#“he's like a perfect Golden Age Comic rogue”

[gl1tchr]

Hey there, I love Deerman so much and I just wanted to draw him in a quick comic(and my little super duper serious Roguesona, Goober) 🥺

They found a highway(They’re going to be rich!!)

Love your art so much!! 🫶🫶

HKFSDG I AM LOSING IT, WHAT IS SO ENCHANTING ABOUT DEERMAN. I love trhis so much thank you

[longitudinalwaveme]

How to Distinguish the Mirror Masters

So on Reddit, I saw a post that asked how the two Mirror Masters should be distinguished from one another if they were to be used in the same story. Here's what I came up with:

Sam Scudder, the first Mirror Master, is flamboyant, dramatic, and vain. He loves fame and is always angling for it, and his crimes are frequently centered on getting as much attention as possible.  He almost views himself as the lead actor in a movie series about him; he's always trying to come up with interesting stories about himself and trying on variations of his basic Mirror Master role---pretending to be a superhero, taking a self-help course as a regular guy, turning his enemy into a genie in a bottle, live-action role-playing as a cowboy, and even once casting himself as a romantic lead. While he likes money and really likes stealing fancy mirrors for his extensive collection, ultimately fame is most important to him.

In some ways, Sam kind of parallels Barry insofar as they both seem to kind of living out childhood fantasies (Barry is a huge comic book nerd and idolized the Jay Garrick Flash, while Sam was explicitly stated to be a huge fan of cowboy movies in the issue where he disguised himself as an Old West outlaw for a bit.) I think if I was writing the character, I would make this connection a bit more explicit, and have Sam also be a fan of the Golden Age heroes, with the Mirror Master persona being a twisted mirror image of his childhood heroes. 

One side effect of this is the fact that Sam doesn't have any real personal hatred of Barry. He'll do the standard supervillainous death traps and the like, but on some level he enjoys having the Flash around. After all, the Mirror Master looks much cooler fighting the Flash than he would effortlessly avoiding the police.

On the same tack, Scudder almost never endangers civilians, since doing that would interfere with his fantasy life as an over-the-top comic book supervillain. 

Sam is also the genius of the two Mirror Masters. He's the one who invented all the technology and discovered the Mirror Realm, and he's always coming up with new inventions. He's probably the most scientifically inclined of all the Rogues, but he specializes in reflections and advanced physics. I don't generally think of him as having had a lot of education, but he is extremely intelligent.

Scudder is something of a pretty boy; he's extraordinarily vain and spends an inordinate amount of time fixing his perfect hair and looking at himself in the mirror.

Sam is also superstitious (he seems to fervently believe that breaking mirrors is bad luck, which is unfortunate given his gimmick) and can't swim. He's also a chain smoker; he goes through four cigarettes every hour. 

Evan McCulloch chases anonymity as much as Scudder chases fame. After his traumatic childhood and his role in the death of his parents, he wants to be anyone BUT Evan McCulloch, and the Mirror Master is a convenient role for him to disappear into. He doesn't really want to establish himself as separate from Scudder (though his accent and somewhat burlier physique make it somewhat inevitable that most people don't mistake the two of them). In a sense, being the Mirror Master is an escape hatch for him...just as his cocaine addiction is.  

 Evan is a deeply weird individual on many levels. He has a strange sense of humor and a strange moral compass, and he seems to take some enjoyment out of how much he unsettles other people. When interacting with heroes, he's generally quite chipper and genial, something that stands in stark contrast to the lengths he's willing to go to in order to get what he wants. He bears no malice towards the heroes he fights, but he also has very little restraint in fighting them.

Evan is far more dangerous, brutal, and unhinged than Scudder; he was, after all, a hit man prior to becoming the Mirror Master. He also uses the Mirror Realm far more effectively than Scudder does, partially because he's less worried about the potential risks involved in spending time in such a bizarre reality, and partially due to a natural aptitude for navigating it. He is not an inventor, and indeed struggles to understand and repair the technology he uses, but he is more than competent in wielding it.   

Evan does have something of a sentimental streak. He always sends a portion of his ill-gotten gains to the orphanage where he was raised, and he refuses to kill children (Grant Morrison, who created the character, established early on that Evan had a policy against killing women and children, and it's always been a little frustrating that most subsequent writers have abandoned it). But making the mistake of assuming that his sentimentality makes him any less dangerous might very well be the death of you, since Evan has no compunctions about killing generally.   

Evan is exceptionally powerful; indeed, he's something of a Lovecraftian horror. He can go anywhere, attack anyone from anywhere at almost any time, and can launch those attacks without even having to leave the Mirror Realm himself. He's almost untouchable when he wants to be.  

Oh, and Evan is Scottish. He's very, very Scottish (more specifically, Glaswegian), and he takes great amusement from the fact that the Americans around him often have no idea what he's saying.

In terms of physically distinguishing the two, I would have Evan be a bit more built than Sam. He also has much messier hair when the cowl is off, and has freckles and a gap between his two front teeth, which Sam does not possess. Both have brown hair and brown eyes, but Evan's hair has a reddish tinge to it and his eyes are more hazel, whereas Sam's hair and eyes are more pure brown. Finally, I would have them be mirror images of each other in terms of handedness, with Scudder being left-handed and McCulloch being right-handed. 

I would also have Scudder be quite a bit older than McCulloch, with Scudder being 41 to 45 years old and McCulloch being 26 to 33. 

Also, importantly, the primary distinguishing trait between the two is not that Sam is boring. For some reason, there's this common idea in the wider Flash fandom that McCulloch is the only Mirror Master to really have a personality, but that's actually pretty far from the case. Prior to Crisis on Infinite Earths, Sam was probably the most dynamic and interesting of all the Flash's villains, and he was also very popular, as illustrated by the fact that he appeared more often than any other costumed villain, as well as the fan response he got in the letter columns of the day.

For example, in Flash vol. 1 #130 (published in 1962), someone wrote in with the results of a poll they took in their neighborhood:

And in this very long letter from Flash vol. 1 #174 (published in 1967), the writer identifies Mirror Master as his favorite Flash villain:

Granted, Sam doesn't have the depth or complexity of the characters who either survived into or were created in the modern era (since he was dead for almost all of it), but he definitely had a character, and he was a lot of fun.

And then they brought him back in the New 52 and he really WAS boring. But that wasn't because classic Sam had no personality to work with, it's because the writers made him a less interesting version of the Top, and then made him Evan-in-all-but-name-and-accent.

And while we're on the subject of badly-written Mirror Masters, it's very frustrating that DC brought Evan out of his decade-long limbo only to apparently shunt him back into limbo about a year later---especially since it's really, really clear that Evan is the Mirror Master most writers actually want to write about.

It honestly feels like DC thinks that the ideal Mirror Master is the hybrid version. They want the Mirror Master to have Evan's eldritch horror powers and general human disaster personality, but since Evan's Glasgow accent is hard to write and the details of how he got the Mirror Technology require them to acknowledge that there are two Mirror Masters, they use Sam's civilian identity because he isn't Scottish and invented the gear himself. As someone who's a fan of both Mirror Masters, this is very frustrating.

Thanks to @gorogues for the scans.

[thevindicativevordan]

On Lois Lane

Figured it well past time I got to the matriarch of the Superfamily, especially since I already wrote about the other major "LL" in Superman's life.

Hardest part of writing about Lois is what more can be added that hasn't already been said? She's The Love Interest when it comes to female supporting characters, so iconic and successful that like Superman himself, she's inspired countless copycats: Iris West, Vicki Vale, the current video game version of MJ Watson, if your hero has a love interest who is a reporter, they're drawing on the archetype that Lois established. She was there from the very beginning, before there were Krypton, Smallville, the Kents, the Rogues, before Superman could even fly Lois was there.

And my God is she such a fantastic character in her own right.

Whereas Clark himself is pretty damn different if you compare and contrast his Golden Age incarnation with his modern incarnation, Golden Age Lois is pretty recognizable as Lois Lane. Feisty, independent, scornful of danger and of cowardice (especially in a "peer" like Clark), a bit in awe of Superman while also eager to press him for information about himself, willing to throw herself into danger if she can get that exclusive scoop. Her personality in the early comics is much more like her modern incarnation than the lovestruck wanna-be housewife she became in the Silver Age. Lois is one of the few characters who basically came into comics perfect from Day 1.

I love the Rucka idea that she somehow has everyone's number and can call up anyone from the lowliest criminal to the highest politicians. I like when writers show that she herself is able to wear a variety of disguises, something I'm sure she and Clark can bond over once he reveals his identity to her. And I love that she is basically waging a one-woman war against corruption and evil in Metropolis long before Superman shows up, something the Superman & Lois show highlighted.

It's easy to see why Clark would fall for her. Even putting aside that Lois is hot as hell, she's a great foil to him personality wise. They both are committed to rooting out social ills and taking the fight to crime and oppression wherever it rears it's head, from the Lexcorp boardroom, to the darkest underbelly of Metropolis. They both are kind and compassionate, but have explosive tempers if you piss them off. They both love to snark, although Lois has more bite whereas Clark is more deadpan.

The biggest contrast, and honestly the biggest turn on for Clark, is that Lois is free from doubt. Clark is constantly second-guessing himself, worrying about how others see him, worrying about whether he's making the right choices or if he's approaching his heroics/journalism the right way. Lois? Lois never second-guesses herself, never allows the doubts or opinions of others to affect her course in life. She knows her dad is disappointed and upset with her and she couldn't care less. She knows others think she's a bitch and that only amuses her. She's confident and self-reliant and those are attributes Clark wants desperately to posses himself. How could he not fall head over heels in love?

Why Lois would fall in love with Clark is a bit trickier. It's easy to see why she would love Superman, which is part of why Clark wants her to love the "whole" of him and not just the public persona. Superman is confident, Superman is powerful, Superman kicks ass, he's kind and intelligent, he's a huge celebrity, who wouldn't love him? Clark? Eh he's easy on the eyes but he doesn't really have much of a presence. That's how everyone else views Clark. Lois, I think, would start off viewing Clark as a dweeb who will be gone in a week, the big city too much for him. That he sticks around and toughs it out impresses her. That he manages to outscoop her multiple times infuriates and intrigues her. That he manages to live in Metropolis and see how rotten it can be beneath the shiny gilded exterior, yet doesn't lose his sense of optimism, his faith in other peoples inner goodness, his "naivety" so to speak? I think that's what would make her fall in love with him.

Lois is at heart a "cynical idealist" in my estimation. The cynical side is she's someone who will always fight for the truth, for justice, but I don't think she believes that peoples inherent goodness will win out in the end most of the time. She's seen how selfish people can be, how uncaring, and I think before Clark shows up there's a part of her that thinks she's just bashing her head against a wall trying to change things. The idealist part of her is that she will continue to bash her head against that wall of public indifference anyway. Lois will always fight even if nobody else will fight alongside her, she'll keep writing articles and investigating long after a lesser woman would give up, because it's the principles that matter damnit, even if only to her. That Clark is someone who will join her in that fight while still believing that the rest of the public can be swayed to join them is what I see as the reason why she finally gives him a chance, that optimism remaining in Clark is refreshing and uplifting to her. That he's also hot and can trade banter with her doesn't hurt his chances any.

Lois becoming a mom has been really interesting, even if I haven't always been wholly satisfied with how they've handled the relationship between her and Jon. I haven't seen enough of Lois traits in Jon to really buy him as her offspring, I hope that changes. While I'm not the biggest fan of Tom Taylor to put it mildly, I liked that he emphasized Lois' importance with regards to Jon becoming Superman in interview leading up to the first issue, and I hope we get lots of Lois/Jon interaction in Superman: Son of Kal-El that really flesh out their relationship. At the very least I want to see Jon get some of that Lois patented verbal bite to him.

One last thought with regards to Lois: how the hell was Tom King the first one to realize that Lois and Selina would immediately hit it off?

They're both so similar when you think about it: Brunettes who are willful and independent, who flaunt the rules to get what they want, who outright laugh when their male significant others try to order them around, yeah I totally can see the two of them becoming friends. I really hope that gets continued under someone else, since I don't think anyone other than King has really played with it, but I love the idea of Lois having a "gal pal" that's also caught up in the insanity of life with a superhero.

If not Selina I'd like to see Lois being shown to have a friendship with her copycats such as Vicki or Iris or the rest. Definitely with Cat (even though Cat Grant can drive her up the wall sometimes). More girls' nights out/double dates for Lois, that's all I'm saying.

[astranne]

FanFiction.net MASTERLIST

Here are the FanFiction I’ve read on FanFiction.net. Hope you’ll enjoy!

For each recommendation I’ve linked the story to the title and wrote/copied a little summary. Please remember that many stories are rated M or E, if not stronger. Read on your own risk!

justhugefangirl’s masterlist

fanfiction recommendation masterlist

Love’s Labour Found  by Peanutbuttertoast1

The War may be over, but Hermione Granger's life is just starting as her true heritage is revealed. Being the Heir to the Throne of England and a real life Princess is just the beginning of Hermione's story...but how will the Wizarding World react when they learn the Golden Girl and Gryffindor Princess is really a real life Royal?

This fanfic os one of my favourites, read it already three times- I can’t. It’s perfect, okay? For me it’s perfect. 

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A Witch in Gotham by Peanutbuttertoast1

After the Second Wizarding War, a curse rips through the Magical World, leaving devastation in its wake. Hermione Granger is tasked to find the reason, and the cure before more lives are lost. Retreating into the Muggle World to start over, Hermione finds her way to Gotham City as Mia Black, Head of the Black Foundation. Her decision to help the Batman changes her life forever.

A perfect crossover- honestly, this author is perfect. As well this story. I don’t link more of the authors work but there are some other ones which are just ... perfect.

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Mischief Managed by fringeperson

A man with black hair, green eyes and pale skin watched over a child with black hair, green eyes, pale skin, and a variant of the Elder Futhark rune Sowilo etched upon his brow.

Mischief Mastered (part of story)

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Green Eyes and Red Hair by fringeperson

He was a practical joker with messy black hair. She was a talented woman with bright red hair. It turned out that they both had green eyes. Their daughter, when she came, was untouchable for more reasons than one. Loki-is-James, Natasha-is-Lily, Rogue-is-Fem!Harry.

I love the relationship between Loki and Natasha :)

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Love on Her Arm by Eye Greater Than Three

During a trip to Gringotts, Hyacinthe Potter discovered she met her soulmate, William Weasley. Bill/Hyacinthe. female!Harry.

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The Winter Witch by Kneazle

Hermione realized it began with a sense of Impending Doom and finished with a battle outside her tent. The deciding line between staying and helping Robb Stark, or returning to her universe, is getting harder to see the longer she's in Westeros. But it's a decision that she has to make, or it's one that will be made for her. Part 1 & Part 2 complete! Part 3 now ongoing.

