Posted by andPOP Staff on February 15th, 2006

Superhero Batman is readying for battle against his deadliest nemesis ever — Osama bin Laden.

Comics writer and artist Frank Miller announced at the WonderCon 2006 comic-book convention in San Francisco last weekend that Batman would find bin Laden and al Qaeda in the next DC Comics graphic novel, ABC News reports.

The Caped Crusader will hunt down bin Laden after the terror leader attacks Gotham City in the graphic novel, to be called “Holy Terror, Batman!”.

Miller says there is nothing campy about the latest graphic novel, despite the title.

“Emotionally, it’s really raw,” Miller told the WonderCon audience, reports ABC News. “Imagine the powerful rage when someone crosses the passion between a man and a woman or a man and his city.”

Tags: Batman, comics, Osama bin Laden

Posted by andPOP Staff on October 25th, 2005

Dan Brown proved that religion and action adventure can mix with lucrative results. So what’s next? A religious comic book movie, of course.

Comingsoon.net reports that Platinum Studios and Valhalla Motion Pictures are teaming up to turn Top Cow’s comic Magdalena into a feature film. Kevin Taft, who is writing the upcoming New Line Cinema scarefest Alone, will pen the script.

Magdalena will be the first religious-themed comic book character to be adapted for film. It’s the story of a girl named Patience who discovers that she’s descended from a line of women warriors that traces its ancestry to Mary Magdalene. Because this is a comic book, Patience must then a) accept her destiny, and b) save the world. The comic has been translated into 26 languages in 55 countries.

“Magdalena is exactly the kind of project we love: a strong female lead character, a story with rich mythology, and compelling characters,” says producer Gale Anne Hurd, whose projects include The Terminator and Aeon Flux. “The religious overtone adds a new dimension to the adventure story.”

Comic creator and Top Cow Productions CEO Marc Silvestri will executive produce. “The need for faith in any form is what Magdalena is about,” said Silvestri. “Patience’s journey is, ultimately, about having faith in something – God, a loved one, or the human condition and the need to believe in something that is greater than ourselves.”

Magdalena, a fan favourite in the Top Cow library, also has enormous crossover merchandise potential – games, toys, you name it. Platinum Studios signed a contract with Top Cow in 2004 to develop Top Cow’s comics for film, television and other media, so it looks like the comic book movie craze is far from over.

Tags: comics

Posted by andPOP Staff on July 20th, 2005

What do you get when you take seven unrelated B-list heroes from out of the vault at DC Comics, give them to writer Grant Morrison (New X-Men, The Invisibles) and seven different artists, who pit them against the greatest force of evil of all time? The most elaborate interwoven story in recent history-Seven Soldiers.

Morrison?s master plan of a giant tome of seven books that not so much come together as reverberate bigger consequences through to each other (Since none of the heroes actually meet, their can be no real ?coming together? to speak of?at least in the conscience sense?on their part.) Each book holds up as a four issue story arc on its own, with each artist doing a different one, but when combined with the two bookend bonus issues and the other stories in the set, the connections between each book, really start to show through. .Not only are they fighting the same evil threat, but a seemingly insignificant decision in one book is felt through the lives of all seven heroes and the best part is, this super-team never meets. Just who are these independent heroes, with no idea their fighting in the same war?

Hold on a sec, before we get to the new Seven Soldiers we must first tip our hats to those of old?The Seven Soldiers of Victory, (sometimes referred to as Law?s Legionnaires) from which, Morrison?s idea comes. The Seven Soldiers of Victory were created in 1941, a year after the Justice Society of America, designed to capitalize on the projected profits thought to be brought about by two super teams. The 7 were made up of The Crimson Avenger, The Star Spangled Kid, Green Arrow, Vigilante and Shining Knight, plus, their respective sidekicks, Stripesy and Speedy rounding out the seven. (Although in the book itself, The Crimson Avenger?s sidekick, Wing, was ignored in the title probably because he was Asian. Since leaving us as a regular series in 1955, all of the 7 soldiers have enjoyed minor roles and guest spots in DC comics. They were always B and C list heroes, just like Morrison?s members of the new incarnation were before he brought them together to create a new seven. Morrison even tips his hat to the old team in issue #0, when Vigilante tries to form his own new team of Seven Soldiers by placing an ad in the paper, but on their very first mission, they are all killed by the new evil threat known as, The Sheeda! Who will be fighting the Sheeda together without even meeting in person, inadvertently becoming the newest Seven Soldiers? Well, let me introduce you to?

