Hey, here are some links you can click on.

GOD, I HOPE THERE'S A COMIC BOOK TIE-IN: In a world where Star Wars Transformers exist, I suppose DC Universe Classics Vs. Masters of the Universe Classics two-packs shouldn’t really surprise me as much as they do, especially considering the fact that Superman and He-Man have already shared ideaspace at least once.

Even still, seeing these struck me as a little on the odd side. As someone who grew up playing with He-Man toys (and that awful, awful cartoon and even worse live-action movie) and, to a much lesser extent, the Super Powers toys (and sundry Super Friends cartoons) I felt my nostalgia muscles twitch when I did see these.

Will there be more? Wonder Woman Vs. Teela? Animal Man Vs. Beast Man? Dr. Destiny Vs. Skeletor? Red Tornado Vs. Sy-Klone? Swamp Thing Vs. Moss Man? Snapper Carr Vs. Orko? Clark Kent Vs. Prince Adam? Scarecrow Vs. Scare Glow? The Red Bee Vs. Buzz-Off?!

I don’t know. But I kinda hope so. And I hope it leads to a DCU Vs. MOTU crossover comic book that’s at least as good as the 1996 based-on-a-toy-line Total Justice series. If there are editors sitting around DC right now thinking, “Hey, we should really do a comic book miniseries based on these toys, but who on earth could we get to write it?” I would just like to state for the record that I still know and care way more about the various Masters of the Universe characters way more than I should, and I would be happy to script such a project for a salary consisting entirely of a five-dollar bill and some action figures—opened packaging is not a concern. (Via Comics Alliance, from whom I also swiped the image above).


OH HEY SPEAKING OF MOTU CROSSOVERS...: This sure looks like something everyone in America should own.


THE OTHER SUBBY: One of the many intriguing never-quite-made-it heroes included in the Fantagraphics-published 2009 book Supermen!: The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes 1936-1941 (reviewed here) was Sub-Zero, a red and blue-garbed hero with ice powers. Well, if you read the Sub-Zero story in Supermen! and decided you’d like to read more of his adventures, Steven Thompson shares one here. The best part, I think, is the portion of a panel posted above, in which SZ and his sidekick, an Eskimo kid named Freezum who talks in a…rather unfortunate way, are just sitting on a train in their funny costumes. Unlike Batman and The Green Hornet, they apparently couldn’t afford their own ride.

This pose by the villain was somewhat amusing, too:Those old super-comics didn’t go in much for subtlety, did they? (Via Comics Reporter)


SPEAKING OF GOLDEN AGE ALSO-RANS: Here’s the origin story of the other Cat-Man, thanks to Adam Barnett, who posted it at his site. (I forget where I got this link, but I assume it was either Comics Reporter or Journalista!, so I’ll just link to ‘em both).


I'LL SECOND THAT RECOMMENDATION: Writing for Comics Should Be Good, Brian Cronin talks up 1997’s Batman Plus #1, in which Devin Grayson, Rodolfo Damaggio and Robert Campanella teamed the Dark Knight up with Arsenal.

I really liked that comic.

It was one of the first times when I thought to myself, “Hey, wait, this Devin Grayson person’s a pretty great comics writer, isn’t she?” and I think it was probably the first time I realized that Arsenal/Roy Harper had a great deal of potential as a character. Grayson used the shorthand of defining Harper by his relationships to other characters—disgruntled ex-sidekick of the (then-)deceased Green Arrow, lifelong friend and rival with Robin/Nightwing Dick Grayson, very little experience with Batman except from a distance at big superhero crises—but it was characterization, and Grayson got an awful lot done in one little one-shot.

It was what she accomplished here and, later (and perhaps to lesser extents) in Arsenal, JLA/Titans and The Titans that made more recent changes to Harper’s character under writer Brad Meltzer (in JLoA) and James Robinson (in Cry For Justice) and others so unfortunate, as lately DC has reversed many of the changes Roy Harper has experienced over the last few decades to make him distinct from Green Arrow in order to make him more like Green Arrow. (And now I guess they’re doing another 180 degrees, changing his name back to Arsenal, his costume to something less Arrow-y and reinstating his “super-aim” powers instead of just super-archery powers).

