Disney Infinity Yondu & the Falcon
I’ve read some comics so apparently that makes me an expert. The two corrections I’ve had to issue in the comics comments *might* be considered to undermine that:
Oh, and let’s just stick the Infinity Spider-Man Playset one here too, rather than expend another post on this stuff:
What’s the point of Marvel still publishing comics?
Last week I wrote a bit about how Marvel seem to be flooding the market with new comics, to the extent where it’s hard to keep up with new issue 1s, never mind the issue 2, 3 etc of all these series. With the movies and associated merchandise making so much more money than printed comics, you may wonder, as many people have, why Marvel bother with comics at all any more – why don’t Disney just slash and burn the publishing division to concentrate on films, toys, videogames and other things that turn much bigger profits?
On one level this might seem to make sense, as the films etc are mainly sourced from much older material. Leaving aside the most recent sequels like Winter Soldier and Iron Man Three, which explicitly draw from comics published in the last decade, the first Iron Man, Thor and Captain America films told the origins pretty straight, mainly recycling characters and plot concepts that date back to the dawn of Marvel. The Avengers was The Coming of the Avengers, the main plot inheritance from the more recent ‘movie-friendly’ Avengers revision The Ultimates being the alien invasion. In terms of synopses it’s hard to see why Marvel just don’t stick to drawing on a pile of ancient back issues.
It’s not like the comics have turned out many major entirely new characters in the last two to three decades of publication, instead concentrating on the old mainstays and ‘legacy heroes’, i.e. new characters taking on the superhero identity of an earlier hero.
This is however taking a shallow reading of how the characters transfer to the screen, to presume that, because most of the plot beats and the essence of the characters remain the same, that there is an effortless movement of characters from the works of Lee, Kirby and Ditko to the movies we see on screen. While it’s true that, at the core, these are the characters that Stan, Jack and Steve created, it would be a mistake to underestimate the cumulative effect that decades of publication have had in keeping these characters and concepts relevant to a modern audience, in trying out different stories and experimenting with different takes. It’s to take no credit away from the original creators to suggest that, without those years of continuous publication suggesting ways in which these characters might be accessible to cinema audiences, The Avengers might be closer in status to the THUNDER Agents – a curio familiar mainly to devotees of old comics – than the pop culture juggernaut they now are.
Before Marvel Studios came along and started more seriously mining recent comics for stories, this influence was mainly visual – Marvel would go to directors and producers considering, say, a Hulk film through Universal, and present a concept book of pages from recent Hulk comics. You can see this in the Ang Lee Hulk movie, with set pieces taken straight from the Ennis/McCrea Hulk Smash comic and slapped on the screen. That kind of influence still persists, with Iron Man Three drawing the imagery of Tony dragging his broken armour through the snow from the recent Most Wanted storyline while much of the story itself comes from other comics.
While it’s dispiriting to think of comics as just a dry run for ideas to be used in films and games and TV shows, it’s undeniable that they make a relatively cheap test bed for ideas compared to those media, and that the more realistic style of comic book art popularised in recent years creates images that are easier to adapt to the screen. It’s arguable that all the textures and details on Captain America’s costume in a John Cassaday or Bryan Hitch comic are unnecessary in the abstract world of a two dimensional comic, but they certainly provide suggestions to costume designers and producers of how such costumes might be adapted to real life actors. For all their iconic simplicity the costumes of golden and silver age comic book characters work because they exist in a world of sharp, clear lines not real people. An actor can’t look like a Jack Kirby drawing any more than a real person can embody the simple lines of Mario in Donkey Kong, as anyone who has seen the Bob Hoskins Super Mario Bros movie will know.
Now that the origins are out of the way, the Marvel Studios films are using the long history of the comics as a deeper well for characters and stories, with both Iron Man Three and The Winter Soldier drawing heavily on recent storylines while also throwing in characters from earlier eras, reinventing them in the process. Yes, screenwriters could come up with completely new storylines, and I’m sure sooner or later there’ll be a Marvel sequel that draws entirely from the cinematic universe, picking up threads from the films without drawing heavily on comic book material. But in a film industry hungry for ideas to get on screen, Marvel has the advantage of a publishing division that does nothing but churn out endless ideas for the new films, both in terms of stories and arresting visuals. While the comics remain profitable, there’s no reason why the publishing arm shouldn’t keep going, the comics readership acting as a paying focus group.