The Shining Knight (Artist: Simone Blanchi)-(Orignally ran from 1941-1951) Sir Justin is a knight of King Arthur?s round table who gets transported to the 20th century. He has armor that is enchanted by Merlin and a winged horse called Winged Victory. He usually just fought crooks on the streets. Now, in Morrison?s version, Justin is transported to the 21st century and his horse dies almost immediately. Instead of fighting crime, he turns himself in, until an ancient demon threat (The Sheeda) that he is all too familiar with, is revealed to be attacking Earth. Morrison also adds a giant helping of real mythology and Arthurian mythos that grounds the story in a historical context. However, this book is too similar to its golden age counterpart in origin and there is a whole lot of build up to a story yet to come. It is, however, the most tripped out of all the books, and has the best line work in the art.

The Manhattan Guardian (Artist: Cameron Stewart)-(Originaly ran in 1942) Created by Comics legend Jack Kirby, Jim Harper was a regular guy who decided to become a policemen in the poor section of Metropolis known as ?Suicide Slum.? After rescuing a gang of orphaned newsboys from a life of crime, he decides to become a superhero named The Guardian, eventually converting the orphaned newsboys into his own superhero team called The Newsboy Legion. If Jack Kirby and Grant Morrison did a comic, this is what it would be. He?s taken this old concept and made, hero for hire, Jim Harper into, reluctant Hero, Jake Jordan. He works as a superhero mascot for a newspaper whose exploits are designed to generate headlines for a newspaper. He also works inside a living, breathing office building. Well, not exactly, the guy he works for is a computerized talking head, ala the wizard of Oz. The newsboy legion is back too, as the newsboy army, a rag-tag group of freelancers who provide much needed reinforcements. That?s where the Kirby similarities end however, because Morrison injects his trademark bizarro world irreverence into every panel. Jordon is fighting personal demons, after accidently killing a child, but he is also fighting a group of subway pirates that are following a map tattooed to someone?s back and fighting an Epcot Centre version of the world?s population, following all the statistical sociological data that makes up the real population of earth. That means that out of the one-hundred robot citizens, 70% are black and five of them have all the wealth and power. This comic is the most creative of them all, and is a nice nostalgic nod to Jack Kirby. It?s the most straightforward, in execution and story, of all the books. It?s perfect as a straight-up superhero book with a tinge of weirdness thrown in. It is also very refreshing since the rest of them aren?t so straightforward and tend to contribute a little more to the confusing story at large called Morrison?s master plan.

Klarion the Witch Boy (Artist: Frazer Irving)-(Made his debut in 1973) Klarion was an old enemy of Jason Brood aka ?The Demon.? He escaped from witchworld with his ware-cat Teek in order to practice magic without adult interference. On earth, his magic always went awry and The Demon was usually called in to clean up the mess. The character Klarion has also made brief appearances in both the current Justice League cartoon series and the now older, New Adventures of Batman and Robin. This is the comic where Morrison has made the most improvement to an otherwise weak caliber villain. Witchworld is now a puritan society that sits in purgatory where its inhabitants worship the dead and use enchanted corpses as slaves. The desire to go to earth, stems, instead, from a stronger desire to see the ?magical relics of our world? (i.e. Candy, CDs, Gum, things that are not allowed in witchworld?s hyper religious society.) that were smuggled in and shown to Klarion by a friend. Also, his desire to rebel from the clutches of the elders of the village plays a very significant role. However, once he is on earth, he realizes that an evil (Sheeda again!) has escaped from his world and must be stopped. Morrison brings a neo-goth/EMO kid sensibility to the story that fits well to contemporize Klarion?s experience in our world, but the overall pacing of this story is very slow and the puritanical dialogue can be very boring. Although, the art is some of the best art in the series. (excluding J.H. Williams?s work done in the two stand alone bookend issues to start and finish the series) The colouring overall is excellent as well, with tonal hues of Blue, Black and green throughout.

