Cancelled Comics Commentary
for 2007
January 2007
Firestorm #31 Vol. 3 (DC):
It seems that Ronnie Raymond was pushed out of the role of Hot-Head,
during Identity Crisis, no less, for the sake of "diversity" (or, as
some others might call it, "multiculturalism"). Specifically, what
happened was that a new protagonist was brought in named Jason
Rusch, of African-American background, and rather inexplicably gains
powers that make him into a new Firestorm. Like Ronnie, the only
real Firestorm for me, he too had similar powers where he could draw
someone inside himself in order to transform into the
nuclear-powered superhero, although this may have been dropped soon
afterwards so that he could turn into the hero form without having
to do what Ronnie once did with his mentor Professor Martin Stein
(Ronnie too eventually was able to transform without a partner
helping out).
Now the first problem here is that Ronnie Raymond was spat upon when
writing up his demise, and if that's how they're going to do these
things, then they're invalidating any ability to fully accept the
successor, something that holds true for even Kyle Rayner, the
former Green Lantern from 1994-2004. Another is that this was done
for the sake of the already tired notion of replacing white
protagonists with ones from black/Asian backgrounds, or even ones
that are gay/lesbian, as has been recently done with the Question
during the overrated 52 miniseries. And still another is that
Lorraine Reilly, who became the female counterpart to Ronnie as
Firehawk, was forced to spew out left-wing stupidity in the
penultimate issue by the writer Stuart Moore. Specifically, he wrote
her implying that the Iraq war and the weapons of mass destruction
Saddam once kept in stock was just a lie. If DC are going to force
leftism into the book that badly as well, that's one more reason why
this was clearly unjustified.
So far, the new protagonist Jason Rusch still seems to be around,
and Ronnie Raymond is still in the morgue. I hope the damage done to
him can be reversed, just like for many other DC protagonists who've
been wronged, but so far, it doesn't look like it's going to happen.
The Warlord #10 vol. 2
(DC): a disastrous attempt to revive the sword-and-sandal hero Mike
Grell introduced in 1st Issue
Special #8 in November 1975, one of the more stand-alone
adventures belonging to the DC universe, which enjoyed an official
run from 1976-1989, and had a special miniseries published in 1992.
It starred Travis Morgan, an American military pilot who'd served in
Vietnam (something that may since have been reworked) whose plane
had been shot down while traveling near the North Pole, and ended up
traveling through a hole in the ground that brought him - shades of
Jules Verne's Journey to the
Center of the Earth - into a world called Skartaris, where
the sun stayed up quite awhile (later on, the entrance to Skartaris
was slightly retconned into being a portal into another dimension).
There, he met and fell in love with a lovely princess named Tara of
a kingdom named Shamballah, who subsequently ascended to becoming
queen of her sector of the amazing land, and the twosome later
married as well. They would both take on various villains, most
notably the sorceror Deimos, and even crooked kings, and Travis
acquired more friends and allies like Machiste, Shakira (no relation
to the Columbian pop singer who bears the same name), a Russian
scientist named Maria, and even his own daughter from a previous
marriage, Jennifer Morgan, who learned to practice magic herself.
It was a series that often featured plotlines inspired by all sorts
of other movies and science-fantasy tales of yore, plus some very
sexy ladies, and succeeded pretty well in this. Grell's wife at the
time also ghostwrote at least a year's worth of stories around 1981.
As was later learned, the inhabitants of Skartaris were mostly
descended from the Atlanteans of Greek mythology. Travis and Tara
also bore a son named Joshua who was abducted by Deimos and grew up
with the name Tinder in the care of a foster family, later becoming
a street urchin in Shamballah, where he met Jennifer who taught him
some magic skills too. For a long time, nobody knew that Tinder -
who'd subsequently been transported to another dimension called
Wizard World where he grew to adulthood and came back as a minstrel
- was actually Travis and Tara's son Joseph.
