Greetings folks!

Over the past few weeks, the internet has been lousy with teaser images for new books spinning out of the latest event comics. The thing is, all of these new books are actually old books that are simply getting revamped. The Avengers line (all four books) are getting a face-lift after SIEGE. Aquaman will be returning (for the umpteenth time) at the conclusion of BLACKEST NIGHT. There is nothing wrong with a revamp, sometimes these things have to happen. As a matter of fact, I’m all in favor of revamping, so long as it’s good. Without revamps we never would have gotten Grant Morrison’s JLA, Bendis’ Daredevil, of Charlie Huston’s Moon Knight, so I love to hear about it when a tired comic is getting revamped.

However, there is a right way and a wrong way to revamp a book. If you are revamping a character that just couldn’t sell books, you need to bring in names. No one will care about a brand new, exciting direction for Rocket Racer is Steve from H.R. is writing it, but if Alan Moore is relaunching Rocket Racer, the book will be an instant sell out. If a book is feeling stale, you need to get new blood in there. Don’t bring back Chris Claremont to the X-men for a fresh voice, bring in someone new.

Our list today is a list of books and/or characters that I think could/should use a revamp, and who I would use to revamp them. I’m fairly certain none of these revamps will ever occur, but I would be greatly excited if they did. Enjoy!

AQUAMAN: The king of the relaunches, Aquaman has been revamped more than any other character in comics. Why? Because Aquaman, at his core, is a crappy character. There really isn’t a good angle to take on this poor man’s Namor, so that is why he gets a new series started (and canceled) every few years. For AM to succeed, you need top tier talent to go crazy on the Atlantean, so I say get Alan Moore to write and examine life under the sea from a whole new perspective. As an artist, you would need someone equally stunning, so I say bring in Jim Lee. Lee could make phone book reading look cool, so drawing dynamic underwater environments shouldn’t be too hard for him. If Jim Lee and Alan Moore can’t get Aquaman to be viable, then no one can.

DR. STRANGE: The Problem with Dr. Strange is that it’s hard to keep the stories grounded enough to have audiences care about the characters, and still fantastical enough to make us think magic is cool. It’s a fine line to walk, and one of the main reasons that the good doctor has had such a hard time keeping himself in a monthly book. If anyone could traverse different plains of reality while keeping characters interesting it’s Grant Morrison. From the artistic side, you would need someone with the chops to keep up with Morrison’s psychedelic scripts, and  J.H. Williams (who worked with Morrison previously on 7 SOLDIERS) would fit the bill nicely.

THE DARKNESS: When THE DARKNESS was first released, it was a great blend of horror, dark comedy, and that Top Cow style of art. In the years since it’s release the book has had it’s ups and downs, already relaunching twice, and never really going back to what made the book so great when it began. If you want to get the book back to it’s roots, you need a writer who can master dark comedy and horror, someone like, say, Stephen King? And to fit that Top Cow art style, how about David Finch, who grew up in the Top Cow stable?

JLA:  Like any team book, JLA needs a good spring cleaning every few years. Creative teams, characters, and attitudes all need to change to keep up with the times. The funny thing about JLA is that unlike other team books,  which will tweak rosters or change creators, the JLA will go from great to suck in about 10 issues and then  get a complete reboot about a year later. If DC wants to keep the book around for a while, they need a writer who a)understands the dynamics of a team and b) wont jump ship for something else after a year. Joe Casey would be my choice. Steve McNiven as the artist would keep fans coming back on a month to month basis, just to see the pretty pictures.

THE SENTRY: When Marvel first put out THE SENTRY mini-series, I was amazed. Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee created this Superman-like character who was so messed up he was Earth’s greatest hero, and it’s worst villain. In the decade since THE SENTRY was first released, nothing new or exciting has been  done with the character. The Sentry has stood on the edge of cool, but no one to date has made him a character I care about. I say let Neil Gaiman take a crack at exploring what makes The Sentry tick, and have Frank Quitely illustrate the bad boy. If those two were doing SENTRY book, the golden avenger would definitely be a character I’d pay attention to.

ALIENS: ALIEN comics have been around for a long time, but I can never bring myself to buy one. As a friend of mine said, all things alien have been action based ever since James Cameron’s ALIENS movie. I say take the book in a different direction, and make the aliens scary again. It shouldn’t be hard, I mean you have these acid-blooded killing machines running around hiding in the dark and killing people in space. Robert Kirkman has proven with THE WALKING DEAD that he can write a mean horror story and  no one uses heavy blacks like Jae Lee. I’m quivering already!

