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On Thor, Oklahoma and the sweet writing of Roger Langridge

As an enjoyably pleasant comic comes to an end soon, I write a bit more about the first few issues of Thor: The Mighty Avenger now that the book has been collected.

To keep Thor in line, Langridge has Jane Foster acting as Thor’s guide.  In Stan Lee’s Thor, Jane was a nurse and the perfect unrequited girlfriend for Thor.  In Langridge’s Thor, she’s a modern girl who offers to let Thor stay with her but just on her couch, of course.  She acts like the classic damsel-in-distress who doesn’t have enough confidence in herself but, as she shows, she has more than enough strength to keep up with Thor and the dangers now present in her life.  Of course the two of them fall in love, even if they can’t see that fact for themselves.  Langridge plays it naturally; there’s no long soliloquies from either character bemoaning the lack of love but, thanks to Samnee, you see it in their eyes whenever they look at each other.  Thor may be the main character of this book but Jane Foster provides the romantic heart of it.

You can read the full review here.

@ The Mothership: Secret Avengers #8, Batman Incorporated #2 and Best of 2010

Newsarama's Best Shots has an interesting format for their BEST OF column.  We were invited to submit our top three books (Bronze, Silver and Gold) as well as a "What to Watch in 2011."  My three medal winners for Newsarama were:

I'm still working on a bit more expansive Best Of list for that should hopefully be up in the next week or so.  

In addition to the best of, here are two reviews that just went live at Newsarama.  Both reviews can be found here.

Batman Incorporated #2
The usually self-contemplative Morrison here gives way to the action-packed Morrison.  Channeling his inner Michael Bay, Morrison reminds us of that, like in his JLA run, he can still write a blockbuster action sequence.  Batman Incorporated #2 is one long sequence but it also shows us how this new, improved Bruce Wayne operates.  Sure, like always, he’s fighting the bad guys and imprisoning them where they can hopefully do no harm, but it is Batman's allies that make this a bit different.  In Catwoman, we’ve got the on again/off again relationship and the tension of Bruce Wayne being infatuated with a thief, but you’ve got to wonder what do they get out of their strange relationship?  Is it the thrill of getting to walk on the other side of the street, to embrace their dark side without ever giving totally into it?  And what does it say that Morrison begins this new series pairing Batman up with Catwoman, as opposed to Tim Drake, Damien or Dick Grayson? 

Secret Avengers #8
With a lot of characters running around though, it gets tough to know who’s who or why they’re in the story.  The team ends up being supporting characters to Captain America and there’s only so much room for supporting characters.  What are War Machine, Valkyrie or Black Widow doing while Steve Rogers and Shang-Chi are running around?  They make brief, token appearances, reminding us that they’re hanging around but that they won’t be the focus of this story.  While they’re part of the team, they’re also part of Steve Rogers’ army, soldiers whose only purpose, it seems, is to ask “how high?” when Roger’s orders them to jump.   

@ The Mothership: Reviews of Uncanny X-Force #3 and Green Lantern #60

Newsarama commenters question my writing abilities.  I feel like I've finally arrived.  Click here to read the full reviews.

Uncanny X-Force #3

Uncanny X-Force #3 is a step back from the first two issues. Where those were full of witty banter, quick characters and some sexy art, the third issue is one giant fight as X-Force battles the new Four Horsemen of Apocalypse on the moon. With the characters trapped in a one long fight, Remender does not have the room for the flourishes that he had in the first two issues. He kept things moving quickly in those issues so why does this issue just sit there, lumbering along during the fight? To keep the fights going, Remender has to drop a lot of the character interaction and witty banter that made the first two issues so much fun. The little character moments, with two or three of them playing off of one another, are mostly abandoned here or relegated to mere strategy exposition, moving the fight along but having almost no character in their words.

