SUSPENDING DISBELIEF

a blog by Michael K. Willis

 If there’s one thing I know about the Legion of Super-Heroes it’s that they’re like Bebe’s Kids (ooo, an obscure 80’s reference)…they don’t die, they just multiply.  DC never stops going to the Legion well and since the adventures of Superboy and the Legion were my first favorite comic book way back in the day I couldn’t be happier.

Following on the heels of Legion of Three Worlds (not to mention that there are a handful of Legionnaires currently running around the Superman books) the Legion took the backup spot in the recently revived Adventure Comics (backing up Superboy just like they did when they first burst on the scene.)

Then legendary Legion scribe Paul Levitz stepped down from his executive gig and picked up the reins of the group he helped take to amazing heights.   And now DC announces that Levitz will be writing two Legion series: Adventure Comics (which they are taking over from Superboy just like they did back in the day) and a new Legion of Super-Heroes series.

Great Rao, it’s a slice of heaven for Legion fandom (of which I am an longtime and unabashed member.)  I’m not getting my expectations up too high…but I hope it’s good.  And fun.  And cool.  (That’s not too much to ask, right?)

Long Live the Legion!

SUSPENDING DISBELIEF

a blog by Michael K. Willis

Marvel’s “Dark Reign” goes on (and on and on and on…) and I guess there’s something audacious about having a murderously unstable villain like Norman Osborn become, in effect, the most powerful person in the US without having done so by overtly nefarious means (much like Lex Luthor’s abortive term as the President of the USA in the DC Universe.)  Osborn is everywhere (as is that annoyingly ubiquitous “Dark Reign” logo) and though we know that he will get his comeuppance sooner or later (“later” if the Dark Reign books continue to sell well) there’s something disturbing about this whole episode.

Disturbing because as audacious as it might be, “Dark Reign” is also incredibly cynical…I mean it stems from the premise that a large percentage of the American people will willingly drink the Kool-Aid at the behest of a smooth talking lunatic while the heroes who know better flail around impotently (yes, again, I know this will change but still…)

It all has a “wouldn’t it be cool if…?” vibe but if I was a kid I can’t imagine that I would be enjoying the Marvel Universe very much these days.  You have, for example, a government sanctioned team of “Avengers” made up of murderous psychopaths like Bullseye and Venom while the Avenger squads made up of the real heroes are outlaws running and hiding from the once and future Green Goblin’s iron-fisted rule of law and you have secret cabals of heroes and villains meeting to decide what’s best for everybody else (the “heroic” Illuminati setting into motion events that nearly led to the subjugation of the planet in “World War Hulk” while the “villainous” Dark Illuminati are working at cross purposes that, the members being who they are,  cannot come to anything other than murderous chaos)…it’s all very “cool” but not that much fun.

But, that said, I know that super-hero comics are not for kids anymore (that ship has sailed long ago as a few generations of potential new young readers have eschewed comics for other entertainments) and the adult cynicism of a sprawling storyline like “Dark Reign” apparently appeals to the audience to which it is aimed…and, perhaps more importantly, to the writers and artists who are creating it.

Excelsior…I guess…

Suspending Disbelief

a blog by Michael K. Willis

Back when I was a young whippersnapper a guy who was trying to get in good with my mother gave me and my brother a big box of super-hero comic books he bought in a used bookstore.  My brother only had a passing interest in comics so I ended up with almost all of them.  Most of them were DC comics and a good percentage of them were the big annuals DC used to put out (80 pages for a quarter!  Such a deal!)  I fell in love with those things (I had no idea they were reprints…and I didn’t care, the stories were all new to me.)

Even though I was a Superman fan from the get-go, I was incredibly fond of the Batman giants with their goofy plots and absurd (but fun) getups and situations.  I lost most of my 80-page giants when I was in High School but back when the San Diego Comic-Con was more about comics than movies I used to find dealers who had them in their cardboard boxes full of old comics and I could usually get them for a song and so I found some of them again.

DC COMICS CLASSICS LIBRARY: THE BATMAN ANNUALS collects the first 3 of those giant collections in a beautifully colored hardcover volume.  Bill Finger and Edmond Hamilton wrote the lion’s share of these stories while the venerable Dick Sprang did a large percentage of the pencil art.

This isn’t your grim and gritty Batman…no this Batman is a happy fellow tooling around town in broad daylight (in that great old tank of a Batmobile with the big fin on the back) and even showing up to recreate cases for a TV show and inviting a TV crew into the Batcave for a live broadcast. 

