Happy Monday folks!
Welcome back to my look back on the decade that was in comics. if you missed yesterday’s blog covering 2000–2004, you can check it out here. The last part of the 2000s was a busy time in comics. Let’s look, shall we?
2005
All star team: Due to the success that Marvel had with their Ultimate line, DC comics responded with the DC All Star line. The idea behind the line was simple, pair the best talent in the business up, and let them have fun with DC’s most popular characters. It seemed like a recipe for success.
The line launched with two titles, ALL STAR SUPERMAN, and ALL STAR BATMAN (AND ROBIN THE BOY WONDER), with The NEW X-MEN team of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely on Superman, and seminal Bat-talent Frank Miller and Jim Lee on Batman. DC planned more All Star books (Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Green Lantern) to be launched shortly after the initial books began publication.
The results of the All Star line were a mixed bag. All Star Superman (I refuse to abbreviate it down to ASS) was well received by critics and fans alike. ALL STAR BATMAN, however did not go so well. The book was (and still is) constantly plagued by delays, and Frank Miller, once considered the seminal Batman writer, seemed to have have Bats go crazy, at one point having the caped crusader yell at Robin, “Because I’m the goddamn Batman!” The other planned All Star titles never got off the ground.
The idea behind the All Star line was a great one, but so far the execution has been spotty.
The power of Bendis compels you: One of the creators that Marvel began to rely on heavily in the latter half of the decade was Brian Michael Bendis. Bendis, who was a lauded indy creator for years before landing the writing gig on DAREDEVIL (where he was spectacular), took a hand in shaping the landscape of the Marvel universe in 2005.
Bendis took over THE AVENGERS only to disassemble them, leading to his first major Marvel event, HOUSE OF M. In HOUSE OF M, Bendis got rid of almost all of the mutants in the Marvel universe, drastically reshaping it. He stayed on THE AVENGERS, reassembling them after H.O.M. and turning the team into one of Marvel’s top selling books.
Some fans don’t like Bendis’ style of story-telling, but the man sells books. He continues to be one of the most influential creators at Marvel today.
Sign me up!: With the comic book industry rebounding well from the debacle that was the 1990s, the big two comic book companies tried desperately to hang on to their talent. As a result both companies both began offering exclusive contracts to creators.
2005 was a big year for DC and exclusive contracts. They locked up some of their emerging talent like Justiano and Bill Willingham, and stole the Kubert brothers, Andy and Adam, away from Marvel.
What’s wrong with stick figures?: In 2005, Randall Monroe, a former NASA contractor, began working on a web comic called xkcd. Why do I mention this? Because xkcd is currently the number one web comic out there. Not bad for a bunch of stick figures!
Sequential Titan: Will Eisner, the master of sequential art and creator of THE SPIRIT, A CONTRACT WITH GOD AND OTHER TENEMENT STORIES, and Comics and Sequential Art passed away in early 2005, and the industry lost a legend.
That’s a nice coat: With properties like Spider-man, Hellboy, and the X-men doing well on the big screen, Hollywood continued to mine funny books for inspiration.
Robert Rodriquez and Dimension films decided to take the Frank Miller noir, SIN CITY from page to screen and the results were impressive. The movie made $158 million dollars, almost 4 times what it cost to make. Rodriguez compiled an all-star cast and even got Quentin Tarentino to direct part of the film.
The film was a marvel to behold, and by far the purest comic to film translation that I had seen at the time, with some shots looking like they came directly out of the book. The use of color was sparing in the movie (just as it had been in the SIN CITY graphic novels) and used to great effect. The movie was filmed almost entirely in front of a green screen with backgrounds being added in afterward.
The success of this movie directly led to another Miller graphic novel, 300, being translated into film just a few years later.
2006
Never trust a ginger: In 1986, DC comics launched a company-wide cross over called CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, cleaning up a then-messy continuity and revamping and/or relaunching all of their major titles. Twenty years later, Dan Didio and DC decided it was time for another crisis.