Green Lantern #60
So, this book is about rings, Corps, super heroes and entities but it misses big time on one thing— where is Hal Jordan? In the current unending cycle of events, Geoff Johns has effectively taken Hal Jordan out of the book and substituted in a masked character. Even the Flash possessed by Parallax, which could have been an interesting exploration of his fears after his own rebirth, does very little other than run around, looking oddly jaundiced. The costumes and their adventures have overtaken the characters and their development in Green Lantern #60.

Does DC even read their own comic books?

So the March solicitations from DC are up and I don't even know if the person who wrote the solicits for the Batman & Robin: Batman Must Die hardcover has ever even read the books that are part of that collection.

BATMAN & ROBIN: BATMAN MUST DIE DELUXE EDITION HC
Written by GRANT MORRISON
Art by CAMERON STEWART, FRAZER IRVING and DAVID FINCH
Cover by FRANK QUITELY
Grant Morrison’s best-selling run on BATMAN & ROBIN continues with this volume collecting issues #13-16 and BATMAN: THE RETURN #1. On the eve of Bruce Wayne’s return to Gotham City, the new Batman and Robin team that battled crime during his absence must deal with the deadly return of The Joker.
    Then, Grant Morrison connects BATMAN & ROBIN with the best-selling THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE for the climactic showdown between Batman and The Black Glove.
    And in an epic tale illustrated by acclaimed artist David Finch, learn what happens to Dick Grayson after the “real” Batman returns.
On sale MAY 11 • 168 pg, FC, 7.0625” x 10.875”, $24.99 US

I assume that the "epic tale illustrated by acclaimed artist David Finch" is the reprint of BATMAN: THE RETURN #1 only I don't think there was much of that book that really had to do with Dick Grayson, maybe one page if that.  Most of the collection deals with Dick Grayson and Damien Wayne so it doesn't make much sense to include BATMAN: THE RETURN here other than they have nowhere else to insert that one shot. 

It's a good book and will be cool to get the collection of it but I really want to know how much of the David Finch-drawn story DC's collection department thinks is really about Dick Grayson.

@ the Mothership: reviews of John Byrne's Next Men #1 and Star Wars Legacy War #1

Two reviews over at Newsarama to catch up with.  And if all works to plan this week, look for something here and at Popdose in the next couple of days.

For these reviews, click on the title to go and read the full review.

John Byrne's Next Men #1

In a move that echoes his original series, the kids wake up in a lab, finding out that everything they’ve experienced was just an induced dream. This gives Byrne the perfect chance to recap the last series in excruciating detail. In 10 pages, he gives a history lesson of the Next Men that’s not pertinent to anything else in this issue. Instead of somehow letting this information flow out naturally or even letting the reader discover for himself what’s going on, he recounts almost every event from the old series, making sure the reader knows exactly what has been missed. John Byrne has never been the subtlest writer but this sequence has to be one of the clunkiest pieces of exposition in the last 20 years.

Star Wars Legacy War #1
Ostrander and Duursema’s expand on the Lucas’s stories and themes but create a much richer universe in Cade Skywalker, Darth Krayt and the ousted Imperial government. Ostrander and Duursema have created a truer and deeper story about power and rebellion, carved out of the remains of the franchise that was left after Revenge of the Sith.

@ the Mothership: Reviews of Captain America, Thor The Mighty Avenger, Rasl, Brightest Day

Here are quick excerpts of the last couple of reviews that I've done at Newsarama.  Click on the title and scroll through the page to find the full reviews.

Captain America: No Escape--

Just as the final art is a bit haphazard, never quite coming together fully, Brubaker's story never lives up to the potential of the first few pages of the book. Opening with Baron Zemo, a former Thunderbolt and longtime Captain America adversary, commenting on the failed reign of Norman Osborn, Brubaker builds on the works of Fabian Nicieza with the character. In the pages of Thunderbolts, Nicieza transformed the character from a two-dimensional villain into the hero of his own story, with his own goals and methods that, while not always right, were at least justifiable to him. Zemo became a sort of hero trapped by his own villainous legacy. Or maybe he was really a villain with heroic aspirations. Largely absent during the Dark Reign era, Zemo is back, able the view the wasted opportunities that Osborn had— probably similar to the opportunities Zemo had back during the earliest days of the Thunderbolts. Zemo can see the chance that Osborn had to change the world and the waste that it was that Osborn’s ego couldn’t get out if it’s own way.

