but still a great one, and gives some very good perspective and argument on the Princess of Power, and how Rucka’s current storyline, which is all too obviously part of a crossover (Infinite Crisis, what else), is a far cry from what George Perez worked upon so well in the late 80s, and tossed off with much more relish than Rucka’s ever offered:

…in returning Diana to her warrior roots, Perez also avoided having her learn the standard superhero code of morality. Thus, in Wonder Woman v. 2 #5, a desperate Diana used her razor-sharp tiara to behead Deimos, the war-god son of Ares. While it may have been shocking at the time, it was also part of Perez’s goal to make Diana more than just a female counterpart to Superman or Thor. His efforts paid off, and although future writers like Bill Messner-Loebs and John Byrne put Diana in more superheroic situations, she was firmly established as having a perspective slightly outside the mainstream. Mark Waid took advantage of this in the alternate future of Kingdom Come, when Diana took hard-line stances on the social issues which made Superman squeamish; and she, not Superman, ended up fighting Batman.

Therefore, Diana may be believable as the bad cop, but does that make it right? Moreover, as the most recognizable female superhero, should Diana be held to a higher standard than her grimmer, grittier descendants — or, because she’s a woman, does this just make her “strong,” “edgy,” or “deep”? Wouldn’t Xena, Dana Scully, or Sydney Bristow have done the same thing to Max Lord? Would there have been gasps of shock if Aquaman, Hawkman, or Green Arrow had killed Max? Isn’t this part of the same sexist mentality which holds that a murderous Jean Loring is more shocking than a murderous Ray Palmer?

I think I can see what the writer is getting at here, and it’s that Diana was used as something akin to the notion that “stereotypes are easy”: she’s more easily expendable than Supes and Bats are, and that’s why she was the one depicted as performing the death knell, not Supes or Bats.

Thus, he’s got a very good point - that this is apparently part of the same misogynistic mentality that Identity Crisis was slapped so shamelessly together with. And it’s all pointed out even further in the following:

Hard to say — but over the past two decades, DC has allowed Diana to develop into a distinct character with her own viewpoint and her own mission. This was apparent from the beginning of Perez’s run when, an issue after she killed Deimos, she defeated Ares not by force or violence, but with the Lasso of Truth. It showed him the futility of his plan to incite nuclear holocaust, and compelled him to abandon it. (Nowadays, either the lasso has lost its kick or Max Lord’s mental powers are stronger than a Greek god’s, because it couldn’t even force Max to break his hold on Superman, let alone see the truth of where his actions would lead. Since Greg Rucka has just given Diana “vision of the gods,” I suppose one could rationalize that at least she saw the truth of what she did.)

Clearly a double standard has evolved from DC’s having more well-defined boundaries for Superman and Batman than it has had for Wonder Woman. On the bright side, this treatment has encouraged writers to take more chances with Diana and arguably has made her a far more complex character. The downside is that while Superman and Batman may have been treated like hothouse flowers, and not allowed to grow or change in the same ways Diana has, now she looks vengeful, even amoral, in comparison to someone who only knows her from Lynda Carter. Given the choice, if fans could “sacrifice” the morality of one of the Big Three, they might well vote for Wonder Woman.

Considering that WW’s already been in situations where she’s had to kill, that’s exactly why her doing so to Max Lord, whose return appearance in Countdown was apparently just so he could die soon afterwards in the OMAC stuff, and was intended as simply a plot device in a crossover to boot, was little more than an exercise in futility on Rucka’s part. In fact, a similar argument could be made from how Jean Loring was turned into a caricature, rather than a real human being, in Day of Vengeance, written by a would-be writer whose works I now have no interest in.

publishes an article about comics-to-film, and the problem I find here is that it seems, at least in the first part, to make a lot of fuss about Batman, both comics and movies, more so than it does about something like Superman:

According to Weathers, comic books are also a misunderstood genre, presented through “bastardized films that miss the point.”

Movies based on comic books tend to water down content for mass appeal, Weathers said. The Batman movies with Val Kilmer and George Clooney in the ’90s were just marketing tools. He said too often filmmakers try to condense complex stories that shouldn’t be made into movies. Two hours is not always long enough to do such stories justice.

Now that’s certainly saying something. Trouble is, what comes next undermines the above, courtesy of what some might call the overlapping of “media bias”:

The new Batman movie, “Batman Begins,” released this past summer, is different than its predecessors. Directed by Chris Nolan, “Batman Begins” is not Weathers’ favorite Batman film, but he said that movie got the gist of the comic.