Also, this happened in a Roy Harper comic recently:I didn’t read all of the 1997 Plus books, but I really liked all of the ones I did read, as was rather enamored with the concept (a team-up between two characters that don’t team-up very often—or ever—focusing on their relationships). If you ever see any in back-issue bins, I’d recommend Robin Plus #1 (featuring Impulse, by Mark Waid, Brian Augustyn, John Royle and Rob Leigh, under a great Mike Wieringo/John Dell cover), Flash Plus #1 (a Nightwing team-up by Mark Waid, Brian Augustyn and Eduardo Barretto), Superboy Plus #1 (a Captain Marvel Jr. team-up by Ron Marz and Andy Smith) and, to a lesser extent, Green Lantern Plus #1 (Featuring GL Kyle Rayner and The Ray II, by Ron Marz, Scott Kolins and John Lowe).

There was a second round of Plus books all written by Len Kaminsky and teaming a popular-ish DC super-character up with a member of his monster rock band cast from the short-lived Scare Tactics series, but of the couple I read, I remember them being fairly unremarkable…with the exception of the Daniel Brereton covers:
Pretty nice, huh?


THIS GUY LOOKS PRETTY COOL: I’ve mentioned before my fascination with “new” old superheroes whom I only know from a cover or an image, as they tend to exist only in one’s imagination. Well, here’s another one to add to the list. How is it that Alex Ross hasn’t painted this guy on the cover of a Dynamite Entertainment book yet…?

These are the only covers I can find on Comics.org and, since I don’t know anything about this dude, maybe it's actually all of the covers featuring him...?
A cursory bit of Internet research has revealed relatively little. He was created by artist Adrian Dingle (who also created Nelvana of the Northern Lights, reportedly the first comic book superheroine)and The Penguin eventually had his named changed to The Blue Raven, in order to avoid confusion with Batman's villain.


A HEARTFELT THANK YOU TO CHRIS SIMS: I was planning on writing a long-ish post about the new DC superhero-themed boxes of Hostess snack cakes, but invincible super-blogger and ally of comics Chris Sims beat me to it in this great article at Comics Alliance, in which he rates “the Justice League of Snack Cakes.”

I’m glad he did; my article wouldn’t have been anywhere nearly as amusing as his was, and I now I don’t feel the need to eat a few boxes of Hostess snack cakes just for the sake of a blog post.

It’s times like these that I really miss When Fangirls Attack. I am honestly curious if there isn’t someone out there on the Internet who thinks it’s a terrible shame that Wonder Woman doesn’t have her own snack cake while traditional second-stringers The Flash and Green Lantern do. Something something Ho-Hos something.


TWO RETCONS DON'T MAKE A RIGHT: If you care about things like Spider-Man’s marital status, chances are you’ve already seen this quote from Joe Quesada (and/or the article it came from), about how the retconned “One Moment In Time” story arc he wrote in Amazing Spider-Man retconned the retconning story from the “One More Day” story arc so that it never actually happened, despite the fact that the desired results were achieved.

Tom Spurgeon responded on his blog by noting, “I've been reading comics since 1973 and I didn't understand one word of that quote.” I didn’t understand it either, but I did read through the comments section in the hopes that someone there would explain it to me, and I’m afraid it still makes no sense. Perhaps you have to read “One Moment In Time” (something I have no interest in attempting) to see how it undoes the cause of the retcon without undoing the effects, but it sure seems to just create a paradox to me.


I HAVEN'T READ JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #49 YET: But Tucker Stone’s theory on how that book got inked amused me. Actually, most of his Comics of the Weak column amused me, as it usually does. That Tucker Stone sure is an amusing son of a gun.


IF YOU CLICK ON JUST ONE LINK TO AN ANIMATED GIF OF GHOST RIDEE TODAY: Make it this one. The gang at Panel do a regular feature called “Character Wednesday” where they all draw the same comic book character, and a few Wednesdays ago it was Ghost Rider. There are some pretty swell results, but Steve Black’s three-image sequence of Johnny Blaze or Danny Ketch or whoever transforming is pretty incredible. You can check out the archives for the feature here.


BY THE WAY, HAVE I MENTIONED MY NEW SELF-PUBLISHED COMIC BOOK YET? Oh, yeah, that’s right. Well, I haven’t mentioned it today yet, have I? Okay, well now I have. Well, have you ordered a copy yet? I think you should. (If you want). Remember, there are worse comics you could buy.