An interesting aside is how Travis vaguely resembled Green Arrow,
and at one point actually did meet up with Oliver Queen when Grell
was writing the GA series in the late 80s-early 90s. In the early
1990s, as mentioned, one more miniseries was produced that served as
a pretty good capping for all the Warlord stories told up to that
time.
And most unfortunately for this second volume of the series, it
ignored past continuity in favor of technically restarting
everything, so much that nobody should be surprised even the
Warlord's not getting an audience today. Bruce Jones, who made a
mess out of the Hulk prior to this, turned out a pretty wretched
script, not helped one bit by the artwork of the now dreadful artist
Bart Sears. That's why this series was pretty much asking to be
canceled and ultimately ignored. The third volume, listed in the 2010
files, restores most of the original continuity, but as you'll
learn, there's some fair reason why I'm not especially enthused
about that one either.
February
2007
The Ultimates #13 Vol. 2
(Marvel): I've spoken about this already in the 2004
files, and this relaunched volume was no better, one more
reason why its cancellation is just as well. It's just a pity even
that didn't last, because following this, yet another volume was
launched. And while Mark Millar may have left this series, Jeph Loeb
came on, and really pulled out the stops.
What's really angering about this volume is that it ended with the
Ultimate version of Black Widow paying a heavy price for betraying
Ultimate Hawkeye - that is, she kicked the bucket. Shudder. But then
doesn't that signal how little faith they had in this Ultimate
universe by this time?
March
2007
Legends of the
Dark Knight #214 (DC): The series that told more
stand-alone Batman stories than most others, this had its moments
when it first began in 1989, and one of its first stories was
written by none other than Denny O'Neil, but I think after awhile,
it lost momentum. And Dan DiDio's severe editorial damage has been
one of the things that's led to this dropping in quality after 2000.
The Bat-franchise has lost a lot of audience over the past few
years, and that finally led to the demise of this series. A shame,
if only because the early issues had value.
April-July
2007
I cannot find nor think of anything to fill this gap. But then, the
industry as we know it is collapsing so badly, artistically as well
as financially, it really shouldn't surprise anyone.
August
2007
City of Heroes #20 vol. 2
(Image/Top Cow): one more take on the MMORPG by a company that we
could only figure would have an interest in getting hold of the
license needed to publish these kind of things.
Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #13
(DC): Let me first note that Bart Allen, who was killed in gross
case of going overboard with shock tactics at the end of this
ill-advised "relaunch" has since been resurrected, though Geoff
Johns, who's laid claim to that credit, has still ruined my ability
to congratulate him much further.
When the prior volume of the Flash was de facto cancelled a year
earlier, it was apparently to see if they could replace Wally West
with Bart Allen. Unfortunately, the assigned writers just didn't cut
it, making it a very surprisingly unpleasant affair. Oh, and who
were the people who initially scripted this mess? Danny Bilson and
Paul DeMeo, a pair of TV writers who'd developed a brief series
based on the Flash back in 1990 that lasted 17 episodes. They also
conjured another short-lived one based on Human Target, the creation
of Len Wein and Carmine Infantino back in 1972, a troubleshooter
named Christopher Chance who specialized in disguises while trying
to protect people in danger of criminals. Afterwards, they actually
had more success in creating Viper
and The Sentinel, 2 other
sci-fi series that did well sold in syndication.
Main problem is that they seemed to think that the vicious dialogue
seen particularly in the latter two TV concoctions of theirs would
actually fit in a series that at one time was thought to be
family-friendly (at one point, a villain seen in this series calls
Bart a vulgar B-word, which came across here as awfully excessive.
