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 some inexplicable news stories from Marvel and DC.
"Inexplicable" is one of my go-to nouns and as such I tend to toss it around a little too often. I definitely seem to be using it a little more often than I should because I've discovered that constant overuse has made it lose some of its snap. Case in point, several of this week's stories:
Like the news that Angela, Neil Gaiman's warrior Angela (formerly of Spawn) would be making her first Marvel Universe Appearance in June’s Age of Ultron #10 (see "Gaiman Takes Angela to the Marvel Universe"), inexplicable. I want to call it "inexplicable" but that barely begins to cover it. Marvel has been promoting the issue as having an "unguessable" surprise ending, and though I haven't exactly been trying to guess I have to give credit where credit is due. I never would have guessed that an angel of any kind, a character who hasn't made a comic book appearance in years would show up unannounced in the middle of their latest event crossover involving a killer robot. It's a move that raises any number of questions, chief among them being, why? I mean, does Angela still have any fans? I know Neil Gaiman does, but would any fans of Sandman or American Gods go anywhere near a random issue of a comic called Age of Ultron?
As to why Gaiman would do this in the first place, it might have something to with the fact that Angela's appearance isn’t the comics surprise ending. The fact that the comic is still being shipped polybagged has led some on the Internet to suggest that Marvel is (somehow) also going to shoehorn the first Marvel Universe appearance of Marvelman into the pages of Age of Ultron #10. Something all of us, Gaiman included, have been waiting for entirely too long.
It's reached a point where they might as well admit the obvious. Either the concept of the "regular creative team" is now completely passe at DC and all creative personnel are replaceable cogs. Or they could just take the heat that's undoubtedly coming and finally freely admit that henceforth all DC Comics will now officially be "written" by committee (i.e., the editors); the dialogue could be farmed out to the freelancers.
I've got to admit that I was both pleased and surprised when I read about the new DC digital comic Batman '66. I've always liked the idea of DC going original content for digital, but have found it hard to get overly worked up over the ones they’ve done so far, media tie-in titles like Smallville and Arrow. But when you offer a comic book guy of a certain age a retro Batman title set during the height of the 1960's Batmania fad, written by the great Jeff Parker (Agents of Atlas) and drawn (at least the cover) by Mike Allred, well, that's something I can actually get excited about.
Of course it turns out that the comic is really just another media tie-in, if one on a much larger scale (see "Batman' Classic TV Licensing Program"). I suppose we should all just be grateful that Warner Bros Consumer Products is allowing a DC Comic as one of the products connected to the 1966 Adam West live-action Batman series. But it's a little disappointing to see something with so much potential be considered as just another piece of merchandise.
