A Collection of Random Thoughts, Vol 17

Welcome to the latest edition of A Collection of Random Thoughts! This time I will be discussing Marvel's event comics from the past couple of years, my problem with comics like Blackest Night, more perplexing comments from Joe Quesada, my ideal brain trust for Amazing Spider-Man, the New York Times Graphic Books Best Seller list and more after the jump!

One Interesting List

If you take a quick look the New York Times Best Sellers list for October 2nd you should see something interesting and it is easy to figure out - Batman occupies almost half of the comic book listings! Nine out of a possibly twenty in fact and a third of those comics are almost two decades old at this point.

And, in the totally strange category, Batman: Cacophony comes in at #1. Another strange thing about that list, if you consider what is said on the internet to be the majority's opinion, is that Batman R.I.P. has the most appearances of any Batman collection, 31 at the time of that particular list, compared to 16 for Frank Miller's classic The Dark Knight Returns and even edges out The Killing Joke which had appeared on the list 29 times. In fact, the only comic to appear on the NYT Best Seller list, excluding manga, more than Batman R.I.P. was the Watchmen, which has appeared on all 33 lists. Batman R.I.P. has appeared on the list 32 times and has only missed the most recent list.

This, of course, tells us two very obvious things: 1) Batman is arguably the most popular superhero in print right now. Even on other NYT lists, he almost always charts multiple books and, in the Direct Market, has the highest selling book that isn't an event book. And 2) the Internet is wrong, again. If you had listened to all of the bitching when R.I.P. was being serialized, you would think that it was one of the most unpopular comics at the time despite selling in the Top 10. Of course, you could argue that it was an event comic which boosted sales, and there is no doubt about that, but if it's one of the top selling collections for eight months, and as a hardcover, then it is definitely a popular book. Even more so when something like the trade collections for the Sinestro Corps War only stayed on the charts for a few weeks.

If I Created The Spider-Man Brain Trust...

It would be composed of Matt Fraction, Joe Kelly and Brian Bendis. Also, Warren Ellis because I think that would have tons of potential for hilarity.

You Know What Would be Simultaneously The Greatest And Worst Comic Of All Time?

Wonder Woman by Mark Millar.

Comics Can't Die

Generally, when there are discussions about the future of the comics industry, people will often say that the death of the Direct Market would be the death of comics, which is a lie. The death of the Direct Market would only mean the death of the Direct Market and, almost certainly, the single 22 page comic book.

Of course, that doesn't mean the end of comics for two reasons. 1) Bookstores. Obviously, the loss of the Direct Market would definitely impact bookstore offerings but they would still be there and be an avenue for new material. And 2) webcomics. I know traditional comic book readers might be adverse to webcomics but the audience for some webcomics vastly outnumbers the readers for comics in the Direct Market. To my mind, webcomics are probably the future of the American comic industry unless something drastically changes with the Direct Market for the simple fact that it's easy for creators to produce and make their comics available to new readers.

I Want A Conclusion Dammit!

One thing that really annoys me about event comics, and can even change my opinion about how good I thought they were, are weak endings that are not really endings or are basically a trailer for the story line. For example, Civil War and World War Hulk just stop, they don't end. Yeah, the main conflict is kind of resolved, more so with World War Hulk than Civil War, but the actual story doesn't end, it just continues somewhere else. To me, that's a really horrible way to tell a story.

I get the whole serialized storytelling and shared universe thing but you can have a proper conclusion that leaves some room open for a continuation of some of the plots and themes that the mini introduced. Marvel, and DC to a lesser extent, don't actually do this due to, I would guess, a fear that people might stop reading. They get to the point that where the next story can start and then start that one up, regardless of whether the previous story received a proper ending. Of course, if you told a good story then that would get people interested in the next story but hyping and then not delivering a proper story is so much easier.

Again, with Civil War, the story stops with Captain America's surrender but there is no real resolution to any of the plot lines from the series. Even the conflict between the two hero factions does not even get anywhere close to something resembling a conclusion. In fact, if you think about, Marvel still hasn't provided one even though they are couple events removed from Civil War. They just stopped telling that story and moved on to the next one!

In fact, when was the last time someone mentioned the SHRA? I get that Secret Invasion didn't really have anything to do with the SHRA but what about Dark Reign? Granted, I haven't actually been reading many of those books but, then again, I have never seen it mentioned once in any online discussion outside of how the Initiative book is continuing or Tony Stark is on the run. And what are the odds that Siege will deal with it in a manner that doesn't involve someone basically going, "Oh, it doesn't matter anymore", if they even bring it up at all?

So, what the hell was the point of Civil War, as a story, then? Oh, right, the punching. Totally forgot about that. My bad. And the money. Can't forget the money.