“It seemed more dedicated to relaying the DNA of the character rather than the facade,” Weathers said.

Although Weathers is not a particularly avid fan of superheroes, he enjoys Batman comics.

“He’s one of the more balanced characters in comic books and well rounded,” Weathers said, adding Batman is not necessarily good or bad but somewhere in between.

Others agree that darkness can set the mood for a movie and appeals to different audiences.

That implication again?! And not very clearly either. Just what do they mean by “different audiences”? The problem for me is that it sounds almost like a generalization of the audience at that.

Oh, and what have we here, to compound the above misleadings:

“The first Batman movie was great,” said Michael Steinberg, director of the Webster Film Series. “It was a wonderful retelling of the original Batman stories and captured the same darkness and look of the comics.”

This summer’s “Batman Begins” also included a dark, mature atmosphere, Steinberg said. When filmmakers want to target younger viewers, they change the mood to lighter and friendlier.

“Comics get cute for the sake of the audience,” Steinberg said.

Steinberg does not stand alone with his opinion.

Young people are drawn to this cuteness, but end up getting a different message than they expected, said Kathy Corley, chair of the electronic and photographic media department and film professor.

Corley cited “The Incredibles” as a model. Despite the cute characters, Corley said the film was actually a critique of American values. In the flick, Mr. Incredible was sued and forced into a protection program. When he said, “They keep finding ways to celebrate mediocrity,” the movie suggested the American standard of education is too low, Corley said.

Now I’m not blind to even what the Disney company does, and believe me, if you know where to look, you’ll find that they’re not so clean themselves either (and goodness knows what problems I happen to have with their business dealings with foreign “investors”). But even so, what this member of the college staff is doing here is taking everything out of context by implying that the public itself actually wants to “celebrate mediocrity”. No, Mrs. Corley, it’s the mainstream media(MSM for short) that does. For years, they’ve been telling us what to think or believe, and this certainly isn’t getting much better.

Technological advances also make superhero stories more realistic.

“Superheroes can do more now,” said Art Silverblatt, a Webster media communications professor. “You go to see the special effects of a film.”

When George Reeves played Superman, the audience could see the strings used to give him the appearance of flight, Silverblatt said. The Christopher Reeve films were exciting for their time, but the special effects are now thought to be poor.

Oh, for heaven’s sake! Once again, special effects are more important than good storytelling and scriptwriting. And don’t tell me that superheroes can do more now without telling me where they can. In the comics, maybe, but in the movies, can we be clear here that I don’t just simply go to see special effects in motion? Please.

“Comic books have evolved and changed with the times to stay relevant,” Weathers said. “It’s amazing how they have kept their appeal through change.”

Others are not surprised by the continued success of heroes and comics.

If only they’d take a closer look at things, even at the comics blogosphere…

“There are always new examples of what is considered good verses what is considered evil,” Corley said, adding that comic books provide a social consciousness about issues like war.

They do? But in what perspective? Good or bad? Just look at what happened to Capt. America and even other Marvel books in the last few years, or what’s happened to even the DCU in the last year or so.

With movie titles like “Spiderman 3,” “X-Men 3″ and “Superman Returns” scheduled to be released in the near future, the superhero trend in film will most likely continue.

“The only way it seems for a comic book to stay relevant is to have a movie made about it,” Weathers said.

Which is almost like implying that they know things are bad for comics in sales and recognition, but at the same time, is still kept very dismayingly shrouded. Or are they implying that comics have to take their cue from the movies? Sorry, but with the dreadful track record movies seem to have this year, and the diminishing returns at the box office indicating that, I’m not impressed.

College coverage of comics just isn’t what it could be either. Sigh.

In a recent issue of the (from Missouri, I think), a writer talks about how he came to be a comics reader, and was mainly a DC fan:

“I still read them today, mostly DC characters. Even though I subscribe to many Marvel titles, I still consider myself a DC man, for no reason other than that DC’s heroes first caught my eye. These superheroes represented something that caught my attention, but what about them was so interesting?

In my younger days I think it was because I yearned for the glory, or the seeming glory, others had in academics or the baseball field or the basketball court that I didn’t. For me it was easier living vicariously through the glory of superheroes, knowing, on the outside I might be painfully ordinary, on the inside I had something infinitely greater than anyone with the ability to get an A, hit a home run, or score a three point shot.”

