I realize that it’s been basically a whole year since my last post, which is bad. In the unlikely event that any of my original readership happen to see this, I sympathize with the radio silence. Here’s the thing; today is the ninth anniversary of the first post I ever made and I figured I might as well throw up my annual Top Ten Favorite Movies list. However, one year from now is the damn ten-year anniversary, which is both hilarious and terrifying. It does seem like I should do something for a milestone that big, but also it feels like it would be very lame to do something for it without having touched the site in years and that there should be content leading up to it. So…food for thought?
Anyway, I somehow managed to watch a decent number of movies this year despite having one of the strangest and most life changing eighteen months of my life. But, as always, I managed to miss several key films over the course of the year, Bad Times at the El Royale being a particularly annoying omission. So if you’re favorite film isn’t on the list then that may be why. Also, this is a subjective list of my personal FAVORITE films, not necessarily the objectively best movies of the year. You may disagree with the list; that’s okay. Your opinion is valid. We’re all friends here. Feel free to post your own list in the comments. Something a little different this year; I’m going to throw up some Panda Scores as well. For old times sake. Before I get into the list, let me shout out a few movies that didn’t quite make the list but that I want to give a little love to. First of all, Avengers: Infinity Wars was actually on the original version of this list but was bumped off at the last minute. Still a great movie, especially if you think of Thanos as being the protagonist. Game Night ended up being a better than it had any right to be and is a comedy that worked on just about every level. The Wife features a killer performance from Glenn Close that may well earn her a well deserved Oscar. And finally, Deadpool 2 in many ways felt like a more complete movie then its predecessor and continues to show that Ryan Reynolds is one of the best actors bringing a comic book superhero to life today. Too bad about its Women in Refrigerators moment.
Sorry, Captain America. Maybe next year... (Also, I don't feel so good)
Don't worry; most of this foreshadowing leads nowhere
Today Beta is Dead turns seven years old! Just typing that out made me feel depressed suddenly… Anyway, I recently moved to a new place and during the process a certain stack of comics came back into my possession, despite me having lost access to them nearly six years earlier; I found every single issue of DC Comic’s Countdown to Final Crisis.
This is my least favorite goddamn comic of all time and I’m going to review the hell out of it!
Yes, I dislike it more than Spider-Man: One More Day, not because OMD is better (it sure as shit isn’t) but that story only spat in the face of one character’s mythos whereas Countdown took a dump on a huge chunk of the DC Universe. Plus, even though I hate it, OMD did result in many long lasting and (eventual) positive changes to the Spider-Man comics whereas every change and storyline point in Countdown was either retconned (retcon, short for "retroactive continuity"), forgotten or straight up ignored within a MONTH of the series’ end despite months of hype. So what is Countdown to Final Crisis? Well, it was a comic book limited series that ran weekly for an entire year beginning in 2007. It was the spiritual successor to the extremely well received 52, another year long comic that took place directly after the events of the big DC crossover Infinite Crisis and ran in real time, instead of the rolling time line most superhero comics adhere to (52 was also the first appearance of the new Batwoman, who I believe was the best new comic creation of the 2000s). The great success of 52 led Dan DiDio, then head honcho of DC Comics, to commission another such series. However, despite the critical success of 52 DiDio supposedly wasn’t a fan of it and opted for the new series to be a “superior” version of the comic. For context, this is the same guy who opted to wipe Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown out of existence and then get upset at fans at conventions who questioned the decision at Q&A sessions at comic conventions. Anyway, though it’s not immediately clear in the beginning it would turn out that Countdown was the lead-up to DC’s next big crossover event, Final Crisis. I think I’ll save my exact issues with the comic itself for the review, which will be split into several parts. For today I want to look at the lead-in to Countdown, as this book has a lot of baggage that the Average Joe would need to know before they could possibly understand it (but don’t get it twisted; this comic won’t make any sense no matter what). So this is sort of a “Countdown to Countdown to Final Crisis.” The Countdown begins after the jump.
Despite a severe lack of updates I’ve somehow made it to Beta is Dead’s fifth anniversary. BALLOONS!!!
Balloons make everything better
It seems I’m still kicking, despite all appearances to the contrary. A year ago I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue with this blog since there’s so little reward in it. By mid-2014 I was actually feeling significantly better about the blog but I was hampered by some personal issues (and, no, you don’t get to know what those issues were, you nosey so-and-so) which led me to working on my novel rather than writing about movies or cartoons or whatever is it is I normally do. Almost immediately after I finished the first draft and was ready to get back to reviewing things I got a new job that not only ate up all my time but made me not really want to touch a computer after work (eight hours staring at computer screens will do that to you). So in a real way 2014 was probably the worst year in this blog’s history.
