RE: Comics! #42 [Heroic Age]/[Brightest Day]

 

Stephen Mayer: It's a new Heroic Age! It's a Brightest Day! I shot a couple of books your way for you to peruse at your leisure. Without going into specifics or talking price yet, what were your pre-conceptions of the more "optimistic" company lines from the Big Two and what are your first impressions based on what you read?

Gregg Schigiel: Going back to before I read any of the actual content, I won’t lie, I was moderately hopeful. Anyone who’s been reading these columns knows my attitude towards superhero comics tends to be pro-“classic” approaches to superheroing, keeping a wider, general audience in mind.

And as may have been stated previously, I’d been a long time Avengers reader and fan up until “Disassembled”…and New Avengers #1 was pretty much the last Avengers comic I bought in the past seven or so years (save for Mighty Avengers under Slott/Gage and Avengers: Initiative at the end of its run).

So the promise of a return to the “classic” Avengers and the more “traditional” style and approach, I was more than happy to see that happen, open to the possibilities, and yes, hopeful.

Interestingly, I had a similar thought during Infinite Crisis, when things were going mental in the DCU, a part of me wondered if that might be the turning point whereby in the aftermath we might see a brighter, shinier DCU…one where Batman wasn’t a giant jerk who was responsible for the whole OMAC/Brother Eye business but was instead a superhero/detective/scourge of the underworld/protector of the innocent. As we all know, that was not the case. So it’s interesting now to see both Marvel and DC both promoting their lines as something newer, brighter, and as a theoretical paradigm shift from what we’ve seen lo these past many years.

Now, before we get into first impressions now that it’s begun, what were your expectations and thoughts going in. On the one hand you’ve been a reader/enjoyer of the stories I’d chosen to steer clear of on the Marvel side, especially. On the other hand, you’re one to go back and read older runs and get a sense of what had come before. So what were your pre-conceptions?

Stephen: As a retailer I was afraid that Marvel, in an attempt to make the Heroic Age accessible to the wider audience that you mentioned, would be giving its current readers more of a jumping off point than it would be giving new readers a way in. I guess you had a similar situation when Avengers vol. 3 wrapped up and New Avengers began, whereas that #1 was one of the biggest single issues Acme ever had.

From a storytelling standpoint, very early in my career at Acme I got in on the Avengers Assemble hardcovers that reprinted all of the Busiek/Perez run that you helped edit. From there I did Kree-Skrull War, Avengers Under Siege, etc. So I know classic Avengers plotting. More than the tone being appropriate for all ages, I wanted to see the Avengers get a definitive win again. I want to see a villain so big and crazy that he almost levels an entire city, but the Avengers wrap it up by the end of the arc because they are Earth's Mightiest Heroes and the happening isn't even mentioned in other books.

Personally I'm glad to see a lot of my buddies getting fresh starts on their titles. Jeff Parker's AGENTS OF ATLAS was a parenial favorite at Acme, so we're glad to see him get a re-launch with ATLAS, especially after the re-launch that was promised for IMMORTAL IRON FIST after the IMMORTAL WEAPONS mini wrapped never came. NEW AVENGERS: THE REUNION was a book I really looked forward to every month, so I was glad to hear that Jim McCann and David Lopez get to keep that story going with HAWKEYE & MOCKINGBIRD.

With Brightest Day, I was really kind of burned out on all of the Green Lantern stuff by the end of Blackest Night. I was glad to see Francis Manapul on the FLASH, but only because I loved his work on ADVENTURE COMICS and I would rather see him continue to draw Superboy and Wonder Girl and KRYPTO!

Before I get into my thoughts AFTER having read the new directions, let's get into some of the specifics on the books we picked out to kick around! What did you think of Johnny Romita Jr. on AVENGERS!?

