Comic Conventions Might Not Be For Me Anymore

Wizard World Chicago closed up at 6pm. I could have sworn they were open later last year. They close at 7pm tomorrow.

There's something retarded about closing up at 6pm on Friday when you have your guest of honor's Q&A 3.5 hours after you close up your convention. How the hell does that make sense?

You have a panel full of top DC & Marvel creators answering questions from fans and just generally bullshitting. It started at 5pm and showed no signs of dying out on its own. Wizard closed the panel down, not because the room was needed, but...well...just because. Apparently, a Japanese ska band would be rehearsing next door and a Wizard rep said the crowd wouldn't have been able to hear anything from the panel shortly.

I can't personally understand why the Bendis Vs. Johns was a Friday panel rather than a Saturday one, but I'm sure there are some good reasons why it shook out that way. But lord...this tendency to put Japanese music acts as some big lure in what is supposed to be a comic book focused convention just bugs me. I'd like for something as special as the Bendis Vs. Johns panel to get treated better than that.

SCHWAPP!!! Final Crisis As Major Event

And here's the second take: looking at Final Crisis as the first issue in a major event meant to shake up and redefine the DC Universe. The event we've been counting down to for a year. The Crisis to end all Crisis...umm...Crisises...Crises! Yeah...that's it...the Crisis to end all Crises.

DC's Legion Shuffling

Rich Johnston reported that Jim Shooter didn't wind up attending the Bristol convention because he's off Legion of Super Heroes. That was news to me.

In a follow-up thread about it in the Lying In The Gutters forums, a CBR poster named Ontire had the following to say:

I'd heard, more than a year ago, that Johns was going to take over shortly after the Bedard run. Shooter was going to come in and do a fill-in, leading up to Final Crisis, and Waid.2 Legion would cross-over with the Legion of the Lightning Saga, leading to Johns returning the Levitz era, pre-Crisis Legion, essentially intact afterwards.

Then, allegedly as a face-saving measure, it was decided that admitting complete failure on the re-launch was a bad move, and Shooter was made permanent, but as they say @ Grace Bros., "Our figures are slipping." So who knows now.

I had heard there was some interest in Geoff's version of the Legion before they even saw print in Lightning Saga or Action, but I never heard that it got anywhere near that sort of planning stage.

SPOILERS: Flash Of Three Worlds?

OK, so Wally West came back directly in the JLA/JSA/LoSH crossover done by Meltzer & Johns.

Now Barry Allen is back in a big way, for who knows how long.

Has anyone thought about that Legion of Super Heroes lightning rod? Has a Flash trapped in it, right?

Process of elimination, people.

Random Comic Book Thoughts

• Hey...maybe Heidi MacDonald and Douglas Wolk were paid Marvel consultants on the Marvel_b0y viral marketing campaign? I mean...didn't they start the whole "insult your readers and creators to generate buzz" thing with the "Jess Lemon" incident?
  
• Now that it is no longer April Fool's Day, I can tell you my true joke: the spoilers were never going to end with Monday's reveal. Full Secret Invasion #2 spoilers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu_moia-oVI
• I'll be traveling to attend a wedding and possibly a funeral this weekend, so you'll have to forgive me if I'm not around to say "I told you so" or "f*ck! they used me!" right away.
• For some reason, the retcon of a sidekick for The Wrath just happening to match the way The Wrath was done in THE BATMAN cartoon is detracting from my enjoyment of the great work Bedard and Morales are doing on their BATMAN CONFIDENTIAL arc. I wish it wasn't true, but it keeps nagging at me. If anyone involved has come out and said that it was an idea that came up independent of the cartoon development, please direct my attention to it so I can breathe easier.
• Dennis Calero was on the RON & FEZ SHOW on XM Satellite Radio Channel 202 this afternoon, plugging his upcoming appearance at NYCC and a big project he is doing at Marvel that he thinks will be announced at the convention. Wonder what it is? DC's loss for not wrapping him up when he was on Legion of Super-Heroes; his work there was very underrated. (Update: Dan Coyle says in the comments that Calero was talking about a big pitch with Fred Van Lente at the Baltimore Comic Convention)
  
• I'd really like to see Johns and Morrison collaborate on a bi-weekly half or full year alternate Earth story. Well, I'd be fine with them writing the real DCU Earth, if coordination issues wouldn't seep in. I'm struggling to figure out who I'd team to do the same over at Marvel, but Fraction would be in the equation.
  