Thor: The Mighty Avenger #7
I have trouble thinking anything with mutton could be simple. It’s one of those exotic Scandinavian meats after all. That’s just part of why Thor is the best boyfriend. Let’s just say that instead of running out to investigate this weird sudden darkness or the absence of any rain, Thor stays in with Jane, eats a bit of mutton, drinks a bit of wine and doesn’t sleep on the couch, if you catch my meaning.

Rasl #9
Each issue of Jeff Smith’s Bone was packed with story. In the end, he had many characters and story lines to juggle and he did a wonderful job with that. Even though it features small, cute little Shmoo-like characters, Smith built the story up to be a Tolkienish epic and each issue, particularly by the end, had many life-or-death circumstances. Rasl is a different creature as Smith is taking his time. He’s maybe just under halfway done with this story (he says in the letter pages that there’s maybe 12 issues left) and it feels as if he’s approaching this book must more deliberately than he did with Bone.

Brightest Day Volume 1
The problem with Brightest Day Volume 1 and Blackest Night before it is that neither book embraces its core concepts nearly enough to have any fun with them. In superhero comics, we’ve seen the ideas of life and death become meaningless as no one ever really stays dead except for Bucky and Uncle Ben. And we all know what ended up happening to Bucky but at least Ed Brubaker had a unique twist on that character’s return in the pages of Captain America. There was a story there at the beginning, right when the Winter Soldier was introduced and Brubaker carried it through with moving the character forward at a brisk pace. Johns and Tomasi really had an opportunity with Brightest Day to do something new with the idea that all dead characters will eventually come back but instead they treat these resurrections like every other resurrection we’ve ever seen before. The resurrection of dead characters continues to be a cliché in Brightest Day, with this story being nothing more than what we’ve seen when characters like Superman or Wonder Woman have returned from the grave.

Every Generation Throws a Hero Up the Pop Charts

It’s time to have some fun with charts. 

Each and every month, Diamond comics publishes a ranking of their top selling comics and books.  These numbers reflect the amount of comics that Diamond sells to the American direct market, i.e. your local comic book shop as long as you live in the United States (and maybe even Canada.)  Over at Comichron, John Jackson Miller keeps track of these lists, projecting unit sales based off of any information he has.  Every month, sites like CBR and The Beat offer their own analysis on what’s going on each and every month, trying to draw conclusions about how a book’s sales this month compared to last months, 6 months ago and even up to 5 years ago.  All fine and dandy information.
 
But there are so many other ways to look at it other than month in and month out.

Taking Miller’s charts, I decided to track every month’s #1 books since January, 2000 through to November, 2010 (the latest information that’s been released) and try to calculate just who’s owned the top of the sales charts.  And the information sadly isn’t that surprising.


For companies, the winner is Marvel with 59.5% of the #1s during the past 131 months.  DC is of course #2 with 32.1% of the #1s.  No surprises there.

What is interesting to see is that during the past 11 years, the last time a non DC/Marvel company had a #1 book on Diamond’s charts was November 2002, when Image and MV Creation’s Masters of the Universe topped the charts.  And for a good portion of the year before that, various Transformer books topped the charts.  Hurrah for licensed books in the early 2000s.  The last time a creator-owned title topped the charts was in July, 2000 when Spawn #100 was the best seller for the month.  Since December, 2002, it’s been a two horse race with only Marvel and DC competing.  

The sad and disappointing way to look at this is that in the last 131 months, only 5 companies have had #1 books. FIVE. Fantagraphics hasn't had a #1 book. Crossgen didn't have a #1 book. Oni? Top Shelf? IDW? Dark Horse? SLG? Not a #1 out of any of them. Even looking at Marvel and DC, it's only their mainstream books. No Icon or Vertigo. No Wizard of Oz or Metal Gear Solid. However well those books may do in the more mass markets, they don't appear to make much of a dent in the direct market that Diamond controls.


