Spaceknight Saturdays: Rom vs. Air Force!

RomTM Vol.1, No.10, September, 1980 issue (as it is officially called) is an odd-looking comic. While it features the usual art of Sal Buscema, the quality of the linework seems to change from page to page because of the lettering. I'm sure it's an illusion, but thinner letters seem to make the inking bolder, and vice-versa. And the book has very diverse lettering styles going on in it, lettered as it is by the "Friends of Danny Crespi", Crespi being the actual letterer who'd fallen ill. According to an editor's note, various and sundry bullpeners chipped in. As you'll see, some of it is VERY amateurish and shaky.

Anyway, while Rom was fighting Serpentyne, Brandy and Steve were jailed in connection with the death-by-vegetable of Artie the Cop. Rom's solution is a simple and effective one: Bust them out.
Man, that really blew the sheriff's mind, didn't it? DON'T DO IT, SHERIFF! IT'S NOT WORTH IT! (And did you spot a vital clue in that cluster of panels? There'll be a test lower.)

Rom's quest at the moment, if you'll remember, is getting his Nullifier back. It's that blocky toy accessory that sends the Wraiths to Limbo keeping the horrorfest that are his battles with them to a manageable PG rating. He knows it's been taken to Washington D.C., but where's that? Brandy provides a useful map:
He's got to go, but before he does, he has to learn a valuable lesson about girls.
They're all the same, Rom. But then, wouldn't YOU be needy if you dated the Silver Sultan of Galador? In any case, Brandy already has a boyfriend, as indicated by what is my favorite scene to date:
Oh Rom, you've got it bad. Steve holds and smooches Brandy as the Spaceknight leaves, content that his manhood has been satisfied in this matter...
Wait. Hold on. "One of her own"? A creepy smile? It COULDN'T BE! ...Could it? It could and IT IS!

While you freak out, Rom's gotten himself to the nation's capital and violated presidential airspace. Break out the jet fighters and the heat-seeking missiles. Lowly humans, you think missiles can stop Rom?
And now your "SCREW THIS!" moment of the week:
Further, here's your "SCREW THIS TOO!" moment of the week:
But distracted as he is with the little planes, Rom doesn't see Sister Sweet get behind him in a hovercraft and blast his ass with purple beams (oh, dreaded purple!). He's captured by the Wraiths, Brandy's smooching alien Steve... It's all gone wrong.

Until next week!

Star Trek 568: Bliss

568. Bliss

FORMULA: Where Silence Has Lease + Persistence of Vision + The Cloud + The Game + Galaxy's Child

WHY WE LIKE IT: Naomi Wildman's big adventure.

WHY WE DON'T: Anything we haven't seen before?

REVIEW: It's that old nugget, the space siren trope, rearing its seductive head again. While Bliss isn't unwatchable, it IS derivative to the point of being forgettable. Voyager encounters what is basically a mouth in space, though they think it's a wormhole that leads directly and conveniently to Earth. Throw in some will-sapping telepathy and letters from home that promise to make your dreams come true, and you have an efficient lure for a stranded Starfleet crew.

Getting into the crew's headspace is something that's been done before, though here we do get to see what kind of life each character would love once he or she gets back to the Alpha Quadrant. Chakotay would like to become a teacher, Paris a test pilot, Neelix to have a valued role, Janeway is still hung up on Mark, and B'Elanna wants the Maquis to be alive. No real surprises. Seven and Naomi, lacking the drive to go back to the Earth, are unaffected, as is the Doctor, so it'll be up to them, along with a knowledgeable Ahab figure, to free Voyager from the monster's grip.

And it IS a monster far more than it is an alien life-form. Still very much indulging in fantasy, the show presents a creature I can't imagine evolving naturally. It eats starships. It can not only weaken people's minds and manipulate their senses to show them anything they want, but also broadcast actual sensor data and text messages. And yet, according to the Doctor, it does so on instinct and is likely non-sentient. What?!? I don't know if they were trying to make it ok for him to help kill the monster (because they actually don't), but it's a ludicrous assertion. If the creature's powers don't follow their own rules, it's that there are no rules. It does what it does because the script requires it to do so. In other words: The lazy writing Voyager is becoming known for.