But there’s no use in feeling down about it. Instead on dwelling on a lousy year it’s best to plan for the next one and that’s what I aim to do! (I actually had a pretty good year, just not for this blog)
So for 2015 I foresee myself being busy enough that regular updates will not be in the cards. I’d always had the pipe dream of a MWF schedule but I don’t think that’s likely to happen, not unless I make enough money to justify it. I will try to post as often as I can. Expect an anniversary related blog sometime before the end of the month. I also promise I will do everything in my power to make sure there will be posts for Black Superhero Month.
Reviews may be a bit trickier but we’ll see. Traditional the first review of the year is a Mila Kunis film (not because I’m a big fan but because what else am I going to review, am I right?) but that may or may not be the case this year. Jupiter Ascending was delayed to an early February release so if I don’t review something before I see it then tradition will prevail.
A major thing I want to talk about is my book. I finished the first draft last September but since then I have not had the time to edit it that I would like, mainly due to my new job. In 2015 my number one goal is to begin (key word) the process of getting it published by December, even if that’s only shopping it around to agents who won’t return my e-mails (or whatever the first step is; I dunno, man). So I need to get this second draft done, then the third draft, then the fourth draft and then maybe a fifth draft depending on how I feel about it. I plan on this being my priority which means if I feel I have to choose between this blog and my book I will put Beta is Dead on an extended hiatus. If this happens I will likely say something on here.
Any way my hope is that 2015 will be a good year and that we’ll all be here for the sixth anniversary.
Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the 300th blog of Beta is Dead. Four years and countless hours of my life have been thrown into this blog and at 300 entries I’m fairly certain I have enough material for multiple novels. As I mentioned in the last blog today I’ll be celebrating this milestone by reviewing one of Marvel Comics' most important modern crossovers Civil War, which began publication in 2006 and ended in 2007. If there’s one huge problem with today’s comics, especially at Marvel, it’s the seemingly constant stream of big comic events and big status quo altering crossovers. Back in the day these types of things were more spread out and they didn’t always “change everything”. Nowadays there’s at least one big storyline a year (sometimes more!) and when it’s over it they’ve made major changes to the canon only to change everything again by the next one. X-Men: Schism is a fantastic example of this. Schism was supposed to be this HUGE deal, a storyline that divided the X-Men into two warring factions but just a year later all of that was tossed out of the window when Avengers vs. X-Men established a totally different dynamic. Why bother changing up the world if you’re going to just change it again before we get used to it? Anyway Civil War really is the start of this in the 2000s. It was the next chapter of Marvel’s weird ass agenda of pumping out a bunch of events labeled as one big “epic” saga starting with Avengers Disassembled and ending with Siege. But it was Civil War that really got it rolling as it’s ending shattered the basic foundation of the Marvel Universe (of course most things went completely back to normal a few years later, meaning nothing here really mattered in the long term). For the record this book was written by Mark Millar with art by Steve McNiven. The question is this: was Civil War a good story? It’s a famous story and a historically relevant and is actually pretty controversial but the quality of book itself isn’t guaranteed. Now the Civil War story was made up of seven issues but there were also numerous tie-ins and side story comics. Since I would have to spend a ton of money to buy all that crap we’re just going to stick with the main miniseries. After all the main book alone should have a complete and satisfying story, right? Right? Full review after the jump. [WARNING: There are spoilers freely written throughout this review but seeing as this is an eight year old comic you should probably get over it]
Another year hone and Beta is Dead is now four years old!
I can barely believe it myself; four years is a long time, especially for just writing about random stuff. Theoretically a kid may have started reading this blog in 2010 and now by 2014 could be a legal adult. That is how old this blog is. It’s weird to look back on the last four years and realize how different things are for me compared to back when I first started. I wish I could say that I’m still jazzed to be doing this blog but, as regular readers might have guessed, 2013 was very difficult for me on a personal level and the blog greatly suffered as a result. This is a hobby and a very time consuming one as well. It’s a lot of work with little reward and in fact the reward seems to get smaller every year. For the first time since I started this blog I feel like I may not have it in me to keep it going for the long haul. That said in the short term there’s nothing to worry about if you’re one of the increasingly small number of regular visitors and, who knows, perhaps when I do my annual Black Superhero Month in a few weeks I’ll feel a little better about things. Should I decide to call it quits with Beta is Dead I’m fairly sure I’ll be giving advanced warning. Enough doom and gloom. More anniversary stuff after the jump.
This is blog entry #250 for Beta is Dead. Now I honestly don’t think that 250 is a milestone to throw a party over but I still decided to do something a little more personal and a little bigger than my usual entries. Over the years I’ve take a lot of pit shots at what is known as The Dark Age of Comic Books, or to more specific the 90s. This is also referred to as TheIron Age of Comic Books by people who remember this period a little more fondly than I do. Anyway I’ve decided that, if I’m going to crack the jokes, I should explain why I have a problem with this particular era of comics.