That’s interesting, though I’ll have to note that, if it were to imply that he doesn’t/didn’t read DC comics for ultra-darkness, well then, let’s just say that I don’t read Marvel for that either. And I’ve never been able to understand where anyone got the idea that any Marvel reader was into them for darkness. Of course some are, that’s a given, but what genuine proof is there that all of Marvel’s audience does? After all, Spider-Man, IMO, works best when it’s got the bright side in motion, and when it began during the Silver Age, many of the adventures certainly did involve the art of fun. The same goes in fact for the Avengers, and thinking now of Avengers #221 from July 1982 that I’ve got at home, when She-Hulk was first invited to work with the EMH, it was the fact that it was written as both fun and funny that made it work for me.

So I’ll have to hand it to the writer of this article, that he does make a fairly good point.

reports that Marvel’s entered a 10-film deal that even involves characters like Capt. America, Nick Fury, and even…Ant-Man?!

But aside from that, let’s see what the flaws are in this mainstream media report:

Marvel’s decision to go without a studio partner will give it the opportunity to build a film library and a greater chance to profit if the films are successful. The move may help the company reverse a decline in net income over five of the past six quarters as licensing revenue slipped. Marvel previously licensed its film rights to studios including Sony Corp.’s Sony Pictures and News Corp.’s 20th Century Fox.

“This is phenomenally good for the company, and it’s the best movie financing deal Hollywood has ever seen,” said Robert Routh, an analyst for Jeffries & Co. in New York, who has a “buy” rating on the stock and owns shares of the company. “They got a good deal because their characters are so valuable.”

Sigh. As expected, they’re just not getting into the really big picture. Marvel’s editors, even now, aren’t exactly treating their characters like they’re valuble. If they did, would we have had to put up with something as awful as Avengers Disassembled/House of M, or even the next massive crossover, Decimation?

“The movies are there to support the core businesses of toys, licensing, video games and publishing,” Avi Arad, chief executive officer of Marvel Studios, said in a conference call with investors. “Each of these titles is meant to be a franchise.”

I take it the core businesses don’t include comic book publishing, eh? Pity.

The characters covered under the deal also include The Avengers, Black Panther, Ant-Man, Cloak & Dagger, Dr. Strange, Hawkeye, Power Pack, and Shang-Chi, according to the statement.

Somehow, I highly doubt we’ll be seeing a movie based on the Avengers or even Ant-Man that easily. Come to think of it, why do I get the feeling that even a movie based on Hawkeye isn’t too likely, any more than one based on Green Arrow?

But the main problem with all this is, it just doesn’t seem to have anything to do with their comics publishing, which apparently does not factor into this.

I was stunned when I found this. But it looks like now, from Sunbury, Pennsylvania, the political stemmings of Identity Crisis have been confirmed:

…”Identity Crisis,” a seven-issue miniseries collected this month in a special hardcover edition, didn’t start out as a big event.

Instead, writer Brad Meltzer says, it was intended to be a small, emotional story — a look at the cost of being a hero.

DC’s editors approached Meltzer after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. With those attacks giving Americans a new appreciation for firefighters and other everyday heroes, DC wanted a story that explored the risks its heroes faced when they donned masks and capes.

If you think the above that I highlighted looks confusing, you’re right, it most certainly does. What exactly is this supposed to mean? That Americans are wrong to show appreciation for heroes? This is scary.

But one thing that certainly is being done here: the newspaper is lying if what they’re saying is that this miniseries does what the American public appreciates. It does not portray heroes respectably, as noted below, and does little more than to depict them as failures, more or less.

Predictably, not only does the newspaper interview gloss over the many of the real problems the miniseries suffers from, but Meltzer repeats the very weak defenses he used a year ago:

“I had no desire to kill a character for no good reason, not just shock value or sales,” Meltzer says.

But in more talks with editors, an idea clicked.

“I said, ‘You know what, I got it. Let me go.’ In my head, it all made sense to me.”

It did? As John Wayne once said, shyeah, right. I’m just falling out of my chair laughing already. And it only gets more hysterical with this:

A few days later, he returned with the pitch for what would become “Identity Crisis” — a murder-mystery that at its heart is a story of loss and families and heroism.