Batman and Robin are globetrotting and having a grand old time foiling the “madcap antics” of the Joker (no crazed murdered he…just the puckish clown prince of crime he used to be) and a motley cast b-list villains (the foppish King of Crime, the giant Gorilla Boss of Gotham City, the Mad Hatter, the Firefly) and dressing up in outlandish bat-costumes (you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Batman in a kilt or as an Native American Chief or in his scuba suit or space suit or wearing his Tarzan loincloth.  Seriously.)

These are stories from a kinder, gentler time when Batman could be spirited off to a planet where he has Superman-like powers (which features the first appearance of that “Zur-En-Arrh” Batman that played a big part in the recent “Batman R.I.P.” storyline) or sent back in time via hypnosis (yep, hypnosis…you can do anything in super-hero comics :-) 

There are some head scratchers that only seem anything less than innocent in our jaded modern eyes.  One story, for example, suggests that Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson sleep in twin beds in the same bedroom (seems like there should be a LOT of bedrooms in stately Wayne Manor) while another features the fellas tanning under ultra-violet lights (wearing nothing but strategically placed towels) after exercising (says Bruce: “…that was a good game of handball you gave me, Dick…a real workout!…”)

But I’m not heaping any modern innuendo on these delightfully goofy stories, I’m just digging them as guilelessly as I can…as guilelessly as I did when I first read them when I was 8.  All fun and no angst…this IS your father’s Batman…these stories made me smile then and they make me smile now and ain’t that what a funnybook should do? 

SUSPENDING DISBELIEF

a blog by Michael K. Willis

When I was a young comic reading whippersnapper there were times when I would walk the 10 blocks to the drugstore with the comic spinner rack (the closest place in my neighborhood that sold “funnybooks”, as the pharmacist insisted on calling them much to my disgust and dismay) and take a chance on finding something I wanted to buy (distribution was kind of spotty…missed issues were commonplace… and the pharmacist really care what was on the rack.)

Every once in a blue moon I would get there, my bi-weekly allowance in hand, and not find a lot of super-hero books that I didn’t have and it was in those desperate moments that I might shell out twelve cents on something outside of the genre…something like an Archie comic (we will pause here while you get the tittering out of your system…all done now?  Okay…)

Seriously the soap opera plots weren’t that much different from the stuff happening in some of the Superman books (Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane would have easily fit into the Archie line…well except for the “Superman’s Girlfriend” part…)

Off and on…especially when I spent some years managing a comic shop (my partner was a big Archie fan and we built up a fair number of customers…mostly adult women…who came to us to buy Archie digests)…I would check in with the kids from Riverdale High every now and again (the bizarre Archie/Punisher crossover that Marvel and Archie did some years ago still lingers strangely.)

Even when I was a lad I knew one thing was for sure…Archie was dope for not seeing that the sweet Betty, and not the spoiled Veronica, was the girl for him.  Yeah, Ronnie had zillions of dollars but she was so high maintenance that I never understood the dilemma (unlike Clark Kent’s romantic triangle where the choice between Lois and Lana wasn’t as clear cut…at least not to me…but then I’ve always had a thing for redheaded women…)

The cover to the upcoming Archie #600 (see above) shows the big dope making a decision…the wrong decision!  Now I realize that this story will not really change the status quo of the Archie gang when the storyline is all said and done…the infamous “illusion of change” comment about comic book continuity very much applies to Archie Comics…but it does rekindle my boyhood animosity for the chuckleheaded Mr. Andrews

SUSPENDING DISBELIEF

a blog by Michael K. Willis

 There’s a coffin with the Titans logo on the cover of the upcoming Teen Titans #74 (see above.)  I guess that means that somebody’s going to “die”.  And I guess we’re supposed to be concerned about that.  Well I’m certainly not.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against the Titans and I’m not looking to see one of them get “killed” but DC and Marvel have so devalued the finality of “death” in the pages of their super-hero comics that it’s a waste of energy to give the transitory passing of a character much real thought.

I mean just in the Teen Titans world, two of the founding members of the current series…Kid Flash and Superboy…have both “died” and now they’ve both gotten better.  I seriously wonder why people in the DC and Marvel universes bother putting up memorial statues and such for “dead” heroes…such things certainly look silly once the dead guy is back up and walking (or flying or running real fast…yes, we’re looking at you, Barry… or whatever) again

So rest in peace, dead Titan…for as long as you’re resting at all anyway…

SUSPENDING DISBELIEF

a blog by Michael K. Willis

Hands down the coolest (or at least the strangest) thing to be announced at the New York Comic Con was Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers (see above.) 