This... is one of my favourites crossovers,,, the slowburn between Hermione and Robb,,, and it’s so fluff,,, I’m such a sucker for dark stories but this is just pureness and ugh-

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Moratorium by Darkpetal16

Harry Potter could never be the hero. But, she might make a great villain. Satire. Parody. -COMPLETE- F!Harry Fem!Harry Gray!Harry.

Uhm- this is one of the darker fics I love. It’s very good written, cause of this I really don’t mind the ship fem!Harry x Tom Riddle

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A Life Twice Lifed by Nemesis13

Draco Malfoy died at the venerable age of 107, and who awaited him at the crossroads? His mother? His wife? No, it had to be his eccentric former rival, eventual best friend, and far too often partner in chaos Harry Potter. Oh, and of course he had a deal to offer Draco to live his life anew, and obviously there was a caveat to it all that he wasn't privy to, damn Potters.Fem!Draco

Ahh, Drarry. How I love this ship

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Persephone by dulce.de.leche.go

Better to be the right hand of the devil than in his path. Better still to be the consort of Hades than a part of his collection of souls. Ten years after Voldemort has won the war, Hermione reaches a breaking point and shreds the flow of time to change her future. If she can't change the world, she will change her place in it. Extremely dark Tomione/Volmione. Warnings inside.

As already written in the summary, this fic is hella dark. So if you don’t like dark fics (especially with all the warnings mentioned in the first chapters) don’t read. I still love it tho-

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The Muddy Princess by Colubrina

Just another Pureblood!Hermione story. A hidden adoption revealed, a brother found, a new world to figure out: "What are you hoping for?" he asked as they stood ready to do the spell. "I don't know," Hermione admitted. "You?" His knuckles were white on his wand. "A sister," he said, his voice very low, "I'm hoping for a sister."

There are more stories from this author which are just- awesome and absolutly perfect, like the next ones. Since they have over 60, I won’t link every work here. 

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Lady of the Lake by Colubrina

Hermione and Draco team up after the war to overthrow the Order and take over wizarding Britain. They have plans and they'll get power, but the cost of victory may be higher than they expected and more than they can bear. Dark Dramione. COMPLETE

This is perfection. Nothing more to say. 

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Dark Cherry Chapstick by Colubrina

Hermione returns for an optional 8th year after the war and Draco Malfoy, also back at Hogwarts at his mother's request, notices she's changed. A brief dip into the 'makeover' trope AND the 'goth' trope in one fic. ONE SHOT. Dramione.

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The Green Girl by Colubrina

Hermione is sorted into Slytherin; how will things play out differently when the brains of the Golden Trio has different friends? AU. Darkish Dramione. COMPLETE

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The Last Peverell by animerocker 646

Being the Master of Death made life difficult, especially when you need to save all of magical Europe from inbreeding its way to extinction. At least Death was enjoying watching his Master attempt this over and over again. Harry didn't find it nearly as entertaining. Well, tenth times the charm right? (FemHarry)

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Soft, Low, English Accent by Tsume Yuki

'God, you've got a beautiful voice.' Hariel always found it funny, that of all the things her soulmate could take note of -the messy hair, the bright green eyes, the scar- it's her voice he points out first. FemHarryxMatt

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Bless the Broken Road by Tempestas D. Uzu

Her resolve crumbled in the face of Pietro Maximoff's scruffy good looks and warm blue eyes, and she found herself falling for another person who would be doomed to die for her selfishness. (One Shot)(fem!HarryXPietro)(cannon-divergent)(full warnings inside)

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The Death of Natasha Romanoff by Philosophize

While helping to stop Stane, Natasha encounters a face she never thought she'd see again. Forced to deal with memories, decisions, and a life she thought she'd long left behind, will she survive the emotional upheaval, not to mention the rampaging, homicidal Stane? Or will she have to face her fears & transform herself, becoming once again what she once was? AU; fem!Harry; femslash

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Code Of Conduct by tlyxor1

A year after the war, Gwen Potter joins SHIELD. It's a life in the shadows, and a perpetual dance with death, but for the Witch Who Won, SHIELD - and Clint Barton - is exactly what she needs. She just doesn't know it yet. AU. Clint/Gwen. Fem!Harry. Pre-MCU. Post-Hogwarts, Post OOTP. Discontinued.

It already says it’s not finished,,, but oh well- I still liked it.

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The Almost Forgotten Marriage Contract of 1763 by worldtravellingfly

What would you do when suddenly confronted with a 200+ years old marriage contract by a teen and her lawyer? Run for the hills? Call the nice guys with the white jackets? Certainly not - agree? Well, Tony Stark always was a bit unique.

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Some Hearts by sakurademonalchemist

Robin Black was a bound witch. However, as the new Mistress of Death she was able to break free to Asgard and prepare to reap her vengeance. What she didn't count on was falling for a certain green-eyed, silver-tongued God of Mischief or being hit by Time Sand before the war restarted. Can she make her way back to Loki, or will she be stuck on Earth? FEM HARRY! YOU WERE WARNED!

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A Man of Honor by bloomsburry-dhazel

One day, Lyanna Stark discovers an unconscious man in the Wolfswood. Not knowing who he is, she takes him back to Winterfell where he is nurse back to health... Steve Rogers can't remember what happened to him, or how he ends up there, but he does remember who he is. He is Captain America, and somehow he has become Lyanna Stark's sworn shield.

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The Origin of The Black Widow by The Black Shadowx

The story of how the Black Widow became to be. detailed description of her life in the Red Room and what happened when she defected. this is my own creation so if things appear that is not in the comics thats the reason. i don't things can ever be too far stretched so excuse me if it gets weird. DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING TO DO WITH MARVEL . WRITTEN FOR ENTERTAINMENT ONLY

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will be updated...

[shlabam]

TOP TEN COMICS BOOK VILLAINS WE PROBABLY WON’T SEE IN THE MOVIES

Superhero media is the hottest thing going right now. It was true ten years ago when the MCU was in its adolescence, and it’s even truer now. Even with film production on lockdown, Marvel and DC are still planning on literally dozens of their characters entering their respective cinematic universes. However, for the fans of the source material, things can be contentious. For every memorable Tony Stark quip, there’s Superman destroying an entire city because he’s, frankly, kind of dumb now. A major point of contention is how the various popular villains are utilized. Making an intimidating and potent villain in a comic book is very different than in a film. In comics, you have months to establish motive, powers, and backstory before the villain even makes their first move. In films, that all has to be compressed and spilled out in the scarce few minutes when Captain America and Bucky aren’t making bambi eyes at each other. To be concise, some villains adapt perfectly, and some, no matter how good they are in the comics, just don’t. And to be clear, this list is of popular villains who have the possibility of appearing in a big-budget film, so no, you won’t be seeing Ten Eyed Man or Big Wheel in there. Their powers are, respectively, having ten eyes, and being very good in business. (That’s a lie, he’s just a huge wheel who chases Spider-Man.)

10: Mr. Mxyzptlk:

Cool, let’s get this one out of the way. Despite being one of Superman’s oldest, longest-lasting, and most popular enemies from all the way back in the Golden Age, there’s no way in hell he will be in a movie. For the uninformed. Mr. Mxyzptlk is a 5th dimensional wizard-genie who appears every ninety days to torment Superman with his reality-altering antics, and can only be sent back to his home dimension if Superman tricks him into saying his own name backwards. Yes, it would be very dazzling, as Mr. Mxyzptlk’s powers in a movie would basically look like if Christopher Nolan directed Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but he’s a little too silly to fit in with the current “everything is gloomy and also a bummer” tone of the Superman films. This silly tone has lent itself perfectly to the Supergirl series, where he’s made a handful of appearances. Besides, if we get Mxyzptlk in a Superman movie before Brainiac, I’ll lose my entire freaking mind.

9: Hobgoblin:

There have been eight Spider-Man movies so far, and of those eight, four of them have, in some capacity, featured the Green Goblin. And that makes sense, right? The Green Goblin is easily Spider-Man’s most memorable and reoccurring nemesis, with Doctor Octopus and Venom close behind, and Peter Parker’s link with Norman and Harry Osbourn makes their tragic story perfect for film adaptation. On the other hand, we have the Hobgoblin, who is essentially Green Goblin with all the gimmicks, none of the Parker-adjacent backstory, and an orange and blue color scheme, likely tying him to the Denver Broncos [citation needed]. Still, in those four cinematic attempts at tackling the Goblin, none of them have quite gotten him right, and I can’t imagine this character, who is, even in canon, an intentional Green Goblin rip-off, would fare any better.

8: Starro:

Brave and the Bold #28 from 1960 featured the first story with the Justice League, and this story put them up against a very unique new villain: Starro the Conqueror, a giant telepathic starfish who can release tiny versions of himself. If these tiny starfish latch onto your head, you’re under his control and obey his commands. The Justice League have battled him fairly regularly over the last fifty years, and he’s a distinct and powerful enemy that the fans generally appreciate, leading to him being referenced occasionally in Smallville, Arrow, and Flash. Why won’t he ever be in a movie? Because if you’re a Hollywood producer, you stopped paying attention at “giant telepathic starfish”. Sorry. Maybe Shuma-Gorath will pop up in the next Doctor Strange movie, and he’ll set off a Twilight-esque wave of starfish monster movies! Then again, almost absolutely not.

7: Puppet Master:

Speaking of mind control, what’s scarier than that? For my money, nothing. Having your body and will taken away from you by an unseen force is a terror greater than death. How could you possibly make a villain based around such a chilling concept and have him not be scary? Well, maybe if it’s an old bald man in an apron playing with dolls. The Puppet Master is an ongoing threat for the Fantastic Four who is just that: he makes models of his foes out of radioactive clay, and makes them punch themselves and dance around and kiss each other, because he’s, y’know, a weird old man. Why is he such a consistent threat who hasn’t fallen into obscurity like other dumb gimmick-based villains? His stepdaughter, Alicia Masters, is the Thing’s longtime girlfriend. As long as she keeps appearing in movies (including being played by… Kerry Washington? That can’t be right), there’s always a chance he’ll pop up, but I don’t think any movie studio is that stupid, despite the quality of every Fantastic Four movie blatantly defying that prediction.

6: Bizarro:

Superman has always suffered in the villains department. When you’re essentially a god, what can they throw at you? As it turns out, Lex Luthor, almost always. But why not another Superman? Bizarro is essentially that, an imperfect clone of Superman who speaks in opposite speak - “Bizarro am good! Me not punch you until you live!” - and features the same abilities as the Man of Steel. Sounds great, right? Putting a hero against a villain with their same powers has worked for nearly every Marvel movie (shots fired). So why won’t we see him grace our silver screens any time soon? Because they’ve never really figured him out. Is he funny? Is he lethal? Does Kryptonite work on him? If he does everything the opposite of Superman, why does he wear clothes? Isn’t being naked the opposite of being clothed? Bizarro is a major Superman side-character and has made appearances in Smallville and Supergirl, but the idea of him being the Big Bad going toe-to-toe with Henry Cavill doesn’t sound like it would generate a lot of views.

5: Impossible Man:

You remember what I said about Mr. Mxyzptlk? Remember? So take that bit, but everywhere I say Superman, have it say Fantastic Four instead… yeah, that should do it.

4: The Wrecking Crew:

Thor has a unique quirk of having a very cinematic rogues gallery. Sure, most of the movies have pitted him against Loki, but if they were to run him up against the Enchantress, or the Absorbing Man, or Ulik the Troll, or Kurse, or even the Stone Men from Saturn, that’s not a bad movie! However, in one of the attempts to give Thor more of a mortal nemesis, they put him up against the Wrecker, who has an… enchanted… indestructible… crowbar. Yeah. Incredibly, the Wrecker and his Wrecking Crew have become very present characters throughout the Marvel Universe, essentially serving as “jobbers”, being rolled out to get beaten up by the new top hero or villain, but that may not work in a movie, where villains have to be seen as having some level of potency before being struck down. That means we’d need at least a short scene where it seems like Thor might lose to a guy whose power is “crowbar”, and that’s about as likely as an Edward Norton cameo in the next Avengers. Ho boy, they did NOT part on good terms!

3: Clayface:

When the movie-going public goes to see a Batman movie, they generally want something a bit more grounded than your typical superhero fare. After all, Batman has no powers, and therefore the most supernatural thing that should happen in these movies is a gas that makes you smile, or a different gas that makes you think your dead parents are back and disappointed in you. Might wanna put a mouth covering on that mask, Bruce! The one and only they’ve made a movie where Batman fights people with real, off-the-wall super powers (Batman and Robin), it did not go great. And those guys pale in comparison to Clayface, who is, yes, made of clay. In the comics and cartoons, Clayface looks awesome, turning his limbs into weapons and being very challenging to incapacitate, but in a live-action, realistic Batman adventure, we wouldn’t want to see the Dark Knight fight a poop-colored version of the T-1000, especially if it’s got the same chemical composition of a little dreidel that I made.

2: Red Hood:

A relative newcomer to the Batman universe, Red Hood is the revived body of Jason Todd, the second Robin, who was brutally killed by the Joker in one of the most controversial storylines DC Comics ever produced. Literally, fans called a 900 number to tell the writers to kill him off. A 900 number. That’s how much they hated the little turd. Anyway, Jason Todd, whom Batman and the rest of the world believed was dead, was revived by Ra’s al Ghul and became a ruthless villain. Since then, he’s gravitated more to the side of the hero, though one a bit more willing to spill blood than his mentors. Why won’t we see him in the darker, edgier Batman films? Because… that’s Bucky. It’s the same thing that happened in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Teen sidekick killed in controversial manner, revived by super villain to be a thorn in said hero’s side, later changes his mind and becomes a good guy again, though with enough PTSD to fill a PTSD super store. The two storylines even occurred in the comics in the same year, 2005, to much fanfare and across-the-board declarations of one company ripping off the other, reminding the world of the great Aquaman-Namor debates of the 1940s. Considering that DC’s films have criminally underperformed compared to Marvel’s, the last thing they want to do is be accused of lazy plagiarism, so Jason Todd will likely remain a permanent fixture in the afterlife, hanging out with Batman’s parents and, at the rate that people are coming back from the dead, literally no one else. (Plus, if they can’t even get Robin right, how are they gonna do this?)

1: Mister Sinister:

Yes, he was teased at the end of X-Men Apocalypse, but ignoring that the film underperformed both critically and commercially, Mister Sinister is never going to be in a movie. It would make sense for him to appear, though, right? He’s one of the most present and potent X-Men villains, he’s played crucial roles in many memorable storylines, he’s got a sick cape, but… something a lot of comic book fans tend to overlook is his murky backstory, powers, and motivations. He was a biologist in Victorian London who did genetic experiments on homeless people in the hopes of finding clues about the oncoming threat of mutants. In this time, he unearthed the long-dormant En Sabah Nur, whom you plebeians may know as Apocalypse, and Apocalypse gifted him with great abilities. What abilities you ask? HA HA, good question! At various times, Sinister has displayed: telepathy, telekinesis, energy projection, shape-shifting, regeneration, and teleportation, but these powers will mysteriously disappear whenever they want him to get sliced up real good by Wolverine. Additionally, it has never been made very clear what Sinister wants. Does he seek perfect mastery of the human genome? Does he live to torment Cyclops? Is he a blind follower of Apocalypse? Is he just running through all the different kinds of goatee? Of course, in adaptation, the writers would pick and choose the aspects they’d want to use, but I doubt they’d want to untangle the Christmas lights mess that is Mister Sinister, especially when they’ve got a perfectly good villain whose power is just “magnets”.