And that's putting it lightly). That, plus the fact that they were
rehashing some of the ideas used in the earlier Flash TV show, are
what ran this into a dead end. I'm going to be quite honest here,
but after learning what kind of crapfest they conjured for Bart
here, I don't think I ever want to watch any television productions
they might work on ever again. In fact, if memory serves, they
coughed up more than a bit of darkness in the Flash TV show back in
the day, one of the biggest problems with it that now appears to be
infecting the vision used in the comics as well. In that case, who
cares if David Cassidy of The
Partridge Family played the Mirror Master, and Mark Hamill
played the Trickster back in the day? (The former has already been
making himself look like a fool when he spoke about the revival of Melrose Place and his
daughter's starring role in it, thus lessening the chances I'd ever
care.)
And when Bilson and DeMeo were fired from the book, DC only made
things even worse by killing Bart off at the hands of the Rogues,
who were tricked into doing the deed by Thaddeus Thawne/Inertia, the
teenaged speedster who was created as a rival for him at the time
Bart was Impulse, a codename he's since been robbed of when he
became Kid Flash 2. I shouldn't have to tell you how awful things
became afterwards, when the Rogues became de facto reviled for their
deeds. And even Geoff Johns didn't exactly do much to redeem all
that after he coughed up Rogues' Revenge the following year, and
first had Inertia become some sort of a Reverse-Kid-Flash (!), and
then turned him into an infant killer by depicting him terminating
Josh Jackam, the youngster he'd come up with circa the start of his
Flash run in 2000, I kid you not. All in order to justify killing
him off at the hands of the Rogues.
This was extremely sick and poorly written, and it also runs the
gauntlet of rendering Inertia as useless as Dr. Light post-Identity
Crisis, and it should be panned, not to mention Johns' work really
ought to be boycotted by now. I know that's what I'm doing; I
haven't bought any of his work since early 2005. Some critics have
argued that his work has become an overload of "continuity porn",
and they have a point: there's so many references to earlier comic
book work in the DCU it practically submerges any impact of the
current story Johns is writing. At the same time, he's had his share
of continuity glitches and ignorances, and finally, when I realized
how destructive he was actually being, I finally decided enough's
enough, I was not going to waste time on his writing anymore.
Yes, I know, since the disastrous ending of this series (which also
saw the vanishing of a female cast member featured here), Bart has
been brought back in Flash: Rebirth. But Johns has still not
exonerated himself completely, as he has continued to feature
aggravating traces of excessive violence in his stories. As for the
writer of this volume of Flash, Mark Guggenheim, he went on to work
on Spider-Man's One More/Brand New Day, spoken about below, and now
sadly is even going to work on Superman. This is the bankruptcy the
industry has decended into, by hiring hack writers with no interest
in genuine storytelling, by editors who oppose creative freedom
unless it's done on their terms.
Green Arrow #75 Vol. 2
(DC): I can't say that I'm too bothered about Ollie Queen coming
back from death as he did after 6 years when this series was
launched, due in part because of how mediocre his death was to begin
with during the first volume (spoken about in the 1998
files). He was fighting terrorists on board a plane, then,
wounded enough as he already was, has to put his arm into a special
compartment to stop a detonator switch from setting off a bomb in
the aircraft. And when Superman suggested that maybe they should
amputate his arm, his reaction is to just end it then and there, by
letting go and blowing himself into the afterlife. Followed by the
ascension of his illegitimate son Connor Hawke taking up his role
for about 3 more years, and then, the overrated Kevin Smith won DC's
agreement to let him resurrect Oliver Queen as part of the relaunch
of a new series volume.
Let me first note that the situation Ollie was put into back in 1995
where he'd end up dead was really dumb enough to begin with, though
they do earn some points for introducing Connor about a year before
Ollie first bit the bullet, and didn't make him Green Arrow as
quickly as Kyle Rayner was made Green Lantern (speaking of which,
let me note that my opinions on Ron Marz's GL run are very low
today). But while that's probably one of the reasons why I'm not
bothered by Ollie's return to the living land, I am bothered that
Kevin Smith had to be the one to helm it. His run on this book for
14 issues was weak and excessive, and making Brad Meltzer the writer
of 6 more issues most certainly didn't help matters. Most definitely
not after Meltzer scripted Identity Crisis, and even if some of the
most offensive parts weren't his idea, I'm still not going to give
accolades to a writer who does an assignment just to get a paycheck.