What’s not to like?  You got Lockjaw (the Inhumans’ dog), Redwing (the Falcon’s…um…falcon), Zabu (Ka-Zar’s sabertooth tiger), Hairball (Speedball’s cat), Lockheed (Kitty Pryde’s dragon), and, best of all, Frog Thor sharing a world-saving adventure in a 4-issue series! 

You got yet another Avengers title (at Marvel these days “Avengers” is the new “Wolverine”)!

And best of all you’ve got the possibility of an escalation of super-animal silliness that might make DC scramble to put together a Legion of Super-Pets mini! (Be still my Legion loving heart!)

It’s a win-win for those of us who think that there’s nothing cooler (or at least nothing stranger) than a super-team comprised entirely of super-powered animals

(I kid because I love…I’m so going to buy this when it starts in May.)

Suspending Disbelief:

When Good Things Happen to Bad People 

Michael K. Willis

The “Dark Reign” has just begun and I’m already more than tired of Norman Osborn’s  rise to power.  I know that this storyline will be finite and that Osborn will fall (at least I hope he will…if it sells well enough maybe Marvel will decide let it keep dancing for a while and from a business standpoint that would make sense) but there’s still something wearying about the cynicism that underlies the storyline…about the notion that a psychopath like Osborn could be lionized by the people and the government of the US and given almost unchecked power.

But then maybe I’m just being naive.

Both Marvel and DC are running story lines where the bad guys “win” and I guess the writers (and the fans) think that’s cool.  I see the dramatic possibilities in the stories…especially as I hold onto the notion that the good guys will, sooner or later, prevail…but I’m not sure I would have gotten that when I was a bright-eyed and curious boy just starting to get involved with the wonder of super-hero comics (having followed a reading continuum that started with Dr. Seuss and Mark Twain and Greek mythology and would continue on into science fiction and on into the wondrous worlds of words crafted into fiction and non-fiction of all kinds.)

But, again, I’m being naive…super-hero comics aren’t really aimed at children anymore (I am, in my dotage, part of the problem, of course) so I can see where there’s no problem with having “heroes” who are morally ambiguous and “villains” who win.

It’s probably not a good thing…but there we are.  So I suspend disbelief and move on (all the while hoping, for the sake of the hero-worshiping little boy who still dwells somewhere in my cynically optimistic heart,  that Norman Osborn’s eventual fall will be total and not at all ambiguous…I’m not holding on breath on that but I’m hoping…)

Excelsior, y’all

Suspending Disbelief

a blog by Michael K. Willis

The Christmas lights have (finally) been packed away and the lingering strains of the Twilight Zone theme have started to fade (despite the fact that I must have heard it at least 30 times during the New Year’s Day marathon on the Sci-Fi Channel…yeah, I’ve seen them all many times before but when it’s on I watch it anyway and now I focus on that which will make me want to happily suspend disbelief in this new year.

In no particular order some of the fanboy-friendly things we’re looking forward to this year are:

GEOFF JOHNS

Geoff Johns and friends continue to weave an involving prelude to Green Lantern: The Blackest Night (see above) story and I’m looking forward to seeing it all come together in a very cool way (no pressure though, Geoff, okay?) Add to that Flash: Rebirth and Superman: Secret Origin we’re ready to sit back and savor a lot of super-hero goodness written by the busy Mr. Johns (but, again, no pressure…)

LOVE & ROCKETS: NEW STORIES #2

Between the continuation of Jaime’s Penny Century super-hero story and whatever whimsical wonderfulness Gilbert and Mario come up the second annual issue of the new format will be well worth the wait.

LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, VOLUME 3: CENTURY

Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill turn up at Top Shelf with 3 72-page issues continuing the extraordinary adventures of the LOEG (see below.) It goes without saying that it’s going to be intriguing, engaging, and extremely entertaining.

WATCHMEN

I remain skeptical (despite the interesting trailers) that this will work but I’m really looking forward to finding out (presuming Warner Brothers and Fox can sort out their legal…or perhaps more to the point, financial…wrangling over the movie.)

ADVENTURE COMICS

The venerable title of my comic book buying youth returns…presumably with my first favorite super-team, the Legion of Super-Heroes, in the lead. Cool beans

UP

This year’s Pixar offering features the adventures of an unlikely duo: a crotchety old man (voiced by Ed Asner) trying to get away from people (he and his house float away thanks to a rainbow burst of balloons) and a chipper 8 year old stowaway who doesn’t quite let him. Sounds like fun to me.