You can see Marvel leaning into this role with its recent launches and relaunches. Marvel Now and its successor, All-New Marvel Now, are throwing new ideas and visual approaches to a wall to see what sticks. A Moon Knight in a suit, easier to do on screen, in a more procedural type story that would work as a TV series? Silver Surfer as a Doctor Who-ish SF adventure? New spins on Black Widow? A new take on Ghost Rider that’s a step away from the Johnny Blaze version tainted by two Nic Cage movies? A Secret Avengers series that teams the more grounded characters from the Avengers movie up? All here.
There’s a lot of material there. As I said the other week, possibly too much – as the House to Astonish podcast pointed out, Marvel are heading towards having 53 monthly titles, one more than DC’s ungainly New 52. But there’s a certain creative freedom involved in feeding the machine, an encouragement to let the comics be as wild and comicky as they can be, to try new approaches, even if it’s with old IP. Nobody seems to be telling comics creators to make something that’ll be a good movie, but to try new things in the comics and let the movie/TV people work out what they want to cherry pick at a later date.
In some ways it’s an ideal meeting of commercial cynicism and creative storytelling, which is really what one would hope for from a company liked Marvel. Excelsior and all that.
Thanks to Aaron Smithies (@snarkandfury) and Ash (@Ravenevermore) on twitter for chats that led to this piece. Go follow!
Ten Minutes on… All-New #1s Forever
A couple of these warm-up reviews have been about new Marvel comics that have been part of the company’s current wave of All-New Marvel Now issue 1s, All-New Ghost Rider (pictured) and Secret Avengers. But there are #1 issues I’ve bought and not got around to mentioning: Iron Patriot #1, for instance. And ones which predate me doing these reviews, like Loki: Agent of Asgard #1 and Winter Soldier: The Bitter March #1.
Then there’s Marvel series from the last year – and indeed the previous wave of Marvel Now – which I’m still reading, like Mighty Avengers which is only up to #8 and now seems old guard. Or series from that wave like Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers, Kieron Gillen’s Iron Man or Mark Waid’s Hulk that I’m trying to keep up with in trade as the single issues flood past.
Now a lot of these are very good, and a lot of Marvel Now/All-New Marvel Now launches are less good, but the one thing the lot of them have in common is that they constitute A LOT of comics. In some ways relaunching often is a good thing – a new #1 is a good try out, and it certainly works with me as the number of #1s I have picked up lately indicates. I like to try new things.
In fact, there are recent issue 1s that I never got around to – last week’s Silver Surfer #1, or Moon Knight #1 or Ms Marvel #1 from the last month or so, all of which just constituted one too many books on the pile for my limited budget. They’re coming so fast that the new #1s aren’t just competing with older books, they’re rolling over each other to an extent my wallet and, frankly, reading time, can’t keep up.
(I passed the ten minute mark here, but sod it, I can’t stop now.)
Lots of good comics are a good thing, but Marvel do have A LOT. And in the case of their bigger titles, they double ship them, so the comics come out 18 or 24 times a year and there’s a new ten, fifteen quid paperback collection out every few months for those of us reading in trade.
And I don’t just read Marvel. I read very little DC, but I keep up with a couple of titles and dabble in the odd one-shot or anthology that seems interesting. More significantly Image are churning out a ton of great new books, which I’m picking up either as singles or trades.
Now, what the competition does isn’t Marvel’s problem and it’s there job to take readers’ money that could be being spent on competitors’ books, but the churn is so relentless now it’s hard to see who could keep up with the new launches without at least dropping slightly older books before giving them a chance. Something has to give, so skip #9 of Mighty Avengers, #3 of Loki or a new #1, or just skip the lot, wait until the trades come out and buy them on the basis of the opinions of people who stuck the course over that first year?
I can’t be alone here, the sole person with limited budget – and I’m certainly far from austere with myself when it comes to buying comics – who is being left behind a bit. It’s hard not to see a currently successful policy of constant #1s becoming self-defeating very quickly – sales dropping off quicker and quicker as readers drop books that have reached the mature age of #5 or #6 in favour of the latest #1, which in turn drops off quicker and quicker… and so on.
Now, I tend to hate the constant fishing for comments with ‘what do you think?’ on news stories that readers almost certainly won’t have an insightful opinion on, but in this case, reader to other readers, I’d be genuinely interested to know – is it just me?
