime] does people.” In the issue, we only see the electrical current (that presumably is Arkea) pass between machines with the exception of the baby. Also, his eyes flash with the same pattern as the circuits on the train.
Sublime states that he doesn’t know her limits for sure, but it would be a huge plothole if Arkea could posses people and machines and just has chosen not to. She could’ve possessed Jubilee or Storm or Kitty or left the x-men alone altogether and gone straight to the Hulk if that were the case.
@ Joseph: Jubes says the baby is an orphan, but implies that she found him during/after a meteor shower. Sublime says his sister was alien-evolved. So presumably, that’s Arkea and the baby falling from the sky on the first page.
I’m guessing the baby will turn out to be a vessel created for Arkea by those same aliens.
Of course, one of the reasons for Jubliee’s yellow outfit having so much staying power (as well as Gambit’s Lee outfit) is that it’s the outfit she’s best known for in pop culture at large, such as in the 90s Fox cartoon.
I was a little disappointed about X-Men 1, because of the dialogue. Especially Shadowcat’s. It felt more or less natural, but not something that she’d ever say.
“OMG, Julibee,” for example. You have to have a very specific personality type to pull off *saying* OMG in a non-ironic way. Or “And you carry him in a backpack? Somehow that is just so you, Jubilee,” which isn’t attributed to anyone in particular, but still seems off, for either Rogue or Shadowcat. And “Whelp.” I suppose it’s Wood’s interpretation of the character, but it feels off to me.
> Also, I seem to recall that Jubes said she picked up the baby in an orphanage? (Not that this would make getting paperwork much easier, but hey.)
It’s very vague. What she *appears* to say is that she rescued him from the ruins of “an orphanage, I think” after the crash in the opening pages.
> @errant: It is stated in the book that she “possesses machine like [sublime] does people.” In the issue, we only see the electrical current (that presumably is Arkea) pass between machines with the exception of the baby. Also, his eyes flash with the same pattern as the circuits on the train.
At the same time, Jubilee explicitly says that she’s been changing his nappies. That would seem at least slightly odd if he’s basically an animatronic puppet (also, surely even Jubilee would notice if he hadn’t grown in three weeks!). I suspect he’s either a cyborg, or a mutant with machine-related powers that Arkea could somehow infiltrate.
[Also, if he’s purely a vessel for Arkea – and could Al’n’Paul just not pronounce it? (Zen-Ith, not Zene-Ith, BTW!) The name’s hardly a spoiler! – why is he clearly identified as male, when they go to lengths to identify Arkea as a “she”? Plus, Brian Wood’s very adamant in the editorial at the back that the kid will be sticking around, rather than being a plot device for the opening arc.]
@Nate: yes, but she started out like Sublime and evolved in space or through alien means into possessing machines. So she’s Sublime. But with machines too.
Marvel Stuff Jenkins been on where you suspect he’s been editorially mandated:
* Bendis’ Mess of a Sentry
* Dark Speedball
* Spider-Man Disassembled (“just stick some organic web-shooters in there”)
Yeah… I can see why he might be a bit happier at BOOM.
What’s wrong with Sebastian O? I read it many years ago, and I don’t remember it being particularly good, but why is it rubbish?
I had a look through the titles that Jenkins had wrote to see where he had fell off the cliff, and there was some colossal rubbish in there.
Books that I had successfully managed to lock away in a cupboard, but the nightmares were reawakened. Stuff like The Sentry funeral issue or the Captain Marvel return issue that was so sloppy that it felt like it had been written and drawn in about a day. There was also that Speedball/Penance character stuff when his suit was made of internal spikes that continually self-harmed him. And the ever-ludicrous Captain America “What’s a MySpace?” line.
Kind of strange considering his Inhumans stuff was pretty well received (though Jae Lee may have had a heavy hand in that) and even going back years to his Newsarama weekly column, he seemed to have enough about him.
I should have more faith in Marvel studios, but I’m still sceptical on Guardians of the Galaxy and the whole space setting. However the stellar cast they are acquiring is really impressive thus far. I’m glad that Michael Rooker is getting a fairly big role. He was by far the best actor in The Walking Dead and often ended up doing a ton with the little material he had been given by the writers. The likes of Pratt, Salanda, Reilly, and even fair play to Gillan, are grand. Glenn Close is a massive coup. However getting Benicio del Toro in to presumably play Thanos is just crazy good.
I enjoyed the above comics=wrestling comments. Brian Bendis is clearly John Cena: hasn’t really produced anything great in years, but gives the company a ton of money which is why he remains a top-guy.
I only recently saw fatal attractions for the first time a few weeks ago. I despise Glenn Close, she was not a naked body I wanted to see after all that pizza. Now she is in a phase 2 movie??? Goddamn it.
Whether DC or Marvel want newly created characters or not, it’s hard to imagine any creator taking a new character to Marvel or DC rather than keeping them creator owned and having some stake in the movie rights etc.