The last writer here was none other than Judd Winick, and let's just
say that his work here wasn't much better either; in fact, it was
just crap. So while Ollie's return in and of itself is fine, the way
he was handled afterwards most certainly wasn't. Not in his own
starring book anyway. As much as I find Geoff Johns's scriptwriting
for DC alienating these days, I will say in fairness that the guest
appearance he wrote for Ollie in Hawkman
was good, but that's one of the few places where they've really
handled the Emerald Archer well post-2000.
This was cancelled just to make way for Green Arrow/Black Canary, which hasn't been much
better, and the way it was launched through an absurd special was
just plain disastrous. I'm not sure if Ollie and Dinah Lance are now
married, but the way Dan DiDio's been handling DC certainly hasn't
made me care to find out. Nor have any writers assigned to it made
me care either.
September
2007
Hawkman/Hawkgirl #66 (DC):
When this was first launched back in 2002, it was surprisingly well
done for something coming after the turn of the millenium,
considering how awful Geoff Johns has turned out to be on series
like The Flash, and he
certainly didn't do much better on Teen Titans. And considering that his co-writer,
James Robinson, who also co-wrote JSA at the time, has also since
deteriorated horribly. With Kendra Saunders introduced in 1999 as
the new Hawkgirl, grandniece of Sheira Saunders, and Carter Hall
brought back from limbo shortly afterwards, they decided to cash in
on the Hawks as a series yet again, and to some extent, it worked.
They even thought to bring back the evil Egyptian priest Hath-Set as
an adversary, and this time it was written that he now lives as a
disembodied spirit who can possess mainly the bodies of people
descended from his family tree.
But alas, any potential this title had soon went down the drain,
just like JSA did (and you can read a little about that in the 2006
files). What really angers me today is that I thought Ray
Palmer's guest appearances here were going to lead somewhere for the
Silver Age Atom, and then what happens? Identity Crisis. I feel
totally slapped in the face now. Yes, I do think Johns has to
shoulder some blame here, because he went along with all that,
implying that he never even cared about Ray Palmer and Jean Loring
to begin with; that's the vibe I've gotten since then.
Another problem is that, after Johns left, the book strangely veered
off the continuity path by somehow making it look as though
Hawkman's real identity as Carter Hall, was not publicly known. That
part, if anything, is where it really became shaky, and there was
even a political bias inserted needlessly.
It was implied in Identity Crisis that Hawkman too was a baddie
because he took part in the magical lobotomy of Dr. Light, and this
may have had what to do with his semi-departure from the book,
whereupon it became Hawkgirl, and put Kendra in the starring role
instead. Unfortunately, while Kendra looked great in her
bare-midriff costume, the role she acquired was not legitimately
earned, any more than anything that's come down the pike since
Identity Crisis, and the stories lost reader interest and the series
was finally cancelled. When it ended though, it had Carter and
Kendra finally figuring out how to break the reincarnation curse
Hath-Set had caused all those centuries past.
But later on, as Blackest Night was cooked up, more disaster came up
with Carter and Kendra being turned into zombies, and do I need to
point out how aggravating this is becoming by now? Not really. What
I will say is that Geoff Johns angered me with the pathetic excuses
he made for why he was killing them off, regardless of whether
they'll be resurrected or not.
October
2007
Nothing to declare here either. Wish my knowledge of independently
owned comics was better than it is, but alas, it ain't.