Geoff Johns + George Perez + 3(LoSH) = FULL OF WIN

For more of the details, run over to Newsarama to read Vaneta Rogers' excellent interview with Geoff Johns.

Worst Kept Secret: James Robinson on JLA

Really. I imagine they will announce it this weekend, but all the evidence points to that. Unless they only plan on having him do a Green Arrow/Green Lantern book.

But let's remember a few things:

1. Geoff brought Robinson back in.
2. Geoff wanted to have a writer he loved working with partnered with him on the Superman titles.
3. Geoff, I believe, expressed wanting to make the JLA/JSA crossover stories a semi-regular thing.

Mind you, the two working out some sort of Green Arrow/Green Lantern Hard Traveling Heroes thing could work, but it would seem to be more than the properties can support. Has to be Robinson on JLA after McDuffie's run ends.

I'm sure it will be great, but McDuffie has certainly gotten screwed over (albeit with a regular check) in the last year, becoming just a place holder for JLA and Fantastic Four.

Edit: D'Oh...while it wouldn't render my guess completely incorrect, THE SILVER AGE has been floated as something he might do. That would make a helluva lot of sense.

When Good Bloggers Go Bad...

I've enjoyed OCCASIONAL SUPERHEROINE on many occasions. I admired her bravery in sharing such private info in the past. I lamented her waiting to take a stand on her principles until AFTER she got fired from what she paints to be a "He Man/Women Haters" club. But that's not what this blog is about.

In a review of JSA #12, she makes a mistake:

The sequence with John Irons was also in need of some editing/quality control; John's opening dialog with his wife sounded like pure exposition devoid of any human quality. And Dale Eaglesham's art, while reminiscent of that great Stephen Sadowski work on the previous JSA, has occasional difficulty in getting from point A to point B in the visual storytelling.

As was pointed out in the comments (politely and devoid of snark, I might add), that was Jefferson Pierce (Black Lightning), not John Henry Irons. Her response?

Valerie D'Orazio said...

"That was Jefferson (Black Lightning) Pierce in JSA, not John Irons."

I think the problem is that Johns wants to make the JSA the catch-all group that every other DC team is rolled into/connected with. Actually having Irons & the Infinity Inc cast make an appearance would make sense to me, as the two titles were historically linked to each other. But to bring not only JLA but Batman and the
Outsiders...you need to have a realllly skilled hand to work within such a scope. I'm thinking a little past Johns and more like Busiek.

So, she was confused because it made more sense for it to be John Henry Irons? I don't know if I agree, but she's entitled to her opinion. As a reviewer, though, you'd think she might make more of a habit of keeping the book she's reviewing close at hand for reference:

It's all there. Sure...three panels...but the whole appearance lasted about three pages. I don't think asking that you pay attention enough to catch the name mentioned twice and the previous team affiliation mentioned at least once is too much. Everyone has an off day, though...so just acknowledging a mistake with an "oops" or "sorry" would seem appropriate. She responds with the following:

"So instead of oops we get that having Steel in the issue would have been better than Black Lightning?"

--exactly. now you are catching on.

but also, had the book been more engaging and actually made me care it would have been easier. by the introductory boxing scene my mind was glazed over.

It's not a company-specific thing, I had the same problem with the latest Ultimate Spider-Man. Every girl I saw in that book I thought was Mary Jane.

Is that the "it is everyone's fault but mine" refrain? Why, yes...yes it is!

Pedro wanders in to call attention to this with a comment (and, also, a blog):

Ha Ha. I don't even get what you are trying to say in regards to JSA.

You mistake John Irons for Jefferson Pierce and then suggest that John Irons would make a better fit to cover this mistake.This goes against the "subtle" Kingdom Come storyline that Johns is doing and also the 52 storyline when they turned away from the JSA.