[wazafam]

Warning: this article contains spoilers for Future State: Suicide Squad #1

Considering what readers have gotten from DC Comics’ Future State so far, it isn’t at all surprising that even the Suicide Squad should get a dark reimagining too. The superhero business has never been so twisted as it is in DC’s latest alternate future offering. With so many heroes dead or presumed dead, gone off-world, depowered, or simply locked up, there’s an awful lot of superheroing to do and not enough heroes to get it all done. The setting is perfect for Amanda Waller’s new team of coerced super-powered assets, which she has ironically named the Justice Squad. In the past, the Suicide Squad, officially known as Task Force X, has been a cadre of incarcerated super-criminals dragooned into risking their lives on clandestine missions to hopefully shave some time off their sentences. Now the team has taken on a different tack: impersonating the world’s greatest heroes. 

What’s more interesting, however, are the uncanny parallels between the newest incarnation of the team and one of Marvel Comics’ past forays into sinister heroism: the Dark Avengers. The series began its original print run in 2009 and was created by famed writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Mike Deodato. For a bit of context, a power vacuum was created after the events of the Secret Invasion crossover event, which lead to none other than longtime Spider-Man arch-nemesis Norman Osborn taking over the premier team of Earth’s Mightiest heroes. 

Related: Justice League Hints Batman’s Bane Will Join the Court of Owls

In writer Robbie Thompson and artist Javier Fernandez’ Future State: Suicide Squad #1, as fascist regimes and ideologies are creeping into every corner of the comic book world, readers are introduced to a twisted vision of the Justice League. William Cobb, aka Talon, the Court of Owls’ super-assassin, has donned the cap and cowl of the Dark Knight with sadistic delight. Golden Age Wonder Woman foe the Hypnotic Woman makes a surprising return dissembling the likeness of Diana of Themyscira herself. Another obscure villain, this one from Aquaman’s rogues’ gallery, a man known as the Fisherman has been taken over a mind-controlling alien entity and recruited him into the squad. The former Teen Titan speedster known as Bolt now wears the Flash’s lightning bolt, though she isn’t squeamish about amputating limbs. None other than the malleable Clayface has assumed the identity of Martian Manhunter. And finally there’s Superman. Luckily for Waller, she has an almost perfect candidate for the job: Connor Kent, who is not only a clone of the Man of Steel, but of Lex Luthor too. 

On the other side, Osborn’s Avengers assembled an equally unstable bunch of evildoers looking for an opportunity to rejoin the world, either from exile or from inside a super-max prison: the Kree-empowered Moonstone became Ms. Marvel; longtime Daredevil enemy Bullseye put on the purple fighting suit of Hawkeye; Venom morphed into a black-suited Spider-Man; Ares replaced Thor as the team’s resident god; and Daken Akihiro filled in for his father as Wolverine. Osborn himself stepped into the shoes of Tony Stark and Steve Rogers when he became the Iron Patriot. The only missing element that would’ve made the comparison complete is if Lex Luthor—DC’s Norman Osborn—was in charge of the team. Alas, the reigns of the so-called Justice Squad remain in the iron grip of Amanda Waller.

Though the setup and context of both teams are eerily similar, the storylines certainly won’t be. By the end of the first issue, Future State’s Suicide Squad series promises fans a wild ride and an impending battle against a team of villains who aren’t hiding behind false identities. 

Next: Shazam Just Became a Brutal Villain for the Best Reason

The New Suicide Squad is DC's Version of Dark Avengers from https://ift.tt/36dxnYY

[dweemeister]

Movie Odyssey Retrospective

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)

Walt Disney seemed to have been mentally drifting in the 1940s, producing a scattershot of films without the artistic discipline he displayed prior to Bambi (1942). His attention wavered between the package animated features, his forays into live-action features and nature documentaries, and taking mental notes about the new medium of television. As Walt approached his 50s, the strain of the work he had thrust upon his studio and himself was beginning to show.  In his nurse, Hazel George, he found a rare confidant (it was a friendship, nothing more). He noted his personal need to move forward on projects, rather than tolerate any stalling. “I’m going to move on to something else because I’m wasting my time if I mess around with that any longer,” he told George about his projects stuck in development hell. That was the difficult reality facing The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad – directed by Jack Kinney, Clyde Geronimi, and James Algar – as it became the final animated feature of the package era of Disney animation.

Walt was dividing his time between this film, building a personal miniature railroad in his backyard (the genesis of the idea that would become Disneyland), a nostalgic and personal dramedy of rural turn-of-the-century America in So Dear to My Heart (1948), the start of his True-Life Adventures series of nature documentaries with Seal Island (1948), and restarting the studio’s line of non-package animated features. Of all these things, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad probably consumed the least of his attention. A feature-length adaptation of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows had been in the works at the studio in the months before the United States’ entry into World War II, but was halted due various factors: the war, the Disney animators’ strike, and Walt’s belief that Grahame’s book did not justify a feature-length treatment. Work on an adaptation of Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow began in 1946. But unlike The Wind in the Willows (which also resumed production in 1946), the adaptation of Irving’s story was always envisioned as a segment to a package film – not a standalone feature. Itching to return to animated features and still not convinced in the potential of a feature film surrounding Mr. Toad and friends, Walt announced the merging of the two projects in 1947.

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad uses a live-action library as a framing device. The Wind in the Willows makes up the film’s first half; The Legend of Sleepy Hollow closes it out. Each half has a narrator that, at the time, was at their career’s peak. The opening half is narrated by Basil Rathbone (1938’s The Adventures of Robin Hood and as Sherlock Holmes in fourteen movies from 1939-1946); the concluding half by Bing Crosby (best known for his musical career, but was also an enormous box office draw with the Road to… series among other films). Both Rathbone and Crosby hold up Mr. Toad and Ichabod Crane, respectively, as exemplary characters of their home nation’s literature.

The Wind in the Willows begins in 1908 as J. Thaddeus Toad, Esq. harbors an insatiable appetite for adventure, rather than being shut in his elegant Toad Hall estate all day. His friends Rat, Mole, and Angus MacBadger (also his accountant) mostly tolerate Toad’s newest crazes. When, for the first time, Toad spots a motor car, his eyes widen and he is enamored with this newfangled contraption. Toad’s obsession turns into recklessness – leading him to some fraudulent dealings with weasels and legal trouble.

On the surface on Walt Disney’s concerns with The Wind in the Willows, I disagree that Grahame’s novel could never be a feature film.* As presented, the segment runs a neat and all-too-brief half-hour. In an era of communal moviegoing and when a single movie ticket often bought the purchaser a double feature (a B-picture followed by an A-picture, with film trailers, short films, serials, or newsreels in between), The Wind in the Willows is presented as the film’s B-segment. That should not be taken as a swipe on the segment’s quality, however. The Wind in the Willows is a marvel of narrative compactness and situational madness that tees up Alice in Wonderland (1951). Whenever necessary, the narration and newspaper headline montages accelerate the plot. The pace is breakneck, but that never threatens to make The Wind in the Willows incomprehensible. It is filled with dry English wit, benefitting from wonderful voice acting from Eric Blore (a regular supporting actor in Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals for RKO) as Toad and J. Pat O’Malley (Tweedledum and Tweedledee in Alice in Wonderland, 1954’s Dial M for Murder) as Toad’s horse, Cyril Proudbottom. When both Toad and Cyril are introduced in the short song “Merrily on Our Way (to Nowhere in Particular)” – music by Frank Churchill and Charles Wolcott, lyrics by Larry Morey and Ray Gilbert – it is a perfect overture to the madcap misadventure that is about to occur.

Animator Frank Thomas’ (the dwarfs from 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Captain Hook for 1953’s Peter Pan) character designs for Toad, Rat, and Mole are simple, fluid, without too much definition (think Winnie the Pooh). As such, all three are highly expressive figures easily adaptable to the comic scenarios that stumble onto. So much is related to the audience with a crazed grin from Toad, an exasperated sigh from Rat, and Mole’s concerned face. Similar praise must also be dedicated for a side character – namely, the Crown Prosecutor designed by Ollie Johnston (the three animated principal characters in 1946’s Song of the South, the fairy godmothers of 1959’s Sleeping Beauty). The Crown Prosecutor does not appear in the film for long, but his elastic limbs and body – outside Johnston’s wheelhouse – provide a simultaneously comic and menacing contrast to the anthropomorphized animals he towers over. Like all of Disney’s package film segments before it, The Wind in the Willows has numerous instances where the backgrounds and character animations compare unfavorably to the studio’s Golden Age works. But does the lack of painterly backgrounds or character design definition mean much when the piece in question is aiming purely for laughs? Not really. This is some of the best comic filmmaking made by the Disney studios in its history, even though it seems to have been overshadowed by what happens next.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow takes place in Colonial-era Sleepy Hollow, New York. Ichabod Crane, the town’s new schoolteacher, is a thin dandy (“lean and lanky, skin and bone / with clothes a scarecrow would hate to own”) possessing an enormous appetite. The man looks nothing like a ladies’ man, but he is exactly that – to the annoyance of town rogue and proto-Gaston, Brom Bones. Brom and Ichabod vie for the attention of Katrina van Tassel, the daughter of wealthy farmer Baltus van Tassel. Noting Ichabod’s superstitious ways, one night Brom tells the story of the Headless Horseman – a stratagem that succeeds in spooking the schoolteacher.

Mary Blair’s midcentury modernist design and coloration for Sleepy Hollow reflects the folksiness of the village, Ichabod’s occasional naïveté. Her curved lines for the surrounding countryside – notice how her trees curve in improbable ways – make it an inviting, down-home place to live. Putting the segment’s climax aside, the backgrounds lend an atmosphere similar to early autumn, as the calendar year begins to wither away.

This, of course, is turned on its head when Ichabod encounters the Headless Horseman. Blair’s backgrounds are blanketed in black, blue, and purple – emphasizing Ichabod’s physical isolation in these moments. The trees blend into an abstract tapestry, as if one cannot see only a few feet outside of the road. Outside of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’s uninteresting romantic wooing scenes, the segment is an exemplar of atmosphere and how to successfully change a film’s tone with animation. Wolfgang Reitherman’s (an animator who later became a prominent director with the Walt Disney Studios in the 1960s) smooth character animation specific to the Headless Horseman chase contrasts Ichabod’s flexibility with the sharpness of the Headless Horseman and his horse. Reitherman’s approach to the characters, combined with Blair’s style for the backgrounds, heightens Ichabod’s full-bodied terror against the Horseman’s frightening presence.

The segment’s pedestrian character animation is unfortunate and is the film’s most visible example of cost-cutting. Yet Ichabod and Brom’s designs – by Ollie Johnston and Milt Kahl (Prince Philip in 1959’s Sleeping Beauty, Tigger in the Winnie the Pooh short films) respectively – are excellent. Ichabod’s outwardly-angled, high-footed gait proclaims immediately his peculiarity in behavior and temperament. His impossibly thin body is bendable to achieve tremendous comic effect while still resembling something like a human. When providing three village women singing lessons, Ichabod (voiced, like Brom, by Bing Crosby), assumes many of Bing Crosby’s affectations while singing himself – those raised eyebrows, that jowl movement. This scene is much funnier if one is familiar with Bing Crosby’s film (and to a lesser extent, television) appearances. For Brom, his muscular frame is a first for a Disney animated feature, providing a somewhat threatening feel for the song, “The Headless Horseman” (which introduces the idea of the segment’s villain). On paper, Brom should be the segment’s antagonist, but things are not clear cut – especially because Ichabod himself has questionable motives in his pursuit for Katrina. Decades later, Kahl’s character design for Brom heavily influenced Andreas Deja’s design for Gaston in Beauty and the Beast (1991). Deja would take some of Brom’s features, add more details and exaggerations, and provide his antagonist a more sneering disposition for Gaston.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow also has the benefit of songs sung by Bing Crosby and composed by Don Raye (known for various Andrews Sisters songs) and Gene de Paul (1954’s Seven Brides for Seven Brothers). The first, “Ichabod”, is the one number I always find stuck in my head and singing to myself throughout a given day (I also notice, while singing, I’m trying to imitate Crosby’s suave delivery, to little avail). It also serves as an ideal introduction to the character – outlining his personality in less than two minutes. Midway through the segment is “Katrina”, which is as musically uninteresting as the character herself. “The Headless Horseman”, also an earworm, plays on Ichabod’s fears and is a wonderful transition into this film’s most famous sequence.

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad is the best animated feature from the Disney package era. Its two halves – so distinct in style and narrative approach – are incongruent, some may say an unnatural pairing. But moviegoing audiences in 1949 so used to the B- and A-picture format of film exhibition were also accustomed to feature film pairings with little rhyme or reason. A flighty musical comedy might lead into a war movie; a romantic melodrama before a fast-paced swashbuckler; a seedy film noir giving way to a grand historical epic. Many decades removed from the moviegoing attitudes of this era, the pairing of The Wind in the Willows with The Legend of Sleepy Hollow pays off due to the stylistic distinctions between these two segments. Compared to its package era predecessors, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad has taken the time to shape its characters. For Toad, his motor car mania is a mostly innocent obsession that has endured; Ichabod Crane is forever associated with a harrowing chase through a gnarled wood. Their characterizations come through despite the limitations put upon the studio’s animation staff.

A modest success for Walt Disney, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad is now mostly described as a transitional film. The film sees the Disney animators flex their artistry before the resumption of the studio’s traditionally-structure animated features. Sometime during the final stages of this film’s development, Walt and his brother Roy E. Disney fought over the former’s desire to return to features, to recapture the thrill that he felt when he produced Snow White. Under protest, Roy relented and approved a budget for Cinderella (1950) – the first film of Walt Disney Productions’ “Silver Age” films. While Ichabod and Mr. Toad wound down, more resources were being pooled into Cinderella.

This was the effective end to a creatively restrictive period in the studio’s history, but also to some of the most unique offerings in the Disney filmography. Audiences have seldom seen the concise characterizations, Warner Bros.-influenced outlandish humor, romanticized American folk storytelling and propaganda, and experimental animation in a Disney animated feature to the present day. Each of these aspects could be found throughout Disney’s package films – which, for any serious fan of animated film, cannot be dismissed offhand. In a decade of war and global reconstruction, the studio stood mostly alone in the realm of feature animation. But not for much longer. In Europe, animation studio Soyuzmultfilm was beginning to distribute its films beyond the Soviet Union’s borders. And with Walt Disney’s attention straying from his animated films, his animation studio’s record of sterling creativity – already hobbled by the animators’ strike and wartime budget cuts – would be further challenged.

