House to Astonish Episode 205
Paul and I have a whirlwind recap of news from NYCC for your enjoyment this time round, as we look at the “faux-simile” Batman 428; John Constantine, Hellblazer: Dead in America; the Superman Superstars initiative; the formation of Ghost Machine; Avengers: Twilight; the Blood Hunt crossover; the creative teams of the new Ultimate line; and the end of the Krakoan era, as well as taking the time to remember Keith Giffen. We’ve got reviews of Batman: City of Madness and Midlife (How to Hero at Fifty), and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is standing tall on the wings of its dream.
The podcast is here, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Twitter or Bluesky, via email or on our Facebook fan page, and if you haven’t got yourself a lovely HtA t-shirt for use in keeping yourself warm/cool (delete as applicable dependent on hemisphere) then there’s no time like the present, so give yourself a present.
There was a time when I would have been ecstatic about an announcer of Spurrier getting to finish his run on Hellblazer. It was the best written John Constantine in a decade at the time of publication.
Since that time, Spurrier started his Damn Them All series which has now begun to surpass Spurrier’s HB. I now find myself wanting Spurrier to focus all his research about occultism, political commentary, and bile on Damn Them All.
Damn Them All is truly the perfect evolution of where the Hellblazer concept should have moved after the Vertigo book ended. John is dead and Gemma has taken up the mantle of her uncle, something which a writer probably wouldn’t have been able to accomplish with the DC corporate property. Of course, John is not actually in Damn Them All and the protagonist is not named “Gemma”. However, it’s quite obvious that is the story Spurrier is writing with his own comic.
I’m sure I could spend more time searching, but I find it a bit disconcerting that there are no photos (that I could find) of a young Keith Giffen. Granted, he was old and (allegedly) not in great health in his last few years, but I wanted to see a photo of him looking young and healthy, and I can’t find one.
Re: Avengers Twilight, I can’t stand Daniel Acuna’s interior art. In theory, I like his style, and I’m fond of a number of his covers, but his style is just an eyesore when it comes to sequential storytelling. I want to like his interiors, but I just can’t.
I was completely baffled by Marvel hyping Acuna doing covers only on X-Force.
Even if you had an especially beloved interiors artist on covers-only duty… Do you really want to remind everyone that so-or-so artist is too expensive for interior work these days?
I read through a lot of Marvel’s early 60s Western stuff recently and the ads in that were wild. No house ads (beyond a few of those bottom of page text straps for the launch of FF and Hulk) until about 1964. No ads selling back issues or anything comic related. But loads of correspondence courses teaching you to repair TVs, radios, air conditioners or cars (“we send you the parts you need to learn with!”), selling shoes door to door, selling Christmas cards door to door (“everyone needs Christmas cards!”). A recurring full page ad about some made-up Eastern martial art taught by some white guy from Jersey and his “pretty Japanese wife” who at only 98lbs can paralyse a 200lb attacker. And loads of ads from the “Famous Artists School” featuring a picture of some guy I’ve never heard of who is (was) apparently the US’s best known/most successful commercial artist.
My favourite part of the St Elsewhere-verse thing is that the X-Files takes place in the same universe as all of Law & Order and all of Dick Wolf’s other shows (thanks to John Munch appearing in Lone Gunmen) which means that it’s *entirely possible* Special Agent Dana Scully could turn up in an episode of FBI.
I just want to point out that the Fonz doesn’t have to hitch a ride through time with Doctor Who, he already knows a time-traveling chick named Cupcake and a talking dog named Mr. Cool. (No, I am not making this up.)
@Martin It gets worse once you remember that the X-Files also crossed over with the Simpsons…
I don’t know which Transformer Fonzie is most likely to be riding, but I suspect he’ll be riding it over Cybershark of the Maximals.
@Dave White: I was, unfortunately, exactly the right age for Fonz and the Happy Days Gang to be my first encounter with the characters. The subesequent discovery of a live action series with no time travel was … confusing. Like if I’d learned there was a show called Peter Parker about a college student photojournalist, and been patiently told “Yes, obviously, they just added the spider-power nonsense in the silly cartoon version.”