Zantanna (Artist Ryan Sook) (First appearance was in 1964 in Hawkman in a story called ?The Girl Who Split in Two?) Zantanna is the most recognizable of all the characters, as a permanent B-list member of the Justice League. The most basic rundown of her lackadaisical first appearance is basically, she gets Hawkman to come look for her father, a master magician who taught her everything he knows in the way of spells. (In her world, all you have to do is say a command backwards and you have a spell i.e. ?disappear? would be ?raeppasid? and to my mind, if that?s all her father knows?we have a problem.) She decides to use what she?s taught and become a superhero that performs sold out magic shows by day in Vegas. She has never really had a solid individual run in her own book(Gee, I wonder why?), but since Morrison seems to be the master of the re-launch lately, with X-Men now, and in the past, with Animal Man, she seems to be in good hands. First, he starts her off in a meeting of washed up superheroes that have no idea why they still feel this compulsion to fight even though they are all truly pathetic. (At least he knows Zanny doesn?t have a good track record.) Then, he has her lead her band of merry men through so many dimensions and doors that one must rotate the particular page in every direction just to read the dialogue. (One feel?s sick in the process, but in a good way) However, the piece de resistance, of this trial run, is that Morrison has decided to reluctantly pair her with a junior mystic or rather, a pint sized version of herself. He could be going for a magical Gilmore Girls spin off here, but somehow, with the quick-witted dialogue and off-hand quips, it works. The art is average, but Sook definitely wins best cover, for his piece that puts Zanny smack in the middle of a hodge-podge of rabbits, making her look like she?s meant to be found on an incredibly obvious ?Where?s Waldo?? page.

With the rest of the books, Frankenstein, Bulleteer and Mr. Miracle, not scheduled until September, all I can say is they?re highly anticipated, especially given the fact that the Mr. Miracle cover is so awesome. (Look to your left!) I?m going to have to find out about them with the rest of you. The only question left is… how is Grant Morrison going to pull off this interconnected storyline with such vastly different characters who never even meet? I?ve read every issue so far and I still can?t see where he is going with this, but time will tell?and knowing Grant?s work, we haven?t even begun to explore the complexity of the Seven Soldiers weirdness. (All I can say is hang in there friends, I?ll have a primer on the rest of the books where I will discuss the possible outcomes of the story at large.) Hopefully, it will all work out, leading Grant Morrison to yet another, creative victory.

Tags: 7 soldiers, comics, Grant Morrison, seven soldiers

Posted by andPOP Staff on July 7th, 2005

I first met Phil Jimenez at the Paradise Comicon in November 2003.

It was Sunday, I had already been there for three days and by that time, and I was very weary from sitting in line for a signed book (sitting because I have an electric scooter) and sick of the convention hotdogs rotating in the lamplight. That?s why I had absolutely no expectations when meeting Phil. I didn?t want an autograph. Hell, I hadn?t even heard of the guy, let alone cracked open any of the Wonder Woman comics he was signing at the time, so I just parked beside his table, introduced myself and we started talking. We talked about what I was into and what he was into and the state of things in comics, generally just shooting our mouths off like old friends. Suddenly, I began to notice that there were a lot of people lining up for this guy. I noticed something else too; every single one of them wanted a drawing. In fact, so many, he stopped doing them because he was so behind on the requests. After a while the crowd thinned out and I asked, what he was working on and he responded,

?The next couple months are going to be super busy; I?m working on a top secret project.?

With that, he pulls out his sketch book and there, right in front of my eyes, are character sketches of a beautiful woman with long flowing hair, a Minotaur, and a sleek cyborg. All of them had flowing and intricate line work, with every detail of each of their individual frames mapped out in a variety of positions.

?It?s my personal project, I?m writing and drawing it,? he said, ?There are so many aliens, gods and robots in this thing that I think I?m going to call it?Otherworld!?

Fast forward to July 2005 and Phil Jimenez?s ?personal project? has already hit comic stores. Wizard Magazine describes it as, ?The Real World, meets Lord of the Rings, meets Tron,? and there can?t be a more accurate description than that. A group of twenty-somethings (some friends, some not) are transported to a Celtic inspired, ancient and mystical civilization called the Otherworld. The sweeping line work and intricate detail of the early sketches I saw were nothing compared to what I saw when I opened the book for the first time. The art was absolutely radiant with the added colouring of Jeremy Cox and the texture of the inks by Andy Lanning, but it wouldn?t have been made possible without the complex pencils of Phil himself. Even though, on the surface, their world looks Pristine and harmonious, (as the art suggests) the people of otherworld have been locked in a territorial turf war between two factions, magic and technology, for centuries.

