The Wheel of Karma: Gerry Conway’s Comics Equity Project

There’s been a lot of talk recently, in these days where The Avengers makes a billion and a half dollars at the box office and Robert Downey Jr. can make something like 20 million bucks for acting like an erratic drunk for a few hours – something he did for years for nothing, mind you – about how the actual comic creators who came up with these characters are often getting bupkis in exchange for their creations. Just a couple of weeks ago, Mark Waid made it clear that, despite having elements from his Superman: Birthright story used in Man of Steel, he will not be receiving, nor even expecting, any money:

So, no, I get no financial compensation for Man of Steel, nor does Grant Morrison whose words in ALL-STAR SUPERMAN were given voice by Russell Crowe, nor does John Byrne (maybe something for having created the robot Kelex, since that’s a character, not a concept like “Room full of Kryptonian embryos”), nor do the other writers and artists (other than creators Siegel and Shuster) whose contributions to the Superman myth were used in the film. And that’s okay. It’s not optimal, but we knew the rules going in. Hell, for me, honestly, the smile I got on my face the first time I heard lines from BIRTHRIGHT in the MoS trailer–the confirmation that I really did give something lasting back to the character who’s given me so much–is worth more to me than any dollar amount. (Your mileage may vary.)

And I have taken the sometimes unpopular stance that, while on a karmic basis, guys like Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Joe Shuster, and Alan Moore might deserve more substantial financial consideration for their creations, the fact of the matter is that for the most part, that wasn’t the deal they signed. They signed work-for-hire deals, which meant that they got paid for the scripts, and whatever was actually, you know, in those scripts belonged to the guys writing the checks. And that is a harsh stance to take about an industry that produces some of the stories I love most in the world, and which despite billions in intellectual property value still requires things like The Hero Initiative to provide a safety net for creators, but the law is the law and the contract is the contract. I might have a more jaundiced view of such things than most, as my day job is with a technology company who required me to sign an agreement that any program I noodle out to solve a personal problem technically belongs to them, but regardless, the facts don’t change: if the contract doesn’t say you get any money, you don’t get any money.

Sometimes, however, the contract does say that you get some money… provided you can prove that someone is using your creation. Enter Gerry Conway, his (and many other creators’) deal with DC Comics, and the Comics Equity Project.

My Dead Canadian Girlfriend: Batman: The Dark Knight #21 Review

We haven’t spent a lot of time talking about Batman: The Dark Knight since its relaunch in September 2011 – honestly, we haven’t reviewed even a single issue. And part of the reason has been that the title has always existed on the fringes of the Batman universe – the main plots have been in Batman and, to a lesser extent, Batman Incorporated, but Batman: The Dark Knight has always kinda done its own mostly self-contained stories. And being a comics Web site, we’ve tended to pay more attention to the big, money shot stories while Batman: The Dark Knight has sorta chugged happily along on its own, telling smaller, more simple and self-contained Batman stories.

And in its own way, Batman: The Dark Knight #21 is no different. The conflict happening here isn’t one that I’ve seen referenced in any of the other Batman books. The conflict is based on a relationship that hasn’t been mentioned anywhere else. It features a B-List villain in The Mad Hatter, who is the kind of villain you normally dig up when you have a story requiring a nutjob and you realize that it’s only been three months since the other Batman books have used The Joker, The Riddler, or The Scarecrow… and frankly, The Mad Hatter only gets picked once the writer sobers up enough to realize that resurrecting Chandell continues to be a shitty idea.

So what you wind up with is a Batman comic that almost exists in its own little bubble universe where it can just tell a simple Batman story. And that’s exactly what it does: it give us a Batman motivated only by the events of its own story, filled with rage and showing a ton of iconic visual action, with a simple message to deliver about how Batman exactly is different from the monsters that he battles. And, not being a part of the greater ongoing Batman continuity, it is kinda doomed to be midlist that probably goes out of print pretty quickly. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a damn good and simple story, and one that’s well worth checking out.

Finding Your Line: San Diego Comic-Con Releases Floor Map

The San Diego Comic-Con is coming up quick; it’s in about three weeks (which means I just had my fourteenth panic moment in a series of several hundred when I compulsively check my flight and hotel information to make sure I have the right dates), which means two things: we here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives are starting our annual trips out to research, test and collect equipment for reporting on the convention as quickly and comprehensively as a two-person operation can (particularly when the staff on the ground has a 100% incidence of problem drinking), and they information about the convention is beginning to drip out.