Gregg: Okay, so the books we’re talking about specifically are AVENGERS #1, ENTER THE AGE OF HEROES one-shot, INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #25, BRIGHTEST DAY #0-2, and…whatever else we might cite along the way. That said…

There are certain comics artists that regularly get mentioned as legends in the field...JRJR isn’t mentioned enough on that list. He’s amazing in nearly everything he does…even if the content of a book, story-wise doesn’t float my boat, his skills as a storyteller and draftsman are tremendous. And I know we had a whole conversation distinguishing illustrator and cartoonist, but I’m going to complicate things by saying JRJR is also a great cartoonist, this time defining it as a style of drawing, cartooning, wherein “reality” is represented in iconic, simplified lines, etc.

Specifically with respect to JRJR and AVENGERS #1, I feel like Bendis is either wasting or doesn’t realize the potential, value, and power at his disposal being paired with JRJR. Here’s a guy who can draw anything, who can illustrate bold, classically intense comics in the “Mighty Marvel Manner”…and for the most part he’s asked to draw a bunch of superheroes doing a lot of standing and talking. Yes, there’s the big Thor action shot and Kang’s intro splash, but there’s also a splash page of Steve Rogers from mid-chest blabbing and a lot of dudes (and a couple of ladies) having a super-hero cocktail party.

And having JRJR on the art only made the lack of any real action in this issue more apparent. And I’m not saying every comic needs to be knock-down, drag-out action…but it would have really been a signal of something new and different to have seen something new and different. And for a first issue and such a public, big-time launch, this left me kind of cold. And it didn’t say to me “a new, ‘heroic age’ has begun!”.

But in reading reviews online to see where my opinion stood, I’m realizing I might be in the minority, at least relative to internet posters/reviewers; seems most folks really liked it and felt more than satisfied by the content. But then again, I read more than one reviewer complain about JRJR’s art saying it was too cartoony and not serious enough or too blocky, etc, etc. So as far as I’m concerned I’m right.

(and it’s one thing to say “it’s a first issue, you gotta give it time”, but compare that to the first issues of AVENGERS V.3, or THUNDERBOLTS or more recently the new SECRET AVENGERS #1, which, content notwithstanding, delivered at the very least a good mix of set-up, action, planting of seeds, and suspense/cliffhangers)

So…are you also right or do you disagree with me?

Stephen: I know where people are coming from when they talk about JRJR being too cartoony. I don't agree anymore, but when I was starting out reading comics again didn't understand everything he was doing. I think the first thing I bought straight off the stands that he did was SENTRY: REBORN. Then I got on THE ETERNALS mini that he did with Neil Gaiman, but it wasn't really until WORLD WAR HULK (just like 3 years ago) that I really came around to everyone he could do.

Since then I've gone back and read his run on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN with JMS and even dug through some of my X-Men stuff from when I was a kid and found his name all over it. One of my all-time favorite issues in retrospect was the one when Scott proposed go Jean, which had JRJR flashbacks to almost every huge X-Men moment. I will read anything he does.

That said, I don't think he gets the proper credit as a legend just yet because we don't really have the chance to look back on his whole body of work and he's second generation for comics. In the case of John Romita Sr., he's not doing interiors anymore and it's a big deal when he does a cover and you still have to look back to find his stuff. With JRJR, if you're a fan, there's pretty much something new on the stands somewhere to keep you satisfied.

I always most admired his work ethic. I heard, I believe it was on Fanboy Radio, an interview with him years ago where he talked about busting out an issue of Spider-man in a weekend. That's how you become a go-to guy when you're a master of your craft like that.

I also have a joke about Joe Kubert and John Romita Sr. sitting down and comparing the work their sons are doing.

But Avengers, right? I really enjoyed Avengers #1. While the tone and scope of the stories is starting to change, I don't think we'll see a shift back to one-and-done stories, thus the slow start. In this book of essays called ASSEMBLED they criticized Bendis for failing to write the Avengers as Earth's Mightiest Heroes, but we'll get there.

I was really impressed by the oral history of the Avengers that started in the back.  On Word Balloon, Bendis said that Live From New York was a big inspiration for it, and I was so stoked that I downloaded the sample in iBooks. I think it will be a great lesson for folks that never read Avengers before Disassembled.