Ten Minutes on… All-New Ghost Rider #1
I rarely recommend comics purely on the basis of the art. While art is intrinsic to any comic, of course, and I’ve bought plenty of comics from my two or three favourite artists that didn’t have the most stellar script beneath the hood, usually I at least need to have a really strong story hook to carry me along, no matter how good the visual storytelling is.
Well, All-New Ghost Rider is a comic worth buying for the art alone. Tradd Moore has fused the motion lines and fluidity of manga with the digital sharpness and detail of a current big two title to create a comic that doesn’t look quite like anything else. While a lot of the current superstar artists turn out – Finch, Reis, Lee – turn out pages that are richly detailed snapshots, moments in time, Moore is all about motion, about speed of action, which is perfect for a comic about a demonic race driver. He’s able assisted by eye-popping colours from Nelson Daniel and Val Staples which create a neon drenched effect reminiscent of, but wilder than, the excesses of recent speed fuelled films and videogames.
So it’s worth a look because of the looks, which is not to say that All-New Ghost Rider has nothing going on in terms of script, just that it doesn’t get far into the story and doesn’t provide much of a plot hook to carry the reader on to the next issue. What writer Felipe Smith gives us here is an origin story with a lot of questions, which is pleasingly archetypal Marvel in its troubled protagonist with a heart of gold without feeling dated.
That troubled protagonist is Robbie Reyes, the new Ghost Rider by the end of the issue (in circumstances for now unexplained), and he’s stuck in the kind of predicament Peter Parker could relate to – he’s short of money, and has a bullied disabled younger brother to look after. He’s a good kid who, in wanting to elevate his family from a bad position makes an unwise decision, ‘borrowing’ a car from the garage he works in and driving it in an illegal street race, offering the stolen car as stakes in the hope of winning the cash he needs.
It’s a very clean start, and Robbie is sympathetic. Smith’s script clips along and Moore’s art then turbo charges it. It’s not flawless – aside from the slow pace, which builds character but delivers very little plot, younger brother Gabe is a cliched optimistic disabled mini-saint, cheery in the face of adversity and little more than a motivating device to drive Robbie. He’s as two-dimensionally good as Robbie’s boss is as flatly sleazy, both insubstantial characters who do nothing apart from nudge Robbie in the direction the plot requires.
It’s a beautiful book, then, but will need to gain depth as well as speed if it’s going to develop into a comic that’s as interesting as it is good looking.
Ten Minutes on… Secret Avengers #1
I’ve read a good few issues of previous incarnations of Secret Avengers, and while some of those were fun it has always seemed like one of those Avengers books that only exists because ‘Secret’ is a cool word to append to the mother franchise.
The broad intent with the varied incarnations of the title has been to make it the espionage/black-ops Avengers team, a concept that recurs all the time in superhero comics even though ‘superhero black-ops team’ is a TERRIBLE idea because there’s no real room in a supehero universe for head-murdering people because, goddammit, it needs to be done.
(I don’t think there’s any reason in the real world, either, but that’s another story.)
This new incarnation of the book is written by Ales Kot, writer/creator of the superlative Image superspy book Zero, and drawn by Michael Walsh, a superstar artist in the making who has done great work on IDW’s X-Files comic as well as drawing the first issue of Zero. You might reasonably expect this Secret Avengers to be a Marvel U version of Zero – bleak, political, harshly violent.
Instead, Secret Avengers #1 is a far nimbler beast that squares the superhero/espionage circle, making the two elements gel better than I’ve ever seen before. Rather than diving into the murky, frowny end of the espionage genre and trying to impose a faux ‘realism’ on the Marvel U, Kot and Walsh emphasise the SUPER in superspy, with a cleanness and craziness that owes more to the wilder Moore Bonds and Man from UNCLE than Le Carre. It’s a fun concoction that blends beautifully with the Marvel universe at its broadest and most fun – AIM agents, space stations, some popular cybernetic villains in interesting plot roles.
It’s bright, poppy and smart, with the smudgy likeability of Hawkeye – Clint here is straight out of the Fraction/Aja book, and some of the tropes of that title are pleasingly played with – and some clever character subversions. An attempt by two characters to out-poetry-quote each other is sheer joy.
Kot and Walsh are talents to watch, and they’ve made Secret Avengers WORK at last. Great work all round, and one of the best All New Marvel Now books I’ve read.
Roll back... and mix. 
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