BLAARGH! – Tomer’s Rants Vol. 1
Why do bad things happen to good fans? Whether it’s atrocious art, ridiculous writing, or something else entirely – some crimes against fandom cannot go unanswered. When that happens, it’s time to say ”BLAARGH!”
With so many things crossing my mind lately, I couldn’t pick just one idea for this week’s column and at the same time I felt the need to vent on it all. So this is kind of a different format for BLAARGH! Shall we begin?
1. I haven’t read Amazing Spider-Man over a year and a half. I still consider Spidey one of my favorite characters, but I don’t read his official adventures anymore. Unlike those “fans” that keep following Marvel’s dreck of post-Mephisto, retconned Spider-Man only so they could keep their whining and bitching on the state of their beloved character. You hate it – drop it already! All I hear since late 2007 is people cursing Joe Quesada and co., yet did any of them drop the book and stopped financing Marvel? If you’re one of these people and consider yourself a fan of comic books, then you’re doing an injustice to the industry. Don’t be surprised when books like Captain Britain and MI:13 and Young Liars get canceled.
2. Microsoft can have a rest, because Fox is the largest corporation everyone loves to hate nowadays. Fox News is pretty much Satan’s favorite news station, the other network is synonymous with “Screwing Good Shows” (giving Dollhouse a second chance, barely, gives them half a point I guess) and the movie studio has been in a bad shape ever since X-Men 3: The Last Stand. X-Men Origins: Wolverine saved the studio a little bit by gaining money, but made the people who run the company look like villains their Canadian mutant hero will usually stab to death. How did it all went so wrong? Does anyone care anymore?
3. Speaking of Wolverine (yes, I know, third week in a row): Lots of people complained about the shuffle in issues Marvel did, publishing two new stories in Wolverine #73 instead of the long-awaited seventh part of Mark Millar’s ‘Old Man Logan’ story arc in #72. Ignoring that misdeed by Marvel, #73 was a pretty good issue with stories from Jason “The New King” Aaron and Daniel “Getting Better” Way and art by Adam Kubert (welcome back home!) and Tommy Lee Edwards. If you skipped that issue – and I know many people did – just because of what Marvel did, then you must have a big problem and I hope you regret you were ever born when eventually reading this issue. And come one, it’s not like ‘Old Man Logan’ really delivered. I waited for this story months in advance, but a bad feeling all of Millar’s promises will fall flat. Sadly, midway into the story arc I was right. Now let’s just see it wrapped up (didn’t have a chance to read this week’s #72 yet).
4. As I write this, I heard DC fired writer Dwayne McDuffie from Justice League of America. Apparently, the recent exposure by Rich Johnston in his CBR column ‘Lying in the Gutters’ (will get to it later) of his two years plus Q&A session with readers on the DC message boards, wasn’t taken well by McDuffie’s bosses. I haven’t read the book since Brad Meltzer’s run (hated it all but issue #11) for financial reasons and never had he chance to catch up with it, but from reviews I read it wasn’t good, mostly writing-wise. If you read McDuffie’s answers to fans, it appears his whole run was mandated by editorial and he never had the chance to write the stories he wanted. Guess, then, that this firing came as a blessing in transparent disguise.
As for the reasons of the firing: I know how much people like to complain about their jobs and sometimes I do that too, but they’ll never do that so publicly, knowing it’ll endanger their career. A public persona like McDuffie complaining (even if he did it so nicely without calling out anyone) about a gig he’s still doing, that’s an obvious recipe for firing and he should have known better. Anyway, he’s neither the first nor the last to reveal the secrets behind the Big Two editorial process and sadly this won’t change either. The Big Two think they do a great work and like to maintain the status quo, not seeing how their ways really destroy the industry and cannot keep them going the way for the long run. Unless they get a giant, disastrous wake up call, DC and Marvel will keep this shit up.