My rating: 7.5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

This is the eighteenth Movie Odyssey Retrospective. Movie Odyssey Retrospectives are reviews on films I had seen in their entirety before this blog’s creation or films I failed to give a full-length write-up to following the blog’s creation. Previous Retrospectives include Dracula (1931), Godzilla (1954, Japan), and Oliver! (1968).

* A “feature film” – as defined by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the American Film Institute (AFI), and the British Film Institute (BFI) – is a film lasting forty minutes or longer.

[gorogues]

Spoilers for Flash #761 and DCeased: Hope at World’s End #9 in this post!

sharpandtothepoint replied to your photo post: YAYYY! more Hartley and David content! This was a good read and I hope both are alive till the end.

It was pretty good!  I'm not a fan of zombies at all so the DCeased concept isn't my favourite, but the character moments in the various series are great.

My suspicion is that Hartley doesn't survive because he's amongst Jimmy Olsen's photos commemorating the heroes in the very first issue, but you never know.  Maybe he manages to escape the planet and Jimmy's just remembering the people who were important in the fight.

one-rogue-army replied to your photo post: Why hypnosis via Negative Speed Force? Eobard's had that power for ages! Way back when he was trying to force Albert to become Doctor Alchemy.

That's a good point.  I always chalked up that incident to the same phenomenon as half the Rogues having psi powers during the Silver and Bronze Age but never demonstrated it again after one use, but there is precedent for it in his case.  It still comes out of left field though, because I think only a handful of people remember it and there's no reference to that story in the issue.

one-rogue-army replied to your photo post: Also, Roscoe's been upgraded to tapping into the Speed Force? I thought he was a pseudo-speedster, using telekinesis to propel himself. Kind of like Zolomon manipulating time's flow to simulate superspeed.

We don't know if this Roscoe taps into the Speed Force, but the New 52 Roscoe Dillon did (Turbine did too) and this Roscoe's current status/powers is unclear.  Regardless, I don't think the issue was explicitly talking about those with a Speed Force connection, it specifically mentioned vibrations.  I'd think that anyone able to move at high speed could affect such vibrations, and so can people like Hartley and probably the Fiddler.

oimoi-op replied to your photo post: Holy shit they brought Henry back?!?! And those characters from the bad Force Quest arc???!!! And XS?!?!?!?! Man they really did bring back everyone

Pretty much!  I'm a little surprised Hartley isn't there, but nearly everyone got at least a shout-out.  Even Johnny Quick was mentioned.

eobeth replied to your photo post: Eobard did have psychic powers in some of the golden age comics. Not exactly speedforce hypnosis, but then they didn't have the speedfofce then either.

Yeah, though as noted above, a lot of Flash villains inexplicably had psi powers in one issue during the Silver/Bronze Ages and never showed them again.  

purplecyborgnewt replied to your photo post: Yep, those randomly materialised mental powers that he used to knock Barry out. But now he upgraded those to the "Inflict Intrusive Thoughts" level.

Heh, that's the perfect name for his ability :D

belphegor1982 replied to your photo post: Blonde Hartley always makes me go "yeeehhhnope", but this is nice! "Have you tried turning your flute upside down", *snort* Perfect :D

Yeah, I really like Tom Taylor's work.  And though zombies are not my cup of tea, I enjoy the way he mixes humour and horror/drama in his comics...it can be a bit of emotional whiplash at times, but in a good way.

terranerin05997 replied to your photo post: Im Happy that he is back. But i kinda expected that He left with Wally to the other earth after Wally safed him... Did Wally just saved him from a few Zombies and then forgott ?

Wally was rescuing a city of people so maybe he did lose track of a few, or maybe Hartley went back for David or his flute and missed his opportunity to escape.  It'd be interesting if the reason is addressed in upcoming issues.

secondratevillain replied to your photo post: Of all the panels I could have wanted, I would never have guessed that one of them would be David Singh - super serious police captain - and Hartley being carried by the scruff of the neck like unruly kittens XD

I love the way you've put that :D  Best description ever!

[gothamdetected-a]

multiverse.

i know what you’re thinking. sim are you absolutely fucking insane, don’t even TRY to tackle this one. you’re right i am insane. and yes i am still going to try and tackle a meta about DC multiverses HOWEVER, to give myself on shred of sanity on this treacherous journey, i will say that this is mainly going to be about the multiverse from a bruce perspective. this ride is a batman focused train i’m afraid. also i want to state that this is by no means a perfect explanation – i’m a) trying to keep it simple and b) still am lost on parts of the timeline myself so. its what i can offer.

ok so, originally NCP, or the national comics publication (who will one day become DC), wrote their golden age heroes on an earth now designated as earth-2. in the 30s, just before the war, comic books absolutely exploded as a media format, and a bunch of companies all jumped the gun on creating superheroes. many of DCs most endearing and recognisable heroes were created all the way back then, however many of them also are not quite who you will recognise as the character today. hal jordan wasn’t green lantern, but was instead a man called alan scott, jay garrick was the flash instead of barry allen etc etc. don’t worry though! batman is still batman, and has been bruce wayne since 1939. earth-2 batman, as he will come to be known, is a bright kind of guy found on technicolour pages with a cute lil robin by his side – there is a reason for this. the war. literally NCP said we cant be sending out dark and gritty comics to people dying in trenches so time to make it colourful and faintly ridiculous, and bruce wayne is a surprisingly optimistic guy for a man who watched his parents be slaughtered in front of him.

of course, by the 60s, NCP (who are also sort of known as NPP and really known by your average joe as superman-dc, based on their most successful comic runs) had realised their timelines were getting a bit squiggly for their golden age heroes, and most of them had been replaced out by their silver age counterparts anyway. so between 1961 and 1963, NCP start creating another “earth”, officially designated earth-1, which would become their main planet for all kinds of superhero shenanigans. the justice society of america becomes the justice league of america, and when you think of batman, you’re probably thinking of earth-1 batman. at least pre crisis. and, once they get taste for building whole new earths, we also get earth-3 (1964), or “opposite world”, where the good guys are bad guys, and batman is owlman and instead of the jla we have the crime syndicate of america.  

so sim, what other earths did dc come up with? well, i literally refuse to list them all because it was a multiverse and they did not slow down, but the ones that are most important to me are earth-5 where the only hero to live on this planet is bruce wayne/batman, and earth-89 where lois marries bruce instead of clark ahAHAHHAA. but i can tell you that pre-crisis there are 91 designated earths, and basically it could have gone on forever. there was an earth-c minus, earth-124.1, an earth where everyone was reptiles, honestly it was a MESS. and therein lies the problem.

now i’ve just used the term “pre-crisis”. what’s that, sim? maybe you’re not very familiar with comics, or with the recent dctv version of said comics, and so i will endeavour to explain one of the most brain numbing storylines that spans DC. also known as a retcon. see all these earths with their own histories and heroes and well everything really was becoming very inconvenient and meant a lot of world jumping and who can interact with who and everything was getting like spaghetti because they couldn’t calm down on the earth-building. so DC (who are officially DC at this point, 1977 babeyy), specifically a guy called marv wolfman (coolest name ever) who was sick of so many earths, comes up with the bright idea that will later form into a comic run called crisis on infinite earths (1985-1986). it was a serious crossover event, really considered by many to be the first of its kind. it sold extremely well, boosting dc’s flagging sales against it’s biggest rival, marvel. and as for the plot, it’s a bit convoluted but essentially some bloke turns up and starts to destroy all these worlds, and it becomes a race between the heroes and villains as to who can save/conquer the remaining earths that are left. although there are crises before and after this specific run, pre-crisis basically always refers to this particular crisis event, as it really shaped DC for the next 30 years.

for a while the retcon does an okay job of keeping the number of earths low. there’s still some earths that are considered non-continuous floating around, but mainly there’s just earth-1, which is now a merger of the most important “earths” that existed pre-crisis, and a way for all of DCs heroes to now be in one place and interact with each other. other earths at this point include;

earth-23 (1986) – a small pocket dimension

earth-17 (1990) – we don’t talk about this. honestly spare yourself and. don’t look. its horrific.

earth-27 (1990) – a historically divergent planet with a hero actually called vegetable man.

earth-85 (1987) – a hodgepodge of post-crisis characters live here, chillin

earth-988 (1990) – superboy is the only hero in this universe

the antimatter universe – all of pre-crisis’ earth-3 villains, including owlman, get shoved here for later use when dc need a couple of villains to come back.

and for a while all is well. then comes DC elseworlds (1989). which. you know. i love. it gave me victorian batman. pirate batman. caveman batman. vampire batman. frankenstein batman. terrorist batman fighting against russian!superman. they even gave me marvel crossovers, with captain america meeting batman. it was a glorious time. technically elseworlds is not considered canon, ran outside of canon as a way for writers to explore those wacky kind of worlds lost to the crisis, which is dumb because some of the plot lines are both hilarious and incredible. but the numbers started to get ridiculous again. most elseworlds are named after the year that the plot takes place in, so we get earth-1889, earth-1938 etc, but even more of them just seem to have random designations. i think by the time they reached earth-5050 they sort of knew that theyd fucked up again. we’ve had zero hour, we’ve got hypertime and kingdom come, and besides, its been a while since they had a good crossover, so by the time 2005 rolls around its time for crisis pt 2 (because dc love to use the word crisis for crossovers) or as it’s officially known infinite crisis. infinite crisis has an even more confusing plot involving a bunch of slightly nuts versions of characters escaping a pocket dimension, earths being created and then merged, and a rogue ai which batman made and then has to destroy because his own creation becomes too powerful etc etc. the only good thing to come out of it was earth-0, or bizarro world, because bizarro & batzarro are my babies. don’t worry though, this new set of earths won’t last long either, as in 2008 DC conclude their trilogy of crises with final crisis that featured one of the most important events in batman’s history – darkseid “killing” him. yes the quotations are important. i’ll leave you to infer what they mean.

so 3 crises later and everything is still just as messy as they’ve ever been and there’s 60 years worth of comic history being tangled about, and marvel had already established a very successful reboot in 2000, and anything marvel do, we can do better, so DC do their first, full and proper reboot. unlike retcons before it, which is where they retroactively try to fix what people already know and simplify timelines & earths, this is like someone shaking the etch-a-sketch and starting fresh. back in infinite crisis an arbitrary number was assigned to how many “earths” there could be – 52. and so in 2011, DC go hey that’s neat and create what becomes known as the new- or nu-52. heroes are given shiny new backstories, everything is streamlined and wonderful, sales rise, DC has a clean slate to build off again.

ha.

yeah that doesn’t happen.

this reboot, also known as flashpoint, due to it being spawned from another big ol’ crossover of the same name, shows barry allen trapped in an alternate universe where everything is not quite right – his mother is alive, superman is nowhere to be found and he doesn’t have his powers. worst of all thomas wayne is batman. yeah, batman’s dad is batman. thanks DC, i hate it. reverse-flash has tried to change history and stop the jla from ever being formed – le gasp. barry goes to fix it, merges three universes together – earth-0, which isn’t a bizarro world but now the “main" earth, also called new earth or prime earth (DC), earth-13 (vertigo) and earth-50 (wildstorm), but also causes 10 years to be “lost” to these characters. there are now 52 brand spanking new earths, each sitting in their own universe as part of the multiverse. no one remembers anything except barry. even for a reboot and convergence of DC’s franchises, it’s messy as fuck. and it goes to shit very very quickly. people don’t really like n-52. DC have cancelled everything, certain characters such as cassandra cain-wayne are fucking ERASED from existence, no one likes the new costume designs, its an absolute shit show and the plots get very confusing very quickly.

so what do DC do?

they reboot again. sigh.

only 5 years after the mess of nu-52, they produce DC rebirth, a new relaunch of all their famous runs. brainiac does some magic and collects a bunch of worlds together and magically we’re all going to forget the last 5 years of comic hell. it is a reboot to retcon flashpoint as though that never happened. yes, DC are actually retconning their own reboots. talk about sweeping it under the carpet. technically “rebirth” only ran for a year as a promotional thing for the reboot, before joining with the larger, now-singular DC universe, however everyone still calls it rebirth because if we don’t give these things names it will get even more fucking confusing than it already is. rebirth also still has 52 universes making up the DC multiverse, just to make things even more simple and easy to understand (DC what is it with 52. why 52.) although lots of the earths in this multiverse have been re-designated – eg. pre-crisis earth-31 was home to an aged batman who fakes his death to go train a bunch of new vigilantes (the dark knight returns), and now 31 is an apocalyptic wasteland or some shite. a lot of these earths were re-designated during the flashpoint/nu-52 era, and even though rebirth was supposed to erase that, DC have decided never mind we’ll keep it. there’s also 7 mysteriously undesignated earths – ooh spooky, they definitely won’t feature in the next major crossover. also for a multiverse with 52 universes, they sure do have more than 52 : there’s the microverse, a bunch of universes collectively called “the sphere of the gods” where apokalips and like, literal heaven & hell exist, an innerverse???, dreamworld, limbo, DC are taking the piss they only said there were 52 earths but that means they can make as many other shitty dimensions and pocket-universes as they please apparently. don’t even get me started on the source wall. for the most part the writers just. don’t acknowledge this and stick to the main prime earth. for the most part. thanks for throwing thomas wayne as batman back into the mix, rebirth.

so that’s the last of it, right sim? eh, almost. it should have been the last of it, really. and then geoff johns couldn't keep his mouth shut and produced possibly the worst comic in recent history, if not ever, doomsday clock. now doomsday clock is a nightmare for an impossibly long list of reasons that i won’t get into here because this isn’t a rant about why i think doomsday clock is the worst thing to ever happen to dc (although that’s a catchy title i should use that some day) - no, the reason i bring up doomsday clock is because. oh my god even saying this makes me sad. doomsday clock proves that the pre-crisis universes still exist and are still out there. somewhere. canonically. sim why is that sad i thought you liked everything pre-52. it’s sad because it means at any point now, DC could bring them back, ruin their own legacy, make everything even more confusing than it already is. i love pre-52 stuff but you gotta leave it alone. currently doomsday clock has only established that these universes exist as a way to honour every era of superman, because DC didn’t want to completly erase some of the incredible work and storylines put into him as a character. fine, fair enough. but it does leave the possibility that they will try and return to them too. comic book writers love doing funky story lines like that. they think they need to write something that’s never been done before and instead of coming up with something actually unique, they just poke around in the multiverse WHICH IS HOW WE ENDED UP WITH THIS AS A PROBLEM IN THE FIRST PLACE.

ahem.

hopefully this helped clarify some stuff for people, especially those folks who aren’t big comic fans/expereience dc through the DCEU or DCTV, when encountering rpers who say they base their characterisation off of, for example pre-n52/flashpoint comics, like myself.

oh, and thank you for coming to my ted sim talk.