For more info on the other Ages of Comics click here.
We should probably start by talking about the era itself. The range of this period is heavily contested however most would agree it began in 1986. This as the year that two masterpieces came out: The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen. Both were dark, gritty deconstruction of the classic (i.e. “campy”, “corny”) idea of what it is to be a superhero. They were also both really good, especially Watchmen which is a contender for the greatest superhero story ever told. This was also the year that DC Comic’s mega crossover Crisis on Infinite Earths, another beloved classic, was released. The series rebooted the entire DC Universe, cut all ties to the Silver Age and Golden Age and, while not starting from scratch, was supposed to be a more modern interpretation of their world. This was really what this era was shooting for in the following years: a fond farewell to the days where comics were for kids and embrace a more mature, more complex and above all edgier style.
Yeah, that sounds good on paper.
The end of this era is probably the most debated of any other era in comic books. For one many, many people firmly believe that the Dark Age never ended and we’re still there today. However others believe that it ended between 1995 and 1996 as those years saw the debut of Astro City, which was a reconstruction of the good aspects of superhero comics from the Silver Age, and Kingdom Come, which was itself a deconstruction of the Dark Age and the antiheroes that populated it. 1996 was also the year of the Comic Book Crash, which we’ll talk about today. Still others point at 2000, the debut of Ultimate Spider-Man and Marvel Comics’ “Ultimate” line. Either way the idea is that by the late 90s the industry had gotten tired of the antiheroes and the dark and grittiness of the times and were moving back towards a more lighthearted vision of what it means to be a superhero.
So now that we know the "when" we should look at the “why”.
Another year, another anniversary. It has been three years today since I started Beta is Dead! It now actually feels like I’ve legitimately done this for a long while and I have many great memories and benefits such as…such as…um…er…hmm. Anyway I’m glad I’ve mostly maintained a regular schedule this long since, when I started, I wasn’t certain I’d make it six months before getting bored and giving up. So really at this point it’s all gravy. Still as long as I still feel like writing about stuff I’ll keep doing Beta is Dead. More anniversary stuff after the jump.
Two hundred blogs. Woooo! The sheer amount of words I’ve written in 199 blogs is actually very staggering to me, as I can’t even seem to finish a writing novel. Still I’m very proud that I’ve managed to stick with the blog this long. To celebrate I wanted to do a follow-up to my 100th post which, if you recall, was a very detailed review of Spider-Man: One More Day, one of the worst comic books I ever had the displeasure of reading and the reason I haven’t bought any new Spider-Man comics since (well, at least until today’s comic).
I talked about One More Day to great degree in both the 100th blog and the prologue in the 99th blog so I don’t want to repeat myself too bad. However if you’re too lazy to check them out basically the comic involved Spider-Man and his wife Mary Jane Watson making a deal with Mephisto, the closest entity Marvel Comics has to Satan, in order to save the life of his dying Aunt May whom was shot because Spidey was stupid enough to reveal his secret identity to the world and then decide to betray Iron Man thus losing any protection his family had received and causing them to become fugitives. The book was really, really poorly written, extremely contrived and rushed, and ultimately an unsatisfying end to Spidey and MJ’s twenty-year marriage for those of us who were fans of it. Not to mention the idea of Spider-Man making a deal with the devil so he doesn’t have to take responsibility for his own follies kind of pretty much kills the character’s integrity for me.
The comic concluded with Peter Parker and MJ ‘s marriage never happening (in fact they were broken up, actually), his identity again now a secret, his web shooters restored (the years prior to this he had developed “organic webbing”), and Harry Osborn, long dead son of the Green Goblin and Peter’s best friend, suddenly alive and well. So obviously there were questions that we had with this new status that we all really wanted answers to, including:
-What changes to Spider-Man canon have happened now that the marriage has ben retconed out of existence?
-What happened Spider-Man’s organic webbing? And did the extra powers he gained in The Other storyline hold up?
-How is Harry Osborn still alive? Did he ever become the Green Goblin? And since the Clone Saga turned out to be a(n extremely convoluted) revenge plot by Harry’s father because of his son’s death does this mean that that storyline never actually happened?
Pictured: Peter Parker at the end of One More Day. Probably
In 2010, three years after the taste of One More day had started to wash away, then Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada (the architect of One More Day and outspoken opponent of the Spider-Marriage) decided to release a new Spider-Man story to address questions following the controversial comic. No, not the questions above (though to be fair some of them were answered during the post-OMD Amazing Spider-Man comic) but rather the question of “why did Peter and Mary Jane never get married?” Which is actually really annoying because I’m not sure who the hell wanted that question answered. I mean, people who were pro-marriage were not going to want to relive the crap from OMD and people who were enjoying the Brand New Day storyline (post-OMD Amazing Spider-Man) probably didn’t want to have their regular comic interrupted by rehashing old shit. So, because absolutely no one asked for it, Spider-Man: One Moment in Time hit the stands.