5. I just mentioned ‘Lying in the Gutters’ so it’s only fair to mention this week’s last column. Rich Johnston is moving on. Kinda; from this Monday he’ll have a new column in a new website, Bleeding Cool, doing the same thing on a broader schedule and financed by Avatar Press. Way I heard, Warred Ellis will also have a column in there. When I first heard LITG is gone 24 hours before the last column went up I was a little bit sad. Knowing the circumstances, though, I felt better and hope the new place will inject new energy to the old rumor column.
Anyway, I only followed LITG in the last 3-4 years and it was good to read early rumors, get inside info and even discover the evils of some industry crooks. I was never mentioned in LITG (thanks goodness…) but was involved indirectly when Rich reported in late 2007 that Wizard fired several employees and “hired” freelance forum members. As most of you know, I was one of those forum members. Months later, at WUMB someone started a thread asking about our payments. Regrettably, me and the some of the other freelancers revealed too much information, it was reported by LITG and caused the thread to be deleted and us freelancers get little slap on our hands. When PoP! went up, LITG reported it and wrongly said that we were fired from Wizard and then started this website. I sent Rich an email trying to make things clear, but he never replied it nor printed anything in regards of his mistake(s). I’ll still miss LITG, though.
6. Most importantly, this passing week has brought us the news a new Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie is in the making. It’s a known fact creator Joss Whedon was planning a movie ever since the show went off the air in 2003 and its spin-off Angel was canceled a year later. Eventually Whedon chose to continue the shows in comic book format and had a great success with both (BTVS: Season Eight has a permanent place each month in the Top 10-15 sales charts. Now, the recent movie news is that the original movie’s (1992) producers and director plan to revamp it for a new generation, without Joss Whedon. The original script writer they dumped and rewrote his work, creating one of the worst movies to see film, ever. The man who five years later went on and with his rights for the character of Buffy created a whole new world, introduced TV viewers his own version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And guess what? It became one of the greatest TV shows ever and lasted for seven seasons. And up to this moment it became so big, almost everyone forgot there was ever a bad movie with the same title.
I know fans can be annoying and overreacting at times, and Whedon/Buffy fans are not different. While I still think Whedon is a good writer, since BTVS he had a bit of an uneven record: Astonishing X-Men started so good but went downhill and stopped at ‘Mediocre’ already in his second story arc; Serenity was an excellent movie and continued one of the best prematurely-canceled TV shows ever (remember what I said about Fox?), but didn’t do well in the box office; Runaways was an enthusiastic continuation of another’s creation, but was a disappointment; Dollhouse was Whedon’s big return to the same network that burned him in the past (Fox, right?) and months before airing it was obvious they’re going to screw him once again (Spoiler: The notion was justified, but eventually they gave Whedon freedom, the show improved, the ratings didn’t and somehow it got a second chance). But I still count on Whedon to do a Buffy movie justice and without him there’s no reason to that. If someone involved with that production is just a bit smarter than the average, they should stop it. Now. Before anyone gets hurt and the apocalypse will come upon us. Remember this warning.
To contact Tomer Soiker: tsoiker@panelsonpages.com
1. Agreed.
2. No.
3. Even though I KNEW Aaron would deliver, his story STILL surprised me with how good it was. Kubert’s art only made it better.
4. McDuffie’s run did NOT impress me; shooting himself in the foot like this was stupid on his part, but I for one hope it means better stories for the JLA.
5. No commnet. :p
6. They might as well just hire an MBTA employee with a good texting plan to direct this thing, cause you can bet it’ll be a train wreck!
2. “No”, you don’t care?
4. Like I said, his run was controlled by editorial so only if they’ll gave the new writer more freedom there may be an improvement. I feel the same about Fraction’s Uncanny X-Men, since I KNOW the X-office directs him and doesn’t give him much freedom, unlike his other works.
“No” no one cares.
Buffy without Whedon is blasphemy.