[aion-rsa]

The End of a Wonder Woman Era

https://ift.tt/2pMvuka

G. Willow Wilson looks back at her time writing Wonder Woman.

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Wonder Woman has been inspiring readers and saving the world since 1941. Over the decades the Themysciran Princess has been a pillar of the DC Universe, her adventures and bravery a moral compass in an often bleak, grim, and gritty world. Like all of comics' longest running characters, Diana Prince has been helmed by many different creative teams, and most recently writer G. Willow Wilson took the reins of the character alongside an impressive roster of artists like Cary Nord, Tom Derenick, and more. As Wilson exits the title to head over to the world of Sandman and the Dreaming, Den of Geek sat down to talk to the co-creator of Ms. Marvel about her time writing the iconic hero and the lessons that it taught her. 

Den of Geek: Taking on a pillar character like Wonder Woman must have been a huge undertaking. What does that feel like now that your run has come to a close?

G. Willow Wilson: You know, it was quite daunting. It's a lot of pressure to try to continue a story that's meant so much to so many people over such a long period of time considering Wonder Woman is over 75 years old now. Different readers are attached to different aspects of her character and her story, so finding that right balance between the different parts of her history or the different aspects of her story--sometimes even different genres--is quite a tricky thing. It's very different from working on a younger, newer character who has less of a backstory.

What was your personal reading of Diana and who she needed to be during her time in your issues? 

I saw a lot of different takes on her character before I actually sat down to write any scripts. I read Greg Rucka's wonderful run, Gail Simone's, and several others to see how other contemporary writers had interpreted her character because with a character like Diana my temptation was to just kind of make her too perfect. I think that's a real trap that's easy to fall into when you're writing a character like this because you think, "Oh, she's beautiful, she's strong, she's intelligent, she has this deep seated sense of justice." So it's easy to kind of make her unflawed, and that's a mistake. 

read more: Justice League Keeps Building the Wider DC Universe

I think the real challenge for this character is to find a character arc that's meaningful to sort of show her more human side because, if nothing else, it has to be frustrating for somebody like her to exist in the imperfect world that we're living in. So you sort of find the parts of her character that an ordinary human being, your average reader, can connect to. That was really challenging to let her get angry, let her become frustrated, to let her have those human emotions that carry her story forward because the perfect is great in theory but how does that operate in an imperfect world? It really was a challenge.

Something that I think is one of the most difficult parts to get a handle on is how do you get that voice? Where you capture those different aspects of her personality? It's a tough thing. 

You've grappled with both the personal and political in your Wonder Woman arc. How did you balance those bigger picture messages and stories while still keeping Diana, her emotions, and her relationships at the core of the book? 

I think the fun of writing a single superhero book as opposed to a team book is that you see all of those different views filtered through the main character's point of view; you have that first person perspective on whatever's going on. So what I tried to do in the book was show Diana grappling with issues that exist in the world that have some sort of resonance with real things that are happening in the world today but have her particular unique perspective on it. She's obviously very old--I mean, she's kind of semi-immortal--so she's been around for a while. She's seen a lot of human conflicts that she has a very different perspective than someone who hasn't seen all of that human history. So I tried to sort of make those play out in a way that's unique to Diana's story because, of course, she didn't grow up here on Earth. She grew up on Themyscira in this very idyllic society, a matriarchal society that is very justice focused. I think that sets her apart in many ways from the rest of the characters in her series.

read more: New DC Universe Timeline Revealed

Look at Etta Candy, an old longtime friend and ally of hers, but whose job is very specific. She's a soldier, she sees things from an on the ground point of view. She's been in the military for a long time and Diana challenges her about certain things right up front because she's not truly from any one place. She has no dog in the fight of these big world powers clashing with each other so she's able to step back. I think she sees the inherent hypocrisy of some of the conflicts around her in a way that somebody from inside would not be able to do.

This is a bit inside baseball, but during your stint on the title you and your collaborators managed to put out the book on a regular bi-monthly schedule, which is quite a feat. What was that process like? 

Oh my goodness, it was like being thrown in a blender. This whole year has kind of been on fast forward for me. I took the Wonder Woman job and I knew that I was going to have to go on tour for The Bird King--my novel without pictures--in the middle of it. So I knew had to write a couple of issues way ahead of time to sort of make up that time in the schedule, for when I would be on the road. Then, also, last fall I had a hemorrhage and ended up in the hospital and needed emergency surgery. It was like life was just throwing every conceivable spanner into the works that it possibly could. So it was an extraordinarily hectic year.

read more - The Secret Origin of Green Lantern: Far Sector

I have a new respect for anybody who tries to put out a bi-monthly book. Whether from the writer side or the artist's one, you really cannot have anything go wrong and you cannot leave the desk. You know, it's quite a challenge. But I feel like I am now the most organized that I have ever been in my life because I really had to be. I had to become one of those people who sits down and makes a little chart and ticks things off on the chart and stays on task because there was really no room for error. It was a unique experience.

As you were crafting your story for Diana, was there anything that surprised you or took you in an unexpected direction? 

I sat down initially wanting to keep everything within the outline and having to outline very rigorously just to keep the book on schedule and so that everybody knew what was in the pipeline because there's not a whole lot of room for improvisation when you need to get multiple covers out per month. The cover artist needs a lot more intro time so they need to know what's going on in that issue before you've even written it most of the time. So there wasn't a ton of room to say, "You know what? Let's throw out the entire outline and work from scratch."

But having said that, I went into this wanting to kind of get Diana to a point where she could travel back and forth between her old homeworld because I thought that opened up a lot of interesting, dramatic possibilities. But I really found a new love and appreciation for her classic rogues gallery who are very much part of our world. So Giganta, Cheetah, and Veronica Kale, who's kind of like the Lex Luthor to her Superman if we're going to make that comparison. 

I ended up a lot more interested in those characters than I was expecting to be. That opened a lot of doors but also challenges because one thing I think that's unique about Wonder Woman that is less true of say Batman or Superman is that her story is kind of multi-genre. You have the high fantasy Greek gods element where you have mystical creatures and it's very much a high fantasy book. Then you have the more classic Golden Age kind of pulpy superhero stuff, these very archetypal superhero stories. And then you've also got her military connections--a lot of her supporting cast are soldiers or career diplomats, and career foreign service people--so there's a governmental aspect to her story. And those don't always mesh very comfortably. It's a really interesting thing to try to make one coherent narrative out of such disparate genre elements.

Your final issue created a new status quo for Diana. Was having her end up seperated from Steve Trevor always the plan? 

Not in so many words. I thought it would be interesting to introduce a tension between her and Steve into the story because they've been a couple for so long that I've got to believe that--although they have a wonderful rapport together--because she's obviously in a position of greater power than he is and, you know, he's kind of a macho guy, I've got to believe that it took some grilling for him to be able to be a partner to somebody like her. I really like their relationship and I'm sure it'll come back in the future, it's comics! I never really intended to leave them broken up. Yet because it's the Year of the Villain and the theme of this year right now kind of across books in the DC Universe is the bad guys are winning, I was like, "You know what would be interesting? To leave her on kind of a pyrrhic victory. She's won the battle, but at what cost to herself and what new status quo is going to be spun out of this?"

read more: The Secret Origin of Superman Smashes the Klan

That pathos, that dramatic tension, was kind of too good to pass up because I think for any superhero they're stronger than us. They're faster than us. They're smarter than us. And so to get to real drama you have to say what do they give up? What do they give up to be that strong? To be that fast? To be that superhuman? There are things you can't punch your way out of and this is one of them. So as we were talking about Year of the Villain and how we could make that work in the specific context of Diana's story, I was like, "Oh, what it would really do is leave her and Steve tacitly broken up," which was not something I planned to do. I thought they'd probably have a tough conversation that would change their relationship but not end it. So that situation was sort of spun out of Year of the villain.

This is a tough, sort of esoteric question, but do you feel like you've achieved what you wanted to during your time on Wonder Woman?

I have to tell you, I am very much Type A perfectionist. This has been one of the more challenging series that I've worked on for all the reasons that we've been talking about, and now that I'm done, I've been doing something that I don't usually do when I wrap up a project which is just going back and saying, "Oh, you know, I really love to do a story with this. I really would have loved to follow this storyline or lean into this dramatic point a little bit more to figure it out."

So yeah, I don't know if I'm 100% satisfied. As soon as this wrapped up I got these ideas for a standalone and a one shot. But I think with these O.G. superheroes who've been around for decades and decades there's always another story to tell. They're kind of like our contemporary pantheon, so I really think that we'll never run out of stories to tell about them. In that way I think it was inevitable that I get to the end of the run and think I wish I'd done this or change this or I wish I had five more issues.

Did you learn any lessons on this series that you'll take forward when you move on to the world of Sandman and the Dreaming? 

The main thing that I had to learn to with this character is how to keep multiple plates in the air in terms of meshing different storylines. I think that comes part and parcel with a series that's been around for a long time. There are different story threads that begin in the runs of different writer/artist teams, different secondary characters will come into the story and then out of it, and you have to decide, "Do we want to bring it back in and how?" It's really a unique experience play in a world that's the work of many hands, that's been created over sometimes decades by many people. And that's certainly true of the Sandman universe as well. This is a different pantheon, but one that has its own fan base, its own rules, its own pantheon of characters, and has been changed and altered and carried forward by multiple writer/artist teams and so on. It's a similar kind of challenge. You want to see something new and fresh, but also honor the work that those people have done.

Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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Interview Rosie Knight

Nov 6, 2019

DC Entertainment

Wonder Woman

from Books https://ift.tt/2Cmugyw

[kamamo1]

Flash Year One

Things I want from Flash Year One that I'll never get from Joshua Williamson, and even if I do he'll ruin it.

Return of Barry Allen's original origin, doused in electrified chemicals by lightning bolt, gets super-speed but doesn't realize it at first. No coma, him having no marks on his body, nothing to show from the accident plays into his thinking that it was all a dream the next day. Also no one knows he was struck by lightning so no one can easily guess that the Flash is Barry by the timing.

He gets the name Flash from the Golden Age comics, loves Jay Garrick, still collects superhero comic books.

Jumps straight into superheroing, the first thing he thinks to himself is how he can use his powers for humanity.

No dead mom recon, no evil twin brother, had a normal childhood.

Bring back the fun, idealistic tone of the Flash, embrace the Silver and Bronze Age goofiness.

Instead of focusing on 'fastest man alive' and generic speed, bring back Barry's old tricks, complete control of his molecules, his backdraft, turning invisible through speed, vibrating enemies, making so it looks like he's in two places at once.

If Willianson tries to pull the edgy writing of, 'not fast enough', 'standing still', or 'too late', I swear to god...

No first person narrative, that's Wally's thing, do a throwback, third person with the silly titles other than fastest man alive, like 'Scarlet Speedster', 'Monarch of Motion, 'Crimson Comet', 'Sultan of Speed', yeah there dorky but so is Barry, embrace it.

His first fight with Turtle Man has a lasting consequence in how he handles things in the future, as in outsmarting his opponents with maneuvers other than "running fast", or through his knowledge of science, or through trickery.

Introduces the various Rogues, of course, but not having any of them team up till much later. Go back to them just being thieves, etc, not killers or major villains (yes, this includes characters like Grodd and Abra), who first were just in it for the score, now becoming attached to the thrill of going up against the Flash.

Rogues all built they're own technology and weapons, classic science vs science in their battles.

No Iron Heights, that was from Wally's run and it can stay there

No Star Labs either.

No mentions or cameos of fairly recent characters in the CCPD, no Capt Farryle, no Sighn, no Patty or August. They all came in later years in comics, dont shoehorn them in. Better yet, dont really spend that much time at the CCPD. Focus more of Barry being a research scientist instead.

Introduce Albert Desmond as Mr Element and Dr Alchemy, but shows how Barry and Al became friends after Al reformed.

Make Ralph Dibny apart of the supporting cast, how Barry and Ralph met and adventures they had before Ralph met Sue. Better yet, make Sue eventually apart of the supporting cast too.

Bring back old friendships like with Solovar in Gorilla City, Dexter Myles from the Flash Museum, etc.

Have the time this is all happening be ambiguous, make the setting, the design of certain characters and landscape a mixture of the time periods between 50s-80s, when Barry's first comics ran.

Barry Allen the Flash is over 60 years old, embrace that.

Bring back Barry's Silver Age quirks. He always late, he's slow moving and lazy. He's both super observant and oblivious. Hates mornings. Can't sit like a normal person. He is a meticulous worker, very intelligent, built his own time machine, ring and outfit. He has corny humor and like puns. Barry loves kids and tries to be 'hip' with the current lingo, much to everyone's embarrassment. Basically old man in a young person's body.

No mention of anything that has to do with the 'Speed Force', I swear to god I dont want even hints to it. That came out Wally's run, and the concept is just used for convulted writing, and ass pulls, I'm tired of it.

Instead, focus on Barry's ability to travel through time and to other worlds. He can time travel with no consequences, the future is actually pretty improved from the present, Barry has adventures in the past and future. Have other world/doppelganger shenanigans. Bring back Golden Age heroes like Jay Garrick, Johnny Quick, and Max Mercury (who Barry calls Quicksilver) who are just from different worlds that Barry meet and teams up with.

Barry Allen is originally a character who got his name and super powers from his favorite superhero in comics who later found Jay to be a real person. His later adventures show him that he is a comic book character of Earth Prime, and he later meets Tanaki Rei who was inspired to be the Flash from Silver Age comics, and also Barry meets DC comic writers and editors is certain issues. Embrace the meta, this is the perfect character to do that and have fun with it.

[longitudinalwaveme]

Fictober 2022: The Central/Keystone City Comic Book Convention

Day 3: “That was not my intention.” 

TW: Mentions of violence.

Sam Scudder hadn’t been to the Central/Keystone City Comic Book Convention in decades. Every year when the convention rolled around, he made plans to attend, but something always ended up intervening, and he would miss his chance. Sometimes one or another of his fellow Rogues would call him up and propose a heist. Other times, the Flash would show up and haul him off to prison before he could attend. And sometimes, James would get bored and start following him around, forcing him to drop his plans to go to the convention in order to prevent the other Rogues from learning that he was a closet JSA fan. He and the guys were close, but not that close—and besides, he had a reputation to maintain! 

This year, however, everything had lined up in his favor. No one had called him up to propose a heist, the Flash hadn’t shown up to arrest him, and the Trickster was off in LA bothering some B-list superhero named Blue Devil. Even the weather had cooperated, with the day of the convention dawning bright and clear. (As annoying as Mardon could be, it paid to be friends with the Weather Wizard.) Sam had gotten up at 6:00 AM sharp and, after spending an hour and forty-five minutes ensuring that his hair was perfect, he had entered the Mirror Realm and transported himself to the convention center in downtown Central City—just in time to be there at the convention’s opening. Now he was wandering around the various booths, waiting for the autograph signing that was going to be held by Gardner Fox and E.E. Hibbard and occasionally inquiring about the price of an old JSA comic that he didn’t yet own. Most of them were a bit outside of his current budget, but he had managed to purchase a slightly battered but still perfectly serviceable copy of All-Flash #19 for only $110. He couldn’t wait to get it home and finally have a completed All-Flash collection. 