The Seven-Naomi sisterly relationship is the bright spot and in many ways, the child's presence helps blanket the episode with a sort of fairy tale quality that makes sense. The technobabble solution at the end is so much more palatable when it's called "making Voyager taste bad", isn't it?

LESSON: Why they call it the mouth of a wormhole.

REWATCHABILITY - Medium: Not terribly badly done, but we've seen all of this before, and it's never risen above Medium either.

One Man Friday Night Fighting Corps

When OMAC meets tentacled freak, it gets ugly long before the fight can be inked and colored! Jack Kirby's tradition lives on in Bahlactus!

Joe Quesada Out, Siskoid In

Let the Marvel rampage begin! Hey, fair is fair, and as far as I'm concerned, Joey Q's rating is lower than than DiDio's no matter how much better he's doing financially. He makes some of the same bonehead decisions, and compounds it with criminal PR disasters. So what would I try to do with Marvel Comics were I given those particular reigns?Well, what's good for the goose is also good for the gander, so there are some strategies I detailed yesterday that could apply just as well to Marvel. Series shutting down when its creative team leaves, no more line-wide crossover "events", distinctions for what deserves hardcover treatment, and tighter editing are all still good ideas across the road from DC.

In addition...

-Marvel has always maintained that Continuity was King. No reboots, no fresh starts, everything that happened, happened. This is clearly fallacy. Siskoid doesn't like hypocrisy, so we're no longer making a point of this. Does that mean I'd advocate a line-wide reboot? That's a tough call. On the one hand, no matter how badly it was handled, the Spider-reboot has done good for the character. On the other, it seems like Marvel can't possibly do a reboot because that's the competition's thing. But when Marvel HAS rebooted characters and situations, they continuity contortions to justify it have been, shall we say, difficult (One Last Day, Secret Invasion). Still, if Mephisto has the power to reboot a single character, some final rebooting event is entirely possible using the Marvel cosmogony. In the end, the Marvel Universe would be dreamed back into alignment to bring its icons back into focus with as much or as little baggage as they need. Much like they did with Spider-Man.

-Among the things I would do away with is Civil War's repercussions. It makes the Marvel Universe too fascist, bringing elements from the X-Men franchise to every other title.

-Lower prices. I'm not against making money, I'm against unfair price points. There's no reason why two Marvel Comics with the same number of pages and paper stock should have 1$ difference. A 22-page comic for 4 bucks is simply too much. I would also reduce the number of alternate covers across the board (what is this, the 90s?), and reduce prices on comics DVDs so that they are more in line with what was previously offered by GIT Corp. I see no reason to fleece an already fragile customer base.

-Creators that might fall from favor include Bendis who is for the moment spread out so thin he keeps repeating himself. There's no call to have him on so many books. Other than that, all those cover artists who can't draw feet, you know the type. Mark Millar's cynicism is counter productive to my way of thinking and I refuse to continue wasting good artists on his brand of shock theater. JMS and Jeff Loeb aren't high on my list either.

-An odd detail to focus on, but I hate the fonts used by letterers in too many Marvel titles, specially those that use lower case letters. It's becoming the new Comic Sans Serif for me.

-Practice some sensitivity. Marvel has done a poor job of depicting minorities and women in recent years. I don't care how many fanboys would like Mary Jane Love Slave or Eviscerated Bride statues on their mantle, Marvel needs to act more responsibly to gender and racial issues. Quesada's reaction to MJGate, the Hentai cover, and other charges of representational misogeny was to say the dead parrot was only resting. Combine that with photos of him in strip bars on the Internet and claims that readers couldn't identify with a married man, and you have one of the most disagreeable public personae in Comic Book Land. Marvel also needs to do a better job with racial issues: Storm and Black Panther get married cuz they're both Africans, the death of Black Goliath at Aryan hands, and have you read Kick-Ass? Maybe there's malice, and maybe (probably) there isn't, but editors need to realize the appearance of a thing is as offensive as the thing itself.