Written by Quesada with art from Paolo Rivera it covers The Amazing Spider-Man #638-641. As a warning this review will likely be pretty a pretty nerdy and passionate rant. It likely won’t be as bad as my One More Day review but if you aren’t really into the whole “Angry Dork” thing you might want to wait until blog #201 comes out.
Full review after the jump.
[WARNING: Spoilers abound in this review, as I pretty much stopped giving a crap about five pages into this mess]
Beta is Dead is two years old. It’s a goddamn anniversary!
Technically the anniversary was yesterday (I’m cheating with the date listed) but I’ve been so busy this week with my band’s CD release (Oh, I'll plug that in due time) that I haven’t had any time to get to a computer. But even so Beta is Dead has lasted another year. Thank you to everyone who has stuck it out with me the last twenty-four months.
Last year I made the New Year’s resolution that I’d do everything I could to make the blog better and I think I’ve mostly been able to do that. But things can always be better and I do feel I’ve neglected things recently.
So hey let’s look at some stats from the last year. The most visited page seems to have been my review of Gurren Lagaan, almost entirely based on people looking for sexy pictures of Yoko….which is pretty damn gross. My now obsolete blog about Cassandra Cain was the second highest, though one wonders if I need to do an update since things have changed for the character (Meh, she probably doesn’t even exists after the reboot). Weirdly the third most visited page was my write-up about Silverhawks. I find this odd since that blog wasn’t even written in 2011. I’m pretty sure this is the result of people looking for pictures through Google, but is this show really that popular? I’m regularly shocked at the number of hits this article gets.
Anyway I hope you’ve all enjoyed the last year’s worth of blogs. Don’t forget to spread the word and share with friends if you like what you’ve been reading. Hopefully this year will be even better and readership will continue to grow. Also feel free to follow me on Twitter @JasonBetaMagnus, if that’s your thing. I don’t use it much but having followers makes me feel cool. Like “Sunglasses at Night” cool.
I deeply apologize for the lack of updates in November. I kind of let things get away from me there. Long story short I was participating in (And failing at) National Novel Writing Month and whatever writing I did last month I did for that. Then I was kind of burnt out from writing. Also I got a writing job for Kzoo Music Scene and I have been a bit busy with that as well (But I’ll properly plug that later this week). Then again I didn’t get any comments or e-mails asking about where I was so I’ll go ahead and assume you guys weren’t all that worried.
Anywho if you have in fact been eagerly anticipating the 150th blog of Beta is Dead your dreams have finally come true. Today, as with pretty much all the major and minor milestones I celebrate here, we’ll be talking about comic books; especially the topic of Superhero Marriages.
How long before DC tries to have another "Wedding of the Century" stunt?
If you read my 100th (And 99th) blog you’ll recall that I was particularly bothered by Marvel Comics' decision to retcon the marriage of Spider-Man and his long, long time love interest Mary Jane Watson. While I had several reasons for my distaste one of the bigger cons I had for it was the reasoning behind why it needed to be erased in the first place. Now at the time I didn't think too much of it, aside for my overall disapproval towards Spider-Man comics that continues to this day, but recently I've started wondering if comic book creators have something against their characters being married. Now superheroes have be through divorces in the past and certainly wives and husbands have died off before as well but in one of the more frustrating aspects of the DCnU reboot this past fall has been that DC Comics have removed several established marriages in the hero community. This was no doubt an attempt, or maybe even simply a “side effect”, on their part to re-establish their characters as being younger (And probably “hipper” since as we learned from Spider-Man no superhero can be “cool” and “married”, yuck-yuck-yuck). So the current FlashThe False, well established grandfather Barry Allen, is no longer married to Iris West (Whom he married decades ago), Superman and Lois Lane have reverted back to the Silver Age of Comics where she somehow had been too stupid to figure out that guy she knows in the glasses is also the Man in Steel, and Wally West (The One True Flash) and Linda Park…well I’m not even sure Wally still exists in this new continuity, let alone his two children who have surely been erased.
This has made me think: traditionally how have superhero comics (Particular Marvel and DC since they both seem to be tied to traditional much more than small imprints like, say, Image Comics) treated holy matrimony and do writers seem to actively prefer single heroes. I don’t have the answer to that. But I thought I would talk about superhero marriages in general.
The sanctity of marriage is challenged after the jump.
This is a little late than I wanted but nevertheless we’ve reached the 100th blog of Beta is Dead. I wasn’t sure I’d ever actually reach that many blogs but thankfully things have remained fun for me. In any case I wanted to do something big for this occasion, thus Spider-Man: One More Day. What better way to celebrate the current longevity of my blog than to review one of the most controversial comic book storylines this past decade?