“You a fan of the Flash?” The sudden question jolted Sam out of his reverie. 

“Huh?” 

“Oh! Sorry for startling you. It’s just that I’m a huge fan of the Flash myself, and I noticed that you were holding a copy of All-Flash #19. I was wondering if maybe I'd found a kindred spirit.” Sam grinned.

“Yeah, I’m a fan. I’ve been collecting Golden Age comics since I was seven or eight, and I’m especially fond of the ones about the JSA. They were my heroes as a kid, you know?” The other man, who had a blonde crew cut and a polka-dotted bow tie, smiled. 

“The JSA were my heroes too. It was so cool knowing that there were real-life people with superpowers who went around saving people, and even cooler that one of them lived right in our hometown. When I was a boy, I even used to dress up as the Flash—Jay Garrick, of course—and pretend that I was saving my childhood sweetheart Daphne Dean from mortal peril or fighting dastardly villains—not that there was all that much peril or all that many villains to be found in Fallville, Iowa.” 

“That reminds me of that year that I dressed up as Dr. Mid-Night for Halloween. My mother couldn’t afford to buy a costume from a store, so she hand-sewed it herself. There’s probably still a photograph of me in that costume somewhere, but I hope that it never resurfaces. The costume itself looked fantastic—Mom’s a seamstress—-but I was eight and so I naturally ended up looking like a total dork wearing it.” 

“If it’s any consolation, there are several photographs of me dressed up as Jay Garrick, complete with pie container helmet, at my parents’ home in Fallville, and every time my wife sees them, she collapses into a giggling fit.” 

“Are you just a cosplayer, or do you collect too?” The other man, who was seeming increasingly familiar the longer Sam talked with him, nodded.

“Yes, I’m another collector. I’ve got 745 Golden Age comics, including 77 issues of the original Flash Comics and 14 issues of All-Flash. How about you?” 

“ I own 697 total Golden Age comics. I’ve only got 65 of Flash Comics, but I actually own all the issues of All-Flash now that I’ve got #12 ,” Sam replied. 

“Wow! That’s impressive! How’d you track down All-Flash #4? I’ve been searching for that one for years, but every copy I’ve ever found is insanely overpriced.” 

“I lucked into that one. The grocer in my neighborhood gave out JSA comics to any kids who wanted them. He said that we needed heroes more than anybody else, growing up on Skid Row,” Sam replied. 

“Skid Row?” 

“Yeah. I grew up on Baker Street, in downtown Central. And everything you’ve heard about the place is true. The Candy Man’s men really do run the place. I remember hearing gunshots outside my apartment all the time, and when I was nine I saw one of my neighbors overdose on heroin. I…I guess that’s why the JSA meant so much to me. They were strong enough to protect people from guys like the Candy Man, and brave and good enough to actually do it. When I was a kid, I always hoped that when I grew up I would be able to be a hero like them. Dumb dream, huh? Everybody knows that superheroes don’t come from Skid Row.”

“Why not? Even if you don’t have special powers, everyone can help to make the world a better place.” Sam was suddenly struck by the memory of the last time he had attended the Central/Keystone City Comic Book Convention. He had been eight years old, and, had it not been for the unexpected generosity of an older boy, he would have never been able to afford to go. The other boy had offered to pay Sam’s way in even if it had meant sacrificing his own chance to attend the convention, and, for some reason that Sam still couldn’t fathom, he had actually turned the offer down, saying he didn’t want the other boy to miss out on seeing the JSA. Maybe he just hadn’t been very bright when he was eight. 

Both he and the other boy had gotten the shock of their lives when Wildcat, a leading member of the JSA, had suddenly come up to them both and praised them for their willingness to sacrifice their own happiness for someone else’s. (When was the last time Sam had sacrificed anything for anyone since? He couldn’t even remember.) Both he and the other boy had been welcomed into the convention free of charge and had gotten the once-in-a-lifetime chance to actually eat lunch with and interview the entirety of the JSA. Sam and the other boy had also gotten autographs from every member of the JSA—autographs which were now proudly displayed in a special corner of the Mirror Realm. 

“You mean, like by offering to sacrifice a chance to meet the JSA so that you could pay for a little boy to do so instead?” While he had been reminiscing over his fondest childhood memory, Sam had finally realized why the other man had seemed so familiar. He had been that older boy who had offered to pay his way into the convention! 

“Wait. You were that little boy who met the JSA with me? The one who refused to let me pay his way into the convention even though he probably would never have another chance to go?” 

“Yeah, that was me. I’ve been wanting to thank you for years. If it wasn’t for you, I’d never have gotten to meet the JSA.” 

“I could say the same thing about you. I remember being super impressed by how someone with so little was willing to sacrifice for someone with so much, and I always sort of wondered what had happened to you.” Sam was wondering the same thing. What had happened to the Sam Scudder who cared more about making others happy than about being happy himself? How could they possibly be the same person? 

“I can’t believe we ran into each other after all this time.” 

“You suppose that this is the start of a beautiful friendship?” the other man asked. 

“Could be. What’s your name?” 

“Barry. Barry Allen.” Sam felt the color drain from his face. He knew that name. He knew it all too well. How was it possible that the boy who had given him his happiest childhood memory had grown up to be his enemy? 

“Barry Allen? As in the Flash?” 

“Yes—but don’t feel intimidated by that. I’m really just a regular guy; somebody who loves his family and geeking out over comics.” 

“You’re the Flash. And you haven’t realized who I am?” 

“Beyond being the boy at the convention all those years ago?” Was the Flash toying with him, or did he really not know who he was talking to? 

“Samuel Joseph Scudder. My name is Samuel Joseph Scudder. Does the name ring any bells?” The Flash’s mouth fell open.

“You’re the Mirror Master?” Sam had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. The Flash had seen him out of costume how many times now, and he still couldn’t recognize him without being told? 

“Yes.” 

“Why are you here, Scudder? Did you come here in order to enact some plan to defeat me?”

“No, that wasn’t my intent. I didn’t even know that you were here until you came up to me and started talking to me.” 

“Then why did you come to a comic convention that celebrates superheroes?” 

“Because I’m a comic collector who loves Golden Age superhero stories? I wasn’t lying when I told you that—or when I told you that the JSA were my heroes.” 

“Then that little boy who met the JSA with me, the one who wanted to be a hero himself—he grew up to be the Mirror Master? What happened to you, Scudder?” Sam shrugged.

“I learned that being a hero gets you killed. Reverend Collins, the closest thing to a hero Baker Street ever had, got shot to death by one of the Candy Man’s drug dealers—and that grocer who gave out the free comics was murdered when he wouldn’t pay Handsome Jack’s protection racket. The good guys might be able to come out on top when they have superpowers, but if you’re just a regular guy, well—better not live on Skid Row. The bad guys always won when I tried to play the hero, so I decided the only way for me to defeat them was to beat them at their own game. And I did!” 

“And what price did you pay for it? What happened to the little boy whom you became the villain to protect?” Sam frowned. He didn’t have an answer. 

“I—I don’t know what happened to him! Why does it matter?” 

“You call yourself the master of mirrors, Sam. Maybe to find the answer, you ought to use your powers to examine your own reflection.”

[thevindicativevordan]

What’s the best way to handle Wildstorm and Milestone in the DC universe, in your opinion? Like, do you retcon them so that they have just always been there (à la the Shazam family, Charlton Comics, etc) or should it be entirely a result of in-universe multiverse shenanigans?

New 52 already folded Wildstorm in and I'm fine with them having always been there, just need to establish what their niche is. Where to slot in Wildstorm is a question with the most obvious answer in the world: they're the third side to the hero/villain binary. They work for the government, which means they're operating on an entirely different morality scale than other supers. If you kill a man in cold blood that's murder, and you'll get a prison sentence. If you do it at the behest of your government, that's patriotism, and you'll get a medal. Surely the governments of Earth have metahumans/supers in their employ, why not explore that? Place some of the Wildstorm heroes/villains in the employ of the United States, and their "rogues" are their opposite numbers employed by Russia, China, and other governments. Seems Stormwatch is being formed (or is it reformed?) so maybe we will end up getting something like this.

Milestone is even easier, most of the Milestone heroes were pretty localized already. It's not like Static ever had trouble fitting in with the rest of the DCU. My preference is to eventually retcon in the rebooted versions that are being used right now, only Icon sort of presents a problem with how his book used versions of Superman and Martian Manhunter, but the rest could be ported over no problem. Icon would be perfect for the JSA, as the replacement for Golden Age Superman. He served that role but quit in disgust after the JSA refused to join him in combating social ills at home, with the team eventually being brought before the House and retiring themselves not long after. I'd just bring them over, sick of "Crises" being used to justify crap.

[about-faces]

If District Attorney, Harvey Dent NEVER had his face scarred, no thanks to unfortunate circumstances, and was still an ally of Batman and James Gordon, could he do a great job helping those two clean up Gotham City...or inadvertently make things worse for them? Note: This scenario could happen in any DC continuity. ANY DC continuity.

God, that really is THE question when it comes to Harvey, isn’t it? It all really depends on which version of Harvey we’re talking about. What kind of psychological issues and/or mental illness is he dealing with in any given continuity, and what kind of support system does he have from his friends and Gilda-type love interest?

Let’s look at a few examples:

THE CINNAMON ROLLS WHO NEVER DID ANYTHING WRONG

Golden Age Harvey Kent, Bronze Age Harvey Dent (1972-late 80′s), Batman Year One, Billy Dee Williams from Batman ‘89, Tommy Lee Jones from Batman Forever, Shatner from Batman VS Two-Face

These are all the Harvey Dents who would have probably been just fine! More or less, give or take a few dozen murder attempts and kidnappings at the hands of Gotham rogues like Gordon has had to endure.The Harveys of the first and third Batman movies would also likely have fit into this category, based on what little we know of them from the films and particularly the novelizations.

None of these Harvey Dents displayed any signs of mental illness or psychological duress, they had nothing traumatic in their childhoods (that we knew about), and they had strong support systems from people like Batman and Gilda. They would have likely had long careers of heroic accomplishments alongside Batman/Bruce and Gordon, and the Bat-Family in general. Hell, they would have been IN the Bat-Family! Sigh, it hurts just to think about what might have been.

THE STRUGGLING HARVEYS WHO MIGHT HAVE DONE SOMETHING WRONG

Secret Origins Special, the ‘89-’91 comic strips, Aaron Eckhart from The Dark Knight, The Big Burn, Telltale Batman,

They all had issues under the surface, but there was no indication that any of them were in danger of snapping or crossing any moral/legal line worse than what Batman himself was committing (so still illegal, but arguably morally defensible). The comic strip Harvey is an exception, what with the tire-tapping, but even he would have been able to come away from that, as he eventually did at the very end of the series.

I know some people will be all “But wait, Hef! Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey totally snapped when he interrogated the Joker’s henchman! That showed that he had a dark, murderous side!” Not so fast, Mr. Strawman! Harvey was using his two-headed coin, which he knew would never come up tails, so the henchman was never in any real danger. Harvey was in complete control and was just bluffing, just as Batman was when he tried threatening Maroni, who called his bluff. The only thing that drove him over the edge was a combination of grief at losing RAYCHULL, the trauma of having his face burned off, the constant pain he was in, and just bad writing in general.

If these Harveys hadn’t suffered their own individual attacks, these Harveys would also have likely continued to do great work as allies and friends of the Bat-Family, but they would still have benefited from therapy and taking it easier at work, if not finding another job entirely.

THE TORTURED TOSS-UPS, SOME OF WHOM DEFINITELY DID THINGS WRONG

Eye of the Beholder Harvey, Batman The Animated Series Harvey, Crime and Punishment Harvey, Long Halloween, Two-Face: Year One, Nightwing: The Great Leap, My Own Worst Enemy.

These Harveys were both already falling apart even before the scarring. Furthermore, they all display distinct secondary personalities who identify themselves as separate from Harvey Dent himself, and the two sides will even interact. I strongly doubt that they just magically appeared after the trauma of the face scarring. Mental illness doesn’t work that way, not even Two-Face’s fictional (and usually unrealistic) depictions of mental illness.

Not only would these Harveys require a lot of support and therapy, but they would also have likely needed to quit their dangerous, high-stress jobs, which is something neither of these Harveys were prepared to do. For a perfect example, take a look at Gotham Adventures #33, which showed us an alternate reality where TAS!Harvey was never scarred, but still struggled with deteriorating mental illness and MPD.

In the cases of EotB, Year One, and possibly Long Halloween (depending on whether or not you believe Gilda’s version of events at the end), he had already suffered a break and committed murders, but I think that they still might have recovered if he’d gotten the help he needed, even though he would have had to answer for their crimes. 

Even if these Harveys hadn’t been attacked, they would have needed to care for themselves with therapy and medication if there was any chance of them being healthy, happy, and functional at their jobs. They desperately needed help, but they were unwilling/incapable of reaching out for it, and/or they were abandoned by the people they trusted and needed.

THE IRREDEEMABLE JERKASSES WHO DID EVERYTHING WRONG

Citizen Wayne, The Face Schism, Beware the Batman, Batman: Earth One, Gotham by Gaslight (movie)

These Harveys were assholes. They’re not mentally ill or dealing with personal trauma from their childhoods, they’re just pricks. They were useless as crime-fighters, and were often even obstructionist dickbags, if not outright antagonists. They would never have been heroic or useful in any way, and they all deserved to be given wedgies and tossed in the trash along with any other versions of the character which completely miss the point of what makes Harvey such a special, tragic character in fiction.

Ultimately, the question of whether or not Harvey could have continued being a hero and ally depends on the writer and how interested they were in Harvey as a character. My personal preference in somewhere between the struggling and the tormented categories, where he hasn’t snapped or killed anyone, but is actively struggling and dealing with a lot of shit he never asked for.

As a mentally ill person who also had an abusive alcoholic father, it’s very important for me personally to believe that Harvey could have recovered and been the hero he should have been, if the circumstances were even just a little different, and that he might be able to be that man again someday if DC weren’t so obsessed with the status quo of kicking him when he’s down and keeping him a villain.

[casualarsonist]

Mission: Impossible - Fallout review

I can empathise with Tom Cruise’s plight. At one point in my life, I too found myself over fifty, with half a billion dollars in net worth that I didn’t know what to do with, and having had my religion chase all my girlfriends away. The world can be a lonely place when your wealth-to-height ratio is 323,592,411 to 1. At that time I also wanted to die, and my only regret is that I didn’t attempt to do it via elaborate helicopter stunts - the one aspect in which Tom Cruise and I differ from one another. (I’m lying. You don’t know for a fact that I’m not Tom Cruise, so I thought I’d clarify.) Seriously though, if I had the means to, I’d like to go out in the exact same way as him, and I’m sure he’d feel the same about my preferred method of demise - ‘not while wanking’. But for now, Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise, and I am not, so instead I satisfy myself by watching him try to find the most expensive way to end his life as he films it for our viewing pleasure. 