INFINITE CRISIS was meant to again change the face of the DC universe. The story was penned by DC writing guru Geoff Johns, and drawn by Phil Jimenez, and was something DC fans were quite looking forward to. The lead-in to INFINITE CRISIS was very well constructed, with four mini-series each leading into the series proper.
While the story started strong, it soon lost momentum. Due to Jimenez having problems with his deadlines, DC turned to fill-in artists to keep the event coming out on time, which lead to a very uneven looking book. The story also lost focus toward the end, disappointing many fans.
While the book was not success DC hoped that it would be, it did have some positive ramifications for DC. Sales for INFINITE CRISIS were huge, and the aftermath of the series led to one of the greatest series of the last decade, 52.
That’s impossible!: Conventional wisdom tells us that comics take about a month to make. Over the years, books have tried with varied degrees of success to do a bi-weekly book, but to try and do a weekly book would be crazy, and impossible. At least that’s what everyone thought until 52.
52 took four of DC’s top writers and a rotating group of artists and produced a comic that came out every week, on time, for a year. This was a feat unto itself, but add in the fact that the book was actually a great read, and you have a miracle.
Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Mark Waid, and Greg Rucka each took turns writing four intertwining stories about second tier characters and their reaction to the aftermath of INFINITE CRISIS. While the penciller in each issue changed, the layouts for all 52 issues were drawn by Keith Giffen, so the book never felt too uneven artistically. All 52 covers for the series were drawn by JG Jones.
Without 52, weekly books would still be considered impossible. Thanks to the success of the book, both Marvel and DC have continued to experiment with the weekly book format. It is a series that has changed the face of the industry (and it rocked).
Oh, it’s on: If DC has a big, crazy crisis, Marvel has to have a war. It was the case in 1986 with the original CRISIS (Marvel responded with SECRET WAR), and it was the same in 2006 when DC had a whole new crisis.
Marvel countered the DC event with CIVIL WAR, a company-wide crossover that pitted heroes against one another due to a proposed registration act for super-heroes. The story was written by Mark Millar with art by Steve McNiven.
In the story, Iron Man and the heroes that are Pro-registration begin working as government agents, and their primary targets are the heroes who decided not to register (as let by Captain America). Trust me the story is much better than I just described.
The book brought wholesale changes to the Marvel U, and directly contributed to the death of Captain America. Steve McNiven’s art was a thing of beauty, and any story with a clone Thor is bound to be pretty bad-ass. The story wasn’t perfect but it was fun.
A great idea: Uclick LLC, a company that sells digital entertainment (not like that, you pervs) for computers and mobile phones, began publishing comics for smart phones. They would be the first (though certainly not the last) company to provide comics for phones.
Because the world needed John Woo to make a comic: Richard Branson and Deepak Chopra started Virgin comics in 2006, for reasons no one quite knows. Virgin grabbed names from all over Hollywood, like John Woo and Nicholas Cage, to cultivate comic book ideas for them. I only mention this so I can show you the greatness of RAMAYAN 3352 A.D.
Cha-ching: Comics had another price jump in 2006, ending the year at $2.99. I remember this because it drastically reduced the number of books I was buying each week.
2007
Ouch: Captain America, fresh of a disheartening loss in CIVIL WAR, was shot dead early 2007, by his long-time nemesis, the Red Skull (sorta kinda, go read it, it was good).Though death is never terribly permanent in the comics, it was still a sad moment. Cap did stay dead for almost 3 years by the way.
The death of Cap was covered in mainstream media as well with ABC news actually reporting on the story.
Calling all comic book lovers: DC comics, seeing an emerging market for comics on the internet started Zuda comics in October of 2007. The idea behind the web-comic division was that creators could create and submit their own 8 page comics, and the ten best comics every month would be given a contract to continue with 52 more pages of work.
Zuda had some early concerns arise about copyright and contract issues, but the DC subdivision continues to thrive. This was a spectacular idea on the part of DC to capitalize on a growing market and give newcomers a chance to shine.
You can find anything online: After several failed attempts, Marvel comics put 2,500 back issues of their catalog online for viewing, with new comics added every week. Unlike previous initiatives, this was set up as a subscription service to readers. This was the first time that comics became readily available for readers on a consistent basis.