Oh, do tell me about it. They wipe Batman’s mind, let alone Dr. Light’s, and Batman himself acts nasty, implying that he’s on the side of a character who committed a rape, which is not even mentioned in the interview, and never show any genuine sympathy for the victim, that being Sue Dibny, of course. Some people may have said that the Masked Manhunter came off the best in this book, but when you look upon things harder, including the fact that he totally missed the phone being off the hook in the Dibny’s apartment, you can see for yourself that even Batman comes off pretty bad, and isn’t being portrayed heroically either.

The story follows the investigation into the murder of Sue Dibny, the wife of the stretchable Elongated Man. In doing so, it reveals a secret from the past of the Justice League of America.

To protect their loved ones, DC’s greatest heroes had voted to perform “mindwipes” on some villains, erasing key memories. The JLA went a step further with Dr. Light, performing a sort of magical lobotomy on him.

When one of their own, Batman, objected, a mindwipe was performed on him.

So let me get this straight. They turned on their best pal, yet they say the book is about heroism? Please, that’s the best one I’ve heard all day. Talk about forgetting what they said in the first place!

at ComixExperience sums it up much better than I do:

Where is the heroism here? Did anything “heroic” occur in IDENTITY CRISIS? No, we’ve seen rapes, and murders, and insanity and horror, and self-delusion, and secrets and lies. And I don’t think any of these characters are anything other than worse for it. Where’s the damn heroism?

Alas, it’s nowhere to be found. And thinking about it now, the way that the characters are shown to be utterly incompetant when battling Deathstroke…not exactly what I’d call heroic either. Nor the way that Ronnie Raymond as Firestorm just left himself open to an attack by the Shadow Thief in issue 5.

Next in the Daily Item interview, they say that:

Meltzer also used “Identity Crisis” to explore and revamp many of DC’s second-tier heroes, such as Boomerang and the Calculator.

He was offered the option of using the baddest of the bad, such as the Joker, but he opted for the villains he says nobody cared about.

Probably just to serve as a cover, to make it look as if he was being clever. Sorry, but I’m not fooled, and making second-tier villians interesting is no substitute for good moral and common sense, which are crucial to good storytelling.

Next, a really big howler:

“I wanted to put a human face on both sides of this equation, hero and villain,” Meltzer says.

No kidding. Then why were a]the women left out, b]Superman and even Hawkman made to look like cads, and most importantly of all, c]Ralph and Sue largely minimized?

The mindwipes have been a key element in various titles as relationships between DC’s heroes have soured — most notably the ties between the big three: Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman.

And that’s a good thing? Yawn. Been there, done that.

Similarly, the newly reinvigorated villains from “Identity Crisis” have proved critical to DC’s current direction.

No kidding. I can’t say, after all this time, that they’re in collosal demand. And the villains didn’t have to be cast in some mega-extravaganza in order for other writers to be prompted to use them. Dr. Light may have been used to some good effect in the recent “Light’s Out” story in Teen Titans, but now, what’s really being done with him? Nothing much. And things certainly have waned by now for a lot of this hubbub DC didn’t have to make.

Meltzer has the inside scoop on what’s ahead for DC’s beleaguered heroes — though he, of course, isn’t telling. Geoff Johns, one of his closest friends, is writing the “Infinite Crisis” miniseries.

I can only hope that’s some attempt to defend himself, and that Johns isn’t really what Meltzer’s claiming him to be. Either way though, after the gratutious rape in issue 2, and all the horrific violence in issue 3 and even 6, with even Firestorm being belittled, when reading the following:

A longtime comics fan, Meltzer is thrilled to see so many stories spinning out of “Identity Crisis.

“To see this level built on something that we started, there’s no greater kind of geek moment than that.”

I can only laugh. Because if he were really a comics fan, I doubt he’d stoop that low. In fact, I think he may have given himself away with his use of the word “geek”: because it’s been used as a form of stereotypical description of comics fans in past years, it makes me wonder if what he’s really saying is that it’s great to see so many unwitting addicts falling for the whole mess, hook, line and sinker.

Comics fan, my foot.