-Marvel needs its own Vertigo imprint. Ages ago, they briefly trotted out Frontier, along with, what, 3 other new imprints, all at the same time. All were doomed to failure. I would like to see a little harsher separation between Mature Readers books than the rather soft line between "Parental Advisory" titles like the Marvel Knights line. Marvel could definitely stand to revamp their horror books (all of which are available as Essentials) into modern horror, and I believe a better identified imprint would help sell books like Omega the Unknown and Criminals to the right audience. Call it Frontier, call it Epic, but call it.

-Marvel's website definitely needs an upgrade, especially when it comes to its actual comic book releases. As it is, the week's comics are way at the bottom, and the catalog lists are filled with variants of all sorts, not very well organized, and never list creators. The website listings are actually less useful than a 3-month-old copy of Previews.

Now for some notes on individual titles...

-Cancel and never again resurrect: Kick-Ass, Anita Blake (sorry, Chris Sims), Marvel Comics Presents, and... You know, I'm looking at June's listing, and there are way too many titles that are less than a year old and that I know nothing about. Hard to cut them loose, but I do see it as a problem. Because while I can't be expected to read every book on the stands (unless you actually give me the job), I do read an awful lot of comic book blogs. And if it's not on ANYBODY's radar, well, that can't be a good sign, can it? Certainly, I'd pair down the X-titles, Wolverine titles and Avengers titles, but how exactly would demand more study than I'm willing to give it right now.

-Amazing Spider-Man: It's crazy, but One More Day is working out fine. A good direction to keep, though I'm only really attached to Dan Slott as a writer. Could the "braintrust" be a good way to go for other multi-title characters/teams (of either company)?

-Iron Man: Invincible is the title to beat. Not only does it play down the character assassination that has been going on in virtually every other title, it's a nice place for the movie's fans to go. I would call for all successful Marvel movie franchises to do the same. Not quite kowtow to movie continuity, but still respect the same iconic tropes for smoother movie-fan-to-comics-fan migration.

-Hulk: An example of how this is not currently done. There should be an Incredible Hulk comic starring Bruce Banner on the stands parallel to the movie's release. Red Hulk, Son of Hulk, Incredible Herc... Some of these are good/promising, but it's not the same.

-Captain America: I trust Brubaker on this, but I fully intend Steve Rogers to return at some point.

-Avengers and X-Men: Both franchises need to be a lot trimmer. Every time they sprawl team books like this, you can't get a classic line-up going.

-Alpha Flight: I'd write the damn thing myself to make sure it's properly Canadian.

-Marvel Adventures: No problems there.

-Ultimate Marvel: I would consider shutting it down. It made sense as a way to attract new readers afraid of the established continuity, but today has enough baggage to deter new readers just as much as the "real" MU. Furthermore, while I enjoyed the experiment for the first couple years, it may have become a sort of competition for the regular stable of titles. If you're going to offer an alternative Spider-Man that's more fun that the real deal, readers are likely to desert one for the other.

-Also worthy of a series: Damage Control, Doctor Strange, Nextwave.

-I'd mention limbo characters, but Marvel has been really good at trotting out even the most obscure of characters lately (Rocket Raccoon, the members of the Twelve, 3D Man, etc.) but I would have to say Rom Spaceknight, right? ;-)
And you?

Star Trek 567: Gravity

567. Gravity

FORMULA: Final Mission + All Our Yesterdays + The Motion Picture's Vulcan sequences

WHY WE LIKE IT: Noss.

WHY WE DON'T: Too few flashbacks.

REVIEW: Gravity has a number of interesting threads, but one too many for any of them to be fully explored. The first of these is the flashback to Tuvok's youth. Giving credit where it's due, Trek has never really done this before (not without a time travel element). The problem with it here is that we don't flash back ENOUGH. Narratively, these sequences should act as counterpoints to the present day story, weave in and out of it. At the rate shown, not only are they a little jarring (i.e. you had time to forget about the entire thread), but Tuvok goes from angry young man directly to cured in between flashbacks. There's no sense of build-up as he's deprogrammed and brought in line with his usual characterization.