There had to be a better way to do this: Ever since Joe Quesada had taken over Marvel, he complained about Spider-man’s marital status. You see, Spidey is married, but apparently, Joey Q thought the web-slinger worked better as a web-swinger. The only problem? Quesada didn’t want to kill Mary Jane (Spider-man’s wife), and didn’t want the pair to have a divorce. The solution that the editor-in-chief came up with was almost universally considered one of the stupidest things to ever occur in comics (and that’s saying something), ONE MORE DAY.
The universally panned story spun out of CIVIL WAR and involved Spider-man literally making a deal with the devil to save his always sick Aunt May from certain death. The result of the deal was that Spidey was never married to Mary Jane, undoing twenty years of continuity and pissing of Spider-man fans everywhere.
While Spider-man has been exceptional for the most part since the ONE MORE DAY, many fans still hold a grudge and refuse to read Spider-man books, feeling cheated. Quesada has done a lot of great things since taking over Marvel, this was not one of them.
2008
If ever there was a time for theater hopping: 2008 was a banner year for comic book movies. In one summer, fans were treated to Iron Man, The Dark Knight, The Incredible Hulk, and Hellboy II.
Iron man and The Dark Knight were both critical darlings and Hulk and Hellboy were both a ton of fun. TDK even garnered several Academy award nominations, with Heath Ledger winning posthumously for his role as the joker (god, he was good).
Best use of a tiger wearing a monocle: Even though their last cross-over had fallen a little flat, DC still had one more crisis up their sleeve, this time penned by Grant Morrison with art (at least initially) by JG Jones.
While the two previous crises had been overwhelming in terms of characters, FINAL CRISIS was overwhelming in scope. Morrison packed every idea that he could into FC and it was a bit too much, losing many readers along the way. The story also suffered from uneven art when Jones couldn’t meet deadlines and back up pencillers had to help out.
There were some very important things to come out of Final Crisis: First, Batman died. Yeah, you heard me, he died. Second, there was a fight between two man-tigers, and one of them had a monocle.
Alien love? Why you gotta say alien love?: With audiences given a year to get over CIVIL WAR, Marvel launched their next big event, SECRET INVASION, pitting the heroes of Earth against shape-changing aliens called Skrulls. The only problem? None of the heroes knew who was a Skrull and who wasn’t.
SECRET INVASION was written by Brian Michael Bendis, who had been planning the event for years, with art by Lienil Francis Yu
The premise of the cross-over was magnificent, but like so many events, it fizzled at the end. While the story did lead to more big changes for the Marvel Universe, it left many readers a little cold on event books.
Taken too early: Michael Turner, a great artist, and even better human being lost a long fight with cancer in 2008.
Style over substance: Radical comics “launched” in 2008. This gets a mention because they had a booth at the San Diego comic con in 2006, and thusly their launch date confuses me. Dirty dirty!
2009
Defiling the mechanical owl: One of Time Magazine’s 100 best novels, WATCHMEN made it to the big screen in 2009 after years of development hell. While the film was far from flawless, it was very entertaining, and was as close as anyone could have gotten to depicting the story in movie form. Kudos to Warner Bros. and director Zack Snyder for having the balls to go crazy on the project.
Fear the mouse: In mid-2009, it was announced that Disney bought Marvel to the tune of $4 billion dollars or so. While the purchase was held up in court until this past week, this could have huge ramifications for the comic book industry.
I’m here to look back, not forward, (that’s a whole different blog) so I wont go into what this could mean for comics, but the Disney/Marvel team-up is something for all comic book fans to keep an eye on in the next decade.
Anything you can do, I can do better: Shortly after Marvel and DC announced their deal, DC came forward with news of their own: The company was restructuring into DC Entertainment, bringing the comic book company closer to Warner Bros. proper.
Again, I don’t want to speculate too much, but this exciting news simply for the possibility of finally getting a FLASH film made.