Since you brought it up, SECRET AVENGERS did come out this week. This was the launch I was most skeptical about, mainly because of the team line-up. I care nothing for Moon Knight, Nova, Valkyre, or, I'm sorry, Beast. That said, the draws for me were Brubaker, Deodato, and Sharon Carter. I've been saying for months that it would be awesome to see a spy/Charlie's Angels kind of book with Sharon Carter, Black Widow, Maria Hill, and Pepper Potts. It's cool to see that emerging as a concept, even if it's not in the same book, with Sharon plotting for the Secret team, Maria serving as liaison for the Avengers proper, and most likely Victoria Hand landing in either NEW AVENGERS or AVENGERS ACADEMY.

What do you think of what's going on on the other side of the street? 

Gregg: Before we bounce over to DC and Brightest Day, you said about Avengers #1, “but we'll get there”…and as much as I don’t want to retread old ground, that very thing, the “wait and see” element, I have no interest in. This goes back to our talk of decompressed storytelling. And I might ALMOST excuse if, another topic callback, they weren’t charging $3.99 an issue. And maybe the oral history in the back was a hoot (I didn’t read it), but in a lot of ways it’s just more superheroes standing around talking…but now with no art. Now that I think about it, it’s another piece of “evidence” of just how little advantage was taken of having JRJR drawing your story.

LIVE FROM NEW YORK, on the other hand, was awesome, especially for an SNL nerd like me.

Now, Brightest Day…

Having had expectations dashed in the past with DCU stuff, I was skeptical. But I liked Blackest Night even if it got a little wonky by the end (I didn’t really buy all the spin-offs and such).

And I liked Brightest Day #0 well enough to buy #1, which had some nice bits including the Aquaman “reveal” that his dominion over sea life was now over dead sea life. I’m curious to see where that goes.

But like others, I was bothered by the change with Firestorm. I haven’t even followed Firestorm, but it seemed very arbitrary. As did the death of the Ryan Choi Atom (in that Titans/Villains one-shot).

I thought Brightest Day #2 took a real dip. Lots of stuff just bouncing around not doing much for me…that Martian Manhunter stuff was weirdly…that woman murdering her family was…I mean, brightest day my butt.

Bill Willingham, of who’s work it’s no secret I’m a fan of, wrote at the beginning of 2009 on a “conservative blog”, about the state of the modern superhero and how he, from that point on, wanted to write better, more heroic heroes. And he got a lot of internet heat for it; knee-jerk reacting to it being a politically leaning blog and many of assumptions and conclusions drawn about Willingham as a person, etc.

But he was making what I thought was a valid point, that the superhero as an idea or concept should maybe be something aspirational and something to admire. And as much as it pains me to admit it, that’s just not how it is anymore, generally speaking, in mainstream comics.


We’ve talked about this before too, but this insistence in making these fictional characters seen “real” seems to manifest in darker and drearier ways. If you chip away at what makes something extraordinary enough, it’s just going to end up being ordinary. Would SCOTT PILGRIM be remotely as engaging if you took out all the battles with the evil ex-boyfriends?

To that point, let’s talk about INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #25. I know you’re a big Fraction fan, but this was just…it was like reading a comic style soap opera about Tony Stark…like an over-explainy Iron Man 2 minus the cool Iron Man parts! In what appears to be an effort to make a comic accessible for fan of the movies, it basically retreads a lot of the movie, added pages and pages of Tony Stark explaining how his brain/hard drive/heart/repulsor device work, recent MU continuity to a degree, and gave us fewer than a handful of panels of Iron Man?!

In a show-don’t-tell kind of analysis, there was a lot of telling. Thought there’s one shot where Reed Richard’s head gets big…a silent panel, naturally…THAT could have used a bit more telling/explaining (this baffled Chris G and I, for what it’s worth, could offer no real explanation).

I’m not against changing the status quo or mixing it up, but I think what’s gone missing is an ideal or sort of mission statement or purpose with respect to super heroes, if that makes sense.

I might admittedly be victim of the salesmanship. I’m sure part of me, deep down, hoped that both Marvel and DC’s selling these new umbrella concepts might’ve actually embraced the “traditional” notion of a super hero. So far that seems less the case.