How I Got Back Into Comics

In the course of thinking about comics recently, I eventually got to thinking about how I got back into comics. Long story short, after doing some surfing on the internet, I came across the Wikipedia article for Ultimate Spider-Man. After I read the summaries of all of trades that were available at the time, I was interested in the series and decided to get the first couple. Now, you would think as someone who used to go to comic shops on a regular basis I would go there, right? Well, actually, the first place I went was Amazon.com to see if they had the trades, which of course they did. Obviously, this is just a personal example but I wonder how prevalent it is. Are Amazon, bookstores, and trades more appealing than single issues, even to returning comic readers? This is something I think about a lot but the problem is there is no real way to find out.

Spoilers

As mentioned above, I read the spoilers for most of the USM trades before I purchased them. You know what effect that had on my enjoyment of the stories? None. To my mind, that's the difference between a bad or average comic and a good or great one, they can withstand spoilers. This is one of the reasons I found Peter David's anti-spoiler crusade kind of misguided, although I could appreciate the sentiment. If the story is good enough, and well written, spoilers shouldn't matter.

And, if you are curious, the other reason I found found PAD's stance misguided is that generic praise rarely gets people to buy books but spoilers can get people interested enough to try out a book.

Is It Just Me Or...

Am I the only one who sees the irony of Blackest Night bringing back a bunch of dead characters, and comics, that no one really cared about the first time around? Well, I guess it wouldn't be no one but characters that most people didn't care about.

Serious question - Was the DCU lesser for not having the Dinbys, Aquaman, and the Martian Manhunter around? I would say no. Now, don't get me wrong, I know they have their fans and, as a huge Ben Reilly fan, I get that but, honestly, many of the characters that will inventively be brought back are not integral to the DCU and don't really have anything to offer in the hands of most writers. I mean, when is the last time J'onn J'onzz actually added something to the DCU instead of just being a back ground character/permanent Watch Tower duty bitch and has DC been worse off since his removal, for the most part, from comics since Infinite Crisis? Same thing for the Dinbys, Aquaman and even Hawkman.

Again, I get that part of the appeal of something like the DCU is the massive tapestry of characters and such, but how many of those characters actively add something to the DCU instead of just being there since they've always been there and how many of those characters can truly shine in the hands of most writers? I'd say not many. After all, Geoff Johns can only write so many comics and that's only if you actually like his writing.

Not to mention that DC's current creative talent pool isn't that deep, especially when compared to Marvel's, which is another impediment to them successfully using characters like Hawkman or Aquaman. This not to say that DC's current writers are untalented but that their record with lower tier characters, and even higher tier characters, isn't that great, even with the odd exception like Secret Six aside which, while receiving critical praise, isn't a great seller. What's the point of adding more characters to your universe when you can barely, or not even, make full use of the characters you currently have?

I think that, aside from the fact that I didn't enjoy Blackest Night #1 on any level, is my biggest problem with the event. It seeks to return things to a "better" status quo by bringing back characters whose absence hasn't been a provable negative. Yes, bringing back those characters will placate their fans but I don't think it will either bring in new fans, because really, who cares about Aquaman or Hawkman, or lead to better stories because the characters don't necessarily lead to great stories. Great stories are the result of attitude and skill and you don't need marginal or obscure characters to write great stories.

In essence, Blackest Night is potentially (assuming they end up bringing these dead characters back to life) just another One More Day - a turning back of the clock to a "better" status quo that, even if it does end up creating better comics, is almost likely going to be incidental to that since great, or even good comics, are the result of an attitude, not a status quo, which is a point Marvel and DC seem unable to grasp. Instead, they think they can substitute a status quo for an attitude and almost always fail in the end.

You Can't See It But I'm Facepalming Right Now

From the Cup O' Joe on October 5th.

Kiel Phegley: Because it wouldn't be an Ultimate Q&A without a mention of mutants, Comicbookfan wants to know, "Hey Joe, what does the future hold for the X-Men in the Ultimate Comics line?"

Joe Quesada: There's just one word to describe mutants in the Ultimate universe – dead and scarce. Okay, that's two words. There aren't many left after the events of "Ultimatum" and one could say they're feared and hated more than ever before. But let me be very clear here, there are no longer any X-Men in the Ultimate U. Like I said, Ultimate U is now a radically different place.

That sounds incredibly familiar. I know I've heard it somewhere before. Wait! I got it! That's almost exactly like the X-Men post-House of M! The Ultimate Universe is a radically different place! It's now the regular Marvel Universe! Congrats Marvel! You took something interesting different and interesting and made it bland and boring. Good job!

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