House to Astonish Episode 130
Paul and I have got a good solid 95 minutes of comics chat for you this time round, with (brief) discussion of last week’s controversies, (less brief) chat bout Marvel’s slate of books going into Secret Wars, the artistic changes on Star Wars, the new Hopeless Savages OGN, the first wave of casting for the Preacher TV show, Universal’s Chrononauts deal, Oni’s open submissions period and DC’s returnability for their June releases, and a (very non-brief) blitz through a packed wave of solicitations. We’ve also got reviews of Invisible Republic and Giant Days, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is the future of personal safety. All this plus boring potatoes and ugly fish, Mad Max: Torode Warrior and Untold Tales of Moses.
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I think Black Widow is Marvel’s highest profile female character. Storm was a bit peripheral in the X-Men films.
High Evolutionary worked well back in the 70s Warlock series where he was basically God to Adam’s Jesus. Back when the Bullpen was using the good drugs.
Those Warlock stories were cracking. Really ahead of their time.
Is there a delay for the episode posting on iTunes? I don’t it in the House to Astonish podcast area.
There shouldn’t be, but if there is, it’s between Libsyn and iTunes. You can get it direct from Libsyn at the links above.
I’ve just had a check of my iTunes and it’s downloading now so it looks like it’s working.
As a fan of random alternate versions of characters, I’m cautiously looking forward to Secret Wars (or at least looking forward to Marvel UK republishing them some time in 2017). As a fan of random alternate versions of characters and Neil Gaiman, I’m delighted by the idea of Angela 1602 (which it’s unlikely Marvel UK will include, so I might buy it).
The Detective Comics Anarky story actually did the whole “We Are Anarky” thing (well, with a bit of Mad Hatter mind control), and I wouldn’t be surprised if Lonnie Machin (who was involved in the storyline but wasn’t Anarky) is part of We Are Robin.
Ah, Tim Westwood. As Mr B, the Gentleman Rhymer put it:
Whatever happened to Timothy?
I was at prep with him you see.
He was a wizard with a cricket bat,
But he never used to talk like that.
I am all over that Ant-Man Epic Collection. I love silver age Ant-Man. I’m not by any means saying it’s good, but damn it’s fun. This trade makes up for the first paperback masterwork going out of print very quickly and the second not appearing at all (due to the paperback masterwork line getting cancelled).
Weird this hasn’t appeared on Amazon fishing tho (and still isn’t on there). Seems like a bit of a rush release to me, which is odd given how long they’ve been aware of the Ant-Man film.
The weird thing about Spider-Woman being marketed towards the Bat-girl audience is that all three of the female Spider-spin off books from Spider Universe seem to be going for exactly that tone. In addition to what Al said about Spider-Woman, Silk features a manga-ish art style, and Spider-Gwen’s ongoing plot is (among other things) how to balance crime-fighting with the rift among her all-female indie band. I’m glad to see Marvel diversifying, but spinning off three stylistically similar Spider-themed books seems more like it’ll exhaust and confuse a fan base than create one.
I think out of the three Spider-Gwen has an edge (not that I’ve looked at sales or anything) by virtue of missing the controversy with the Spider-Woman cover, and the mixed concerns I’ve heard over Silk (her chemical attraction to Peter has not been a draw for some). Plus, it’s just generally free of the baggage of having to exist in the regular Marvel U. I’m not sure how the future looks for any of them, post Battle World.
RE: Rob Liefeld on the Bible:
Let us all not forget the Olympians vs. Jesus storyline in Glory/Avengelene. While this is written by someone else, I’d like to think this sums of Liefeld’s viewpoint on Christianity
http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2009/04/09/my-favorite-mid-90s-bad-ass-jesus-comic/
My wife knows who Storm is (via the 90s cartoon). Therefore Storm has the highest profile.
I don’t think it’s a Storm/Marvel contest, really. Black Widow has to have the highest visibility.
You guys just scared the hell out of me by imagining Daniel Way’s Wolverine: Origins serialized in a Marvel Comics Presents format.
Exact same story, just split up into anthology format and drip-fed over a very, very long time. An extremely long, boring, long, long time.
The thing about Black Widow that people don’t seem to notice is that she’s utterly generic. Even her costume is a plain black outfit that wouldn’t look too out of place on a city street. Even Hawkeye at least has a bow to look unique. She’s actually missing from a bunch of merchandise. If she wasn’t the only female superhero in the entire movie franchise for its entire existence until Age of Ultron comes out, you’d barely notice she existed. I don’t think her profile is that high.
Putting aside the fact that Scarlett Johansson is a gifted actor. And attractive too I suppose.
Chaykin is an interesting thought for the special guest artist TBA for Star Wars #7, but my money — and what I was shouting at the speakers as you tossed about a couple of thoughts — is on Walt Simonson. At least, he’s the classic Marvel Star Wars artist I’d want to come back and revisit the material with his current style.
Also, I was surprised how little shrift you gave to Jeff Lemire’s Decscender considering that it was optioned for a film slightly BEFORE the issue came out, whereas you were a little snarky about the fact that Millar’s newest book was options mere moments after it came out. I suppose that also qualifies as too old to be news on your not-quite-bi-weekly schedule, but it was a possible counterpoint, especially if you both read and enjoyed the first offering.