To AVENGERS #1, while it was cool to see Thor go at Kang like that, it certainly seemed less heroic - rather than contain the potential threat – to blast him with enough force to send him soaring into neighboring buildings. Or Wonder Woman, who some years ago snapped Maxwell Lord’s neck, only to have neck-snapping become like, a regular move/threat from her. Or in the IRON MAN/THOR FCBD comic, where the two of them start laying waste to a lunar colony, potentially killing the colonists, because a few money hungry jackballs were running said colony. Or this GREEN ARROW preview running everywhere that seems like more of the same. Or, speaking of archers, the HAWKEYE/MOCKINGBIRD preview from some weeks ago, where they’re shooting a mess of bikers, essentially kill-shots...in the back, no less (which was brought to my attention via Chris Haley’s “The Enthusiast” blog; credit where credit’s due)! In terms of a heroic ideal, those kinds of things really stick out to me.

Am I being too hard on things? Am I holding comics to a lofty impossibility? I wonder…because Jermaine, who tends towards being the “I remember when” guy, digs it, right? So in as much as I’m sure I’m right, what am I getting wrong?

And, back to the DC side, FLASH. Is it worth having Barry Allen back? Does anyone care? And what about Wally West…what becomes of him…he gonna lose his leg and get a bionic one so he, Roy Harper and Cyborg can form a whole Cyborg Titans (oh, if only DC had a “What If?” of their own)…?

Stephen: I won't say that you're wrong, I just think that as you said, you're looking for loftier ideals of what it means to be a hero and more compressed storytelling. So I don't think you're wrong, I just don't think you're taking the tone of the Heroic Age for what it is (or I'm just really caught up in the hype). Extinction level threats. All good guys are friends and back in charge. Definitive wins rather than more ambiguity over whose side who is on.

Now on the other side of the coin at DC, I've admittedly had enough. I can't tell what Brightest Day means at all. It seems like they're putting the banner on every single title no matter if it deals with Blackest Night fallout or not.

Though it is running on a parallel path (with Green Arrow killing Prometheus in JUSTICE LEAGUE: CRY FOR JUSTICE and going onto the run into the forest in Star City that Deadman created in BRIGHTEST DAY #0) rather than promoting itself fully bannered, the latest issue of RISE OF ARSENAL featured Roy whipping his ex-lover with an extension cord, tying her to a railing with it and having hate-sex, strapping on the robotic arm that you mentioned, freebasing coke, killing three hobos and running off with their cat that was probably born in a pool of gasoline.

In BRIGHTEST DAY #2 we see a mother slice up her whole family then scalp herself and pull her skin off.

Marvel got a lot of flack for the graphic depiction of Ares's death in SIEGE #2, but it seems those same levels of violence and gore have become commonplace at DC.

As for the Flash, it really doesn't make a difference to me that we've got Barry back as opposed to Wally in as such as I don't care that Dick is in the bat-suit instead of Bruce (with the exception of BATMAN & ROBIN, I read ever book on the shelves now like it's still Wayne). I liked Iris better than Linda, so my mind just sees a lady likin' the Flash and that's enough for me. Like it said above, if Manapul wasn't on the art, I probably wouldn't even be reading it.

So we’re talking about the big Avengers launches and you mentioned HAWKEYE & MOCKINGBIRD, but did you like anything you saw from DeConnick and McKelvie for Black Widow or Jeff Parker and Gabe Hardman or Kev Walker on ATLAS or THUNDERBOLTS, respectively, in ENTER THE HEROIC AGE?

Gregg: That really happened in RISE OF ARSENAL? That’s grotesque. I mean there’s one thing where I’m seeing what clearly are comics made for and sold to a specific audience…but do people really want to see that kind of thing in a superhero comic?! A slasher movie, horror comic, etc, sure…but yeah, clearly I’m reading “Heroic Age” as something different.