In the present, his emotionlessness is brought into play by the character of Noss, who is one of the more interesting love interests we've seen in Voyager. Totally atypical with her short hair and strange intonations, she makes the mistake of loving a man who cannot love at all because if he did, it would be the end of him. In the end, he does share himself with her via mindmeld, and I guess that's as far as the a Tuvok romance can go.

Distracting from the Tuvok story is the whole idea that his away team is trapped in a solar system that's down in a subspace layer accessible only through a gravity well that's about to be destroyed by local aliens. First, that is some crazy-ass science. No one can just be shipwrecked anymore - it's got to be in another dimension. It seems quite the stretch just to introduce a temporal element in there so that Tuvok and Noss could get to know each other for two months. It's a chance to see the multispatial probe used for real, but otherwise, a lot of technobabble and manufactured tension.

The climax just throws too much at the characters to be credible. Not only are the aliens going to close the gravity well early, but the aliens trapped on the planet with Tuvok also decide to attack Noss' compound at the same moment, just so it comes down to the last second. No wonder we don't have time to get back to young Tuvok very often.

LESSON: The recipe for spider sammiches.

REWATCHABILITY - Medium: Too heavy a script jeopardizes what's actually good about it - a sweet anti-romance and exploration of Tuvok's character and Vulcan discipline.

Dan DiDio Out, Siskoid In

This week on Great Ceasar's Post, Maxo responded to yet another round of rumors that Dan DiDio would be canned from his position as DC Comics Editor-in-Chief by asking where we'd personally take DC (not that I think he's doing a particularly bad job). Playing editor is just my thing! I did it once before in a post that tried to come up with a Final Crisis strategy. It's almost a year later and you know, those ideas still seem good to me. But let's go further this time:

I would still call for a Final Reboot and ask writers to tie up storylines before the end of FC, still publish Reboot Month, still have characters' rebooted backstories detailed there without requiring any character to be reset at Year 1, and still launch every new series about an established character with a Reboot Special. Details HERE.

In addition...

-Publish a new version of Who's Who that takes the new history into account, with special minis to come for pre-Crisis, post-Crisis, post-Zero Hour, post-Infinite Crisis continuity (like Marvel Universe has done with decades).

-Keep events to families of books à la Sinestro War. Enough with the major crossovers. Make the Final Crisis truly Final for the foreseeable future.

-Better editing, definitely. Continuity between titles is very poor at the moment.

-We all have our own biases as far as artists, writers and characters go, so obviously, there are some people I wouldn't be giving work to - Benes, Meltzer, Starlin, Daniel, etc. - and others I'd try to attract from the competition: Fraction, Brubaker, Romita Jr.

-Flagship titles deserve the very best creators. No crap, and no stunts (i.e. non-comics writers).

-More Omnibus-format books, possibly with soft covers. Higher end than Showcases, lower end than hardcovers. (NOT EVERYTHING REQUIRES COLLECTED HARDCOVER TREATMENT!)

-The split between DC and Vertigo needs to be repaired. Not only do I see no problem with Vertigo stars appearing in DC books, I think it would oil the wheels for crossovers in the other direction. Vertigo needs an injection of new blood in addition to creator-owned projects.

-Get into that digital comics racket all the kids are talking about these days.

-Tie creators more closely to their books. When a creative team puts a definitive stamp on a title, why keep it going after it has left? Take for example the decline in both quality and interest in All-New Atom after Gail Simone left. Is Blue Beetle on its way there as well? The Darwyinless Spirit? Why take the risk? Ending the series (indeed, considering it a "limited" maxi-series) opens the schedule up to new projects and keeps the property open for either a properly planned relaunch or the creative team's return in mini-series or specials to continue the story. So I know people are sad to see Catwoman canceled, but if Pfeiffer was going to leave anyway, I would have to approve. (Obviously, this isn't a scheme for DC's big properties.)

-DC's recognizable properties (i.e. that have been successful in other media or are part of the cultural zeitgeist) should be kept in print as much as possible and given strong attention: And yes, that means Supergirl too.

