Monday Morning Comic Review: X-men #1 by Brian Wood & Oliver Coipel

Because no one demanded it!

What? You don't like the time displaced original x-men in All New X-men? You don't like the borderline villain x-men in Uncanny X-men? The fun and pure joy of Wolverine and the X-men not good enough for you? Neither Cable and x-force or Uncanny X-force doing it for you? Well now there is a title just for you! It features characters you can already read about in all those other books! And get this it is a team made up of all WOMEN!

REVOLUTIONARY!
NOT PANDERING AT ALL!
WOULDN'T CALL IT X-WOMEN BECAUSE IT WOULDN'T SELL*!

The good: The book is pretty as hell. Seriously Coipel is at the top of his game. I can't wait for the three whole issues he's doing before there is a fill in! Also Rogue does not call a single person "Sugah," so...there is that.

The Bad: Pretty much everything else. I mean John Sublime? Who cares. John Sublime tracks Jubilee from Bulgaria to NYC via commercial airline because he does not have time to get a private jet. Gets to Grand Central Station, and for some reason cannot discern where young Jubilee is headed...because y'know, where the hell would a former x-man in Grand Central be headed? You know what he does? He goes to the payphone that jubilee just used AND HITS REDIAL BECAUSE THAT IS SOMETHING THAT EXISTS ON PAYPHONES. This guy who has been around since the start of life on earth could not figure out she was heading to Westchester from a train station that exclusively travels north. Oh, and Captain i cannot wait for a private jet from Bulgaria somehow charters a helicopter to take him from Grand Central to Westchester faster than the Metro North Train.

Essentially Brian Wood is phoning it in. Much like his Ultimate X-men, this is nonsensical, kinda scattershot, and boring as hell. It is pretty much a waste of Coipel's talents. Wood is always best when he is creating something he is passionate about. I think he's burned out on X characters. You think he'd at least be passionate about a paycheck.

Oh, and the Manara variant cover is fantastic. Except that they allowed the stupid "Marvel Now" red bar across the bottom which a)obscures the art on a goddamn Milo Manara piece and b)none of the other Manara covers published over the last month or so have this graphic design flaw. Pretty sure someone should be fired for that alone.



*(Public reason: It would be disrespectful to the characters to classify them purely by gender. [Although they juuuust released an x-women tpb by milo manara. And really they could have called it XX-Men]).

Movie RantView: Iron Man 3

Finally found a chance to see the latest film in the "Marvel Cinematic Universe." While everyone seems to think this is the kickoff to "Phase 2," i think, pretty clearly, this is the cap off to "Phase 1." We'll get back to that.

In one of the box office reports after the opening weekend, one of the many entertainment sites seemed aghast at the amount of money Iron Man 3 made. The said Iron Man 3 was "performing more like a sequel to Avengers than to Iron Man 2." Well yeah, dummies, because it is a sequel to the Avengers. The movies are not tangentially linked...they are directly linked. The previous Iron Man films fed directly into Avengers, and clearly Iron Man 3 follows on that. To further the point, when Regal Cinema did their Iron Man marathon, it was Iron Man, Iron Man 2, The Avengers, and Iron Man 3.

Onto the movie itself. Iron Man 3 is, without a doubt, an enjoyable movie that lives up to the high standards set by the other Marvel movies. Tony Stark, suffering from PTSD from the events at the conclusion of the Avengers, tinkers and twitches through the first half of the movie. Robert Downey Jr. is charismatic and quick witted and carries this well. There is something about soldiers who are injured who decide to volunteer for a procedure to heal them or maybe make them blow up, the ones who don't blow up, apparently forget what it is like to be a good guy and just decide to be weird nuclear mercenaries. Oh, and they can breathe fire, i guess, sometimes?