It also seems that the legacies they are focusing on right now are inherited powers. It's also would completely go against the themes that Milligan is working at in Infinity Inc.

Do you read the comics you write about?

A touch harsh? Maybe. But it hits relevant points. All points that Ms. D'Orazio brought up in her flurry to avoid admitting a harmless (albeit rookie) mistake. All of which serves to put her foot in it more:

"This goes against the "subtle" Kingdom Come storyline that Johns is doing and also the 52 storyline when they turned away from the JSA."

"Do you read the comics you write about?"

I read comics to enjoy them. When they become this arcane continuity-wise, when a single issue of JSA requires a knowledge of Kingdom Come, Infinity Inc, Batman and the Outsiders, JLA, and, I suppose, some rudimentary Death of New Gods and Pre-Final Crisis knowledge, it stops being enjoyable for me.

You obviously possess more obscure DC continuity knowledge than I. My obscure knowledge stops at the old Infinity Inc series, which was closely tied to the old All-Star Squadron series, which was basically what JSA is now. That's why I thought Infinity Inc was connected with JSA, and that John Irons was a good fit.

I'm so sorry I don't collect Batman and the Outsiders, Infinity Inc, Countdown, Death of the New Gods, and JLA so I can understand a single damn issue of JSA. Next time, I will try to spend about $25 dollars a week just on DC books so I can understand what is going on.

Then I will say: "I understand the continuity! I get those subtle hints Peter Milligan have been throwing at me all those issues in Infinity Inc!"

This is besides the issue that some white comic creators create bland African-American characters.

Where is the African-American Guy Gardner? Where is the African-American Batman? Where is the African-American Joker? Booster Gold/Ted Kord Blue Beetle? Oracle? Wolverine? Spider-Man?

DC's African American characters are either created to be the only person of color on a team (JSA, JLA, Teen Titans, Green Lantern Corps), or by editorial fiat to fill a diversity need (Firestorm).

Ergo, they are usually uninspired and only have life breathed into them by writers who truly understand and see them as a character first and not a "diversity representative" (ie Dwayne McDuffie with Black Lightning).

I would argue that while certainly well-intentioned, Johns is not the most skilled in this regard.

Oh wait, he DOES have Jakeem Thunder who spouts out racist/sexist comments to fellow teammates. Excuse me.

She get snarky about obscure continuity when her reach goes back further, but just isn't valid any longer. She seizes on a character (Black Lightning) created by a white creator (Tony Isabella) to say is only completely understood and well-written by Dwayne McDuffie. Ironic on the current timing, because Tony feels about as passionate about the usurped control of the Black Lightning character as the recently departed Steve Gerber felt about some of his creations at Marvel.

I won't bore you with the additional details that led to more moments of Ms. D'Orazio flailing wildly to try to find some way to avoid admitting a mistake, but Pedro's and David Brothers' blogs handle a lot of that. Their points in the comments section don't actually get addressed by Valerie, as she pulls the last ditch move of someone losing a debate:

Pedro, you don't really care about story integrity or my integrity or about defending Black Lightning or Geoff Johns.

You just want to feel like "somebody" for instigating and winning a "debate" on teh internets.

Sir, it is a dick move.

Go on the Newsarama boards and pick a fight with some comic writer. I grow weary of you. Good day.

She goes on to close the comments on her blog, rather than even get further posts from some agreeing with her. It is really quite a shame. But at least she didn't put it on moderation and just make the comments she didn't like disappear. So, I guess there's that.

SCHWAPP Comics Vlog Week 20

Hey Kids, Vlogs!

This week's reviews are up. I might drop some nuggets during the week, but this is the only guaranteed vlogging for the moment.

Nightwing: The second issue of the new creative team, Peter Tomasi and Rags Morales. How good is it? Well, I'm constantly checking eBay for a bronzed Tomasi keyboard, if that's any hint.



Teen Titans Year One: The second issue of yet another updating of classic stories. What does this one add? Other than amazing Kerschl art, IMs, and text messaging, the answer is: not a lot.



Justice Society & Infinity Inc: Two books. Two families. One is a functional melting pot and the other is a dysfunctional mess. View the vlog and see which one comes out best, in my estimation.