DARK AVENGERS/SECRET WARRIORS

One features a twisted team of Assemblers while the other stars Nick Fury and his merry band of super-powered gadflies…Brian Michael Bendis provides what will probably be the heart of Marvel’s “Dark Reign”.

WOLVERINE (aka by the more unwieldy title X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE)

This prequel to the trilogy of X-Men movies looks to be action-packed and full of growly goodness. Hugh Jackman looks to be in fine form in the scenes I’ve seen and this should hopefully be good for a couple of hours of mindless mayhem.

CUPID

Back in 1998 me and maybe a half-dozen other people were big fans of the delightfully whimsical show where Jeremy Piven thought he was (or maybe he was), Cupid, the God of Love…it flopped. This spring it gets rebooted with Bobby Carnavale taking over the title role. With the cancellation of my current favorite delightfully whimsical show (Pushing Daisies) I’m hopeful that this Cupid will fly.

MONSTERS VERSUS ALIENS

Hey, the trailer and the website for this Dreamworks cartoon both tickle me…but then sometimes I’m easily amused

Doubtlessly some of these things will disappoint and other stuff from unexpected quarters will delight me. Bring it on.

…being a semi-random list of 10 comic book things that tickled the Suspending Disbelief’s fanboy fancy in’08  by Michael K. Willis

ALL-STAR SUPERMAN

Yeah it took Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely almost 3 years to get out 12 issues but who cares?  Freed from the shackles of continuity, Morrison let his mercurial imagination run and the result was a fun and funky, reverent and utterly, delightfully unrestrained Superman story that was well worth the wait between issues.  Quitely’s stunning artwork was a wonderful bonus treat.  The line for the Absolute All-Star Superman edition starts right behind me. 

AMERICAN FLAGG: DEFINITIVE COLLECTION, VOLUME 1

Long time in coming, the hardcover volume…collecting AF 1-14 and more, was well worth the wait as well.  Howard Chaykin’s seminal work is still as vital and prescient as it was when it came out back in the 80’s and this beautiful book is a fine showcase for it. 

THE DARK KNIGHT

Yes it was dark and perhaps a tad too long but it was also amazing with an utterly chilling and incredibly engaging performance by Heath Ledger at its bleak heart.   All super-hero movies should be this good. 

DYNAMITE COMICS

This company is putting out an impressive lineup.  Picking up Garth Ennis & Darrick Robertson wild and woolly The Boys from DC was a great move but their must-read output doesn’t stop there.  I had a special fondness for The Lone Ranger, Alex Ross’ Project Superpowers (and its spin-offs), Zorro, and Grant Ennis’ Battlefields.  They also get props from this quarter by putting out the hardcover omnibus edition of Ennis and Gary Erskine’s amazing Dan Dare series (originally published by the now-defunct Virgin Comics.) 

FINAL CRISIS: LEGION OF THREE WORLDS

The core Final Crisis is…oh, let’s be kind and say taking its time to make sense…but this book is like manna from heaven for Legion of Super-Heroes geeks (like me.)  Geoff Johns and George Perez and more Legionnaires than you could shake a flight ring at…what’s not to love?  :-) 

GREEN LANTERN

Geoff Johns and company are firing on all cylinders with this book and super-hero space opera has never been more fun as it ramps up from the grand Sinestro War and barrels headlong towards the multi-Lantern wonder that next year’s “Blackest Night” promises to be. 

IRON MAN

Robert Downey, Jr. was so perfect for this role in the movie that if you didn’t know better (but, of course, we do right?) you’d think that Stan had created the character of Tony Stark with him in mind.  In comics, the hard decisions that Stark has made since the Civil War came back to bring him low…and as annoyed as I was with the character at one point (I was on Cap’s side) I took no joy in it…instead I am intrigued to see how he claws his way back (you know he will.) 

LOVE & ROCKETS: NEW STORIES

Where the Hernandez Brothers lead, I will follow.  The new annual, trade paperback format for L&R makes for a long wait between issues…but, again, I’d rather have it good than fast so whatever works for the Bros works for me (especially when the results are as cool as the first issue was.) 

SECRET INVASION

Brian Michael Bendis is a magnificent bastard (something I’m sure he hears all the time) who masterminded a crossover that flowed so smoothly together that you’d think they actually planned it that way :-)  While part of me wishes that Marvel and DC Universes would lighten up…super-hero comics are supposed to be fun, aren’t they?…I can’t deny that I’m intrigued to see where things go in the dark aftermath of the Skrull invasion (even if that does mean we have to wade through a half-dozen or so Avengers titles in the process.)

