Scott Pilgrim-mania!

So in addition to the Scott Pilgrim movie being excellent, the video game is a lot of fun. But don’t forget where all of this Scott Pilgrim mania originated – The comics!

We’ve currently got every volume of the Scott Pilgrim graphic novel series from Oni Press in stock, so be sure to get caught up on what some are calling the next big fad!

Digital Comics Revolution?

I wrote this as a long-winded response to a post made on Comic Zone’s Facebook profile, yesterday. I figured posting it as a blog wouldn’t be a bad idea.

FACT: Both Marvel and DC’s editors-in-chief (Joe Quesada and Dan DiDio, before both of their recent promotions) have stated for a fact that they do NOT want to stop printing comics. However, after watching what happened to the music industry, they recognize that by NOT embracing digital publishing, they’re missing out on an entire stream of revenue that will lead to future problems.

FACT: So far, Marvel is doing a good job of keeping 99% of things fair for the brick-and-mortar comic stores, as 99% of what hits their digital store comes out SIX MONTHS AFTER the print version. Yes, there are exceptions – the recent SPIDER-WOMAN series was a motion comic before the seven individual issues were printed, and the upcoming INVINCIBLE IRON MAN ANNUAL will see physical and digital stores at the same time. But eight items over the course of 9 months is nothing, when you consider that Marvel have had over 1,000 issues published physically six months before digitally in that time frame.

FACT: DC, meanwhile, have announced exactly ZERO plans for digital distribution. They seem to be content with things as they are – Which is an opinion that is hard to argue with; They’re constantly in 2nd place in sales numbers and sales dollars, but they also print about 75% the material that Marvel does (if not even less!), on a per-month basis, and are generally not very far behind Marvel in terms of direct market sales. It’s hard to make a argument claiming that DC doesn’t want to print comics anymore when they have zero online distribution methods in place, currently.

FACT: Smaller publishers (Dark Horse and IDW, specifically) Are the ones who are jumping to the same-day distribution models a lot faster, particularly with their licensed material. However, maintaining those licenses is an added expense that Marvel and DC don’t have, so it makes sense that Dark Horse and IDW would want to get an extra stream of revenue going as quickly as possible. Also, both Dark Horse and IDW make up less than 10% of the comics market share (even combined they make up less than 10%), so they’re taking far less of a risk of alienating current fans and finding new ones.

FACT: Paul O’Brien of HouseToAstonish.com (formerly of TheXAxis.com) is an X-Men completist, and has reviewed almost every single issue of X-Men, ever. Do you really think he’s going to STOP buying every X-family comic in print format just because online distribution is now available to him? I can tell you for a fact that he isn’t, DESPITE the constant problems that the UK’s postal service has, causing him to consistently have books shipped late.

It will take several years before online distribution becomes the norm for the comics industry. There are far too many people who have all 700+ issues of the various Avengers titles (Avengers, West Coast, Solo/Spotlight, New, Mighty, Initiative, Dark, Secret, new New, etc.) to just STOP the monthly habit of buying physical copies.

Will there be a shift in current readers who want to jump on the digital bandwagon? Absolutely. But it’s far too early to tell what that percentage of current readership that will be, especially if Marvel continue their six-months-later policy.

But what we DO know is that their online sales have created new readers. And as long as people are reading comics in one form or another, the industry survives. And that’s why the online distribution model began in the first place.

Dawning of the Heroic Age

A couple months ago, in an earlier blog, I speculated that The Sentry may have been too powerful a character to keep around the Marvel Universe. With his seemingly-unlimited powers, and his suffering from multiple personality disorder, it seemed like he was destined to be destroyed, because he was too great a threat to the safety of everybody in the Marvel Universe – Be it an innocent bystander on Earth, an unfortunate member of the bird-like Shi’Ar race, or even the bizarre Popuppians. And The Sentry was intelligent enough, himself, to recognize this fact, and had Thor throw him into the sun.