MORBIUS: Vampires continue to be a hot seller in pop culture, so it’s only fair that Marvel’s vampire, Morbius, gets a second chance at being cool. Steve Niles has been writing spectacular vampire fiction for years with the 30 DAYS OF NIGHT franchise so he gets the writing nod. On art, Mike Mignolia would be able to lend his Gothic sensibilities and show the world that a living vampire (yup that’s really Morbius’ tag line) could be cool.

SUICIDE SQUAD: When Josh Ostrander wrote the suicide squad, it was about the coolest book around. Second tier bad guys sent out by the government to wreck house, and if they died, well, they were second tier. The book was action packed and you never knew who would make it to the next issue. Since then no one has been  able to capture the greatness of the original series, with art that was too cartoony  or stories that just fell flat. Warren Ellis basically wrote the Marvel version of the squad when he was writing THUNDERBOLTS a few years ago, and his dark sense of humor would fit the book well.  John Cassaday draws everything well, and his work on ASTONISHING X-MEN and PLANETARY showed he can handle a team book.

THE BLACK WIDOW: With an upcoming appearance in IRON MAN 2 this summer, it’s time to make the Black Widow cool again. Brian K. Vaughn wrote bad-ass women for years on Y: THE LAST MAN and  Tim Sale would be a sure thing drawing the adventures of Marvel’s Russian femme fatale.

WILDCATS: Every few years, the Wildcats are cool. They were cool when Jim Lee Drew them, they were cool when Alan Moore wrote them, and recently they were supposed to be cool when Grant Morrison and Lee were supposed to team up on the book. Sadly that never happened, so the Cats have been floundering the past few years. THE WILDCATS is at its best when it is pushing the envelope and Mark Waid is a master of envelope pushing. Jim Cheung draws great action and great team books, both a must if WILDCATS is going to get back to it’s former glory.

THE HAND: Marvel’s favorite assassins, The Hand, used to be martial arts bad-asses. Then everyone and their mom started using them as punching bags for the Marvel U. These The Hand are basically a group of red-pajama-d masochists. With Daredevil taking over the ninja clan, this would be the time to make them cool again. The team of  Matt Fraction and David Aja was able to work wonders with Iron Fist a few years ago, so I would task them with making ninjas awesome again.

BATMAN’S ROGUES: There is nothing wrong with Batman’s rogues gallery. They have been, and always will be the greatest assortment of psychopaths in comics. The problem lately has been Batman. With Bruce Wayne dying and Dick Grayson taking up the mantle, all the focus has been on Bats, with his great villains getting no love. We need to show some respect and give the rogues a title of their own. I propose a comic set up like the show OZ, showing all of Batman’s baddies interacting within the asylum. Garth Ennis could make sure that the the comic never gets dull,  and Alex Maleev could lend his gritty art style to really set the stage for bad-assery.

NOVA: NOVA is actually a great book right now and is not in need of a revamp or relaunch. DnA are doing a great job with this book, so why is it on this list? Potential Greatness. Marvel has a chance to make The Nova Corps as great as DC’s Green Lanterns but it has to be done right. Just like DC has a GL solo book and a GL Corps book, Marvel must do the same with Nova. Put  Joss Whedon in charge of writing a diverse bunch of characters in the craziness of space and the book will sell. Add in Brian Hitch doing his wide-screen action thing, and you have a must read which sets the franchise up for long lasting success.

Well, that’s it for today folks. thanks for stopping in, and have a great weekend!

Greetings all!

Today I am going to be starting a new column called “Spotlight”. In this column, I will, well, spotlight a different company, imprint, and maybe even a comic or two. You will get a little bit of history and a little bit of opinion, and hopefully, a lot of enjoyment.

As you might have been able to guess from the title, today’s Spotlight topic is going to be DC’s Vertigo imprint. So, let’s get started!

DC comics officially launched Vertigo in 1993, but the groundwork for the imprint was laid down well before that. The architect of Vertigo was an editor by the name of Karen Berger, who had started with DC in the late 1970’s as an assistant to editor Paul Levitz. Throughout the 1980’s Berger, now and editor, began amassing the (largely British) talent that would soon form the core of the Vertigo imprint. Berger was responsible for bringing names like Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison, Garth Ennis, Jamie Delano and Peter Milligan to DC. Berger placed the Brits on a variety of titles from DOOM PATROL, to SHADE THE CHANGING MAN, to HELLBLAZER. These titles, along with a few others (including Alan Moore’s SWAMP THING) would eventually form the core of the Vertigo imprint. What set these titles apart was that they were almost entirely for mature readers only.