If it is indeed extinction-level threats and good guys are good guys, etc, then so far only SECRET AVENGERS #1 has hints of that (AVENGERS #1, despite Kang’s appearance, lacked too much substance to make me feel any weight…and having Spider-Woman “ooh” and “ahh” at stuff, after she presumably saw the events of Seige go down, doesn’t substitute for actual “oohs” and “ahhs”.

On the flip side, I looked at the preview to AVENGERS PRIME and I don’t know if it’s a “these events took place before the events of AVENGERS #1”, but the relationship between Cap and Iron Man on those pages is really hostile as compared that in AVENGERS…

Of the ENTER THE HEROIC AGE stories, Hawkeye & Mockingbird did the most in terms of creating interest. It established the dynamic and set stuff up what with Mockingbird clearly keeping something from Hawkeye (while he’s fully committing to her) that could play out as a really interesting thing. The Atlas story was fun and entertaining enough, but, and I don’t mean this as a slight to anyone involved – the writing was solid and the art was really nice – I’m just not interested in those characters. I’ve tried, but it ain’t happening for me. I would have liked to seem more from the Thunderbolts bit as well…but that might be my own personal history in play (as an intern at Marvel I was there when the pitch for TBolts got approved and the book started up, and that first issue, even in pitch/plot form was pretty rad). I’d have maybe liked to have seen more of the team and get a sense of that than the prisoners in jumpsuits talking and Luke Cage and Steve Rogers talking (for a guy who talks/types a whole lot I sure am down on talking, huh?). Black Widow was fine, but there was nothing about it that jumped out at me, though I found McKelvie an interesting choice for that. Oh, and Avengers Academy interests me less by virtue of the preview, which didn’t strike me, but I was liking AVENGERS: INITIATIVE and I’ve long liked McKone’s work.

If I were to buy an issue of any of the four previewed, I’d likely go with Thunderbolts just to see where it falls in the spectrum of its various iterations, Avengers Academy, or Hawkeye & Mockingbird…though with me cover price could actually make the decision for me…

I’m not sure what “Brightest Day” means either. In GREEN LANTERN there’s something happening with the white lantern that, while I’m sure the intention is to build suspense, we just spent so much time with the rainbow-ring brigade I’m ready to move ahead. The “who can lift the white lantern” and the cryptic things “it” says…I don’t know. I also think Star Sapphire’s costume is ridiculous (and Wonder Woman’s during Blackest Night was even more so).

But I suppose it’s a dangerous cycle where every new story has to trump the last story that trumped the last story, etc. But it’s gotten to the point where “in this issue, a hero dies” is meaningless and actually gets me less interested. This is somewhat off topic, but Nightcrawler apparently died and it seems no one even blinked.

Now, so I don’t sound like someone who’s totally full of hate and disdain (I worry that I’m becoming one of those people in 1996/1997 who bought all the Heroes Reborn books just to complain about how terrible they were), and going “off book”, WAR OF THE SUPERMEN was pretty cool. I haven’t been following Superman’s books at all, but those four issues read clearly, made sense, and worked. And Baltazar, Franco and Norton on POWER OF SHAZAM! are putting out a really sharp superhero comic. On the other side, I’m looking forward to Langridge and Samnee’s THOR: THE MIGHTY AVENGER and am kind of curious about this new YOUNG ALLIES book. See, I like comics!

So what are you liking out of the ENTER THE AGE OF HEROES…or just in general, as part of these two initiatives, which are the stand-outs for you and what are you looking forward to?

Stephen: I love Jamie McKelvie's art going back a few years to the first issue of PHONOGRAM and LONG HOT SUMMER, so I wasn't much concerned with the why of him being on Black Widow, though it is curious that every other book was done by the creative team that you be ushering the characters into their ongoings, but Marjorie Liu and Daniel Acuña weren't there for Natasha.

As I mentioned above, I'm excited for Hawkeye & Mockingbird and for Jim, who is now full-time creative as opposed to working in the Marvel offices with writing on the side.

Price point is going to be a big determining factor for Avengers Academy. I know the first issue next week is going to be $3.99, but they need to drop back to $2.99 after that rather than try to run with the other books with Avengers in the title.