What? Are you still reading? Did you expect more links? Jeez, wasn't that enough? Okay, fine—more linkblogging can be found in this morning's installment of Linkarama@Newsarama, my thrice-weekly feature on Blog@Newsarama, so you can try there if you like.

Five Random Things, None of Which Really Deserve a Post of Their Own

1.) I’ve been reading a lot about the Punisher online this week. Mike Sterling at Progressive Ruin noted the decline in demand for the Punisher’s first appearance, once a sought after item. Tim O’Neil at The Hurting produced a pair of well-observed, sharply-written essays about the character’s rise in popularity, and inherent problems as a star of sequential superhero fiction. And Chris Sims at The Invincible Super-Blog? That guy’s always got something to say about The Punisher.

So when is somebody going to get around to addressing the Punisher-related subject that I am most interested in reading about?

You know, this:



I’d do it myself, but every time I get to the panel that suggests DC and Marvel editors decided to combine Wonder Woman’s male girlfriend Steve Trevor and Frank Castle into the same person, my brain shortcircuits and I lose consciousness for a few hours, facedown in a longbox full of Amalgam comics.



2.) The Beat has their monthly analysis of DC’s sales figures up for June, and even though I’m no longer reading Countdown, I find myself increasingly (and, admittedly, somewhat morbidly) fascinated in how it performs in the direct market.

Like 52, it’s a rather experimental project for a publisher like DC, albeit one that changed several important factors from the experiment of 52. While that series proved a somewhat surprising success, this one is so far something of a disappointment (and I’m just talking bout the sales here, not in terms of creative success or failure).

So now I find myself wondering if it will prove to be simply less-of-a-success-than-52, or a spectacular failure.

Here’s what The Beat has to say at the moment:

“…the publisher’s supposed big event series of the moment is finding its level relatively quickly. Which is damning with faint praise, of course, because sales aren’t desperately good to begin with for this sort of thing. The three previous issues made the chart again in June with reorders between 1,704 and 2,018 units, in fairness, but that’s due to the fact that June was a rather light month in terms of new releases. 70,000 units may not be a bad number for a book without superstar creators that’s largely starring C-list characters. But the yardstick for Countdown are other event titles, including and especially its predecessor 52. By that standard, Countdown has been a failure….”

But keep in mind, dislike it or hate it, Countdown was still DC’s third best-selling title in June, and in a few months time may be the company’s best-seller (The two ahead of it in June were Justice, which just ended, and JLoA, which only has one more Brad Meltzer-written issue to go, and while I can’t imagine why, his writing currently sells like gangbusters).

I’m pretty curious about how bad the book would have to do to constitute a failure, or to start losing money (I’d say to cancel it, but since it’s counting down to something, presumably Final Crisis, I guess cancellation is impossible).

The two lowest-selling, uncancelled DCU books are All-New Atom and Blue Beetle (DC, please take note next time you assign the name of an unpopular character/brand to an unknown new character to launch a new series. See also the cancelled Firestorm and Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis), which are selling in the mid-teens. Would Countdown have to do that, or is the bar set much, much higher due to the amount of production stress a weekly causes the publisher?

Also worth noting is the fact that Countdown’s latest issue up there still outsold Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special by tens of thousands of units. I can’t think of anyone who likes Countdown, save an anonymous poster or three at Newsarama, and I can’t think of anyone who had anything harsh to say about Sinestro Corps beyond it’s not all that new reader friendly, and yet the former is outselling the latter. By a lot.



3.) And speaking of Countdown, check out incoming editor Mike Carlin’s interview with Newsarama’s Matt Brady on the latest issue.

I don’t envy Carlin; he seems to have been brought in to replace Mike Marts almost immediately, although the change was presented as Marts going on to take a better assignment. Brady graciously didn’t push on that at all.

But when Brady sought a little clarification on the wonky timeline of Countdown—events that took hours in “Lightning Saga” taking days in Coutndown, events that took days in Amazons Attack taking weeks in Coutndown, Batman being in three places simultaneously, and so on—Carlin got pretty defensive.

Here’s one:


“MC: It's on the news later in the issue... you really should give things some minute-to-minute time to unfold, no? This is an age old problem in a shared universe, though, why doesn't Superman intervene in every issue of Blue Beetle or Birds of Prey or everywhere in all titles...