ANIMAL MAN was one of the first Vertigo titles. He was also apparently afraid of mandrills.

In 1993, the big wigs at DC, including publisher Jenette Kahn and managing editor Dick Giordano, mandated that Berger take these titles and use them as the base of a new imprint that would “Help comics grow up.” And thus, Vertigo was born.

Gingers from space in coats made of insanity, these are the things Vertigo are made of.

Vertigo grew steadily over the next few years with a steady stream of titles in a variety of formats, from ongoing series like SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATER, to mini-series like KID ETERNITY, to one-shots. The imprint was given a distinct trade dress to distinguish Vertigo from other DC books.

The strip on the side means “No Kids Allowed”

Two other things helped Vertigo grow over the next decade. One was a commitment to creator owned work, such as Y: THE LAST MAN, and 100 BULLETS. The other was that Vertigo was able to cherry-pick properties from defunct DC imprints and print them. Some examples of this are TRANSMETROPOLITAN, which started out under the Helix imprint, and A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, which was printed under the Paradox Press imprint, but all reprints had the Vertigo tag attached to them.

Vertigo stole this man.

Vertigo has also experimented with several sub-imprints, such as Vertigo Pop! (focusing on pop culture) and Vertigo Verite (trying to capture the spirit of cinema verite), over the last 15 years, with varied results. The most recent sub-imprint is the newly formed Vertigo Crime imprint.

FILTHY RICH is the first title of the Vertigo Crime line. I’m guessing that woman is both filthy and rich.

Today Vertigo puts out about 20 titles a month, between graphic novels and regular books. Of the seven initial titles put out by the imprint, only HELLBLAZER is still ongoing, but new series such as DMZ and SCALPED are continuing the Vertigo tradition.

SCALPED. Despite appearances, this man does not have a head full of feathers.

Vertigo is an imprint with many strengths . With the impetus of the imprint being a rather vague “helping comics grow up”, the line can (and does) explore a wide variety of genres, from crime to horror to science fiction. And by carrying a mature reader label, creators have the freedom to tell their stories, not some watered-down kid-friendly version.

If this were a DC book, you’d never get to see breasts. What is SWAMP THING without breasts?

Another strength is that Vertigo does not have any distinct art style which means that each title can have an artist that best suits it, there is no need to have someone who fits the “house style”. From Chris Bachalo’s page-filling craziness to Edwardo Risso’s heavy blacks, each book gets the artist it needs, not the one the company wants.

This is Death. She’s Perky!

The importance that Vertigo places on creator owned work helps draw top level talent consistently. Vertigo also seems to maintain a good relationship with it’s creators, increasing the odds that they will continue to come back.

Anywhere else and this book would probably never get published.

For as great as Vertigo is, the imprint also has its flaws. With a mature readers tag, there is a somewhat limited base of readers that can be reached. If a book doesn’t sell, it doesn’t matter how great it is.

No matter how spectacular it is, a comic named LUCIFER is only gonna sell so many copies…

Also, while the lack of a particular art style keeps the books looking unique, many of the Vertigo books do not look very good. There have been a few series over the years that I have dropped (no, I will not name them) due to the lackluster art. The art styles are also rarely similar to what young readers get in their superhero books, so the change in styles could dissuade DC readers from becoming Vertigo readers.

What is going on here?

Vertigo is an imprint that has helped to change the landscape of comics. For all the shortcomings of the line (which aren’t really that many), the ability to expand the audience of comic book readers from mainly kids to anyone with eyes is huge. People may not like some of the comics that Vertigo has put out, but that is a part of the line’s beauty, there is something for everyone. Not to mention, some of the best comics that I have read in my life have come from vertigo. PREACHER, Y: THE LAST MAN, and 100 BULLETS are some of my all-time favorite series. I also think I can safely say that without Vertigo, there would be no Semantink today.

Thank you Vertigo, for the man with the dong-shaped head.

Thanks for stopping in all, and if you have a particular company/imprint/comic that you would like to see spotlighted (spotlit?), let me know.