‘Pleasure’ being the operative word here, because Mission: Impossible - Fallout is an ode, a testament to the crazy, gregarious, charming, golden age action films of the late 80s-early 90s, complete with a villain’s death (spoiler, the villain does not win) that makes you suck in your breath and wince. And that’s a great, great thing, because between the first film and this one (the...sixth?) the series has run the gamut of action-film styles, from a tense, spy-thriller, to ridiculous wire-work John Woo insanity, to boring summer fodder, to the most recent run of three superb releases that up the ante every time. I’m not gonna lie, I absolutely hate heights, and the idea of clinging to the outside of a plane as it takes off scares the literal shit out of me as I sit here writing this. But watching Cruise do it is absolutely breathtaking. Apparently he doesn’t have a stunt double. Could it be any more clear that he’s simply trying to reach the great beyond the only way he knows how - in a big-ass summer blockbuster? More power to him I say. 

If you’ve watched any of the M:I movies before, you’ll know that plot doesn’t really count for much. Not because there’s not enough plot, mind, but because there’s too much plot. Every time there’s too much plot, full of double-crossings and fake-outs and masks and secret spy dealings. Trying to follow it all isn’t worth the mental effort, and it probably doesn’t really make much sense when you break it down, so there’s little to be found in the plot other than a sense of the large scale machinations of the various entities at work. In the end, the plot moves forward because the right people show up at the right time as if everyone is sharing their location to a Whatsapp group for international agents of espionage, and the details are but a means to an end - an end that lies at the point the next action scene begins. In most other cases this might diminish the efforts of the film, but when your action scenes are this enjoyable, I really couldn’t care less. 

Tom Cruise hangs off so many things, guys. He hangs off helicopters in flight. He hangs off a cliff. He hangs off a building. At one point, he even leaps from the roof of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, across thirty metres of open road, and onto the rooftop of another building half a football field away. It’s not something that the average punter will notice, but those familiar with the sheer amount of space between St Paul’s and every other building around it will understand just what an amazing athletic feat this is. My mum, a woman with a heart condition and a proclivity towards anxiety, left the theatre breathless and excited - a state I don’t think I’ve ever seen her enter in a positive capacity. She’s not a thrill-seeker, is what I mean, but this film thrilled the shit out of her. There’s a great sense of continuity and flow to everything, and this meticulous attention to detail, coupled with a lack of bewildering CGI helps keep you invested, even as the stakes are raised further and further. It’s the antithesis of the Bourne Identity shakey-cam technique that dominated action films for far too long - no-longer can directors use it as an excuse to cut corners and create a bamboozling visual mess in which you can’t tell who kicked what and where, while Cruise’s capability and commitment to doing everything for realsies means that they don’t have to cut fifteen times just to film him hopping over a fence. I almost, almost, raved about it when I left the cinema, and that’s a high endorsement from me when it comes to big-budget blockbusters. And that’s probably the strangest thing of all - that this film is a blockbuster sequel in a series that has long crossed the temporal line that usually denotes an irreparable decline in quality, and has somehow not only managed to recover, but get better with successive installments. Say what you will about Tom Cruise, but a Tom Cruise action film inspires a very different anticipatory feeling than a Dwayne Johnson action film. There’s a consistency in the quality that is fed by a tangible sense of ambition - this series has become Cruise’s baby, and with all the money in the world and nothing else to live for, he clearly tries damn hard to make sure that it is worth the price of entry. 

As for the rest of the film...it’s okay. It’s not so much an episodic installment as those before it, but a direct sequel to Rogue Nation, and if you haven’t seen Rogue Nation, then you’re gonna be really fuckin’ confused for a good part of the narrative. Old friends and enemies return, and you will have zero connection with any of them for at least two thirds of the production unless you’ve seen them before. Which sucks, because it’s not exactly fair that in a series of six films, they waited until you were five in before smacking you with a the first story that carries over. The performances are fine, serviceable. Simon Pegg’s character actually has some weight to it and serves a greater function than simply being the comic relief. Alec Baldwin is in it and through no fault of his own, simply due to the fact that he’s Alec Baldwin, feels miscast in his redundant, bite-sized role. Henry Cavill is...fine. He plays a charmless thug well enough, and the thing he does with his arms in the trailer and the bathroom fight is legitimately cool for reasons that I can’t explain. He’s the perfect henchman, and in this sense he’s well-cast for the first time in his life, but that’s not so much a compliment to him as it is to the casting director for realising his limitations as an actor. Cruise is the film’s heart and soul, partially because his character is the axis around which all of the other elements turn, and partially because no-one can stop themselves from crowing that Ethan Hunt is the saviour of the world, and the best-est, most amazing spy ever. It reeks of vanity project dialogue, and while it might be, I can forgive it because of the quality and effort that has gone into almost all the aspects of the production. 

In short, as mindless fun goes, watching this film is possibly the most mindless fun I’ve had in a long time. It was extremely refreshing to go from The Meg to this in the space of a week, and to be reminded that not all big-budget films are CGI-soaked trash garbage. I wouldn’t thank Tom Cruise for many things, but I’ll thank him for that. In the meantime, I just hope that when he finally does meet his maker, it’s because the navigational instruments on the spaceship he spent six months learning to pilot failed and he was propelled into the Sun during a billion-dollar set piece while filming Mission: Impossible 15 - Space Terrorism.

8.5 digitally-altered Henry Cavill moustaches out of 10

[gorogues]

Johns and Kolins interviews, part 3

Cut for length.

Part One and Part Two are available at the links.  This was supposed to be posted more three years ago, and it’s been sitting in my Drafts folder all this time.  Oops.

I occasionally clarify things or add my comments in [ ] brackets and italics.

Geoff Johns

CBG: Here's a fanboy question: One of the familiar aspects of the Silver Age Flash was silly plots and transformations taken with utmost seriousness. Is this light-hearted element toast in today's grim-and-gritty environment? Or will you sometimes turn someone into a puppet just for fun?

Johns: You know, it all depends on the story. For Flash: Rebirth, there's going to be a lot of heart in that series, but we're not going to go back to 1960s-style stories where we have stand-alone stories where Barry Allen turns into a puppet. That stuff's fun and if you have Abra Kadabra, you can have a story incorporating those elements. But it's certainly not the main thrust of where I'm taking the book.

CBG: So you're saying there's no editorial edict, you're just following your story.

Johns: Yeah, there's no editorial edict saying “you have to do this or that.” I'm just kinda exploring what I want to explore with The Flash. For me [Flash] being turned into a puppet or being turned fat, those are `60s stories that are the same thing like with Superman, where they did a lot of great Superman stories back in the day involving red kryptonite, and since then they've done kinda modern-day versions of that.

<<snip>>

CBG: Another topic: I guess the Rogues are no longer guilty of murder with the return of Bart? Maybe just attempted murder?

Johns: They're all each guilty of murders multiple times over.

CBG: And they're still going to be a major element of the title?

Johns: Absolutely. For my money, I can't do a Flash book without the Rogues.

CBG: And Flash: Rebirth #1 brought back Mr. Element. Haven't seen him for a while.

Johns: I used him in my Flash run.

CBG: Which name was he using?

Johns: Dr. Alchemy. But I never really got into him and he's a character that might be coming soon.

CBG: Well, with the Philosopher's Stone, he's not exactly a lightweight.

Johns: No. To me, he's always the character that the Rogues were kinda like "We don't want to be anywhere near him".

CBG: Because he's crazy? Or dangerous?

Johns: Yeah, he's psychotic. The Rogues each have their issues, and they're all psychotic in their own way. But they're also sane enough, and lucid enough, to understand camaraderie and loyalty and stuff like that. They have their own code, and that's something Dr. Alchemy....he's just too far gone. The Rogues think they have honorable motivation at times, especially Captain Cold -- he knows he's a criminal, but he has standards. Alchemy doesn't have standards.  He's scary.

CBG: I guess they regard Professor Zoom the same way?

Johns: Professor Zoom -- when's this [interview] come out?

CBG: June.

Johns: I can't really talk about Professor Zoom yet.

CBG: OK. But just in regard to how the Rogues think of him, though, do the Rogues kinda exclude him from the ‘clubhouse’ because he's kinda wacky?

Johns: Absolutely. But he also doesn't want to have anything to do with the Rogues.

CBG: Because he considers himself a hero, he helps heroes grow-- 

Johns: He has his own motivations.

*****************

Geoff Johns

Geoff Johns: I got a Facebook message today from someone who had never read a Superman comic book, even though they work at a comic store, until Superman: Secret Origin #1. And now, for the first time, she is reading a Superman comic and enjoying it. There are so many discussions about accessibility to today's monthly comics and my purpose with both Green Lantern: Secret Origin and Superman: Secret Origin is to introduce them, and in the case of current readers re-introduce them, to these characters. My hope is to continue these, most likely with The Flash: Secret Origin, which would include the beginning of the Rogues as well.

[Something we've never gotten, at least yet.. --Lia]

******************

Scott Kolins

Q: You've done a bit of work with The Flash of late with "Rogues' Revenge" and the upcoming "Blackest Night: The Flash," but are you excited to be back with The Flash on an ongoing basis?

Scott Kolins: Yes, very much. Working with Geoff is always a dream job, but it feels really nice right now to be back in the Flash universe for a while. It's very exciting. I love drawing Flash and the supporting cast. And he's got some of the best villains.

Q: Of The Flash's rogues do you have any favorites to draw and will we be seeing him during your run on the book?

SK: Grodd's always been my favorite and Geoff has planned a special Grodd story for me somewhere along the line. But really, I like them all. I'd love to do another Weather Wizard story. And of course Cold and Zoom are incredible so anytime to draw them is special. Geoff even mentioned another Cicada story he'd like to get to sometime. And there are others I haven't really gotten to, like Computron, or even bring in other aliens, like the Dominators.

*****************

Geoff Johns

CBR: The other project you announced this weekend was "Blackest Night: Flash." When you were developing "Blackest Night" as a maxiseries, was a Flash tie-in series always in the plans?

Geoff Johns: Yes. It's always been part of the project. There's so much you can do with 'Blackest Night' and the Black Lanterns. If we were going to explore other characters, it was going to be Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, JSA and Titans. And so I always knew Flash was going to be a part of it. And I knew Scott was going to do it. We have a lot of dead Rogues and a lot of live Rogues, and Flash has to fight them, so it should be fun.

CBR: You and Scott obviously have a special bond. I mean, you always have a great relationship with the artists you work with, Ethan [Van Sciver] and Ivan [Reis] and Dale [Eaglesham] and Gary [Frank] and all the others, but you and Scott, appear to anyway, to feed off one another. Is it the character of Flash that you both love? Or just similar takes on storytelling? What is it that makes Scott such a perfect fit for you?

Geoff Johns: I think for me and Scott, it goes deeper than that. Scott and I started off together. We started off working on "Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E." So we did issues of "Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E " and then we did "Flash" when nobody else wanted to do it. They said, "You and Scott are following Mark Waid." And it was going to be a disaster. But we did our own take and our own spin and took Flash in a different direction, especially with the Rogues and Keystone and everything else.

With me and Scott, it's almost like a childhood friend. It's a different kind of bond, and I think with the Rogues, and Flash in particular, we're just extremely comfortable together in that universe. We're really happy to be working with those characters and we feel like we helped usher in those characters and again, especially with the Rogues.  We actually first worked together when I first got into comics. So there's just something special about working with Scott.

In "Blackest Night: Flash," it's the Rogues versus the Black Lantern Rogues and Flash is caught in the middle. And Captain Cold will be facing off against Black Lantern Golden Glider. And Scott can do that. Scott can excel at that. There's just something about working with Scott that's just really a lot of fun and kind of magical for me. I love working with Scott Kolins.

CBR: When you were plotting "Blackest Night," were the dead Rogues characters that immediately came top of mind as possible Black Lanterns?

Geoff Johns: Absolutely, because there are so many dead ones. You've got Mirror Master, you've got Trickster, you've got Captain Boomerang, you've got a lot of dead Rogues and a lot of speedsters too.

***************

Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver

Geoff Johns: For a lot of the work, both on the Flash and his villains and surroundings, what we're harkening back to and looking at are the original comics by Carmine Infantino.

Ethan Van Sciver: Oh, and he was a genius! Geoff, I wasn't a big fan of that stuff until you turned me on to it.

GJ: He's a genius.

EVS: Really, you go back and you read those first 25 issues of Barry Allen, and that guy created some of the most original, interesting, compelling-looking characters, and not just The Flash, but all those Rogues were so...

GJ: They're so varied. I love that you've got, like, Abra Kadabra from the 64th Century, you've got Gorilla Grodd and the Gorilla City.

EVS: As good as Spider-Man villains, at least.

Newsarama: Will the Flash Rogues be in The Flash: Rebirth?

EVS: A few of them.

GJ: It can't be a Flash book without his Rogues, in my opinion.

****************

Geoff Johns

Q: Mark Bailie is a long-time fan and was wondering about a plot thread from your previous run on "The Flash."   "At the end of your run on "The Flash" Vol. 2, we see Captain Boomerang dropped into the future during The Flash/Reverse Flash battle, and we also have the re-animated Captain Boomerang telling Ashley Zolomon that Owen's mother is Meloni Thawne; thus making Bart Allen the half-brother of Owen Mercer/Harkness. Has this been touched upon at all, and if not, will this be an eventual topic in your new run on "The Flash?"

GJ: It has not been touched on at all. But yes, that happened.  

Q: Frank W. wanted you to know that he recognized Paul Gambi from "The Flash" #239 on the last page of "The Flash: Rebirth" #5.

GJ: Thanks, I'm glad somebody recognized him. Gambi will be in "The Flash" in 2010. For those of you who don't know Gambi, he's a tailor in Central City. He was the guy who created the Rogues' uniforms, and one thing that I am really proud of that Scott Kolins and I did in "Rogues' Revenge" is the subplot where he gets the hell beat out of him by these fake Rogues and Heatwave confronts one of them and says, "Did Gambi make your uniform? Because he made mine and it can withstand insane temperatures."  

And he burns the other guy's costume right off because Gambi is the guy who makes their uniforms. And though his tastes are a little wacky, you can tell by their uniforms, he builds them to last and to take the kind of beating the Rogues usually take on a daily basis.  The Rogues will be a major force in the new "Flash" book.  

***************

Geoff Johns

Alex Segura: Geoff, first off -- thanks for doing this. The Flash is a special character and it's only fitting that we make his return to monthly comics special here on The Source. Now, being a huge fan of The Flash myself, and Barry Allen in particular, I have a very vivid memory of my first encounter with the character -- what about you? What's your earliest Barry/Flash memory? What made him a cool character for you even then?