I knew you’ll be on my side.
a good post, here are my thoughts about some of the issues:
i think the current post-wedding spidey is more interesting than the pre one.the spidey brain trust are a bunch of good and interesting writers who have no fear of turning peters life up side down,as opposed to jms run and his revelations(aka gwens lost children by norman osborn) the shocking events in the new title are actually sticking and make sense and they weren’t there only to sell or shock the readers.i canceled my subscription on the title because of financial reasons but i do like to read it from time to time and i can see good writing and great art,so yes the mephisto shtick wasnt the best way to do somewhat “reboot” but this weekly spidey is good thing.
i love the tale of “old man logan”- it has its cliche moments and most obvious plot turns but i think i is one of the best wolverine stories i have ever read.wolverine is in my pull list and as you know in israel we get shipment once in two weeks so this title is the only one i cant wait to read so i am downloading it from the dcp scanners to see what happens next, when i come to the comic shop and take the book it will be my first book to read ,i dont know what makes it so good to me,the art of steve is amazing as usual, mark isdoing hell of job on the title.just one thing pissed me off with the last issue -they didnt end the story in73,as you can recall marvel did the same with whedons astonishing x-men with a “giant size special”-i hate those unfair money-milking moves that marvel do more often as time goes.
as for buffy- dont know if it is a bad move,a movie can bring some new possibilities to the franchise and they are talking about reviving the tv-show as well.joss was ,and still, mostly recognized by the fans and the people for being the main man who is responsible for the success of btvs but there were dozen of producers and writers who shared with him this burden,few of those producers(the kuzui bunch with marti noxon and jane espenson) are rumored to return so there should be no reason why it wouldnt work well,maybe not well as joss would do it but i deserves another chance so i am optimistic!
Jack: Good point about Spider-Man I didn’t mention. My rant was more towards the majority of current readers that complain but don’t drop the book, making it successful only so they would have a merit to bitch about it/ Anyway, I think JMS’ run was good in general but its weak spots (Sins Past and The Other – which was mostly damaged by its longevity and the involvement of Reginald Hudlin). People tend to forget that post-The Other ASM was pretty much a mediocre book with the exception of the pre-unmasking issue. Back in Black was received badly by most readers, yet OMD/BND were received as “Oh, no, they ruined the book!” Maybe they’re worse than what the book was before OMD, I don’t know, but in my opinion as I recall reactions from that time, ASM wasn’t a good book in years.
Looks to me like ‘Old Man Logan’ was brought to Marvel like this: “How cool would it be to have Wolverine very old and trying to live his life without violence, just like in ‘Unforgiven’? And imagine so many twisted takes on Marvel staples? And in the end Wolverine does such and such?” And only from that point Millar really started writing the story. The first couple of issues were a good read, but then the “twists” became so boring and poor shock-value material. Dammit, I miss ‘Enemy of the State’…
BTW, a shipment once in two weeks, huh? I just got my pull list at you-know-where so I won’t give publicity to the competition, but you do know they have a weekly shipment for the last two years or so, right?
Didn’t hear anything about an involvement by Espenson or Noxon, but if they go in bed with those Japanese evil producers, I hope they burn in hell. And no one will try to bring them back because they’re not important like Buffy!
“but in my opinion AND as I recall…”
I have looked at a few issues of Spidey. I think it’s fine for people who are completely new to comics, but for anyone who started reading from the 80s til now, it’s like they stepped back into the 70s. I don’t understand why, after all the great strides comics have made since the 80s that they would want to step back into the 70s. I guess with all the Crisis stuff, DC has the same problem, except on a corporate scale instead of just limiting it to one character.
i dont know about the spidey titles,they had big storytelling problems in the 80′s throughout the the new millenium.i became regular reader in the mackie-jenkins era,the first one(mackie run) was awful as hell but the peter parker book was and stiil is,as much as i am concerned,the best stories i read about pete.that is until jms arrived and did a really good work on the flag title in the beginning and in some point of it all everything went to hell between “sins past” and omd.i have some back issues of spidey main titles from the 80′s and i cant really understand how those stories are better than whats going on right now on the weekly spidey title.i presume its all matter of taste but who cares that the actions who led spidey to some point that he is interesting again were lame as long as you get a reason to stick with the book when you got writers as slott,wade,kelly and guggeheim doing some amazing teamwork.
and damn, i miss the jenkins-buckingham team ups on spiderman…..
i quite aware of the competitions achievements in this area but for me its irrelevant,not that i dont buy there
as for buffy,why it considered so bad move to try to give the concept and the show another try,i fell bad for joss not being part of his baby but the show must go on or is it not?!
i quite aware that marvel can do another “old man logan” theme storyline in few years to increase sales and the currect storyline will be flushed away,for me it an “elseworld” story,and a good one i must add.
i can understand your displease about the later issues of the story,the hawkeye angle and logans decisions were quite predicted but i got hooked from the first issue…….