VERTIGO COMICS

The good folks at this DC imprint had a banner year with a bunch of must-read titles flowing out at a wonderful clip.  Led by Bill Willingham’s ever inventive and simply wonderful Fables and Jack of Fables the line also featured gems like Matt Wagner’s fascinating Madame Xanadu, the absurd and acerbic Army@Love, the brutal but engrossing Unknown Soldier, the engaging Air, the groovy super-hero riff Greatest Hits, the beautiful Neil Gaiman/P. Craig Russell adaptation of Sandman: The Dream Hunters, Brian Woods’ always compelling work (DMZ, Northlanders, the Demo trade paperback), and more.  It was a good year to get Vertigo. 

* * *

Happy reading…and continued suspension of disbelief…to you and yours in ’09!

(A Christmas vignette by Michael K. Willis)

He came, soaring gracefully, from the North…an almost imperceptible blur of blue and scarlet knifing through the brisk winter’s air. 

A child, being half-dragged and half-carried by his preoccupied mother, spied the fleeting blur as it whizzed past a crowded shopping mall parking lot.  “Mama!” he cried incredulously scanning the heavens for another glimpse of the bright night traveler.  “Didja see him?!?”

“See who?”  The boy’s mother said absently as she fumbled around in her purse for her car keys. 

“I saw him!  Up there!”  The boy said, wide-eyed and giddy, pointing to the sky. 

His mother opened the car door and stuffed her purchases into the back seat.  “That’s nice, honey,” she said as she lifted him into the passenger seat and secured him with the seat belt.  “You can tell me all about it later.” 

She went around and got into the driver’s seat.  She started the engine and looked back for a chance to pull out.  “Right now we’ve got to hurry home and get everything ready for the big day…” 

The boy sighed dejectedly.  “Okay, Mama.  But I really did see him…flying over the city…” 

The woman, warmed by a sudden realization, smiled.  “Oh…” She turned and took his face gently into her hands.  “Well of course you saw him flying over the city, Michael…it is Christmas Eve after all and that’s exactly where he belongs on this night of nights.” 

She kissed his forehead and then turned back to drive.  Michael smiled and pressed his face to the window searching the dark skies for the traveler as the car pulled out into traffic for the short ride to the warmth of home. 

The blur came to rest upon the top of the tallest building in the city.  The blur became a man…a tall and powerful man…his burnished red boots softly crunching the fresh snow on the roof. 

He looked out over the festive, dancing lights of the city…of his city.  (He paused and smiled at that thought knowing full well that all the cities of the fragile blue Earth were his cities…so many responsibilities, all freely accepted.) 

His kind, knowing eyes grew softly opaque and, randomly, the lives of some of the citizens of the city were fleetingly known to him:  shoppers scurrying through the stores one final time…parents cursing and laughing and cursing again as they struggle to assemble magical wonders with only perseverance and arcane instructions to guide them…children sleeping and trying to sleep and pretending to sleep with visions of reindeer dancing in their minds…the faithful gathered in the myriad houses of God reaffirming their continuing gratitude for His gifts. 

He saw them all…heard them all…discreetly glancing past each life but feeling that much more content and reassured for having shared even a fleeting instant with each of them. 

The twinkle returned to his eyes as his field of vision contracted.  It was a good night, he thought, it was a soft and peaceful night. 

His thoughts drifted to his mother…the warm and wise woman who had taken an orphaned child as her own and raised him with all the love her abundant heart had to give.  She was, he was certain, fussing with pies or some such at that very moment.

A glance across the miles confirmed this almost instantly. His wife and his cousin were trimming the stately tree in the living room…and they were all sharing stories about his father and sharing bittersweet laughs and lingering memories. 

 The crowning star was waiting patiently in its padded box for the tall man’s arrival (that he would place the star was lifelong tradition…his father would neverhave it no other way.) 

The tall man smiled and drew a measure of bracing air into his mighty lungs.  And then, with nary an afterthought, he leapt boldly into the night, his great scarlet cloak billowing gracefully behind him. He cruised slowly, silently, around the city once more chuckling warmly whenever the inevitable “Look!  Up in the sky!” reached his all-hearing ears. 

“Merry Christmas, Metropolis,” he murmured affectionately as he turned towards the west and flew, straight and true, to the comforting warmth and love of his boyhood home and another blessed Christmas with the most important people in his life.

* * * * *

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all.