If you haven’t done so already make sure you check out the Nerd Rage #6a from earlier this week where I went into detail about the back-story of the comic. In 2007 Marvel Comics decided to run a storyline in the pages of their three current ongoing Spider-Man titles Amazing Spider-Man, Sensational Spider-Man and Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. Based on where the comic are now I assume that there were three main goals attached to this storyline: 1) Undo or otherwise downplay all the various and controversial changes to Spider-Man’s nature over the past few years (Including his organic web-shooters and several extra powers he gained). 2) Set up the comics for a new direction and new status quo (i.e. Brand New Day, which also saw the cancellation of the two extra Spider-Man titles while Amazing started running three times a month rather than just monthly). 3) To finally, FINALLY rid the world of that annoying Spider-Marriage that has plagued readers for two decades thus raising the quality of the stories for current and future readers. How would it do that? HELL IF I KNOW IT’S MAGIC OR SOMETHING!!!!!!
One More Day was written by J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5 and a familiar face if you’re a regular visitor of this blog, and boy oh boy is that man not a stranger to controversial Spider-Man storylines having written Amazing for the last few years (See: “The Other”, “Sins Past”). However this comic is the baby of artist and then-Editor-in-chief Joe “We Don’t Have to Explain It” Quesada, a vocal opponent of the marriage who has seemingly made an enemy out of many fans due to some choice words before, during and after One More Day was running.
Anyway its important to remember that this article is not about whether ending the marriage was a good move or not, nor is it about whether the marriage needed to end in the first place. This article is a review of the comic itself to determine if it was any good not, which is the most important part anyway. That sad I want to point out that Mary JaneWatson is one of the better female characters in superhero comics and certainly one of my personal favorites but she’s constantly a victim of bad characterization from writers who don’t “get her” and often used as a scapegoat for their own limitations (It’s easier to say “Mary Jane is a bad character” than to admit you can’t properly write women). Her exile from the comic books, and eventual demotion, means Spider-Man has lost his most important supporting character and hasn’t really offered a decent replacement. We’re all slightly worse off now.
Anyway enough of that crap. Its reviewing time! Click below for the full review.
[WARNING: There’s pretty much nothing but spoilers after the jump. So if you haven’t read One More Day and would like to you’ll pretty much have everything ruined for you if you click below. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!]
The first anime I ever reviewed one year to the day
So I guess it’s been a year since my first anime review. I suppose that as far as milestones go this one isn’t the most memorable or exciting (Come back in two entries for a better one) but I figured it’d be weird to not at least acknowledge things. For those of you who aren’t aware last year I decided to start watching anime again after several years of going out of my way to avoid it. Basically I had become burnt out on it after a stint as president of my university’s anime club. However back in the day, when I was a child, I LOVED anime with a fiery passion. I lived and breathed that shit. I don’t think I even knew what the word “otaku” was but from age nine to nineteen I one of the biggest ones I knew. I recall watching various movies and OVAs on the Sci-Fi Channel (Now embarrassingly known as “SyFy”) during their anime blocks, going to cons to track down fansubs of Dragon Ball Z and After War Gundam X, and amassing a large collection of soundtracks.
When I started the blog it was mostly to write up extra thoughts for my radio show The Saturday Morning Cartoon Show that I was unable to express on the show proper and one episode we happened to watch Gigantor. After that write-up I ended writing a follow-up for SMCS fans who may not have been that fluent in the style. All that writing about anime made me nostalgic for the old days so I decided I’d try to recapture my lost love for it. The best way to do that I figured was to watch a bunch of shows I’ve never seen before and since I had this blog I figured I’d review them here while I was at it. So one year and thirteen new (To me) shows later I feel I’m still not really any closer to being the kind of fan I used to be, but seeing as I have in fact watched that much anime and have written so much on it I might as well be an otaku. Wow, I’m an anime nerd with zero of the benefits. Sometimes I hate this blog.
More on anime and possibly drinking to forget after the jump.
Hey guess what? It’s been exactly one year since I posted my first entry onto this blog. Meaning BETA IS DEAD IS ONE YEAR OLD! Time to dance!
Well that's a bit low-key for a party
Is it really that big a deal? Maybe not, but at the very least I managed to consistently post material for a whole year, more or less. That’s really good for me. At first this blog was mainly bonus material for the Saturday Morning Cartoon Show. For years I have been co-host of that radio program but with a two-hour time limit I often found it hard to fully express my feelings about the various shows were played on-air. So obviously, being a nerd, the first solution to come to my mind was to start an internet blog. You know, because I apparently never wanted to date a woman ever again. Anyway I thought maybe I could write on other things aside from classic and not so classic cartoons so now I pretty much write anything I want to, which just happens to mainly be reviews I guess. Which is kind of lame now that I think about it.