I wasn't impressed by the art it the Thunderbolts prologue, but as I was putting the new trade paperbacks from last week in their respective shelves around the store to make way for another Wednesday I flipped open a new James Bond young adult book and dug the interiors and I was really shocked to see Kev Walker's name on the cover. So I guess I was averting from the color on T-Bolts. I've read the original run of the book up until Bagley left and hopped back on when Ellis started with Deodato after Civil War, but I hadn't been impressed with it in almost 2 years. I was ready to drop off at this logical stopping point, then I got the new issue on Jermaine and Ian's strong recommendation. Book. Of. The. Week.

I think part of the magic of Agents of Atlas is that no one should really care about those characters because their original stories are pretty much completely inaccessible, but Parker really gives them depth and a new lease on life, especially by the end of the Turf War arc.

I did finally jump on MAGIC OF SHAZAM after listening to a great Word Balloon with Art and Franco, vibing off Doc Shaner's Big Red Cheese enthusiasm, and picking up the first trade. Everything timed out perfectly.

I'm glad to hear you're looking forward to THE MIGHTY AVENGER. I know that Chris is having a lot of fun drawing it and Marvel's doing an ordering incentive for #1, so hopefully that excitement will overpower the "I won't read it if it's not in continuity" people.

Again, it's not exactly Brightest Day, but I've enjoyed the first two issue of RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE. Chris Sprouse continues to be awesome and Fravier Irving to me is unlike anyone else out there. I see missteps in the event's future, though.

Gregg: I read the first issue of BRUCE WAYNE and felt less like I was reading a comic and more like I was being tested on how much I was paying attention to Grant Morrison comics over the past four years or whatever. Batman’s been a favorite character of mine since forever, but the “in continuity” Batman, at this point…I find myself caring much, much less (when I was in high school and “Knightfall” was starting up though, I was all about it). I find myself getting my Batman comics fix from the Brave & the Bold comic more than anything else these days.

It’s an interesting time right now and I’m more than curious/fascinated to see how it plays out…how many folks are going to stick around for two bi-weekly series out of DC in addition to other launches out of Blackest Night…and a full line-up of Avengers titles, many of which are priced at $3.99 a pop.

I wonder how long that kind of marketplace will sustain itself. I, sadly, know more people in the past 5 years or so who’ve stopped buying/reading comics than have started. And not to go back to being negative-man, but do initiatives like “The Heroic Age” and “Brightest Day” look like they might help or hurt? How committed are those who are still buying comics and “will only read it if it’s IN continuity”? While none of these are specifically billed as events, do they still play as such and pile on to the oft-mentioned “event fatigue”?

As usual, it’s not likely we have the answers (nor should we), but I know that based on the recommendations of you, Jermaine and Ian, I will check out this new take on THUNDERBOLTS next time I’m at the store.

Stephen: Am I seeing more people reading comics now than, from my standpoint, 3 years ago when I started working in the store? Yes.

Are people not so much adjusting to the $3.99 market as they as just dealing with it? Yes.

Will this turn into event fatigue? I would say that it's more likely to happen with Brightest Day where you have several mini series launching alongside and a dedicated series that's going to last 26 issues over 52 weeks. Tack on a third Green Lantern ongoing that starts in August and the fact that DC announced last week that a good share of their titles will be permanently bumped to $3.99 and I think people will be feeling the burn.

The Heroic Age is going to be more of a re-direction for titles that already exist alongside re-launches for titles that existed before. I think people feel more of a sense of freedom to get one Heroic Age book and not another, whereas people doing Brightest Day seem to feel like they need to be all in lest they miss something.

Will they help or hurt? We'll see!

 

Found this while searching for other images. It's adorable!

Gregg Schigiel is a cartoonist, illustrator, and writer. He's worked as a penciller, writer and editor for Marvel Comics and an illustrator and cartoonist at Nickelodeon. In addition, he’s in various stages of cooking up new comics-related works…unless he’s too preoccupied actually cooking. Check out his website at Hatter Entertainment.com. 

Stephen Mayer makes his mama proud by fixing his windshield wiper himself and drinking coffee every morning.