This means two things: we only have a few minutes today before we must head out on an appointment to irritate the shit out of some minimum wage drone at Best Buy (“How many finotles does this camera have? Two, eh? Yeah, can we speak to someone who knows that a finotle is not a thing?”), and that Comic-Con has released the map for the main convention floor.

And if you are attending the convention, you should go check the new map out; apparently they have moved some stuff around in the interest of relieving some floor traffic. The videogame exhibitors have been moved to pretty much the other side of the floor, and the art dealers have been moved even closer to Artists’ Alley. Which is probably a good move and should alleviate the horrible scrums of wretched humanity… right until the moment some top-heavy woman in a Power Girl costume strikes a pose for a photo, warping the orderly streams of timely travel more effectively than a TARDIS with a flamethrower.

You can check out the new map, and search for your target exhibitors here.

You Know, For Kids!: Justice League #21 Review

Captain Marvel occupies a strange place in the superhero comics world, in that he is a character that occupies about a thousand places in a million different fans’ hearts.

He is simultaneously the Big Red Cheese who fought talking mescal worms with his gentleman tiger Tawky Tawny, while he is also the generic 1970s superhero who rode around the desert in a Winnebago punching dudes and talking to a big nipply globe on the dashboard, and at the same time he is the horribly damaged and tragic character who beat Superman to a standstill before sacrificing himself to save the world in Kingdom Come. Hell, there are times when I can’t think of the character without remembering my early 2000s drunken tirade that Dan DiDio should give Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham a million bucks a piece to complete their Miracleman story using Captain Marvel, since Miracleman was never anything but a royalty dodge on The Big Red Cheese anyway.

My point is, each version of Captain Marvel means something to somebody, and paying service to one means that you stand a real chance of alienating fans of the others. Slap a big C. C. Beck smile on Captain Marvel’s face and the Kingdom Come fans think you’re yanking their chain. Make him tortured over the adult horrors he’s witnessed as a superhero and you piss off the fans of the childlike original. Put him in a Winnebago out in the middle of the desert with a creepy old dude and you’ll never see the outside of a jail cell again.

This was the line that writer Geoff Johns and artist Gary Frank were trying to negotiate with their Shazam backup story in Justice League for the past several months. And to be honest, when it started, I thought they botched it; Billy Batson was a petulant little bastard who I would have rather seen get scabies than superpowers. But that, however, was a while ago. This month’s Justice League #21 is devoted to the conclusion of the Shazam story… so the question is, not that it’s all said and done, who did Johns and Franks piss off?

Really, probably nobody. There’s enough elements of the classic kids’ Captain Marvel here to at least pay service to those fans, and enough modern realism so that he doesn’t stick out from the New 52 continuity. And the conclusion is, in fact, really pretty good. Not perfect, but fun enough to be worth the ride.

Although the people hoping for RVs and “Mentors” are gonna be furious… but seriously, fuck those people.

Dog’s Eye View: Hawkeye #11 Review

Hawkeye #11 is turning out to be one hell of a hard book to review in the way that I normally do it. Oh, I can hear you: “But Rob,” you’re saying, “You normally review comic books drunk, and you’re looking a little weavy right now. Plus, you smell an awful lot like a fraternity carpet.”

Well… yeah, Fair enough. But most of the time, the comics I review are about guys and women in tights, smacking the crap out of each other when they’re not trying to accomplish normal, human-type things. And Hawkeye #11 isn’t like that.

Because Hawkeye #11 is about a dog. Specifically, Hawkeye’s dog Lucky. Formerly known as Arrow, when he was owned by Russian mobsters. And known by Twitter as Pizzadog. And while I have seen comic books about dogs ever since I was a kid – Krypto and Rex The Wonder Dog from Steve Englehart’s old Justice League of America books leap to mind – those dogs were always presented as having human thoughts and motivations. Human thoughts and motivations that somehow elevated above, “I can lick my own sack! I will be busy for the immediate future!” but human thoughts nonetheless.