Now for some notes on individual titles...

-Cancel and never again resurrect: Batman and the Outsiders, Titans (only needs one monthly), Infinity Inc., all those Confidential books, Superman/Batman.

-JLA: Off-track. Needs to be bigger and bolder, closer to both Morrison's run and the Justice League Unlimited cartoon. Leave the soap opera in X-Men where it belongs and make this an event book. Maybe then there won't be a need for extreme tonnage in event mini-series all year round.

-Teen Titans: This family of titles has gotten so far off track that we're better off reseting it entirely post-FC. If it could have a Year One vibe, that would be great.

-Flash: Hard to say before FC wraps up, but I wouldn't mind bringing Barry Allen back and retiring Wally, or rebooting him to Kid-Flash status for my rebooted Titans book. CSI with superheroics. Let's do it already.

-Legion of Super-Heroes: We'll see how the Legion Crisis shakes up the book, but I wouldn't mind the 80s Legion back in full force as per Geoff Johns' vision.

-Checkmate: Replaced by Suicide Squad. Now.

-Batgirl: Sorry, we don't need Cassandra. A book staring Barbara Gordon before The Killing Joke would be great, however. As the current Batman Confidential story arc shows.

-Shazam!: Jeff Smith needs to come back for more. (Though I'll gladly give Mike Kunkel's new series a chance. Captain Marvel really needs to show some face on the racks.)

-Aquaman: The real one, as policeman of the seas, please. Enough with the blond Namor trope.

-Hawkman: With continuity as confused as the Legion's, the Hawks need to be rebooted as the sexy married couple Kubert used to draw in the Silver Age.

-Also worthy of an ongoing series: New Frontier, something relating to the 7 Soldiers, Swamp Thing. I might also get behind Doom Patrol, Blackhawk and the Question (especially if it's a rebooted Vic Sage).

-Limbo characters I would like to see given a shot (either in DC or Vertigo mini/maxi): Green Team, Global Guardians, Prez, Slam Bradley, some would say Wild Dog is primed for a comeback.
What would you do?

Star Trek 566: Bride of Chaotica!

566. Bride of Chaotica!

FORMULA: Night + Heroes and Demons + Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang

WHY WE LIKE IT: Satan's Robot.

WHY WE DON'T: The Bride (there's OTT and then there's OTT).

REVIEW: From start to finish, Bride is a masterful exercise in style. The look, the fades, the music, the acting style, the retro SF vocabulary, the costumes, the black and white cinematography, the dramatic recap, the wobbly sets, the castle that wants you to start singing about Camelot... There's even a Planet Hell inside joke. All of it, beautifully conceived and crafted.

The plot about a photonic version of Starfleet invading the holodeck and thinking it's a real planet, however, strains credulity. It probably should, as this is a just a bit of goofy fun. But where something similar like Our Man Bashir just had one crazy premise for us to swallow, Bride leaves too many questions unanswered. Where do the aliens get proper period costumes when they look like nothing else in the program? How can the holodeck interact with the aliens like they're holograms too when the computer shouldn't really recognize them? What kind of convenient malfunction actually prevents the holodeck's power source from being unplugged? And worst of all, why did Harry and Tom sit on information about interdimensional openings on the holodeck for three whole days? My point is this: A comedy episode doesn't justify lazy writing.

As a comedy, it has its good moments. Satan's Robot is especially entertaining (especially its disheartened "Invaders!"), and Tom's deadpan "his armies of death" has just the right dryness to it. Janeway has always shown herself a more than competent actress in other settings, and not surprisingly, she plays Arachnia to the hilt. I find Kate Mulgrew's performance to be very distracting however. Yes, Arachnia should be played over the top, but Mulgrew makes Janeway's reactions to the program over the top as well, her face a collection of twitches and ticks. I'm not sure needed the toilet humor about Bolians either.

LESSON: Exclamation points make everything more dramatic. I mean, more dramatic!

REWATCHABILITY - Just a bit better than Medium: Loved the style, but found the substance lacking.