I've been reading a fair amount of comics material from the 30s and 40s of late, thanks to rediscovering my copies of the (say it with me) stupidly out-of-print The Golden Age of Marvel Comics (a mere two volume set that could use expansion) as well as random DC 100-Page Giants and those rather awesome ACG reprints of Golden Age material. Here's what I have determined: modern superhero comics are fucking boring. Maybe it's the hypercompression of the stories (you're lucky if an origin sequence takes up more than six panels) or the fact that so many writers were churning out so much stuff that some of it had to be completely mental, but there's a pep and verve to this older material that no superhero title being made now can match, no matter how clever they attempt to be.
Let's take, for instance, the story from The Golden Age Of Marvel Comics Volume 2 about this cat named The Fin. The Fin is the sort of hero that has Roy Thomas unloading into his shorts with great glee when his name is mentioned in passing; he's a brawler who derives his strength from the ocean, where he can swim and swim and swim without needing to come up for air. Yes, it may sound similar to Namor and yes, he was created by the Submariner's very own originator, Bill Everett, but there's something that sets The Fin apart outside of his short lifespan (three appearances.)
His headgear1. Check out that chapeau - this dude better be able to kick some ass quite thoroughly or else he's going to have schoolkids and pensioners following him, demanding some change in exchange for safe passage. It probably doesn't hurt that he's a lieutenant in the US Navy, either, as the toughening-up he received under their care has to have made sure that he can settle just about any dispute mere moments after initialization.
Anyway, back to this story. The Fin, having just walloped a Nazi pirate called The Barracude,is swimming in the briny deep and he happens to come across a sunken ship. He's down in the galleon and discovers what appears to be a haunted sword of some type, which he decides to chuck after having creepy sensations of some sort or another. It's only after throwing the cutlass and burying it in the thick steel hide of a cannon that he thinks "Wait. This here mystical artifact would be a great aid in my continuing quest to kick Nazi ass." (I may be paraphrasing.)
One thing leads to another, The Fin's back on shore, probably looking for a friendly port for the evening, if you get my drift, when he gets shangaied and placed onboard a Nazi spy ship, where he's taken away from his empowering water and forced to do menial tasks. It's when he's been placed in front of the ship's captain that The Fin makes a desparate break for freedom, grabs his haunted sword, and begins to emancipate the crew's vital organs from their bindings with great gusto.
In this ten-page story, there's four pages devoted to stabbing and wailing on the bad guys, with an additional couple featuring beatings and whippings as well as one spectacular bit where The Fin removes the Nazi Spy Ship's propeller with the aforementioned magical cutlass. There's not a single bit of wasted space here, and that's something I admire. Outside of somebody like Grant Morrison with his future-retro take on "mainstream" story structure, is there anybody else writing superhero comics now that devotes so much time to these characters doing what they do?
How many pages of a typical issue of a modern Superman comic feature the title character doing things that are, you know, Super? When you remove all the bitching and lecturing that Batman does anymore, you've got maybe a handful of pages dedicated to the character going out there, scaring the shit out of the bad people, and making sure Gotham is safe.
Don't even get me started on Spider-Man at this point in time. Jesus, even the Ultimate version sees less action than MODOK on Paradise Island. The Flash barely seems to show up in his own title, much less actually do anything, and the Teen Titans spend an awful lot of time ruminating about how awful it is to be hot, young, teen superheroes.
Yes, some superhero characters do work well with the 10 o'clock drama format - Daredevil comes to mind, for instance, but when did it become a goddamn major event when Iron Man suits up to kick some ass?1
Maybe this is why I'm looking forward so much to more Scott Pilgrim or Corey Lewis's apparently-selling-poorly-in-preorders Peng. Maybe this is why I enjoyed Dead West and The Couriers so much. The comics I'd normally depend on for stupid amounts of gleeful action just aren't ponying up and my dollars are now going towards thing that give me that thrill and sense of wonder that I apparently need.
And no, Bendis, throwing ninjas into New Avengers isn't going to work for me, because they'll probably be accountant ninjas that bore the pants right off my broad posterior.
1It was this or write about Citizen V's shorts, but...you know...
