FASERIP

Some discussion over in the comments here on whether or not Mark Millar is a satirist - seemingly echoing this dicussion from a while back.

Millar is a low-norm satirist, but I don't think that alone makes him special. I agree with Bill Krohn agreeing with Northrop Frye that we live in the age of satire. It's hard to find any piece of fiction that doesn't have some satirical element to it.

Is Millar a precise satirist? No. Is his satire especially thoughtful? I don't think so. Is it effective? Well, that seems to vary pretty wildly from work to work, but more often than not it's obnoxious rather than enlightening.

Coincidentally, I've just been reading some early Charlie Huston-written issues of the current Moon Knight. While this is definitely not a series for the ages, I think it works pretty nicely as a sub-Frank Miller send-up of macho super-heroic posturing - David Finch even functions in a sub-Jim Lee capacity. It's a bit like a Millar version of the Brubaker/Fraction Iron Fist: a satisfying elaboration of the character's mythology, with lots of outrageous/in-questionable-taste (low-norm) satirical moments scattered throughout.

And writing about Moon Knight reminds me I had a few more things I wanted to say about the Avengers. First, I should highlight something I tried to get at in the comments: that Stan Lee really figured out how to make the Avengers series work when the line-up turned into Captain America, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver. Lee gave a raison d'etre to the team book by focusing on how the relationships between the characters change based on whether or not the characters are getting what they want and/or need from each other (i.e. Hawkeye getting the respect he wants from Cap, Cap getting - or not getting - a substitute for Bucky from his new teammates).

Second, instead of turning the New Avengers into Marvel's JLA or just another Avengers line-up, I would have liked to see Bendis make the New Avengers a completely "street level" super-hero book. We'd have Spider-Man, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Jennifer Jones, and, of course, Moon Knight, with Captain America acting as the unofficial liason between this new group and SHIELD/Tony Stark/the other Marvel U authority figures.

This would have (a) played to Bendis' strengths - Daredevil and Alias, his low-rent, noirish super-hero books, are two of the best Marvel comics of the last twenty years, (b) marked a significant change from earlier runs of the Avengers title, and (c) been more of its own thing, not just Avengers Featuring Spider-Man.

Punisher, Cloak and Dagger, Ghost Rider, Shang Chi, and the Black Cat would show up every now and then and it could have started off with a sequel/homage to the 1980s Gang War story from Amazing Spider-Man.

And speaking of 1980s Amazing Spider-Man: the current creative teams working on this series seem to be making a return to the mid-80s DeFalco/DeMatteis era (i.e. before things got all McFarlaney and Cloney). I'm all in favor of this creative direction and not only for nostalgic reasons.

You know, when I heard about the concept behind the "One More Day"/"Brand New Day" sort-of-reboot, I thought that it sounded like another Clone Saga fiasco in the making: a radical change to continuity that would annoy current readers and do nothing to build a new audience interested in sticking around for the long haul once the novelty wore off. But, while you can certainly argue that maybe the change wasn't necessary, the proof is in the pudding: post-"One More Day" Amazing has become a solidly entertaining super-hero book, while the Straczynski run was pretty dire near the end (and, IMO, redeemed only slightly by fine work from guys like John Romita Jr. and Ron Garney). So, while it's something I might be against in theory, in practice it means Spider-Man comics that (a) I actually want to read and (b) (so it's not all about me) Spider-Man comics that are objectively better than they were before the change by just about any metric you want to use to determine what makes one super-hero comic better than another.

And, speaking of Straczynski...

I don't think he's actually a bad writer, in the sense that he has a firm grasp on how to execute his ideas. But he has some pretty awful ideas about what belongs in a Spider-Man comic. I like some of his other work, - Babylon 5 and Supreme Power, for instance - but the basic Spider-Man concept seems to be completely at odds with his m.o. of elaborate world/mythos-building.

Finally, more Marvel-related stuff in this entry from a new chat blog I'm doing with my friend Nick.

Wolverine #66 by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven

"Old Man Logan - Part One"

Inks: Dexter Vine
Colored by: Morry Hollowell

This is another comic Sean's Kick Ass review inspired me to pick up, in that I thought I should follow-up trying out a John Romita Jr. comic with trying out a Mark Millar comic. And I chose this particular Mark Millar for a couple of reasons:

1. I like the idea of reading a Road Warrior homage with Wolverine and other Marvel characters.

2. This story-arc looks like it stands apart from anything else going on in Marvel comics right now or what was going on in Wolverine prior to this.

3. I'm not usually a fan of Steve McNiven's work, but I flipped through the book I liked what I saw.

What struck me about the Slott/Romita Amazing Spider-Man issue that I read was that it seemed to me to be an example of the kind of book that various people on the internet claim doesn't exist: a straight-forward story about a major, franchise hero that builds on the character's core elements instead of on details drawn from the publisher's shared-world continuity.

This comic seems to be much closer to standard, contemporary super-hero fare. While the Slott/Romita Amazing Spider-Man should appeal to anyone who is interested in a Spider-Man story, this issue of Wolverine is aimed at people who have some knowledge of and/or investment in the Marvel U. A basic indicator of the difference: Wolverine doesn't show up in a costume and even his out-of-costume look here doesn't match up with his look in other comics or in the X-Men movies. A slightly less basic indicator: this story isn't building on Wolverine's "core elements", but instead is playing a "what if" game with those elements. Not only that, but there's a second layer to all of this: at this point, doing "future histories" of Wolverine has become a tradition in its own right. So Millar isn't just relying on our knowledge of the Marvel U: he's also playing around with references to other "what if" stories about Wolverine in the future.

The concept here is that we're in a 1980's-style post-apocalyptic future, where supervillains have beaten all the heroes and carved up the U.S.A. into their own kingdoms. Logan has given up being a hero, has a family, and is trying to eak out a living as a farmer, although it looks like some kind of ecological disaster has made that nearly impossible.

As I said back in reason #1, I like this idea. To drop the calm, collected voice I like to use here favor of the kind of AICN-style fanboy gushing I try to suppress: I think this idea is wicked cool. Wolverine is the perfect character to drop in the middle of Road Warrior pastiche.

A lot of the pleasure with this type of story has to do with seeing how my favorite characters are used.

Hawkeye shows up as an aging counter-culture-type (I kept thinking of Peter Fonda), who, though blind, still insists on driving his car himself. I like this take, even though it owes a lot to Frank Miller's Green Arrow from The Dark Knight Returns. Actually, in this instance, I like it partially because it is derivative.

As an observation, I think it's accurate to say that this is for relatively hardcore fans: people who already care about lots of little details and who will recognize all the layers of references. Given that, I think this is a nicely done super-hero comic and the story seems to have some potential.

Finally, a quick note on Steve McNiven's art:

One of the good things about the "what if" set-up here is that it frees McNiven from drawing a lot dudes-in-tights standing around talking, which is something that very few super-hero artists are able to pull off well. Instead, the concept frees him to do some effective sci-fi/action movie action. I especially like his redneck Hulks.

I should point out that from a sci-fi perspective there seem to be a lot of world building holes. I couldn't quite figure out how this post-apocalyptic economy is supposed to work (although I could say the same thing about our actual hopefully-extremely-pre-apocalyptic economy).

Bonus Question: do these kinds of "Imaginary Story"/Elseworlds-style stories have a name? They aren't completely unique to comics, but they are a pretty strange beast.