Blah blah blah...the cast is fantastic from top to bottom. Guy Pierce is clearly in a career renaissance. They find, literally, every reason in the book to keep Robert Downey Jr. out of the armor, which is awesome since there is that set piece with something on the order of 30 pieces of armor. Did Don Cheadle show up on set in a Fred Perry polo and no one decided to "costume" him? Why would a soldier, wearing Stark Tech Iron Patriot armor be wearing a polo and some dockers inside? Gwenyth Paltrow clearly did some serious ab work and they found a way to make sure that was showcased. Former director Jon Favraeu returns as Happy Hogan and, as always, is just delightful. Was there any doubt about the greatness of Ben Kingsly? If you had any, his performance in this will totally eradicate it. He is ridiculous in the best possible way.

My biggest complaint with the movie is probably part of its success. I would love to know how all of the events of this movie happen without there being even a mention of the Avengers, of SHIELD, there is a terrorist bombing the U.S. and threatening the president and there is not even a passing reference to Captain America? You spent all this time building this cohesive universe, you cannot just ignore it as you see fit. I'm not saying every movie has to have a team up, but you can't just pretend they are not out there. The next Thor movie will have Thor in yet another of the 9 realms, thus negating the need for explanation. The next Captain America movie will feature Black Widow, but even at that, with it being the Winter Soldier, that makes it a personal mission for Steve. He must handle it alone. It's his responsibility, etc. Iron Man 3 needed to at least address the situation.

The ending, the resolutions, even the credit sequence all have a bit of a finality to them. I doubt we will see an Iron Man 4. This movie acts almost like an epilogue to the Avengers, it certainly does not set up anything for Marvel's "Phase 2", it just seems to float between what has happened and what we know is coming. Apparently it is not even confirmed that Iron Man will be in Avengers 2. (Although Downey made 50 million dollars on the back end of the first Avengers...so i'm sure something will be worked out.}

It's fun. The post credit sequence, like the Avengers, goes for cute as opposed to hooking into the next movie. I still believe we will see Iron Man, in fancy new armor to boot, in Guardians Of The Galaxy next year, rushing back to earth after getting his ass handed to him by Thanos, to rally the Avengers to kick some ass.

And i will still be first in line.

Free Comic Book Day...What to do about this in the future.

Another FCBD came and went. Tons of people flood through the door to grab their freebies and leave. 90% of them never to be seen again. Every year they tout it as a huge success story, but is it really?

I assume everyone knows how FCBD came about, but just in case, here is a quick refresher. Joe Field of flying colors comics in California noticed a huge line at the nearby ice cream shop (i believe it was a Ben & Jerry's), discovered it was "free scoop day," said to himself, "why don't we do something like that?" and free comic book day was born. On the face this sounds like a great idea. In practice it works insofar as it does, indeed, get a lot of people into the stores. Who then go on to buy nothing.

Free scoops just deplete the stock of the standard product of the ice cream shop. Hell, it might even be done to address the over production from the previous slow winter season. I am fairly certain that any comic shop, if they wanted, could run a free comic book day promotion with just their back issue overstock. FCBD, however, requires the purchase of special comics. Sure, they are subsidized by the publishers to a degree, but they still cost the retailer money (between $.15 and $.50 each). Then there is the concept of being REQUIRED to purchase x amount of comics from x amount of publishers to even be permitted to participate in the event. Also a lot of retailers plan elaborate parties and bring talent in for signings and the like. It can be a lot of fun! It is, however, a medium to large investment for what is often little return. How can this be fixed?

Lets look at our comrades in arms over at the record stores. Have...have you been to Record Store Day? RSD is pretty much the greatest thing since sliced bread. Hundreds of people line up hours upon hours before the stores open cash in hand to PURCHASE limited edition product that is either a)brand new and special for the day or b)STUFF THEY ALREADY OWN BUT WILL BUY AGAIN BECAUSE IT IS ON A DIFFERENT COLOR VINYL!

The comic book industry was suffering, floundering, and they came up with free comic book day as a way to draw attention to the product. The record store industry was suffering, more so even, they deal in media that is all but dead, that an entire generation has decided that paying for is optional at best, came up with record store day as a way to draw attention to the STORES and to put actual money in the cash registers of the aforementioned stores. What have we taught our customers? We have taught them that our product is worthless, to be given away for free in piles. RSD has taught people that record stores are awesome places, independent businesses that are worthy of our support. The people who ONLY come to a comic shop on FCBD, spend nothing, the ones who go to a record store ONLY on RSD, well they made some money off that one person (actually RSD is now twice a year).