“Sometimes when all is said and done, you can piece your year of all DC publications-- and figure a kinda place for everything...or you can just relax and enjoy the comic you're reading!”


And here’s another:


“MC: These stories will criss-cross and meld to the end... at least the threads that don't end suddenly-- and tragically! Here's a way to look at Countdown... it's not 52. 52 covered a lost year— 52 literal weeks. Countdown is several stories that play out in their own time... not a year's worth in the DCU.

“Nothing that happens in the DCU happens in real time... Lois & Clark have known each other for maybe 8 or 9 years in real time-- but they've celebrated twenty Christmas issues since 1986 alone!

“If you think about it too much you will die!”


I’m all for not thinking about things like the passage of time in the DCU as it relates to the passage of time in real life myself, but Carlin seems to miss the point, which pretty much everyone in the comments section makes over and over. Time in the DCU still has to occur sequentially, and events still have to happen in relation to one another.

It’s fine that Countdown, Amazons Attack, Teen Titans and Wonder Woman all deal with the Amazons attack on Washington D.C., and it’s fine that one is a weekly and the others are monthlies. But whatever rate the books are released, the events they chronicle have to match up. It’s the same attack they’re all addressing. Does it take a matter of days or weeks or months?

DC’s done weekly events before, from the Superman books during the “Triangle Years” to virtually every line-wide crossover they’ve ever done, and I’ve never before seen these sorts of problems creeping in. I honestly don’t understand how they’re even happening. It’s not like, “Well, few of our readers remember that one time that one thing happened in that one book, so we’ll contradict it,” but “We have no idea what happened in those other three books, and it looks like we’re contradicting it here—in this book which exists solely to match up all the books in our line to one big cohesive story.”

Also weird: Carlin seems really against editorial boxes, which is something The Brave and the Bold and Action Comics both used this very week, or any other alternative strategy to helping readers sort out when to read what. Marvel publishes checklists—there was one in the back of World War Hulk #2 this week—and during the run-up to Infinite Crisis and during the event itself, DC’s homepage featured a weekly column summarizing events that fed into the mega-story and what books they appeared in, making it easy (or easier, anyway) to follow along. Why not do this with Countdown/Amazons Attack/Sinestro Corps?

I’m afraid I already know the answer—DC’s not so sure of what’s going on when in their universe themselves, and trying to draw a roadmap for readers would only underscore that fact.


4.) I am extremely, perhaps unreasonably, excited about the news that Dynamite Entertainment, Alex Ross and Jim Krueger will be producing a series starring such Golden Age characters as the original Daredevil and The Green Lama.



These are characters I’ve been fascinated with for as long as I’ve been interested in comic books, and yet I’ve never read a single story featuring any of them. Daredevil, who’s apparently being renamed, would always get mentioned in Jack Cole bios, and the Green Lama was among those characters whose name and brief sketch in comic book histories, price guides and encyclopedias would intrigue the hell out of me.

Of course, part of this fascination no doubt extends from the fact that I haven’t been able to read any of their stories, so I don’t know how lame or derivative they might be.

Seeing the historic difficulties companies have had in reintroducing old superheroes to today’s consumers—DC’s inability to ever make their Fawcett, Quality and Charlton acquisitions really fly, and DC/WildStorm’s similar attempt to sell old British heroes in Albion and Thudnerbolt Jaxon makes me wonder if maybe the Direct Market isn’t even interested in superhero comics so much as a dozen or so particular superheroes, whom they already get their fill of.

Still, Alex Ross. If anyone can sell anything in the direct market, it’s Ross.

Finally, there’s the whole legal/public domain side of the project. Interesting that Dyanamite can do what they like with these characters, but not, say, Superman and Mickey Mouse, you know?



5.) Finally, speaking of Golden Age heroes I’ve always been fascinated by but never actually read any stories featuring, here are some others I’d love to read comics starring:


Pat Parker, War Nurse



Catman and Kitten



Green Giant

and, of course,


The Zebra





UPDATE: Well, that was fast! According to Comic Book Resources, Image is also doing a project revolving around Golden Age superhero comics. One of them is Speed Comics, which is where Pat Parker, War Nurse stories appeared. In fact, that looks an awful lot like War Nurse on this image from the upcoming Image series, doesn't it?