So, now, Norman Osborn is no longer in charge. H.A.M.M.E.R. is back to being known as S.H.I.E.L.D., and Steve Rogers is the new “top cop” in the Marvel U.

The overall feel of this era of the Marvel Universe is much lighter than the one that began with AVENGERS: DISASSEMBLED in 2004 and ended with SIEGE in 2010.

In 2004, there was an overabundance of mutants in the Marvel Universe. It seemed like every third character that was introduced was a mutant, for no reason other than just so another origin wasn’t needed to be written.

The Avengers experienced their worst day in history, when the Scarlet Witch went insane and killed Hawkeye, Vision, Jack of Hearts, Scott Lang/Ant-Man, and cause She-Hulk to go into an insane rage.

Even when the New Avengers were founded, it was because of a breakout at The Raft, Marvel’s maximum security prison, and an endless number of super villains escaped.

During the next six years, the world was completely changed to an alternate version where mutants are the dominant species, only to be changed back to its previous state, but with less than 1% of the mutant population retaining their X-Gene.

Due to a super villain attack on a school, the heroes were divided on whether or not the new government-mandated registration-if-you-have-super-powers was a good or bad idea, and found themselves in the midst of a superhuman civil war, which ultimately led to the death of Steve Rogers, aka Captain America.

While Cap was gone, it turned out that there was an invasion from the alien shape-shifting race known as the Skrulls. And when they proved too much for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, it was the Green Goblin himself, Norman Osborn, who saved the day and publicly killed the Skrulls’ queen, putting him in the role of #1 security guy. So what’s he do? Hires a bunch of other villains to be his version of the Avengers.

But, this time around? Everything is optimistic. Things are being fixed. Norman Osborn’s Dark Reign of terror is over, and the good guys are in charge, again.

Steve Rogers has founded a new team of Avengers, and the first mission’s roster includes Steve, Bucky Barnes as Captain America, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, and Spider-Woman… up against Kang the conqueror?

Steve’s also founded a team of black-ops Secret Avengers, consisting of his girlfriend Sharon Carton, The Beast, Valkyrie, Moon Knight, the irredeemable Ant-Man (Eric O’Grady), Nova, and War Machine.

And coming later this month, there’ll be yet a THIRD team of New Avengers, consisting of Ms. Marvel, Wolverine, Spider-Man, The Thing, and Jessica Jones, being led by Luke Cage.

With three Avengers teams actually consisting of Avengers, the world has got to be a safer place, right?

…Right?

I guess time will tell.

Captain Fantastic Faster Than Superman Spiderman Batman Wolverine Hulk And The Flash Combined

A British 19-year-old boy, originally named George Garratt, legally had his name changed to “Captain Fantastic Faster Than Superman Spiderman Batman Wolverine Hulk And The Flash Combined.”

Little does he realize that his name has a typo, as the proper spelling for “Spider-Man” includes a hyphen.

Also, reportedly, his grandmother is so upset by the change, she is no longer speaking to him.

Read more at: http://gfestblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/british-teen-changes-name-to-captain.html

This was too amazing to NOT share.

Iron Man 2

First impression? Fantastic. Not quite as good as the first movie, but far better than most sequels. It’s too bad IM2 came out three weeks AFTER Kick-Ass, because while it definitely carries Kick-Ass’s momentum, it doesn’t necessarily build upon it. Had the two movies been reversed, I think IM2 would’ve felt a lot more special than it does, now.

Below are random notes as I think of them:

Changes a-plenty to many characters’ origins and backgrounds, but nothing that Bendis, Millar, or Warren Ellis wouldn’t have done in the Ultimate Marvel Universe. A much bigger role from Sam Jackson as Nick Fury, this time around. Scarlet Johansson as the Black Widow (Natalie Rushman/Natasha Romanov) was kind of superfluous, and her fantastic fight scenes are unfortunately severely overshadowed by Hit-Girl’s, but she was a welcome addition to the cast, at least for the eye candy. Don Cheadle replacing Terrance Howard as Lt. Col. James “Rhodey” Rhodes (War Machine) was 100% unnecessary from my perspective. Unless there was something going on behind the scenes that we don’t know about, I don’t think the change was a wise decision.