2An aside: I think this Ellis storyline is going to be a damned good graphic novel when published as a trade, but this "monthly" format is killing that shit like its name is Jason Todd. I wish they'd managed to just go and put out an OGN and let a regular monthly team of some kind get the character out there.)
Written at Diesel, on the Palm. Technology fucking rocks.
Let's take, for instance, the story from The Golden Age Of Marvel Comics Volume 2 about this cat named The Fin. The Fin is the sort of hero that has Roy Thomas unloading into his shorts with great glee when his name is mentioned in passing; he's a brawler who derives his strength from the ocean, where he can swim and swim and swim without needing to come up for air. Yes, it may sound similar to Namor and yes, he was created by the Submariner's very own originator, Bill Everett, but there's something that sets The Fin apart outside of his short lifespan (three appearances.)
His headgear1. Check out that chapeau - this dude better be able to kick some ass quite thoroughly or else he's going to have schoolkids and pensioners following him, demanding some change in exchange for safe passage. It probably doesn't hurt that he's a lieutenant in the US Navy, either, as the toughening-up he received under their care has to have made sure that he can settle just about any dispute mere moments after initialization. Anyway, back to this story. The Fin, having just walloped a Nazi pirate called The Barracude,is swimming in the briny deep and he happens to come across a sunken ship. He's down in the galleon and discovers what appears to be a haunted sword of some type, which he decides to chuck after having creepy sensations of some sort or another. It's only after throwing the cutlass and burying it in the thick steel hide of a cannon that he thinks "Wait. This here mystical artifact would be a great aid in my continuing quest to kick Nazi ass." (I may be paraphrasing.)
One thing leads to another, The Fin's back on shore, probably looking for a friendly port for the evening, if you get my drift, when he gets shangaied and placed onboard a Nazi spy ship, where he's taken away from his empowering water and forced to do menial tasks. It's when he's been placed in front of the ship's captain that The Fin makes a desparate break for freedom, grabs his haunted sword, and begins to emancipate the crew's vital organs from their bindings with great gusto.
In this ten-page story, there's four pages devoted to stabbing and wailing on the bad guys, with an additional couple featuring beatings and whippings as well as one spectacular bit where The Fin removes the Nazi Spy Ship's propeller with the aforementioned magical cutlass. There's not a single bit of wasted space here, and that's something I admire. Outside of somebody like Grant Morrison with his future-retro take on "mainstream" story structure, is there anybody else writing superhero comics now that devotes so much time to these characters doing what they do?
How many pages of a typical issue of a modern Superman comic feature the title character doing things that are, you know, Super? When you remove all the bitching and lecturing that Batman does anymore, you've got maybe a handful of pages dedicated to the character going out there, scaring the shit out of the bad people, and making sure Gotham is safe.
Don't even get me started on Spider-Man at this point in time. Jesus, even the Ultimate version sees less action than MODOK on Paradise Island. The Flash barely seems to show up in his own title, much less actually do anything, and the Teen Titans spend an awful lot of time ruminating about how awful it is to be hot, young, teen superheroes.
Yes, some superhero characters do work well with the 10 o'clock drama format - Daredevil comes to mind, for instance, but when did it become a goddamn major event when Iron Man suits up to kick some ass?1
Maybe this is why I'm looking forward so much to more Scott Pilgrim or Corey Lewis's apparently-selling-poorly-in-preorders Peng. Maybe this is why I enjoyed Dead West and The Couriers so much. The comics I'd normally depend on for stupid amounts of gleeful action just aren't ponying up and my dollars are now going towards thing that give me that thrill and sense of wonder that I apparently need.
And no, Bendis, throwing ninjas into New Avengers isn't going to work for me, because they'll probably be accountant ninjas that bore the pants right off my broad posterior.
1It was this or write about Citizen V's shorts, but...you know...
2An aside: I think this Ellis storyline is going to be a damned good graphic novel when published as a trade, but this "monthly" format is killing that shit like its name is Jason Todd. I wish they'd managed to just go and put out an OGN and let a regular monthly team of some kind get the character out there.)
Written at Diesel, on the Palm. Technology fucking rocks.