I wonder if there is a generational influence on whether one is more familiar with Black Widow or Storm. My (comics-agnostic) peers grew up with the X-Men cartoons and later movies, and so might have a stronger connection to Storm.
My 8-year-old daughter, on the other hand, is all about Black Widow. She hasn’t seen the movies, so her experience is with the cartoons and merchandising. And while Black Widow is under-represented (a fact my daughter has observed and commented on), she is still female and that’s enough to make her significant to my daughter. Plus, there is far more Avengers stuff marketed to kids these days than X-Men stuff, so Storm isn’t really on my daughter’s radar.
There’s something off-putting (to me) that different non-comics incarnations of the Avengers tend to settle on a different female character being The Girl—Black Widow in the movies, Wasp in the recent cartoon, Scarlet Witch in the Super Hero Squad franchise. It sends the message to me that Thor/Iron Man/Hulk/Cap are the necessary Avengers for different media iterations, and then one of the core women can be added in for variety.
Having said that, I really think if you ask a kid today to name a female super-hero, Black Widow will top the list of Marvel names. It may be different for my generation, which sounds like Andy’s—if asked as a child, I would have said Rogue, because I liked her southern accent on the cartoon.
I accept that Storm may well be yesterday’s hero. But it’s just plain saddening to think that girls like Widow because she’s the only female role model there is in the movies. At least she’s a positive one I suppose.
A Soviet assassin whose power is shooting people, admittedly…
Agreed, Julia and Si. It is my hope that when my daughter is ready to engage more directly with the Marvel movies in a few years, Scarlet Witch, Captain Marvel, Wasp and other women are central to the Avengers.
Avengers EMH had multiple females.
AVENGERS ASSEMBLE has one.
Avengers Super Hero Squad (the one that seems to be particularly marketed towards boys up to age 8 or so) is particularly bad when you consider Ms Marvel is in more episodes than Scarlet Witch, and her role in the series is basically the shrieking wet blanket; progressive gender roles this ain’t.
I think Disney shoulders a lot of the blame for that one; someone decided at some point that young girls get princesses and young boys get superheroes, and they’re aggressively doing everything they can to market it that way.
(Sidenote: instead of “alien sexpot” DC could probably get a lot more mileage out of Starfire space princess.)
Super Hero Squad’s the one that meant we couldn’t have Mini Marvels any more, right?
I would say Black Widow’s the highest profile female character (outside of just comics) these days (or maybe even Mystique). I’m not quite sure I buy the argument for Storm, even when the X-Men movies were in full swing; Jubilee, Rogue and (nearly) Jean were featured as much as Storm in the 90s cartoon, Jean was as, if not more, important in the first three films and Rogue was the arguably main character in the first.
Disney bought Marvel to appeal to boys. Perhaps, they don’t really prioritise making it appeal to both genders since they figure they already have the girls market.
Walt Simonson was the first classic Star Wars artist that popped into my mind during that discussion, as well.
I wouldn’t mind seeing Art Adams have a go at Star Wars, either, though I don’t think his current art is quite as good as the X-Men/New Mutants stuff he did back in the day.
Regarding the point about whether or not characters on Battleworld will realise what’s happening – what are the mechanics of Secret Wars going to be, generally? We’re revisiting lots of alternate universes, and a good number of them had endings, of sorts. Do they get glossed over? Do we just get self-contained stories that don’t really have much to do with being on Battleworld (which would make most of the titles very skippable for me)? Is each ‘land’ going to be at war, largely with its neighbouring lands? I haven’t got any sense yet of what it’s all actually about.
I’ve seen Tom Brevoort answer a lot of questions about the mechanics of Secret Wars. Basically, no one is telling until Secret Wars comes out.
Fabian’s explicitly said his AoA mini is a different version/continuity *because* the original had an ending.
You may have seen Hardman’s work in the mid-1990s, when he drew War Machine. He was very young and using an alias, but it’s him. Then he went off to Hollywood and did storyboards, which made his comics art a million times better.
@Julia: “It sends the message to me that Thor/Iron Man/Hulk/Cap are the necessary Avengers for different media iterations, and then one of the core women can be added in for variety.”
Thor/Iron Man/Cap are the necessary Avengers for different media iterations (including comics), and then any other member can be added in for variety.
Storm became the least prominent female Marvel super hero the moment Halle Berry started playing her. “Playing her” is a bit of an overstatement, which is why Storm is no longer prominent. Hell, she disappeared out of the comics for a few years. She appeared in the Black Panther comic, I suppose, if you push it consider that appearing somewhere after the marriage.
The unfortunate part of Storm fading from the public eye is that, with Pak’s current series, Storm is being written better as a character than at any point I’ve been reading comics (so, since the mid 90s).
If we’re talking about Marvel’s most prominent female character on the X-Men end of the company, right now it has to be Mystique. Bet you never saw that coming back in 1995.
Again, so good to have you fellows back at it, ‘casting away. Keep up the great work, see you when the 3rd return cast comes up!