Mickey Rourke as Ivan Vanko (or Whiplash, if you must) was awesome. It was the first time I ever felt as though Whiplash/Blacklash was a threat to Iron Man, but he was QUITE a threat. Sam Rockwell’s role as Justin Hammer was very entertaining. I don’t know much about Hammer’s character in the comics, but I completely buy the film’s version being a solid interpretation.

Robert Downey, Jr. owns the Tony Stark role. It will be a shame when he can no longer play the Golden Avenger due to real life getting in the way. Gwyneth Paltrow is also a solid return to form as Pepper Potts. She’s got a smaller role this time around, but is just as essential to Tony Stark’s life. And the after-credits bit will pump up audiences for Marvel’s next movie offering.

I feel that Iron Man 2 is a worthy successor to the first movie, despite what the critics may have been saying. I’ll see this at least once more in theatres, and it is definitely going to end up on my DVD shelf.

Post-Free Comic Book Day 2010 message from Andy

As just the second FCBD that I’ve participated in as a retailer, I was very excited at yesterday’s turnout. As a business co-owner, it was wonderful to have so many new faces in our store. As the guy who works at the store, it was absolutely fantastic to see so many of our regular guests returning to see what the comics publishers were offering for free. And as just me, it was so much fun to get to hang out with so many of my friends, throughout the day.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to give a huge thanks to each and every person who came in and helped make May 1, 2010 one of my favorite (if completely exhausting) days, ever. And an even huger thanks to Tom Leveen and his wonderful wife, Joy, for shilling Tom’s new book, PARTY. We still have a few copies left, which Tom has pre-signed for their future owners. Come on in and get one before they’re gone!

The first number zero comic?

Avery and I were talking about the history of comics funnily-numbered comics, today, and we were wondering what the very first number zero comic was. We knew Wizard had released a bunch of 1/2 issues, and Marvel had released all the #-1 issues in July of 1997’s “Flashback Month,” detailing a bunch of stories that took place prior to the #1 issues of each series. But what was the very first #0?

We first pontificated that it may have been 1994’s ZERO HOUR #0 from DC Comics (which was actually the sixth issue in the series, as it had a countdown gimmick – And it may have possibly been the first comic to have a countdown), but then I recalled that Valiant comics had released an X-O MANOWAR #0 around that same time. We checked, and it had a publication date of August, 1993. So, as far as we can tell, X-O MANOWAR #0 from Valiant comics was the very first number zero issue.

Can any of our loyal Comic Zoners out there help us come up with an earlier one? I think that this would be a very interesting bit of trivia to know!

Is the Sentry too powerful?

SPOILER WARNING!
This article will contain MAJOR spoilers for recent Marvel Comics titles. Specifically, SIEGE. Please do not read any further if you do not want the comics spoiled for you. You have been given very fair warning, by now. Continuing to read will give you spoilers galore. There’s an article contained within, but there are spoilers, too.

So. SIEGE #3 came out this week. And at the end, it was revealed that Norman Osborn has been controlling The Void by keeping him suppressed within Bob Reynolds, all along. This isn’t a huge surprise, as in the recent issues of DARK AVENGERS, there have been some quick interactions between “Stormin’ Norman” and the Sentry’s other half.

It has also recently been revealed that The Sentry has far more power than anybody ever expected – He has the ability to manipulate molecules in any way that he can imagine. This makes him one of the absolute most powerful superhumans in Marvel’s history. While Apocalypse has the ability to alter his own molecular structure in any way, he cannot affect the molecules of others. Say what you will about Thanos being evil, but at least when he was in control of the Infinity Gauntlet, he’s aware of the power he wields. And even The Molecule Man, who has the same abilities as The Sentry, just wants to be left alone. Molecule Man doesn’t really wish any harm on anybody that leaves him alone, anymore. And as the pre-SIEGE issues of DARK AVENGERS showed, he’s able to be reasoned with.