The Batman review reminded me of how much I really, really dislike the Court of Owls. They’re like what if you took the Hellfire Club and replaced the individuality and bondage gear with a bland uniformity. Granted, it’s something different in a rogue’s gallery known for colorful individuals with sympathetic backstories and outlandish trappings, but mostly they stand out because they’re not particularly interesting in anything but the conglomerate. And while other superheroes can benefit from villains who represent the upper tier of society it really seems like a poor fit for Batman, who is generally at the top of that upper tier. I know some of these issues have been addressed in the all-too-many stories about them out there, but like a lot of Snyder’s Bat-villains, they’re a vivid image without a lot else that interests me.
That said, this story sounds great and I’m definitely going to check it out.
“like a lot of Snyder’s Bat-villains, they’re a vivid image without a lot else that interests me.”
Hmm . . . who ARE Snyder’s original creations? We had that auction guy, who wasn’t that interesting. We had Tiger Shark, who was a one-note thug, not too different from Morrison’s Flamingo. We had the Roadrunner, a stooge. We had uh James Jr., whose villain story I really didn’t enjoy. We had Bloom (Mr. Bloom?), who was kind of an ill-defined boogeyman, and then . . . Barbatos? The Dark Knights?
But let’s go with the Court. I think the main reason people hate the Court is the whiplash between the great setup in the first half of the initial Court story and the terrible resolution in the second half. We had an interesting premise: what if Gotham City was not actually “Batman’s city,” but a city that could turn on him in an instant if provoked. You don’t even need a Court for that premise, it’s already interesting. Then you had the talons, agents of the Court, that could be sent out to strike at Batman whenever least expected. Still a decent premise.
But then the Court itself is just . . . faceless aristocrats, allegedly. They’re not even the corrupt Gotham elite, they’re literally no one. They have no vendetta against Batman other than Batman’s existence poses a threat to them. And then they’re immediately wiped out (but not really?) by Lincoln March, the latest Owlman, a character that’s never really been interesting (outside of that one DCAU film).
I remember(ed) the Fonz cartoon…but completely forgot it had time travel.
The ‘Fall of the House of X’ and Ultimate revival are jarring to me, because why isn’t Hickman wrapping up the Krakoan era!?!
(Would have given him a chance to make up for the disappointment of Inferno).
I thought Snyder’s “Black Mirror” story, with art by Jock and Francesco Francavilla, was very good. I thought Greg Capullo’s art on Snyder’s Batman run was also very good. I can’t remember the details of most of Snyder’s stories. What was the Joker’s deal? What was up with Bruce losing his memories? What happened at the end of Court of Owls? I know I’ve read them, I have the trades. But… I’m drawing a blank.
In terms of Snyder’s original characters, I think Duke Thomas was the most successful, outside of the Court of Owls as a concept. Still, you don’t see Duke in Batman or Detective these days. I think most writers don’t know what to do with him/ don’t want to use him when there are more popular Robins and Batgirls.
As for which Transformer Fonzie would ride, you have two motorcycles I can remember: Wreck-Gar and Groove of the Protectobots. Groove would be perfect- he projects an aura of cool- except he turns into a police cycle. Wreck-Gar would be fun- he would probably speak ’50s youth slang with Fonz, but he turns into a weird alien bike that I can’t see Fonzie riding. Maybe Groove has a camouflage mode where he turns black?
Mike Loughlin said: I thought Snyder’s “Black Mirror” story, with art by Jock and Francesco Francavilla, was very good. I thought Greg Capullo’s art on Snyder’s Batman run was also very good. I can’t remember the details of most of Snyder’s stories. What was the Joker’s deal? What was up with Bruce losing his memories? What happened at the end of Court of Owls? I know I’ve read them, I have the trades. But… I’m drawing a blank.
I enjoyed most of “Zero Year,” up until the bloated conclusion arc, but, in general, I think Snyder kept telling variations of the same story to diminishing returns.
Every villain was some kind of mastermind out to make a grand statement using some kind of over-the-top technology or weird science thing, every story was about some existential threat to all of Gotham, every emotional arc is about how Bruce Wayne is giving up some aspect of his humanity to Be Batman. It all blurs together.