That?s where Soibian Moyihan and her friends come in; they have been recruited by the mystic Cessaire to give the mystics the edge over the cyborgs in the war. Rather, Soibian was recruited because she was born with a mystic elder?s blood, the rest were brought to otherworld solely to protect her. All of them have been given powers, ranging from those of your standard superhero, to shape shifting, and even, telekinesis. They?ve been dragged into this war against their will and quickly realize that the word of Cessaire is not the gospel and they are forced to save a people who seem to not want their help. Now, with Soibian?s boyfriend on the other side, fighting for the cyborgs, after experiencing the pain of his girlfriend cheating on him with his best friend, the drama level is about to rise.

Although the art is some of the best in comics, we?ve already seen that before from Jimenez. What he brings to the table here, is a vehicle to deal with the issues you can tell have been peculating in his brain for a while. He deals with racism in a scene from issue four when two warring villages stop the fighting, only to throw stones at one of Soibian?s friends, who transformed into a Cyclops only to help them, but they see as an outsider. Phil has often expressed his thoughts about women in comics, maintaining to me that comics cannot market to women because of the unsettling atmosphere in comic shops and many comic companies seeming inability to market to women.

?The material is there for women in comics, look at Sandman, Rose & Thorn or even Ghost World, but the predominate features of comic shops i.e., sweaty fanboys standing around a stuffy room next to the life-size cardboard cutouts of Emma Frost [X-men] with boobs the size of her head, and a thong waded up her ass. This is just the wrong way to get women into comic shops.?
Somehow, with all the creative freedom he was granted by DC/Vertigo, for this creator owned project, you just know that our discussion about the inequality of women is going to twist into the comic somehow. Even though Phil?s storytelling style can be very confusing and slow moving (having dropped us right into the heat of the action and not told us anything substantial about the plot until issue three) I admire what he is trying to do. He?s trying to bring relevant social issues back to comics, like Neal Adams did in the late ?80s and Grant Morrison did with Invisibles in the ?90s. He?s one of the guys in comics who has figured out, while Vertigo is a mature comic book line, that is supposed to deal with mature issues, most of their books have degenerated into having the ?mature readers? designation simply as a license to push the envelope. (With the notable exception of Deus Ex Machina and some recent limited series?) I applaud him for bringing back issue driven comics and letting the reader get inside his head.

I will happily grin and bear this convoluted and complex story and have faith in what he is doing. He certainly does, Phil has been pitching this series on and off for ten years, and I?m glad Vertigo finally took him up on it. Phil Jiminez is a rarity in comics, he is the whole package; he?s a writer/artist and creator. I wouldn?t worry if he goes off on a tangent every once in a while, I?d just enjoy the ride. Fact is he?s in his own little world, his Otherworld!

Otherworld is a Vertigo comic, so it is suggested for mature readers. Find your local comic shop and grab yourself a copy by calling the comic book locator service at: 1-888-COMIC-BOOK.

Tags: comics, otherworld, phil jimenez, vertigo

Posted by andPOP Staff on June 29th, 2005

Break out the Clearasil, “The Big Three” (Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman) along with the rest of the Justice League of America, have finally matured.

They have finally awakened to the realities of the world in which their stories are told, coming out of an idealistic haze that has permeated their universe for decades in favour of a more realistic and humanizing direction. However, this turns the unwritten laws, which have been a staple in all superhero lexicons, upside down.

It used to be that superheroes and villains never crossed the line of murder, brutality and deceit in their countless battles throughout the years, especially in the DC universe, but that all changed when Identity Crisis hit the shelves earlier this year and the trend continues in this summer’s Countdown to Infinite Crisis.

In Identity Crisis Elongated man’s wife, Sue Dibny, and Robin’s father, Jack Drake, were killed by the wife of the Atom, Jean Loring. Before this year, it was an unwritten rule that super villains did not kill the friends and family of their enemies. Granted, Marvel comics have killed off friends and family of the heroes before (the effects of the death of Spiderman’s girlfriend, Gwen Stacey, are still being felt in that universe today) but the DC universe had never crossed that line before Identity Crisis. In addition, the JLA’s loss was made more painful, especially for the Atom, by the revelation that the woman behind it all was their friend and Ally Jean Loring. Heroes have never had to face such a personal threat from someone so close to each of them, much less someone without super powers.