But The Sentry is a drug addict who is addicted to drugs that make him incomparably powerful. And he suffers from multiple personality disorder, with the distinct personalities of Bob Reynolds and The Sentry and The Void all running around in the same head, disagreeing all the time, all wanting different things. Add to that the fact that The Void is distinctively destructive, and I’m thinking that the heroes in the Marvel Universe really need to ask themselves if it wouldn’t be safer for everybody if they just destroyed Bob Reynolds and all of his multiple personalities, altogether.

Of course, at what point are Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and friends allowed to decide when somebody allowed to live or die?

I’m very intrigued to see what happens in SIEGE #4, now that The Void is decidedly the last big obstacle before the dawning of the Heroic Age.

Dynamite’s RoboCop #1 Review

When I was a kid, ROBOCOP AND THE ULTRA POLICE was one of my favorite cartoons.

Granted, I had a LOT of favorite cartoons – Growing up in the mid-to-late 80s, the youngest part of my life basically consisted of cartoons and their toy tie-ins; I had dozens of action figures based on Transformers, Thundercats, Centurions, Silverhawks, The Real Ghostbusters, C.O.P.S., and more. But one of my favorite toys, amongst them all, was RoboCop.

ROBOCOP 2 came out in theatres, shortly after ULTRA POLICE ended, and I remember watching it on TV, several times. And, for a 1990 movie, it was about as badass as a movie was going to get – Far more hardcore than BATMAN had been in 1989, and way darker than the first TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES. Robocop was the epitome of badass in my house, (at least, until TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY came out a year later).

And then ROBOCOP 3 happened, in 1993, followed by the ROBOCOP television series. And it was basically all downhill from there. A few years back, Dark Horse released FRANK MILLER’S ROBOCOP series, which was Miller’s version of the ROBOCOP 2 script (little-known fact: Frank Miller of Sin City and 300 fame penned the scripts for the first two Robocop films. Seriously!). And, if you didn’t have ROBOCOP 2 memorized, you’d have no idea what was going on in that comic. To say that it was bad would be giving bad comics a poor name.

So, I went into this version of Robocop, hopeful. I didn’t expect it to be great, but I think there’s still some potential to be had with Robocop and his world.

To start off, Dynamite’s comic takes place after the events of the first movie – You can tell, because there’s a small parenthetical comment inside the front cover that tells you so.

The art is serviceable. The characters all look like the actors who played them in the first film, but is otherwise kind of standard comic art from 12 years ago. The coloring is a bit too high-contrast for my tastes. But there’s nothing WRONG with it. It just doesn’t jive with me. And it’s extremely bloody, for no reason other than just because. Like it’s supposed to be shocking, which would’ve been great for a pre-1992 comic.

And the story… is ROBOCOP 2 without Cain or the “Nuke” drug. Everybody swears all over the place (Even Robocop curses), and it’s just… not original.

So what we’re left with is a comic that’s supposed to take place between the first two movies, that’s basically the same plot as the second movie that’s unnecessarily gory and has vulgarities thrown in for the sake of throwing in vulgarities.

It’s like Dynamite got the Robocop license and handed it to some random creators and said, “go.” There’s nothing original, here, and the people working on it clearly don’t have the same care for the characters that any of its fans do.

I can’t really recommend this comic to anybody, save Robocop’s blind loyalists. Which is unfortunate, because I was really looking forward to this being good. And now I’m not sure Robocop can be good, ever again.

Captain America #602 “recalled from shelves”?

Psh, no.

Apparently, there’s this big controversy going on that Captain America #602 involves Marvel siding with/slamming the Tea Party movement, which I had not heard of until today, when a customer came in saying that Captain America #602 was recalled from store shelves everywhere, etc., etc. (Wow, a book called “CAPTAIN AMERICA,” mentioning political issues and polarizing the country, which is possibly more blindly divided now than ever before? No, THAT could never happen…)

I have not gotten a single letter from either Marvel or Diamond Comics Distributors about that issue being recalled. So that story is bunk, right off (although, he did buy all the copies of Cap 602 that we had left, so at least we made a nice sale off the guy. Hehe!).