Hawkeye #11 writer Matt Fraction and artist David Aja try something very different. These guys are trying like hell to put us readers into the head of Pizzadog, and they do it with the full recognition that dogs don’t think in complete sentences, and they don’t think in terms like “conspiracy,” or “treachery,” or, “long-term goals.” They think in smells and in immediate motivations and in sounds and in vague memories, and their loyalties are based on a combination of simple and complex motivations that come from current need and prior treatment.

And the end result is a comic book that you don’t read so much as decode and experience. And while I don’t think the result is completely successful – show me, for example, a dog that can salute out of nothing but pride, and the next time you’ll see my fat ass will be on Letterman – what it is is one of the most interesting single issues of a comic book you’ll find, and one of the best books I’ve read all damn year.

Boys and Their Dogs

When I was a kid, comics were beginning to become more grown up, but they were still available at the local market on a spinner rack that read, “Hey, Kids! Comics!”, so there was still room for some stories about boy heroes and their exceptional pets. On any given week, we could get issues of Superboy And The Legion of Superheroes with Superboy and his dog Krypto, there was Shazam! with Captain Marvel and Mr. Talky Tawny, and if everything failed, Peter Parker was still in college (and in high school if you also bought Marvel Tales reprints – which I did), and Ronnie Raymond and Richard Rider were taking high school classes in Firestorm and Nova.

And it’s easy to say that comics will never be like that again, but this week gives us a little taste of those days, what with a new issue of Nova, and the latest Justice League which features the conclusion of Geoff Johns’s and Gary Frank’s Shazam backup story to that book. And let’s not forget Matt Fraction’s and David Aja’s latest issue of Hawkeye, which features the first adventure of Hawkeye’s heroic dog… Pizzadog.

I haven’t read it yet, but I’m not gonna lie: I fucking love Pizzadog.

This weird week of some comics that remind me so strongly of my childhood has me strangely excited… but with that said, it is a new week of comics, which means that this…

…is the end of our broadcast day.

But it is not all clarion calls to my youth in the 1970s, oh no. We’ve got a new issue of Brian Michael Bendis’s and Michael Avon Oeming’s Powers: Bureau (And only, say, three more issues without a year’s hiatus between them and I just might start taking for granted that it’s still a vital and active concern), the followup to last month’s apparent fridging of Catwoman in Justice League of America, the first issue of a new Atomic Robo miniseries, the 50th issue of Unwritten, and a bunch of other cool stuff!

But you know how it is: before we can talk about any of them, we need a little time to read them. So until that time…

…see you tomorrow, suckers!

Just A Couple Of Guys Killing Everyone: Kyle Baker’s Mass Murder of Steel Game

Kyle Baker is a cartoonist, possibly best known to the run-of-the-mill superhero comic geek as the guy who worked on The Shadow with Andy Helfer back in the 80s, and who did the pre-New 52 Plastic Man series back in 2005. But he is also an animator, who has worked on Phineas And Ferb… and who apparently likes to work in Flash animation.

I say this because, in just the ten or so days since Man of Steel opened in American theaters, Baker has put together a little Flash animation game called Mass Murder of Steel.

The mechanics of the game are simple: you click on Superman and General Zod, who are tumbling together in an embrace appropriate for either mortal combat or gay porn, and when you do, they bounce around the screen, and, well, the people of Metropolis get a good look at the battle. Just before they Believe A Man Can Fly… So Long As The Ground Is Never There To Hit.

Make no mistake: Mass Effect 4 it ain’t, but as a nifty little dig at the sheer scope of destruction in Man of Steel, and an examination as to whether that destruction was just eye candy without much of story justification, it’s pretty cool. And you can play it here.

(via Comics Alliance)

Kick In The… Ah, Forget It: Jim Carrey Disavows Kick-Ass 2, Mark Millar Responds

Kick-Ass 2, the movie adaptation of Mark Millar’s and John Romita Jr.’s first sequel to Kick-Ass (which itself was made into a movie with much of the same cast as the first Kick-Ass 2 movie three years ago), is scheduled to open in the United States on August 16th. And considering that it has been a big summer of superhero movies so far, what with Iron Man 3 and Man of Steel, with The Wolverine and R.I.P.D. on the way, one would think that the Universal Studios would be excited to ramp up the publicity machine, maybe including a panel at San Diego Comic-Con, with some of the stars of the movie, including the biggest name, Jim Carrey, who’s playing Colonel Stars and Stripes in the flick.

