Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio. This week, Bennett looks at Comic-Con announcements and the new Captain America film.I was really counting on at least a couple of big comic book announcements to come out of this year's Comic-Con. But sadly most of what we got was either an elaboration of what we already knew about DC: The New 52 or Marvel's predictable response to it; still more Fear Itself spin-off/tie-ins (spin-ins?) and #1 relaunches of their own. The only genuine surprises came from Archie; not only is the publisher on-board with gay marriage (see "Gay Marriage Next for Archie's Kevin Keller") but has plans for The Riverdale Gang to meet the band KISS (see "KISS Returns To Comics with Archie"). That I did not see coming.
Only two news bits from Comic-Con were directly in my wheelhouse: first, the announcement of a new batch of direct to DVD animated movies from DC which includes Superman vs. The Elite, based on Joe Kelly's "What's So Funny About Truth, Justice and the American Way?" from Action Comics #775. Many people, myself included, consider it to be one of the finest Superman stories of the last 50 years so naturally I'm looking forward to seeing it animated.
Second, Geoff Johns revealed that the much speculated upon unnamed female member of the upcoming Justice League series. Nothing much surprises me anymore but Lady Luck joining the JLA comes awfully close. Though it does make a certain amount of sense, seeing as how DC is publishing The Spirit and Lady Luck first appeared in the weekly newspaper comic book The Spirit Section. Naturally in her new incarnation she won't be fighting crime dressed in lime green evening wear and veil but instead have luck based powers. Probability Manipulation is an unlikely ability for a superhero but a surprisingly popular one; at Marvel alone there are Domino, Longshot and Shamrock.
And while we're on the topic of bringing back really obscure Golden Age characters I never thought would ever see the light of day again Captain America #1 features a cameo by Jimmy Jupiter. Jimmy was the teen-aged hero of a Little Nemo-type back-up strip which ran in Marvel Mystery Comics where he routinely traveled to a fantasy world. And his appearance here isn’t just an Easter Egg for guys like me; as far as I can the character is the key to the first story arc so, kudos to writer Ed Brubaker for doing something this unexpected. At this rate my dream of seeing a revival of Terry Vance, Schoolboy Sleuth may come true any day now.
My only complaint is that once again the producers seem to have decided something from the comics was "too comic-booky" for a general audience, and I'm not talking about The Cosmic Cube. Even I'll admit that the name is silly, not that the film’s choice is that much better (though 'Tesseract' has science fiction connotations it's literal definition is 'the four-dimensional equivalent of a cube'). I'm likewise OK with them making it an artifact of the Aesir because, leave us face it, something that can rewrite reality is unlikely to have been whipped up in someone's basement.
But what does kind of bother me is even after the big reveal and the rubber mask comes off the movie seems to go out of it’s way to avoid calling The Red Skull just that. Maybe it's because they thought the name was a little too on the nose but it's more likely someone decided that the name, though not the guy with a red skull-head, was too "comic-booky" and likely to alienate audiences.
Last week I wrote about how no one in the comics had ever bothered to come up with a reason or even an excuse as to why a modern super soldier like Captain America would carry around a shield (see "Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--The Old 52"). I was hoping that the movie version of his origin would at least put it into some kind of context but after Steve Rogers makes good use of a loose cab door in an early scene it's just assumed that he would carry a shield. But this might have more to do with merchandising than fealty to the source material; I just saw yet another commercial for Hasbro's Captain America Disc Launching Shield.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.