However, the heroes themselves are not pictures of perfection in this story. In by gone days the guys in the tights stood for truth, justice and the American way. They always did the right thing, but these days the right thing isn’t always so clear and now the JLA has stepped out of the black and white and into the land of the grey with the rest of us. After the rape (that’s right, rape!) of Sue Dibny aboard the JLA watchtower by Dr. Light, it is decided by a second string group of heroes to lobotomize him, so that he will never learn the secret identities of the heroes, and harm someone else close to them. This decision opens up an ethical can of worms that is made worse when batman shows up, catches them in the act and they make the decision to clear his memory of the incident. Thanks to an injection of realism, the hereos are forced into ethical dilemmas like this one and they are finally made into flawed human beings with real problems, rather than high and mighty god-like creatures that always do the right thing. Villains also seem to be crossing a line; the JLA has never had to deal with the rape of anyone, let alone a spouse of one of their own. The effects of Identity Crisis are still being felt one year later. The ramifications of Batman’s mind-wipe are being felt in Countdown to Infinite Crisis’s OMAC Project, as he implements a spy satellite network designed to make sure no other heroes cross the line with anyone else again. The fallout from Identity Crisis can be seen in JLA #115-120 as the heroes deal with betraying their own ideals. Now, because of this one story, it seems that rape has been added to the arsenal of super villains and now even the world’s most classic heroes aren’t so squeaky clean anymore. They seem to come out of the pages of DC’s adult line, Vertigo.

What is the comic world coming to? Well, DC has put on their big boy pants in favour of quality storytelling with deeper characterization. Now, we finally get to see the true colours of our favourite heroes at their most vulnerable. We see the love Bruce Wayne truly has for his protege as he comforts Robin after the death of his father, we see the weakness and hardship the heroes have to go through as they sacrifice a villain’s faculties for the safety of the people they love and we also see that even heroes make mistakes that have grave consequences and change all involved forever. The world is a dangerous place where people feel a whole myriad of conflicted emotions and we are constantly reminded that our actions have consequences, some good and some bad. It’s about time the heroes show us their true colours; show us what is under the mask and triumph over real emotional adversity. It is much easier for a reader to root for a character when they know that underneath the cape and past the powers they are just average people trying to do the best they can in the world. Brad Meltzer and Rags Morales, the writer and artist for Identity Crisis, remind us that without a human heart and soul, superheroes are just inconsequential gods. Still, comic fans love what they love: the clearly defined good guys versus the clearly defined bad guys, paired with the classic trysts between good and evil with a clear cut decision that has the hero coming out on top. There is always room for that, and no one wants to see their favourite characters get hurt in new and brutal ways, but every so often there are stories that show us the darker and more visceral side of heroism, in doing so, also show us what it means to be a hero. Being a hero means making the tough decisions, so others don?t have to. Being a hero also means wearing your heart on your sleeve for the benefit of others. Meltzer and Morales show us that along with the darkness, there is also growth and wisdom in the adult realm.

Meltzer and Morales aren’t the first to explore what it means to be a hero through darker and more mature subject matter, Alan Moore did it with Watchmen, Frank Miller did it with The Dark Knight Returns, Neil Gaiman did it with Sandman and Alex Ross did it with Kingdom Come. However, all of those series were limited stories with a beginning middle and end that only lasted as long as the stories needed to be told. They were only brief forays into this subject matter, and once they were finished the world of comics snapped back to its original formula and nothing really changed permanently in superhero comics. Now, it seems like comics will be elevated to a more sophisticated level and will stay there, as the effects of Identity Crisis extend to the countdown books and finally Infinite Crisis itself, with the series opener killing off the Blue Beatle. Also, DC isn’t the only company going through the pains of “superhero puberty.” Marvel is currently exploring what happens when one of their most beloved Avengers, Scarlet Witch, goes insane and loses control of her reality altering powers, effecting the Marvel heroes personally as they are transported into alternate universe she created in the House of M books. The Avengers are slowly reformed as well, in the pages of New Avengers, after she caused such cataclysmic devastation to the previous incarnation.

Still, there are those who will draw their line in the sand and prefer the more classic stories of yesteryear. The ones that deal with universe altering external threats rather than the soul altering personal ones and that is fine. That’s why Marvel Age titles, suggested for junior readers, can exist on a shelf with DC’s Vertigo line, suggested for mature readers. However, all comics need to evolve to meet the world that their stories are told in. They need to remain relevant and show us that what it means to be a hero evolves over time. They need to show us that the job is tougher now, than it has ever been.

The collected Identity Crisis graphic novel comes out in September, follow its aftermath in the pages of JLA and Countdown to Infinite Crisis. Find a Comic shop near you by calling the Comic Book Locator Service toll free at 1-888-COMIC-BOOK.

Tags: comics, crisis, DC, identity, puberty