Fun Fun Fun, that’s what ‘Avengers: War Across Time’ was. At some point the Big 2, DC & Marvel, lost the element of fun in their books. Everything became sooo serious or so commodified as they had to tie into something other than the book itself, a movie, a game, another book etc. I would say a bunch of DC Black Label books last year nailed the fun factor, especially Catwoman: Lonely City. My goodness that series was amazing. I’m not sure what’s going on with Black Label this year, seems like the spigot got twisted off and the steady stream of inventive forward thinking fun books got shelved for other mnyeh take it or leave it stuff.
Paul Levitz and Co. truly captured the essence of fun that made Marvel books so great in this limited series. It felt like you had snagged a tattered comic that had a price tag of 12 cents in the upper right hand corner from a musty comic shop located in a closet in Brooklyn. The characters were bright technicolor over the top heroic heroes with corny one liners and a knack for being able to say ‘stick together’ and ‘let’s get him’ in a myriad of different ways. There was a ridiculous myopic power hungry intergalactic villain in a shiny purplish metallic outfit snorting up universes and worlds like a maniacal coke addict from the 80s. What more could you ask for? Crumbling buildings. Streets collapsing into underground kingdoms populated by Lava Men. Laws of Physics, Time & Space suspended completely with an utter disregard for consequences of future issues and future storylines; the stakes were high AF.
Why was this approach abandoned completely? It seems like hero comics of the past few decades have been wired to find ways to prove to us that these heroes are actually real and exist in our world rather than allowing us to find ways to escape into theirs for a brief moment. I bet some Marketing Schmuck wandered into DC & Marvel’s offices in the 2000s and gave them the ‘relatable’ PowerPoint presentation. You know the one where suits and creatives are convinced that entertainment has to exist in a way where the audience has to relate to everything that’s going on with what you’re doing.
So, the Hulk needs therapy, Iron Man needs AA, Cap needs an enema, Batman needs a reiki massage, Supes needs a hug from Daddy blah blah blah. Just reading this series, I mean, the way the world is these days I don’t want my heroes dealing with modern day nonsense, just beat some wack job with a time machine up and kiss a babe at the end for goodness sake. A book like this is something you look forward to, you know you can just sit back and relax into the world because of the very fact that it’s not yours. I will say that the ending did seem a bit rushed though as the Avengers, who were sent through a time portal by a shaken Kang looking for a pause in their battle on his world, saw future iterations of themselves only to end up back in 60s New York. Feels like Levitz had more story to tell but I’m guessing the cell in the dungeon he was being kept in under Disney Land needed to be cleared out for some new Pop Star so they needed him to wrap up the comic.
I have an idea for Marvisney. I just read Iron Man #1 (1968)
one of the facsimile issues they just put out; it was stupendous. Fun Fun Fun.
Look, Marvisney, your current books are mostly poop and cogs in your machine;
fine, you do you. Instead of just randomly popping out facsimile issues here and there why don’t you release
facsimile issue RUNS of all your
great books: Spiderman, Fantastic Four, Avengers, Iron Man etc. How fun would that be? As fans, we’d get to
read the comic books in sequence as if we were living when these spectacular
titles were released for the first time. Release these facsimiles monthly.
Reprint the first 100 issues of each. Maybe find a way to make the art feel not
so overly bright and matted; gussy up the quality a bit. Make a big deal of it,
charge I dunno, $5 a book, maybe add some extras in the back like original art
or whatever. You telling me these things wouldn’t sell out faster than a CabbagePatch Kid in 1983?
Guys, you don’t have to do anything other than reprint, publish and ship and - boom, another revenue stream. Yes, I understand that all these comics have been reprinted in compendiums and addendums and oversized oogly boogly fancy tomes that get gifted to comic geeks over the holidays. But this is different. This is giving retro fans the feel of actually reading the original books as if they were being printed for the first time. Release 3 or 4 main titles, 100 issues each. What’s that? Two grand for 100 issues of each of them from each comic geek? That not good enough for you? Hell, DC, why don’t you join the fun, do it for Detective Comics and Action Comics. Why. Wouldn’t. You???
I’ll tell you why. I think I read a reason for why this hasn’t
and won’t happen, because the Big 2 don’t want the competition from their own
brand. In other words, if these reprints outsell their current titles then it
makes their current titles look really really bad. I get it. That’s a bad look.
But here’s the deal, maybe, just maybe that would be a sign for your current
books to change course and incorporate some of the old into the new as they
move forward into future stories. I mean c'mon, most of what the entertainment industry does these days is recycle the same stuff over and over or pop out sequels, how is this any different?
I dunno, seems like a slam dunk to me. AND. Make it so those coupons and ads in the back of the comics are real! C’mon. I never had the pennies and bucks when I was a kid but I am dying to send away for some Sea Monkeys, a book from Charles Atlas on how to get muscles, and 10,000 plastic army men in a bag.
I also might be up for a paperboy route. I've always wanted to chase after John Cusack and wail 'TWO DOLLARS'!
Rating: 9.0
Verdict: Pull
No comments:
Post a Comment