So what has changed in the last year? Well the first edition of the blog was SMCS #1: Captain N and looking back I think it’s safe to say my writing has gotten better. So that’s cool, I suppose. There’s certainly a larger chunk of followers now, which is pretty cool, and I get decent traffic. Plus I now get consistent visits from places that aren’t the United States, especially from the United Kingdom. Nice! Though I hardly get any feedback. I sometimes wonder if anyone’s actually reading this stuff since aside from “Iron Eagle” and Travis (Buddies in real life) not too many folk stop by to say hello. Hopefully this will get better over this coming year because I’m so gosh darn lonely.
Let’s look at some stats from the last year:
Aside from the main page the entry that has had the most traffic this past year has been Nerd Rage #1: Cassandra Cain as Batgirl. I got a lot of lurkers coming this way by goggling for Cassandra Cain so I suppose that makes sense. This was probably the angriest blog I'd ever written by the way. The second most visited was Scott Pilgrim [Indeterminate Amount of Time] Day 1 the intro to my three part love letter to the Scott Pilgrim franchise. The third most visited was my review of Gurren Lagann. I assume that’s because Gurren Lagann is the most badass thing that ever did anything ever.
So long as I have GIANT ROBOTS I do not need love
Later today I’ll be uploading an essay I have been meaning to write for months now so come back later to check it out. It will be another nerd rant so prepare yourself for possible boredom. My New Years’ Resolution is to make this blog "better" (Vague much?) so hopefully, a year for now, I’ll be mentioning how Beta is Dead has taken the world by storm. We’ll see.
In any event thanks for taking time to visit my boring old site the past year. Here’s to the next year.
Marvel finally drops the pretense about who the star of the X-Men really is
This post marks my 50th official blog, so long as we discount an early post from January announcing I was too sick to finish my SMCS Transformers Blog on schedule. Regardless I’m pretty satisfied with writing that much under a year. My primary reason for starting this blog was to force myself to write something regularly under the hopes that it would a) help my writing in general and b) help my ability to work within a deadline. I suppose it’s helping on both fronts, though not as much I’d hope (The secondary reason involved a crush a on girl whom I’m 100% certain has never been to this blog, but let’s ignore that less than noble aspect). There haven’t been that many visitors to this site but I am thankful for what traffic I get as well as the few comments I received. Funny trivia: the most read article I’ve written is essentially Nerd Rage #1: Cassandra Cain as Batgirl but that seems to be due to the popularity of Google searches for Cassandra and people looking for pictures. Lame, but such is the nature of the beast we call the internet.
Anyway I’ve decided to celebrate the milestone of reaching fifty articles with a special comic related topic, one that I’ve alluded to and joked about many times before but haven’t specifically written about. I’m, of course, referring to the abortion of a story known as Spider-Man: One More Day the popular Marvel Comics character Wolverine, seeing how Spider-Man has never been married to my recollection so clearly I shouldn’t be annoyed by that.
Warning: The title of this article should be pretty self explanatory BUT just to make sure we’re all on the same page the following is going to be very opinionated stuff and will surely sound fanboy-like. It can’t be helped; I will attempt to back-up what I say with logical reasoning as opposed to emotional gibberish but at the end of the day I am voicing my opinion about a fictional character on the internet thus robbing me of any reasonable credibility. If you prefer snarky reviews feel free to check out others parts of the blog, because this right here is about to get dorky.
If you’ve read my blogs with any frequency you may have noticed that I greatly dislike the X-Men character Wolverine. After recently starring in his own movie four movies, three of which were disguised as ensembles, he’s more or less a household name these days. I basically understand the appeal of the guy: he’s a badass, doesn’t take crap from any one, and plays by his own rules. We’re Americans, damn it, and we like that archetype (Note: Wolverine is a portrayed as being Canadian). The problem is that he tends to be contrary with my superhero ideal and more in line with the superhero deconstruction from the 80s leading to the rise of the violent anti-hero type of the 1990s, or TheDark Age of Comics, considered by many fans to be one of the lowest creative depths in comic book history. That Wolverine is the poster child of the era of comics I despise the most is just enough to make me dislike the character, but in addition his amazing and unwavering popularity with fans has led to insane amounts of overexposure as well as power upgrades that kill my suspension of disbelief (And since I regularly read superhero comics you know that must take a lot of work to do) with a lot of this happening at the expense of my favorite X-Men character.
Even Spock hates Wolverine
We’ll get back to that in a second. Let’s fist take a look at Wolverine’s history.