November
2007
Deadman #13 (Vertigo): a
most unsuccessful attempt to spotlight Boston Brand under the
Vertigo imprint, it was written by Bruce Jones, who really goofed
off earlier with his protracted tale in the Incredible Hulk that
featured too little of the jade giant even as it featured plenty of
Bruce Banner. Soon after this ended, Brand was back the regular DC
line again, as part of the Blackest Night crossover, where - are you
ready for this? - he was resurrected! (Yet Ralph and Sue Dibny and
also Jean Loring and Lilith Clay remained dead.) But if you think
Brand could prove effective when back among the living, think again:
as seen in the Brightest Day maxi-series, he was reduced to little
more than an "observer" on the sidelines who couldn't really help
people in trouble at all. Brightest Day's title was also dishonest,
since it featured more than enough of Geoff Johns' notoriously
violent storytelling, and its ending couldn't come soon enough.
Sadly, the abuse of DC comics continues with the "New 52".
Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man
#24 (Marvel): Terminated as part of Joe Quesada's lockdown
on creative freedom for Spider-Man and his biased decision to throw
away the Spider-Marriage. Things already went downhill even before
J. Michael Stracynski's egregious Sins Past storyline in 2004, where
he disgraced the late Gwen Stacy's background by implying she had
sex and children with Norman Osborn, yet never had sex with Peter
Parker. Now, in this nail in the coffin to Stracynski's overrated
run on anything Spidey, notoriously titled "One More Day", which was
a followup to the disgraceful crossover Civil War, Peter, who had
unmasked as part of an editorial mandate, feels guilty and
responsible for causing Aunt May's grave injury when he and Mary
Jane were targeted by the Kingpin's mob, so what does he do about
it? He makes a deal with the devil in the guise of Mephisto to
reverse that damage. And what was the price demanded? Peter and Mary
Jane's marriage. It doesn't get more hateful and out-of-character
than this. And don't get me started on Quesada and company spewing
out abysmal defenses like "we don't need to explain anything, it's
magic." Since then, what has come out of this but Brand New Day, and
the characterization has gotten considerably worse, with Peter
depicted as a complete lout who'd rather lazy around than look for
jobs, in stark contrast to earlier characterization that was far
better than this.
They've already lost a lot of audience for the franchise since this
took place. I hope that this'll eventually lead to Quesada's ouster
from EIC position and the reinstation of the marriage. But it still
won't counteract the bad taste left behind, which'll take years to
repair and clean up.
The Irredeemable Ant-Man #12
(Marvel): surely a candidate for one of the most offensively
advertised/promoted books of all time, if you're familiar with the
whole story surrounding Hank Pym's and Janet VanDyne's divorce in
1981, when he was going through dreadful mental breakdowns and his
status in the Avengers was hanging by a thread, and while having an
argument with Jan, Hank smacked her to the ground, an action that
repeated itself later during the time he'd sent his misleading robot
to cause a ruckus and would then deactivate it by hitting a secret
weak point. In the end, all this got him was an expulsion for a time
from the EMH, though he did regret his behavior and do his best to
repent. While the story from the early 80s, conceived mostly by Jim
Shooter in what wasn't one of his best efforts, wasn't depicted
graphicly as any of today's output is capable of at the hands of
such terrible editors in charge today, it's still not considered a
very good story, and to make matters worse, the subject was allowed
to keep awkwardly resurfacing over the years, culminating in some of
the worst lines seen in Brian Bendis' take on the Avengers beginning
in 2004.
I'm not sure if Hank Pym was the star in this new series, since my
memory is pretty hazy now, but any series that's promoted with an
adjective like "The world's most UNLIKABLE super-hero" is asking for
some serious trouble. As though it weren't bad enough that Bendis
sent the Wasp into death-limbo during this year, the people writing
this book have to make things worse with lines like that? By now,
this is pretty par for the course coming from the former Quesada and
now Alonso regime to insult their own properties.
Incidentally, what did occur to my knowledge inside this book was
that Pym, following the unrequested death of Wasp, took to setting
up an institute in her name for battered women. While that idea in
itself is sincere, it does not excuse the offensive writing Bendis
turned out as writer of the Avengers franchise, nor does it
legitimize Jan's death in Secret Invasion. At worst, it only adds
insult to injury while still furthering the embarrassing image being
forced upon Pym.