Yeah, you’d think that, except, you know… you’d be pretty fucking wrong.

I did Kickass a month b4 Sandy Hook and now in all good conscience I cannot support that level of violence. My apologies to e

— Jim Carrey (@JimCarrey) June 23, 2013

I meant to say my apologies to others involve with the film. I am not ashamed of it but recent events have caused a change in my heart.

— Jim Carrey (@JimCarrey) June 23, 2013

Okay, this is a tricky thing to comment on. Because on one hand, you’ve gotta respect a guy who’s willing to publicly state a conviction, and stand by it. And God knows that gun violence in the United States is a serious issue that is worthy of continued debate.

On the other hand… did you read Kick-Ass 2, Jim? Hell, did you at least watch the first Kick-Ass movie? And if you did either: can Universal Studios expect a refund check for your fee?

Neverending Doom: Fantastic Four #9 Review

Editor’s Note: Stretch, I’m tellin’ ya… I messed with spoilers I didn’t understand, and it all blew up in that jerk’s face. Literally.

Considering he’s one of the premier villains of the Marvel Universe, Doctor Doom’s origin has always been kinda crap.

I mean, think about it: the dude is a brilliant scientist and a master magician who, upon having an experiment blow up in his face, uses that wealth of head-earned knowledge to alleviate his condition by covering it with an iron mask that looks like it was forged and riveted by a seventh grade industrial arts student. And on a basic level, we’ve spent years being told that, if it weren’t for the one, single incident of his horrible disfigurement, Doctor Doom would never have become a tyrannical despot with a lust for immortality and ultimate power despite being born the heir to the throne of a third world Eastern European toilet (an area historically known for its great record on human rights) and having the positive family name of “Von Doom.” Which is, of course, the Germanic term for fucking “of doom.”

So I have never completely bought into the simplistic background of Doctor Doom… and clearly neither has Fantastic Four writer Matt Fraction. Because in Fantastic Four #9, he gives us a firsthand view of Doom’s originating accident, but from a completely different angle then we’ve seen before. And while it doesn’t make Doom’s motivations any more complicated – it actually simplifies them by a pretty significant level – it does make Doom and his personality a lot more believable, if not any more relatable. He doesn’t make Doom, who has always felt a little like a guy who only wears an iron mask to stop himself from twirling his moustache and cackling, “Moo-hah-ha-ha!”, any more complex… but he does make him a two-and-a-half dimensional megalomaniac that I find more believable.

And it is very, very good.

Gotcha, Man: Japanese Gatchaman / Battle of The Planets Live Action Trailer Released

It is a busy morning here at the Crisis on Infinite Midlives Home Office – new equipment for our coverage of the upcoming San Diego Comic-Con and Boston Comic Con has been purchased and now must be studied, fucked with, fucked up, cursed at, fixed, synchronized, desynchronized, stopped from being thrown at a wall, attached to the correct online accounts and finally understood – plus there are personal deadlines and commitments to meet before Friday night’s serious drinking can begin.

However, I do have one quick thing here, albeit something mostly for Japanophiles and, frankly, old American farts like me who remember sitting in front of a 19-inch tube TV at 4 p.m. after school, with a bowl of Cap’n Crunch (or, if you were unlucky like me, with a 1970’s proto-granola bar so hard you could tack down carpet with it), to watch edited, imported anime on local UHF stations. Of course, we didn’t know it was anime at the time; all we knew was that, by 1978, we were hooked on cartoons and on Star Wars and on superhero comics, and that there was one cartoon that mixed them all up and fed it to us in a quick, daily, 30-minute dose of awesome: Battle of The Planets.

It wasn’t until I was in my 20s that I learned and understood that Battle of The Planets was just the gaijin title of Japan’s Gatchaman, Gatchaman, of course, being the Japanese word for “gaijin.” And while in America, the show generally lives on only as late-70s nostalgia, it is apparently still a viable property in Japan, as Toho Studios has just released a trailer for a live action version to be released over there.

The thing is in Japanese and not subtitled, but if you grew up on Battle of The Planets, you’ll see a lot you recognize. So get yourself a bowl of something sugary, then remember that you’re an adult now and put the cereal away and grab a beer, and settle in for incomprehensible goodness, right after the jump.