Wolverine made his debut in The Incredible Hulk #180 (Properly in #181), introduced as an enemy of the Hulk but not necessarily a villain. His background at the time was not fleshed at all and aside from being a Canadian government agent with claws not much was know about him even to the writers. In fact the exact details of his past would remain a mystery for the next 27 years in real time. Fast forward a year later to 1975 and the revamp of the X-Men comic which had been brought back after several years of cancelation, the comic known as Giant-Size X-Men #1. Logan (The main alias used for those 27 plus years) was brought in as a member of the “All New, All Different” X-Men alongside fellow future long time teammates Storm, Colossus and Nightcrawler. If you ever read those early issues it’s pretty clear that the writers don’t have a lot of use for him; he’s kind of just there and his now-famous conflict of personality with leader Cyclops was actually used for fleshing out Thunderbird, an Apache mutant with a chip on his shoulder who did almost nothing but argue with old “One-Eye” for the first four issues. After Thunderbird’s shocking death in the new team’s second mission Wolverine sort of fell into his spot, was written as being attracted to Cyclops’ girlfriend Jean Grey and played up his anti-authoritative stance. Ironically Chris Claremont, the writer, and Dave Cockrum, the artist, preferred Nightcrawler and Colossus to Wolverine and were planning to kill him off fairly early on, but soon Cockrum was replaced by John Byrne, who is Canadian, and he talked his way into keeping the character around long enough for him to gain enough popularity to justify not writing him out of the book. So this is what I want you to understand: Wolverine was a superfluous character that kind of blended into the background and the reason he wasn’t written off was because of his nationality. If he was French he would have been killed and we would probably only half remember the guy. But this is the real world, sickness and poverty run rampant on the world, senseless wars wage on, and Wolverine is still alive.
By this point Marvel was firmly in the Bronze Age of Comics and writers were starting to write more mature stories and distance themselves form the campy Silver Age of Comics. Wolverine’s character started to become more fleshed out as he is revealed to have a mysterious and possibly a less than altruistic past (Which included him being a samurai for some reason), as well as apparently suffering from an unstable mental state that sometimes made him slip into an unstoppable berserker rage. Now I’m not sure having a potential psycho murderer on a superhero team is the best way to run a tight ship, but hey, it was the late 70s and rules were different then I guess. Anyway Logan got more and more popular through the 80s, mirroring the industries love affair with “Bad Boys”. As comic books started spiraling into a void of gritty cynicism many fans started to view Wolverine as a new ideal for a comic hero while characters closer to, say, Superman were starting to be looked at like old relics that didn’t have a place in the modern world leading a slew of rip-off characters (See: Early Image Comics). Logan wasn’t just a 90s Anti-Hero; he was THE 90s Anti-Hero. His popularity during the Dark Age skyrocketed with only brief periods of cool downs and has managed to last to the Modern Age of Comics during which he was added to the roster of The Avengers. He currently stars in two or three ongoing solo series and is featured in the X-Men books, a few Avengers books, and Uncanny X-Force.
There’s a few reasons why I hate this guy, so let’s break this is down, shall we?
He’s an Anti-(Super)Hero
When it comes down to it Wolverine portrayal in the comics is just not what I like to read from my superheroes. If someone asks me what is my superhero ideal I’d say it has a lot to do with doing the right thing while also standing for something greater. Superman, Captain America, Spider-Man when he’s not written as being a coward who will sacrifice all personal integrity by battering with Satan-like entities married are some examples. I like anti-heroes well enough on their own, but in superhero comics I gravitate towards the more classic archetype. The closest thing to an anti-hero I tend to enjoy in superhero comics is Batman, but seeing as he works closely with the police commissioner, has a strict no killing policy (And frowns on brutal beatings as well), and is looked up to by the rest of the superhero community as an example they should follow I’d hesitate to address him as such. In Wolverine’s defense though the X-Men aren’t actually superheroes (Most of the time anyway); they’re a mutant strike force that police their own species to show good will towards humans despite the fact that they are often branded as outlaws, so really he’s not so much a superhero as he is a Mutant Dirty Harry. Even so when I’m looking to buy superhero books I walk past Spawn, I walk past The Punisher, and I walk past Wolverine and pick-up the new issue of Superboy instead.
Logan: Texas Ranger
Actually Chuck Norris is more of a team player than this guy
Unlimited Healing Factor
When his healing powers were first conceived the writers actually envisioned it to be fairly mundane. In fact one proposed origin that didn’t get made for Wolverine was that he had been seriously wounded but his mutant power didn’t work on bones so he was forced to get an unbreakable adamantiumreplacement skeleton just so he could walk. Even though the “can’t heal bones” aspect was never actually used in the comic his powers were still not too bad at first but as the years went by his abilities were upgraded from “accelerated healing factor” to “Deus ex machina” allowing him to basically be as unkillable as the current writer deems fit. I am currently looking at an issue of New X-Men where Logan gets all the flesh burned off his arm leaving nothing but bone which results in no long term effects other than his needed “time to heal”. I’ve seen him enter a planet’s atmosphere without a ship and being able to continue his adventure after getting “time to heal”. He’s been killed numerous times in increasingly brutal fashions but has managed to come back every time because all he needed was “time to heal”! In his review of X-Men Origins: WolverineRobert Ebert asked the question of why the audience should care about a character that can’t be hurt and can’t be killed. That’s really my point here: Wolverine is dull. There’s no real tension when he shows up because he’s indestructible. Marvel needs to set limits to his powers and they need to force those limits on any writer who takes the character on, since technically he does have vague limitation but they are often ignored. Seeing as there’s now a strict rule in Marvel Comics that bans all characters from smoking I assume that an editorial mandate lowering the scope of Wolverine’s powers shouldn’t be impossible to do.