The panel in question is below:

image taken from WashingtonTimes.com. Click to see full-size.

Marvel’s Editor-in-Chief, Joe Quesada, has already released a public statement on the issue, in his newest “Cup O’ Joe” article, on CBR.

The book was getting ready to go to the printer, it was on fire already from a deadline standpoint, but the editor on the book noticed that there was a small art correct that needed to get done. On the first page featuring the protestors, the artist on the book drew slogans into the protest signs to give them a sense of reality and to set up the scene. On the following page featuring the protestors again, there were signs, but nothing written in them. From a continuity standpoint, this omission stood out like a sore thumb, but was easily fixable. So, just before the book went to the printer, the editor asked the letterer on the book to just fudge in some quick signs. The letterer in his rush to get the book out of the door but wanting to keep the signs believable, looked on the net and started pulling slogans from actual signs. That’s when he came upon this one.

And used it in the scene and off it went to the printer. Unfortunately, to make the deadline, the work wasn’t double-checked thoroughly, and it was printed as is, which is where we as an editorial group screwed up. We spoke to the letterer, and he was mortified at his mistake and was truly sorry as he had no political agenda. He was just trying to do his job, but ultimately the onus falls on me as E-i-C. All that said, we caught the mistake two weeks ago, after it was printed and removed the sign from the art files so that it no longer appears in future reprints of the title or collections. So, while the crowd protesting has nothing to do with the villains in the story, we in no way meant to say they were associated with the Tea Party movement, it was a simple perfect storm of screw-ups. It happens, we’re human.

So, there you go. It was a deadline-crunching accident made by someone who was trying to do his job, so that we could all get our copies of Cap #602 on time. And considering how poorly a job CAPTAIN AMERICA: REBORN was doing, in regards to shipping on time, I’m not surprised Marvel wanted to get the first new issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA-proper out on time.

So, as a warning, DO NOT go out and buy 23 copies of this comic. They will sit in your closet and rot. You will not be able to sell them for big money (unless it’s to the folks who actually, you know, READ comics like CAPTAIN AMERICA, and happened to not get this particular issue on time).

This is like the WWE (then-WWF) Al Snow action figure debacle of 1999, all over again. Al Snow was a pro wrestler who used to come to the ring with a mannequin head, appropriately named “Head.” Al’s gimmick was that he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, and he and Head would talk to each other. To show that he was nuts, he would write “HELP ME!” backwards on both his own forehead, as well as Head’s forehead. Unfortunately, when JAKKS Pacific made the Al Snow figure, the Head accessory looked a bit too much like a Barbie head for one mother. She saw the figure and, after doing exactly zero research, complained to Wal-Mart about WWF being an advocate of Al Snow murdering women, decapitating them, and carrying their disembodied heads to the ring like some kind of Devil Worshipper. Wal-Mart immediately pulled all the Al Snow figures from their shelves, causing Toys “R” Us and Target to do the same. This caused all Al Snow figures on the secondary market (like eBay) to skyrocket to absolutely ridiculous prices, with some people selling their Al Snow figures in the triple-digits. However, after all the hysteria calmed down, all the retail outlets put their Al Snow figures back on the shelves, and nobody cared.

Completists may want to buy Cap #602 to see the story with is unaltered poster signs. People like myself who buy the comic monthly will want the issue to make sure we continue collecting each month’s comic. And, really, everybody should be buying Ed Brubaker’s run on CAPTAIN AMERICA, which started in 2005, because it’s really freaking good. But the only people who are going to be getting rich of Cap #602 are the people selling you the comic at an artificially inflated price. Don’t be a sucker.

Comics are for reading. You aren’t going to get rich off anything printed in 2010.