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 Marvel's Season One and more.

I'm always interested in seeing publishers reaching out to new readers, so of course I was intrigued by Marvel's Season One initiative, their attempt to introduce Marvel characters  to a mainstream audience via a series of original hardcover graphic novels.  According to a piece by Brian Truitt that ran in USA Today titled "Marvel launches 'Season One' graphic novels" the series "star a new, young generation of today's comic creators bringing a modern voice and sensibility to tales of classic Marvel heroes and teams."  The story quotes Marvel senior vice president and executive editor Tom Brevoort as saying:

"We're hoping to introduce folks who have never read any of these characters to these characters in this format, and also provide an interesting and illuminating story for people who have read a lot of Fantastic Four and Daredevil,"

Marvel posted select reviews of their first entry, Fantastic Four: Season One, on their website and, as you might guess they’re raves ("Impressive... a success!" -- The New York Times, "Outstanding" -- USA Today, etc.).  I just read it and given this is supposed to in honor the 50th Anniversary of the publisher, not to mention the relatively high SRP they really could have done a whole lot better than mediocre.  Because Fantastic Four: Season One just isn’t anything special; it has that special kind of dull blandness which has marred so many of their Marvel Adventures comics for kids.

There seems to have been an assumption that since this was intended for a large mainstream audience it didn't require any of the publisher's "name" creators,  which given how much money they could generate producing monthly comics undoubtedly makes better financial sense.  But given just how many of those top talents have difficulty meeting monthly deadlines maybe putting a least a couple of them on projects with longer lead times (like this) might make more sense in the long run.

Still, having said there are exactly two points of interest in Fantastic Four: Origins; first in it Reed Richards self-identifies as autistic, something that's been hinted at before (like in Grant Morrison's Fantastic Four: 1-2-3-4) but this is the first time it's been confirmed.  And second, instead of beating the crap out of the Mole Man Sue has a calm, rational chat with him about his whole "taking over the surface world" deal and the next thing you know he's living in The Baxter Building.  Although for the last forty years he's been mostly used as a joke or punching bag the Mole Man was once actually a groundbreaking character -- Marvels first sympathetic bad guy.  And while admittedly he's not much of a super-villain I can't help but think he'd make a fine supporting player; this is a development regular FF writer Jonathan Hickman should take notice of.  If he can rehabilitate Dragon Man, why not the Mole Man?

Well, as promised, during ComicsPro in Dallas DC Comics announced the results of their first A.C. Nielson survey and the results were pretty much as expected (see "'New 52' Appealed to Avid Fans ").  Of course the part that interested me was the statement there would be subsequent surveys, which I hope will have a greater emphasis on asking what readers do and don't want to see in their comics.  I realize that market research is far from infallible and an over-reliance on it can squash creativity (the way it has in just about every other aspect of American popular culture), but it still sure beats DC's current strategy of just guessing.

A couple of weeks ago (see "Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--The Court Martial of Captain Marvel") I opined how it was ironic that with the original Captain Marvel now going by Shazam.  Marvel (the publisher) had "an absolute grip on the name Captain Marvel at a time when they don't have a Captain Marvel and show no interest in creating one."  Well in a bit of strange bit of synchronicity (if that's what this is) they're planning to bring back their Captain Marvel as part of the Avengers Vs. X-Men event.  I don't know what's wrong with me because I really should have seen this one coming.

I realize it's a little late to mention this but on February 1st David Letterman celebrated his 30th Anniversary and guest Howard Stern asked bandleader Paul Shaffer, "Hey, Paul, do you read Marvel Comics?"  Paul, always ready to go along with a gag says yes.  Stern then says "You look like Plastic Man."  At first I thought it was a non sequitur of Zippy the Pinhead proportions then, two days later I'm more than a little ashamed to confess, I finally got it.  Stern's comment was a reference to Shaffer's signature oversized sunglasses.

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.