Beam me up Scotty: Robert Kirkman, who had been a home run hitter for Image comics with titles like THE WALKING DEAD and INVINCIBLE, became the first new partner at Image since the seven members who founded the company in 1991, and perhaps just as importantly, the first writer to become a partner.
Not while you are driving: While Uclick began making comics available for smart phones a few years earlier, 2009 saw a huge increase in apps for comic book enjoyment.
Applications like Comixology, panelfly, and iverse have given readers plenty of choices for comics on the go, and Marvel even signed a distribution deal with several apps.
Guess who’s coming to dinner?: Announced at SDCC, the rights to Marvelman, the unicorn of comic book characters (unattainable, mythical, pretty) were obtained by Marvel. While details on the deal were hazy, the idea of Neil Gaiman, or even (gasp) Alan Moore returning to the character they wrote so long ago, got the geek in many salivating at the idea.
That’s more than a triple venti latte!: This past year saw the price of your average comic rise all the way up to $3.99. That’s pricey.
It has been quite a decade for comics, and it’s looking like the next ten years will be just as exciting. What will come of the Disney/ Marvel merger? Will comics become a predominantly digital medium? Will comic book stores survive? I can’t wait to see what happens as we move forward.
Thanks for joining me on my trip down memory lane, and prepare yourself for double the Mr. Wolff this week as he fills in for Sgt. Angle. Thanks for stopping in, see you tomorrow!
Schulz had been asked if, for his final Peanuts strip, Charlie Brown would finally get to kick that football after so many decades. His response: “Oh, no! Definitely not! I couldn’t have Charlie Brown kick that football; that would be a terrible disservice to him after nearly half a century.”
X marks the spot: X-men was released in theaters. Bryan Singer directed the story of Marvel’s merry mutants, which grossed just under $300 million, not bad considering the film cost $75 million dollars to make.
t was. The X in X-men stands for the “x-gene” which is what separates mutants from regular humans, giving them special powers. The idea behind the series is that Professor Charles Xavier recruits a small group of young mutants to help them defend a world that hates and fears them. Professor Xavier runs the Xavier institute of higher learning, a school that is set up to teach and train young mutants, under the guise of being a boarding school. The original group of X-men was comprised of five members: Cyclops, Angel, Beast, Iceman, and Marvel Girl. When the series launched in the early 1960’s, the main threat to the X-men came in form of Magneto and his brotherhood of evil mutants. While the series had the usual comic book battles, the early issues of X-MEN dealt heavily with the ideas of racism and prejudice. Over the first few years of the series, there were very few roster changes, with only one new member, Mimic, being added, and he left shortly after joining.
The X-men increased steadily in popularity, and as a result, the series began to spawn a number of spin-off titles such as EXCALIBUR, X-FACTOR, ALPHA FLIGHT, THE NEW MUTANTS, and a solo WOLVERINE title. In 1986, there were enough X-titles to have a mutant-specific crossover, MUTANT MASSACRE. This was the first crossover to feature mutants specifically, and the first of many “X-overs” to come over the next few years.
In 2001, the X-franchise got a shot in the arm from writer Grant Morrison. Morrison took over X-MEN with artist Frank Quitely and set about changing the image of the X-men. The team moved from spandex to leather, and a new status quo was set up. The title of X-MEN was changed to NEW X-MEN. In 2005, the number of Mutants in the X-verse was greatly diminished due to the HOUSE OF M crossover, which saw the Scarlet Witch de-power all but 198 mutants. Currently the X-men have moved to an island off the coast of San Francsisco, and set up a home for all the remaining mutants.
The X-men has always been a platform for social issues. Given the genetic and racial make-up of the characters, themes like diversity, racism and equality have been an easy fit for the comic. The difference in ideologies between Xavier and Magneto has often been seen as an allegory for the difference between civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Stories like GOD LOVES, MAN KILLS focus on the dangers of religious fanaticism, and groups like the purifiers are analogous to the KKK.
3) Garth Ennis– Ennis could be in the horror section, or the crime section, but everything he writes is darkly humorous, so here he is. In PREACHER, he had a bad guy who’s head was shaped like a penis, now that’s funny!