By the way, it’s said that Wolverine’s healing factor is actually hindered by the adamantium in his body and his younger female clone X-23 (Don’t ask) has commented that she heals much faster than him. This completely depends on who’s writing at the time and often forgotten.
He’s Freaking Everywhere
Wolverine isn’t the only culprit in comics of this crime (spider-Man and Deadpool come to mind), but he does take it to somewhat insane lengths. Logan shows up in a ton of comics per month, having his own solo titles, appearing with the X-Men, leadingX-Force, and also being a member of the Avengers and somehow appearing in multiple squads. Add to the numerous guest appearances he makes and various mini-series he may be starring in he’s easily the most visible character in Marvel right now. I know this is all just fantasy and none of it is real or anything but I cannot suspend my disbelief over this. How in the blue hell can he make time for all of this? Marvel is aware of this aspect, and joke about it all the time, but don’t seem to view it as a problem. Really the idea is that Wolverine = $$$, so logically the more comics he appears in per month the more fat cash monies Marvel can rack in. From a business standpoint that may make sense but from a creative standpoint it feels shoehorned in.
Obviously Spider-Man and Wolverine are Super Best Friends
...wait, what the hell?!
For example Wolverine was part of the roster of the New Avengers in 2004. Why? Is he really Avenger material? During the first story arch Captain America is forced to attack Logan with his mighty shield to prevent him from killing one of the goons attacking them. Wolverine seemed completely confused as to why Cap wouldn’t allow him to make the kill, implying that he’s apparently never met the war hero in his life and doesn’t know how he operates (Which is of course not true, more likely he doesn’t care). Later after capturing (key word) the leader of the attackers (Black Widow II), once it’s clear that they won’t be getting any information out of her, Wolverine’s suggestion of how to treat the prisoner (key word) is, and I quote, “Just dice her and let’s get out of here”. WHAT?! Killing an opponent trying to kill you is one thing; even superheroes can’t always avoid lethal force. But killing a helpless captive in your custody without due process is murder and last time I checked murder wasn’t the Avengers’ modus operandi. My point is that it seems out of character for Logan to be a member of a team like this and is certainly out of character for key members (Captain America) to allow it.But Marvel forced him in anyway because he’s popular, not because it was logical and certainly not because it was the natural progression of his character development.
Cyclops is My Favorite X-Man
Look, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t biased against old Wolvie. I love Cyclops and a lot of comic book fans will tell you that if you love one you’ll likely dislike the other. The obvious reason is that the writers fairly early on put the two characters at odds with each other but I think that is only the background for the real issues. While Wolverine represents the new, rebellious type of hero I think Cyclops represents the character type that hero tends to rebel against: the “lame” and “outdated” superhero from the 60s. I feel a lot of times Cyclops is made to look like a punk in favor of Logan (And Storm too whom I also dislike) and has been the case for a number of years depending on the writer. Like Wolverine Cyclops’ character has been dragged through many annoying interpretations by ignorant writers but unlike Wolverine Scott Summers never seems to fully recover from it which greatly bothers me.
Warm? No. Jovial? No. Samurai? No. Badass? Yes
For example a few years ago Cyclops made what many readers and characters in-story felt was a line crossing decision: the re-formation of X-Force as a black opts assassination squad, which I always thought was a weird out-of-character move. A lot of X-Men fans rightfully said he was making a dick move. Wolverine was picked as the leader of this team, but apparently made it clear that he thought Summers was wrong for doing it and that he would only lead the team out of concern for the others that were flagged to join. That’s all well and good and chances are he was right but recently Cyclops finally agreed that he had gone too far and disbanded the team…only for Wolverine to secretly keep it going without the rest of the X-Men’s knowledge and somehow I haven’t heard the same outcry of “You’re a monster” that I heard from fans when Cyclops was calling the shots!
He’s a Dick
He sure is. He’s totally mean. What a jerk.
You big stupid head!
This is, of course, my personal opinion and you’re free to have your own. I cannot deny that I am proud member of Cyclops Lovers Against Wolverine or C.L.A.W. for short, a Pro-Cyclops organization that also happens to think Wolverine is an ass. You can become a member by…um, juts declaring yourself to be a member. It’s pretty easy to join.
Anyway I hope this rant wasn’t too painful for you.Thanks for reading my 50th (Official) blog.Here’s to the next fifty!
