One Zombie in a Billion

Since the Atom is being cancelled, this now pointless series of action figures from last year sprang to mind. Possibly because it’s shocking how quickly DC have dropped these new spins on old characters.

• Aquaman - Cancelled
• Atom - Cancelled Possibly Dead
• Warlord - Cancelled
• Martian Manhunter - Dead apparently
• Blue Beetle - safe so far

From his appearance in the Brave and Bold tv series promo, it looks like the Beetle might stick around for a while, I hope so, he’s a great new character. I really wish DC would stick by these new generation characters, maybe even use the new multiverse as a way of introducing the new ones, whilst keeping the old characters out there somewhere.

On thurs I picked up the second issue of Comic Foundry, Tim Leong’s comics and pop culture (to paraphrase Jack Kirby’s iconic cover to New Gods #1) magazine for our times. Aimed at the more modern centred comic fan, who enjoys Marvel and DC, but also likes indie books and well, having a life.

Being in that target demographic, I grew out of Wizard many moons ago and while I enjoy the depth of the articles found in the Comics Journal, I do find it a bit too harsh on the mainstream stuff, so I thought I should check this magazine out and it turns out I loved every page of it.

Editorially, this feels like Esquire for comic fans, covering things like fashion and lifestyle as well as the comics world. Wisely they’ve decided not to go down the route of reporting breaking news as the internet does that better than any magazine could and in a commendable move, they treat webcomics and manga and their creators as being on the same level playing field as American mainstream comics, which more accurately reflects the current climate of the sequential art scene(bit wanky of me, but I got fed up of saying “comics” all the time).

Of note here is the cover feature with Matt Fraction, writer of Casanova, Punisher War Journal and Iron Fist with Ed Brubaker, with reflections on his career thus far and detailing his upcoming work. A feature like this in wizard would maybe cover 2 pages, here it’s granted seven, which allows it to be a little more introspective than these things normally are, showing us how Fraction feels about the state of comics and how digital formats and bookstores will affect the market in the future. It’s a great piece and I must say, it’s done the intended job, I’m definitely going to check out Fraction’s Uncanny X-Men, and I never read X-Men(or at least not consistently).

Another fun bit is the fashion section, where they dissect a fictional character’s wardrobe and suggest real life items to match, so for example this issue features annoying sidekick turned geek icon Jimmy Olsen, the items on display here include a lovely messenger bag by uniqlo and some sweet shoes by Tretorn that I wouldn’t mind owning.

The only negative thing I have to say is that the magazine is only 64 pages, so I implore you all to give it a try so they can up the page count!

Comic Foundry is out 4 times a year and is available in both comic stores and general magazine stores, priced at $5.98 and well worth every penny.

Since I’m on a Spider-man binge this month, I’d thought I would talk about the two spidey albums from the 70s.

The 70s were an interesting time for Marvel, as a company Marvel essentially accepted just about every merchandise and media deal available to them. Which either provided the public with gold (The Mego toy range) or stinkers that haunt the company to this day (the Captain America tv movies), these albums are somewhere in the middle.

As a quick preface, I first discovered the existence of both of these when I was 10 years old in the adverts of old comics. Since then I’ve been trying to track these down and finally through the wonder of the internet I can listen to both of these..uh..gems.

I’ll start off with the Spider-man rockcomic. Sporting a wonderfully marker coloured John Romita cover, this album is essentially a Spider-man disney movie, a radio show style narrative with a few songs dotted here and there.
The story is basically Spider-man against the Kingpin, with some Italian muzak framing his sequences, being 1972 the villain choice was no doubt influenced by the success of the Godfather that year.

Honestly, it’s pretty forgettable, the songs aint great and the story for the most part, boring. The one amusing sequence is Dr.Strange’s bloodthirsty guest appearance, where he sends the Kingpin to hell, to spend time with the devil (Nice unintentional foreshadowing of his future nemesis though).

Second up is Spider-man : Rock Reflections of a Superhero, this beauty is about 10 times better than the rockcomic. Full of lovely tracks like “Gwendolyn” that are reminiscent of 50-60s bubblegum pop and broken up cool narration by Stan Lee, it’s almost like a U (or G-Rated) Tarantino soundtrack.
The albums is lots of fun and wrapped in a fantastic cover drawn by John Romita and painted by the wonderful Nick Cardy.

If you want to track these down, Spider-man : Beyond the Grave – A Rockcomic is available from itunes and Spider-man : Rock Reflections of a Superhero is available DRM-Free from eMusic and the Amazon MP3 store.

So it’s worth beginning this by saying I don’t really care about “One More Day“, there’s been a few great stories over the last ten years, but it’s been a while since I really enjoyed this book, until now.

Part of the appeal is the revamped Spider-man continuity.
Peter Parker’s single and broke, Harry Osborn is back and acting more like his confident movie counterpart, Spidey has his webshooters back and his id is secret. This is the Peter Parker I want to read about, this is the character I grew up reading reprints about in the annuals and old comics I’d buy with my pocket money (I loved the 5 for £1 deals Deadhead Comics did), so obviously I’m glad to see the character back to this classic status that I love.

Writing wise, Dan Slott was born to write the webslinger. He gives Peter that right about of wit that makes him funny rather than just a wise ass and makes him just mopey enough to be the Parker we remember, whilst not going overboard with the self pity (something I felt the movie Spider-man wallowed in a bit too much).

The storyline dealing with Spidey’s new adversary, gang lord Mr.Negative, harks back to those great Hobgoblin stories of the 80s and Maggia stories of the 70s.
I always loved that Spidey basically dealt with all the gang and petty crime in the Marvel U while the bigger heroes were busy with the cosmic threats, it’s always grounded the character and after a very cosmic/mystical few years I think it’s a great place to start this renewal.

The art by Steven McNiven, is of course, fabulous. Well detailed and the story telling clear and concise, I dig the little techie details on the spider-tracers and the way Peter’s web shooter trigger folds under the wrist strap when not in use (I think Ditko did that too).

My only real criticism is with the trade dress. I’m am glad to see that the old typeface for “The Amazing Spider-man” is back, it’s a classic, the problem I have is with the left hand box.
It’s a very clunky look, straight from Marvel circa 1998, terrible, the Marvel logos alignment is off in that box for pete’s sake, not to mention the thick black borders and pee-yellow gradient behind spidey there, yuck. Get Chip Kidd to sort that out!

So yeah, Spidey is back and well worth checking out.
The book is out three times a month with each arc lasting those 3 issues, so you can wait till the end of the month, pick up all three and get a complete story, sweet!