Brian: You know, I actually started to read Spidey comics in the mid-late 90′s. First it was a short-lived translated-to-Hebrew book beginning with the Ben Reilly Spider-Man (they started with Sensational Spider-Man #0, IIRC). Although it was my actual first comic book interaction with Spider-Man, I could tell it was pretty awful. When I started reading the original books, they just restarted ASM and had a new book called Peter Parker: Spider-Man. It was as bad as the Reilly stories. So what I’m trying to say is, that in most of my Spider-Man reading history I barely got good stories and thinking deeply about it, I can’t tell what really attracts me to the character anymore. Maybe it’s gems like Spider-Man: Blue, part of JMS’ run and Ultimate Spider-Man. I just wish most of Spidey’s stories were more like these.
Jack: I just mentioned the revamped ASM and its sister book PP: SM and how bad they were. Thankfully, when Jenkins took over the latter it was improved so much. The continuation of that run in Spectacular Spider-Man wasn’t that great, though, but I’m glad he reunited once again with Buckingham when the book and his run on Spidey were wrapped. To me, Jenkins’ run as a whole is one of the best comic book runs ever, but sadly it’s too underrated.
Isn’t Season Eight a continuation of the TV show? And from everything we know so far, the intention is to ignore the TV show and film a new version of the stupid 1992 movie.
I never finished reading 1985 and don’t follow either FF or Kick-Ass, but Millar said that all three along with ‘Old Man Logan’ are part of a bigger story. What is that, I don’t know and I believe we should still wait to see, but if to judge by Millar’s recent record, I don’t hold my breath.
Is Fox behind the Whedon-less Buffy movie? Was that the catch of them granting Dollhouse a second season? Is Rupert Murdoch the Devil?
To think about it, the original draw of Spiderman was that he was a teenager with problems when all the other superheroes lived an idolized life. Now that isn’t special anymore. At worst, Parker used to be a loser who couldn’t keep a job because of being a superhero. I liked the idea that a guy with bad luck could get rewarded karmaicly with the smoking hot actress-wife.
I didn’t read a lot of the JMS run, but I liked them playing around with his powers and trying to do something different. The last great run I read was the JM DeMatteis and his follow through on Kraven’s Last Hunt in Spectacular Spiderman.
All that is to say, I think you are right and Spiderman has worn out his relevance, at least as far as the main character is concerned. A big part of that is that for Marvel, I think Peter is in his early 20s, but since that’s how old he was when I started reading at age 10, in my head he is always at least a few years older than me. I haven’t read Ultimate in a while, but Bendis seemed to do a pretty brilliant job updating the character for the 21st century.
For me that happens with a lot of superheroes. There aren’t too many that can keep going indefinitely. (Batman is another character that has problems for me. If Gotham needs uncorruptable cops, why not just have the guy with unlimited wealth raise their pay so high they can’t be bought?)
1 Untitled pop comic is about to get its claws into quesada in a biggggggggggggg way……
as for the rest well I agree with all thats said
Like I said, I am no longer following his adventures, but I still feel some connection to Spider-Man/Peter Parker. Probably because – as weird as it sounds – for years I’ve compared my life to his, and I have too many reasons to. Currently I’m in a better place in my life, I think, and don’t know much about Spidey’s whereabouts, so the “connection” is kinda off.
similar situation to me except we are about two years behind in the uk reprints so the current “mess” hasen’t actually happened for us yet
2. I get tired of hearing how bad Fox News is. Sure it has a slant, but so does CNN but everyone seems to think they don’t.