Geoff Johns: My first encounter with Barry Allen, outside of comics, was in animation in the Challenge of the Super-Friends cartoon. I guess that's where I also met Captain Cold. Those two characters, the Flash and Captain Cold, became my favorites. (Oh, and does anyone remember how Hal Jordan had that weird tan? I guess because he was from California? :) ) Anyway, those are my very memories, along with the Flash Super Powers figure, but when I finally got into comic books one of my very first comics was CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #8, which featured the death of the Flash. I don't remember the details well, but I do remember I was blown away by the issue. From there, I started buying back issues of the Flash. It was before everything was collected, before eBay, so I really had to hunt those comics down to read the stories. The powers, the Rogues and the uniform were what always drew me in.  

AS: It's often said that you can judge a hero by his villains, and one of the things I remember most about your initial Flash run — and was very thankful for, being a fan of Barry -- was how you not only brought back and polished some of the classic Flash villains -- Captain Cold is a great example -- but also reinvigorated the Rogues with some great, creepy new additions like Murmur and most notably Hunter Zolomon/Zoom. What makes a great villain? What do you look for when you sit down and create one? And, in addition to reuniting Barry with some of his deadliest foes, are we going to see new ones appear in your first year?

GJ: The Flash has arguably the best villains in comics. Batman's are amazing and psychological, but the Flash's are from the far future and super scientific Gorilla Cities. Not to mention the core group of Flash's foes, the Rogues. They were always a massive part of what made the Flash cool to me. He fought all these guys, sometimes at once because he could. When I first worked on the Flash the Rogues hadn't been touched really more than an odd appearance here and there. I knew that they were going to be a huge focus for me and I continued using them in Rogues' Revenge and Blackest Night: The Flash, but now with the new monthly book they'll be playing a bigger and ongoing role in Barry's life. There are some pretty big changes for the Rogues coming up that tie in to the very center of the DC Universe. Barry will be meeting some new villains, one in particular that is going to be the strangest killer he's ever faced. And I think with 64th Century magicians and talking gorillas that's saying a lot.

*****************

Scott Kolins

Q: What can you tell us about the Blackest Night: Flash mini you’re working on with Geoff Johns?

Scott Kolins: That’s it’s gonna be great! Geoff has really moved into high gear with this Blackest Night stuff and he’s got some amazing stuff planned. Both and Wally and Barry will be in the story – and the Rogues! Dead or Alive! How awesome is that?! I’ve been waiting years to draw a book like this! This will be even better than Blitz or Rogue’s Revenge!

Q: Who are some of your favorite characters to draw?

Scott Kolins: I have very few I don’t like to draw. I love super-heroes and monsters and fun stuff and serious stuff. Monsters like Grundy, Bizarro and Grodd are pure delight. Villains Zoom and Cold are great too. I’d love to get to Sinestro or Brainiac. But I’m dying to do a big Wonder Woman story or Shazam! Hawkman or Aquaman! I LOVE Kirby stuff, so Omac, New Gods, or I’d love to do a Mister Miracle & Big Barda book! Or even the Legion of Super-heroes! I love it all. Plus I’d really love a chance to add to some of the mythologies. I wanna create incredible villains for Hawkman or Aquaman!

****************

Scott Kolins

GL SPOTLIGHT: Well first let’s dive into Blackest Night: Flash, the miniseries that reunites the highly praised Flash team of you and writer Geoff Johns. How different were these three issues than your time on Flash previously? Have Geoff's scripts become any more visually demanding than before?

SCOTT KOLINS: Rogues Revenge was only loosely connected to Final Crisis. The Blackest Night Flash series story is tied more to the central plot of Blackest Night. Barry is a pivotal figure on Blackest Night and he's 1/2 the story in Blackest Night Flash. The Rogues 1/2 of this story is a little looser but still connected as they fight some Black Lantern Rogues. Geoff's scripts are about the same - which means great and very much based on the core story being told. In Rogues Revenge was about revenge (Duh!), and here it was more about survival - against undead friends and villains! The only new thing - which is actually very old school is that Geoff was so busy working on all aspects of Blackest Night that he would sometimes call me on the phone and we'd discuss the next page or scene and break it down over the phone. Then I'd rough out the page or pages and email that back to him for his approval. It was actually kinda fun this way and we got the book done on time!

GL Spotlight: It was definitely a fun read. We know that Flash: Rebirth artist Ethan Van Sciver designed many of the Black Lanterns for this event. Were you able to design the Black Lantern outfits for the Rogues, Reverse-Flash, and even Solomon Grundy, yourself?

SCOTT: Yes I did. Design may be a bit too big a credit because they’re all working off the basic Black Lantern design already set up – but I did sketch out Solomon Grundy and Black Lantern Reverse Flash. Grundy’s was a natural as he is already a walking dead creation - just add the triangle and some pants stripes. I played more with Black Lantern Reverse Flash. The five “fingers” on top of the inverted triangle were squared off at first but I showed a pointy version to Geoff which he preferred. Then balance out how much lightning would work with the extra pant Black Lantern lines and he was done. The Black Lanterns are an awesome concept and were tons of fun to draw.

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Geoff Johns 

Q: Will Barry face any new villains in his series?

Geoff Johns: You will see new characters in "The Flash" #1.

Q: But he asked about new villains?

Geoff Johns: I will not say anything other than you will see new characters in "The Flash" #1. But they're kinda villains. Kinda.

[He's talking about the Renegades. --Lia]

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Geoff Johns

Q: Let’s start with “The Flash.” The first story arc is a lot of fun and Francis [Manapul] is really bringing his ‘A’ game.

Geoff Johns: Francis is a genius. And that’s the tone I wanted to do, very accessible and a lot of fun. That’s what The Flash is all about. I wanted the book to have a lot of heart, a bit like our run with Superboy in “Adventure Comics.” I love writing that book. Coming up, we’ll see a new supporting cast member, a new villain, the return of the Pied Piper, more on Captain Boomerang and, of course, the Flash Family as we race towards “Flashpoint.”

[I'm including this because we did not in fact see Piper in the book. --Lia]

Q: William Schwartz had a question about continuity. He asked that you explain the continuity of Professor Zoom, a.k.a. Reverse Flash, between “Blackest Night,” “Blackest Night: Flash,” “Flash: Rebirth” and “Brightest Day.” He's alive and then imprisoned in “Flash: Rebirth,” which also hints at his soon-to-come resurrection. He's a Black Lantern in “Blackest Night: Flash” but also alive and imprisoned before being frozen by Captain Cold. He's then resurrected at the end of “Blackest Night” and escapes, yet he is still in prison. Is that right?

GJ: You’ll see more with Reverse Flash in “Brightest Day” and then “The Flash.” But he definitely has the timeline right. I mean, if you look at it from our point of view, in a linear timeline, he was resurrected by the Black Ring, brought back to life by the White Lantern, he then time traveled, brings Barry Allen back, gets stopped by Barry Allen and he’s get imprisoned in Iron Heights. I know. [laughs] Does anyone have an aspirin?

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Geoff Johns

WILSON: Do you still draw and do you include thumbnails with your scripts for artists?

JOHNS: I do thumbnails when I write my scripts, but I never send them off. It’s just for me really to get a visual sense of how the pages are going to lay out. I make these grids that are divided into six sections that essentially represent six pages and I take a stack of them and staple them together, and it then represents one comic book. From there, I draw it out, very bare bones, just to see what it’ll look like visually flipping through it because you want it to vary anyway. You know, where is it going to open up because there’s a big moment? So I illustrate that way.

I do some design work. I designed Pied Piper’s current costume. I’ve done some other design work here and there. I leave the illustration to the professionals. I just like doing it for fun.

WILSON: With such an avid love of comics and putting so much of yourself and your time into producing them, what is the most important thing you would like readers to take away from your body of work?

JOHNS: Well, I hope a positive message. I think superheroes are positive and have positive messages. I’ve never thought about it in that way, but people are going to take what they’re going to take; I hope it’s something they can apply to their life. You meet a lot of people who are inspired by heroes to be better people or to live a certain way. I hope they love the heroes. I do it because I loved Captain Cold. Great character, but crazy, so why do I love him? He’s this blue-collar, down-and-out super-thug, but he has a weird moral code and he has a heart deep down in there despite the cold exterior. He has a heart that is beating and I explored that in an issue with Scott Kolins in The Flash #182, which is one of my favorite issues I’ve ever written. Scott did a great job on it and I got to explore Captain Cold.  People are always asking Scott at conventions for sketches of Captain Cold, and I still get to work with the character and I think he resonates for people. I hope they take away a growing love and appreciation for these characters and what they represent, but what they take away is going to be up to the audience.

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Scott Kolins

Q: Well the big thing to talk about is Citizen Cold. That’s a three issue mini-series?

Scott Kolins: Three issues that are self-contained but are part of the whole Flashpoint hoopla this summer.

Q: I know it has already been hinted in the books that are out that Cold may not be the hero that everyone thinks he is. Can you hint a little more about what to expect?

SK: You’ll find out in the first issue (out this week!!) that even Iron Heights that was the prison for the Flash villains before had an area called the Pipeline. It was a special place for all Flash’s super villains. Now it’s the special place for all of Citizen Cold’s villains and they call it the Freezer. And you’ll see a bunch of the Rogues are in there and you’ll see they’ve all suffered for the fact that Citizen Cold is now the hero.

He’s not a nice guy who puts them in prison. They’re all hurt pretty bad for tangling with him and being villains in his city. One of the fun bits is that you’ll actually see that the Rogues form because of Citizen Cold. That’s part of the plot of the story is that they really aren’t happy with him at all.

Q: Since this is an alternate reality story or a kind of reboot did you think about tweaking Captain Cold’s costume or did you know you wanted to keep it the same?

SK: No, that was definitely part of the process. Should I tweak stuff, how much should I tweak stuff? I did do some changes to Trickster; his pants and even his color scheme. I added some red to it, where before it was mostly yellow and blue. I got to do something that Geoff Johns laughed about; I gave Weather Wizard that goatee. It’s a reference to when we had originally changed his costume in the Flash books years ago and made his pattern green with yellow stripes on it. At that time when I did sketches for him to show DC what we wanted to do I had given him facial hair; at that point it was a handle bar mustache. Geoff was like, “This looks great...lose the handlebar mustache.” So this time when he saw the goatee he was like, “All right, fine. You finally get to put it on him.” I also think he looks more like a wizard this way. Stuff like this is mostly just fun for me, but they can either use it later if they think it’s cool or we can just use it for this one time thing.

Q: You mentioned the Trickster, is it going to be Jesse or Axel?

SK: No, it’s still Axel the kid. I know everyone likes James Jesse and I do too. That was one of the fun, personal things I got to add to the Flash universe. When we were working on the Rogues, James Jesse was already set up as an FBI agent. So he was definitely in the good guy camp, so we couldn’t use him as a Rogue. So I suggested what if we made Trickster like an evil Robin. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a kid with all those tricks, toys, and everything? Geoff thought it was an awesome idea, so we went with it from there. So when ever we can use him, I push him because he was my idea.

Q: The surprise to me when the new Trickster came out was you had a full grown Flash socking a teenager and no one objected, “Hey you’re hitting a kid!” Obviously he was a villain, but you never saw a reaction to that.

SK: That is an issue that we’ve kind of side-stepped. It is something I wanted to get into with Citizen Cold, but I don’t think I’m going to get into that one since I have so much going on with Cold himself. In my mind even though he looks young, but he might be on the cusp of 18. At least 16, so in some areas he’d be tried as an adult.

[More details on Axel’s age. --Lia]

Q: You probably can’t say what it is, but do you have your next book lined up?

SK: Yeah, I do have my next assignmnt lined up. It’s nothing I can talk about at this time. But I will be doing more writing and drawing. They’re very happy with that, Geoff was extremely happy with how Citizen Cold has come about and fit into the whole Flashpoint package. DC has been too. They’re like, you’ve really come a long with Grundy and everything else you’ve been doing and they are really cool with it.

Q: Any new Rogues popping up in Citizen Cold or just the established ones?

SK: Mostly just the established. There are some changes for them. Not even just Weather Wizard’s goatee. I don’t want to spoil the real cool one. But one of the favorites of the bunch that I changed, it’s just the context of the story they are stuck in. There are hints on the cover as to how it is different for one of the Rogues. It’s big time different, but no new Rogues.

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From Geoff Johns’ AMA on Reddit

Q: Why do you love Captain Cold so much?

Geoff Johns: I love Captain Cold because he doesn't want to rule the world or kill people. He's just some dude who stole a cold-gun and is trying to get by in this crazy, insane super-powered world.

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Geoff Johns introduces some of the Rogues for new readers

Leonard Snart was a career criminal who would pull heists and often work with a crew, until one day this blur, this speedster, shows up and suddenly he has to contend with this brand new thing called a super hero who’s stopping criminals like him from doing what they do. In order to continue, Snart has to up his game. He’s not a scientist. He’s not a doctor. He’s a career criminal. So he steals a cold gun that’s capable of slowing things down to absolute zero.

The thing that makes Snart so interesting to me is that cold is actually the opposite of speed. We talk about this a bit in the [Captain Cold] episode. Speed is defined by how fast things are moving. Temperature is also defined by the same thing—how fast things are moving at the atomic level. The faster they’re moving, the warmer something is. When things stop moving at the atomic level, the lower temperature it has. It’s called absolute zero when there’s absolutely no movement at all.

That I found very fascinating. Temperature and speed—it was all connected. Cold was essentially the opposite of Barry Allen in every way. He was a normal person who had to equip himself to become more than he was.

The character doesn’t want to rule the world. He doesn’t necessarily want to kill the Flash because, at the end of the day, the Flash is celebrated by everybody, and killing him would bring a lot of heat. Also, he’s not a killer. He just wants to pull his jobs and continue doing what he’s doing, and in order to work in a city that’s protected by a super hero, he has to become something more than he is. Until finally, working alone isn’t enough and he has to gather with others that are in the same situation. Like Heat Wave, a pyromaniac who Snart’s worked with before.

Everyone knows that Mick Rory, AKA Heat Wave, has a problem. His love for fire and the arsonist that he is will often divert him away from the mission at hand. But Cold is able to wrangle that pyromaniac. He gives him a heat gun and basically gives him a gimmick. He tells him that if he holds on to the gimmick, he’s not going to be sick anymore. He’ll fit in and belong.

He does that with each one of the Rogues. When he brings in Axel Walker, the Trickster, he’s a kid who’s out of control. He doesn’t have any focus, and Cold brings him focus. Same with someone like Mark Mardon, the Weather Wizard, who’s obsessed by guilt because of the way he got the weather wand. His brother’s death is really a big part of who he is.

It goes on and on with all the Rogues and we’ve talked about a lot of these characters and bringing them onto the show. They work for The Flash because only someone like the Flash could take on five guys at once.  What Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg and I are trying to do is slowly bring in these wonderful villains, and really they become characters all their own. They have their own stories. They’re more than just villains-of-the-week characters. They’re a part of this world. They live in this world, and we’ll be seeing them again and again.