The past decade has also been been highlighted by the dominance of writers in mainstream comics.  Since 2000, Brian Michael Bendis has had the most #1 books with 21 (15.3%.)  In fact, you can chart the BMB era of comics as really beginning in December 2004, when New Avengers #1 was the best selling comic.  But this wasn’t Bendis’ first #1.  That occured a year earlier when Ultimate Fantastic Four #1 was Diamond’s best.  Bendis co-wrote that book with Mark Millar.  But from December, 2004 on, Bendis is a makes fairly regular appearances in the #1 spot with New Avengers, Dark Avengers, House of M, Secret Invasion, Siege, Avengers and New Avengers (again.)  2005 was a good year for Bendis, as well as 2008 and 2009.  Thanks to the event books he anchored for Marvel, those were the years he had tight grasps on Diamond’s charts.

The #2 writer may surprise you.  When I started this little endeavour, I figured Bendis would have been fighting with Geoff Johns for the 1 & 2 positions.  Actually our dark horse runner up is Jeph Loeb with 13% of the #1s with 13 of them.  Now the fascinating thing about Loeb in this is that he’s not a Johnny-come-lately like Bendis. Loeb’s first #1 during the past decade was in October, 2002 with Batman #608.  Of course, Jim Lee may have had something to do with that.  Loeb and Lee’s Batman collaboration scored eight #1 spots over the next 2 years.  

Loeb has always had the good fortune of attaching himself to popular artists.  Shortly after his Batman run, he began a run on Superman/Batman with Michael Turner, one of Wizard’s “Hot” artists of that time.  Loeb and Turner’s Supergirl story won the #1 spot twice and even Loeb’s first issue of Superman/Batman with Carlos Pacheco was a top selling book.  And unlike Bendis and Johns, Loeb has also produced a fair amount of books at both DC and Marvel.  Starting in April, 2007, Loeb starts reappearing on Diamond’s charts with books like Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America, Ultimates 3, Hulk and Ultimatum.

Coming in with 14 #1s by himself is Geoff Johns.  His first #1 was as part of the writing collective on DC Countdown to Infinite Crisis in March, 2005.  Like Bendis, his own solo #1 wouldn’t be too long afterwards.  In May, 2005, Green Lantern #1 would be the best selling comic.  Following that, every issue of Infinite Crisis topped the chart while 7 out of 8 issues of Blackest Night would as well.  But if you want to count his collaborations on Countdown to Infinite Crisis and the current Brightest Day, Johns actually ties with Loeb for a total of 17.

Add in Mark Millar (11 #1s) and Grant Morrison (8 #1s) and you see that only 5 writers have contributed to 50% of the #1 books during this period.

Of course, I think anyone who paid attention to these things would have guessed these outcomes.  Marvel and DC have owned the last 10 years on the sales charts, while Bendis and Johns have dominated the top 5.  I have a feeling that if we dug into the top 5 books or the top 10 during this same period, we’d see a lot of the similar or the same results.  It’s the dominance of LCS sales by a limited number of companies and creators that has given us the event-fatigued audience that we seem to have now.  Event fatigue? I don’t even know if that’s accurate because the top sellers of 2010 have either been event books or first issues.  That’s what the comic shops are buying. They must be selling all those issues of X-Men #1 (the new one with those vampires who are all the rage nowadays) to someone.

Sadly what we don't see are the vestiges of the newsstands, those non-direct market outlets where Archie numbers supposedly put our current best sellers to shame. Or the library markets who Marvel is catering to with their "Best Selling Authors" line and books like The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and anything Roy Thomas is writing nowadays. Maybe if we had those numbers, we'd see something that looks like a healthier, more diversified comic market and a comic shop that was open to every kind of book.