Part of why “Zero Year” worked (up until it didn’t) was that its Bruce Wayne was more human, and the moral was that there was a way for being Batman and being Bruce Wayne to fit together in some way. It still has a lot of the “battle for the soul of Gotham” stuff in it, but until the final Riddler arc, it’s readable as Batman taking on some nasty stuff going on just below the surface.
It also has the benefit of each arc ending with a relatively well-defined defeat of the villain, as opposed to the villain falling off something or mysteriously vanishing so that we know they’ll be back again shortly.
Snyder is a lot better at low-key, unsettling, and slowly deepening horror than he is at “epic,” but he kept going for “epic” on Batman and his other DC stuff.
In terms of Snyder’s original characters, I think Duke Thomas was the most successful, outside of the Court of Owls as a concept. Still, you don’t see Duke in Batman or Detective these days. I think most writers don’t know what to do with him/ don’t want to use him when there are more popular Robins and Batgirls.
Duke also seems to me to overlap a lot with the now-marginalized Tim Drake, as the relatively down-to-Earth, “normal” person in the Bat-family.
As tort he Court of Owls, they have stuck around, but I thought Snyder did a more effective job in “The Black Mirror or playing with the idea that Gotham’s decadent rich engage in horrific corruption that often flies under Batman’s radar.
Making them a formal secret society with owl masks and undead assassins undercuts the sense of formless, pervasive menace. And the less said about the Lincoln March character, the better.
@Omar Karindu
“Lincoln March?” Oh right, Bruce Wayne’s brother or maybe not, don’t care enough to remember.
I agree that “Zero Year” was one of Snyder’ & Capullo’s better efforts even if, yes, the last part was A Bit Much. Similarly, I thought “Death of the Family” was hot garbage, and stopped reading the monthlies because of it (hearing that other arcs got better got me picking up the collections).
Weirdly enough, Tom King’s run sticks out more in my mind even if I think the overall quality was about the same (points off for not having Capullo, though, even if Janin, Weeks, and a few others did excellent work). Maybe because most of King’s stories were more down-to-earth? Even if, like everyone else, I grew tired of “Bat-Cat” early on.
I tried reading that Court of Owls stuff when it originally came out and didn’t get the hype about it.
Bill Mumy was in a number of famous Twilight Zone episodes, including being the kid with the power to wish people into the corn field.
Well, he was in three TZ episodes. “It’s a Good Life” is, indeed, one of the most famous episodes. His other two appearances were much more forgettable…“In Praise of Pip” (featuring Mumy playing the titular Vietnam vet as a child, but I can’t even remember the plot) and “Long Distance Call” (about the dead grandmother trying to kill her grandson). Mumy is most known for playing Little Anthony and being on Lost in Space.
Bill Mumy is also one half of Barnes & Barnes, the band responsible for novelty hit “Fish Heads.”
Comet Man’s co-creator and co-writer is more famous than Mumy – it’s (the late) Robocop and Twin Peaks star Miguel Ferrer.
+1 for DAMN THEM ALL. I never read Spurrier’s CONSTANTINE but DTA has been my favorite series since it started.
And I enjoyed what I recall of the original Court of Owls arc, but I admit I can’t remember how it ended. It’s been a while.
Adam said: And I enjoyed what I recall of the original Court of Owls arc, but I admit I can’t remember how it ended. It’s been a while.
Lincoln March, the too-good-to-be-true reformist politician and new buddy of Bruce Wayne, not only turns out to be a renegade Talon, but also claims to be Bruce Wayne’s brain-damaged, secret brother, locked away in Willwood Asylum since early childhood, where he claism the Court found him and groomed him as a controllable replacement for Bruce Wayne.
March seemingly kills most of the leaders of the Court of Owls with poison, then tries to kill Batman in a modified Talon suit, essentially becoming another version of Owlman. Batman barely survives and March seemingly dies in an exploding building…but of course there’s no body.
It occurs to me that the Court of Owls is kind of the opposite of the Nolan movies’ version of the League of Assassins/League of Shadows. The film version of the League is an ancient conspiracy that destroys cities that have grown too corrupt. The Court is an ancient conspiracy dedicated to keeping a city corrupt. I wonder if anyone’s thought to have them fight it out in the comics, with Batman in the middle?
How to Hero At Fifty sounds a bit like Unbreakable.