On another historical note, Jim Shooter argued on his blog in 2011
that they didn't intend to make Hank Pym look like a wife-beater and
that it all stemmed from artist Bob Hall's failure to follow
instructions properly. Much as I'd like to believe this, the defense
he gave was still very questionable, and if there really wasn't time
to have to the page redrawn, maybe they should have considered
giving it some! As for this new series, the first I can think of to
spotlight any character donning the Ant-Man suit since the Silver
Age, its failure was truly deserved. If they're going to be so
disrespectful of their own material as to perpetuate the image and
notion of Hank Pym as abusive just by stooping to such a tasteless
allusion of a title, then they're not doing anybody any favors at
all.
The Outsiders #50 Vol. 2
(DC): This particular volume, first written by the awful Judd
Winick, "grew" out of the spectacularly awful Titans/Young Justice:
Graduation Day miniseries, whose only purpose seemed to be killing
off Donna Troy and Lilith
Clay/Omen, and not by an actual villain, but rather, by ways of a
Superman robo-duplicate. It was really stupid, and Indigo's
subsequent revelation to be an enemy infiltrator was pretty lazy
too. And while Donna later returned, Lilith tragically did not,
unless you count her returns as one of the living dead in crossover
books like the disgusting Blackest Night. Now, with the Flashpoint
crossover having technically rebooted the DCU in 2011 though, it
looks like even worse is going to take place: Omen is going to be
changed into a villainess.
There really wasn't much of anything to recommend this volume
either. Metamorpho developed a clone that grew out of a fragment of
himself, and that fragment subsequently merged back into the real
Rex Mason. Oh yeah, and Jade was killed off shortly after being a
member here, and Thunder and Grace Choi turned out to be bisexual,
if anything, for little more than male titillation of course. And
Nightwing, as the leader, was not written well either.
No sooner did this end than it became another version of Batman and the Outsiders,
reuniting some of the older members of the team like Katana. Chuck
Dixon served as writer of that, up until he was apparently fired by
the awful Dan DiDio a few months later, after writing one story for
Robin that reversed Bill Willingham's own stories that killed off
Spoiler and villified Dr. Leslie Thompkins. And even that version
looks to be cancelled, even before Bruce Wayne comes back from the
incredibly dumb and pointless limbo he's been put into following
"Batman RIP". Just like this series is being badly abused, so too is
the whole Batman franchise, and the rest of the DCU as well.
December
2007
Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis #57
(DC): Call it another victim of Dan DiDio's post-Identity/Infinite
Crisis disaster if you will, which even a once well regarded writer
like Kurt Busiek couldn't save from becoming a shipwreck. The Sea
King's title is just one of many that was ruined by the DiDio
regime, and even Mera's return to the fold doesn't help salvage it
either when Aquaman's underwater world has since been hijacked by
the dreaded Geoff Johns, who's only made things worse by inserting
only so much gore and bloodletting into the storytelling. In fact,
even Bob Harras' as the current EIC isn't helping any (lest we
forget that this was one of the same editors who'd helped to ruin
many Marvel comics, including Spider-Man and the X-Men). Rather than
to make Aquaman a name to be admired, Johns and company are only
helping to destroy Mort Weisinger's classic oceanic creation.
Sensational Spider-Man #41 Vol. 2
(Marvel): Almost everything's been told above. But I guess it's
worth adding a little more over here as well. I don't buy J. Michael
Straczynski's defenses for even a second that he was ever against
what happened in One More Day. If he was willing to go along with
the alleged tamperings subjected to Spidey during Sins Past, and
showed no sign of protest by quitting the book, then why should I
believe he was ever sincere? His leftist viewpoints, which did find
their way into the books, have also alienated me to no end, one more
reason why I have no respect for Straczynski as a writer.
Copyright Avi Green. All rights
reserved.