There is no way to wean these people off of their free comics. You give them something for free once and they expect it every time, it is the American way. That being the case, abolishing FCBD is not an option. Although, looking at the RSD example again, if that event can sustain two days, why not a Comic Shop Day?

Record Store Day is all about the limited editions. We are like THE industry for limited editions. We have comic con limited product for like 30 shows a year, retailer exclusive covers, etc. Why would we not be all over this? Limited CSD hardcovers (which would, more than likely, amount to a variant dustjacket), special CSD covers of recent books, perfect day to launch that new event book. Hey, you know how absolutely no one likes movie tie-in comics? Make the graphic novel prequel to the movie opening on the same weekend as CSD a CSD exclusive product and BANG instant sell out. CSD variant edition of the $200 IDW artist edition? two per store limited, guarantee it sells out in the first half hour. Seriously, it can be the artist's edition of fucking YOUNGBLOOD and it would sell.

Monetizing the big industry event is not impossible. We seemed to mess it up the first time around, but i think it can still be saved. At the very least i think it is a conversation worth having. Maybe it's just me, but i like the thought of making money, and comic shops still being around in 10 years.

The m word is the new n word

In a recent issue of marvel comics' Uncanny Avengers, Alex Summers, aka Havok, stated that he, as well as the mutant community at large, no longer wanted to be called "mutants". He states that this label is divisive, and that at the end of the day we are all human, and should accept each other as such.

Wow. Good stuff. It continues the long standing history of the X-men being an analog to the struggle for equal rights by, at this point, various groups in U.S. history. The concept of "we dont want to be separate, we dont even want separate but equal, we want to be equal." This is Marvel's mutants taking a stand!

Then the internet fucking exploded.

Blog upon blog, and site upon site picked up on the story...and how it was offensive.

Wait. What?

Yes, apparently Havok's desire to be seen as equal is the most offensive thing ever!

My personal favorite quote comes from a tumblr called Off Center Fold:
     " Translation: If I am no longer
     affiliated with my minority status,
      you will accept me as one of you
     and we can all ignore that big
      reeking pile of oppression you
     heave on blacks, gays, trans* folk
      — yeah, pretty much anyone who
      isn’t Rick Remender. Because it’s
      not an entiresociety lording its
      ignorance, racism, homophobia,
     transphobia, and general lack of
     willingness to tolerate any culture
     but their misguided assumption
     of what makes an American that’s
     the problem! It’s the “M-word”s
     that minorities use to ‘alienate’
     themselves! Call me “Alex” and
     you don’t have to face that I’m a
     mutant (or gay, black, trans*, etc.)
     If you can’t tolerate the can
     because of its label, strip the
     packaging off and pretend it’s no
     different than all the other ones!"

I've been long under the impression that people did not want to be seen as their minority status. That women in the workplace did not want to be "women" in the workplace, but "co-workers" in the workplace. That an african american chef didnt want to be "the black cook" but just "that amazing chef." That the "gay" teacher just be "mr. O'leary the fucking awesome chem professor."

Have we moved into a world where people WANT to be EXCLUSIVELY identified by minority labels? How does that make anything work? How do we progress from there? In the above paragraph, the woman is still a woman, the african american still has his heritage, and mr. O'leary's (hopefully someday soon legally) husband is waiting for him at home with take out and a movie.

The people who are offended by this, are small minded people who do not know how to be anything other than the minority labels they apply to themselves. Your gender, race, orientation or really any other single aspect of you does not define the entirety of who you are. When you allow it to, you see injustice in everything, including acceptence.

Havok still has his x-gene, he is still a mutant, he just wants, when you look at him, that that not be the first thing the pops into your brain. That is what everyone has ever wanted, and now you find fault with it.

Although my opinion does not count since i am a straight white man.