The worst part of all is that this interview is coming out on the week that 9-11 is in memorium. talking about how the Syracuse Post-Standard chose to commemorate 9-11 by running an article on how some professors at the Syracuse university compared the US to the Axis powers. With the Daily Item/Knight/Ridder’s running an interview that glosses over a book that’s more or less an attack on the US in metaphorical sense, you could say that they too have pulled a similar dirty trick.

about the upcoming adaptation of Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta. And from what can be told here, it appears that Moore himself, perhaps not surprisingly (is anything surprising nowadays?), is not happy about the finished film:

The movie is based on an acclaimed graphic novel — but that book’s author has called the screenplay “imbecilic” and wants nothing to do with the film. The lead actor was let go four weeks into the filming and his replacement never bothered to read the comic book. The main character is a masked terrorist on a rampage in London who uses the trains of the Underground to attack the government — a scenario that has proven too close to real life. And despite a trailer for the film that culminates in a voice-over telling the audience to “remember, remember the 5th of November” — a reference to the release date — the opening was delayed at first until February and then, most recently, until March.

(snip)

With so many travails, it’s not unreasonable to wonder if this capes-on-cobblestones movie will end up in the same commercial litter box as the studio’s “Catwoman,” a universally ridiculed masked mishap.

If that fate befalls “Vendetta,” it would be “bloody depressing” for legions of fans who have been looking forward to seeing the beloved graphic novel elevated into a socially provocative film. Producer Joel Silver (”The Matrix,” “Lethal Weapon” franchises) acquired the rights to “V for Vendetta” in the late 1980s, at a time when the tale by writer Alan Moore and artist David Lloyd conjured up references of Margaret Thatcher and George Orwell — not Osama bin Laden.

“This is a movie that is special. … It’s about violence and society,” Silver said in a recent phone interview. The producer spoke a bit more before the call came to an end. But he called back within the hour. “Look, we need help on this. We need people to understand what this movie is and what it’s trying to do. Look, it is a controversial movie.”

Silver can be forgiven for sounding a bit anxious about the road ahead. It’d be grossly unfair to say the movie is destined to be a train wreck. But even Silver can’t argue that it’s been a challenge just keeping this particular vehicle on track.

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, made it awkward for any ensuing film that intended to casually pan across the New York skyline or weave scenes of urban carnage into a plot. Likewise, “Vendetta” is a film that has some echoes of the July attacks in London that used mass transit and bombs and left more than 50 people dead.

Given that this is a wire service article coming from the ultra-PC Los Angeles Times, it’s to be expected that something is being glossed over or missed here. And by that, it may worse than just the real-life similarities the movie, if not the original miniseries, may contain. To get a clue of what could be inside Matrix writers’ Larry and Andy Wachowski’s latest film,

“V For Vendetta.” From Warner Brothers and the creators of “The Matrix” comes this film about a futuristic Great Britain that’s become a ‘fascist state.’ A masked ‘freedom fighter’ named V uses terror tactics (including bombing the London Underground) to undermine the government - leading to a climax in which the British Parliament is blown up. Natalie Portman stars as a skinhead who turns to ‘the revolution’ after doing time as a Guantanamo-style prisoner.

I’m going to be quite honest here now. I am not confortable with the idea of making that low a “punk revolutionary” movie, which Portman’s being a skinhead implies this’ll be. That just emphasizes just how parrot-phrasing this movie could actually turn out to be.

To comment on some more of this article from the LA Times:

Still unclear is whether the movie can get past the criticism leveled by Moore (who, like the Wachowskis, is press suspicious). He has asked that his name be taken off the credits and any checks (he said Warner Bros. should give Lloyd all the money for the story rights).

No kidding. The Wachowskis, the ones who put this movie together, are really press suspicious? Don’t they know that publicity provided by the writers/directors is important too? Or, is it possible that they really did decline clear press coverage here, for fear that they would end up in an embarrassing light?

As for Moore himself, they say here:

An elusive figure who cooks up intricate tales of mythology and the fantastic, Moore has been burned again when those creations have ambled off the printed page on to the screen.

“Swamp Thing,” “From Hell” and “The League of Extraordinary Gentleman” failed miserably to match Moore’s words. And his masterpiece, “Watchmen,” made history in comic books but has changed hands as a movie property repeatedly since 1980s and been treated brusquely along the way.

Moore himself despises Hollywood now.

He told the BBC in a rare interview that an ugly legal spat that followed the “Extraordinary Gentlemen” experience sealed his opinion of Hollywood.

I certainly can’t blame him. In fact, this now reminds me of when I saw an article on Newsarama that seemed to say that he was “satisfied” with the LOEG movie. But now, after reading this, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were misinforming.

Update: just as I thought. The ultra-PC Capt. Comics just about all of the hard questions surrounding this movie. Which just shows how unreliable the mainstream media is, even with comic related issues.

Did you know that the problems with Identity Crisis and Avengers-you-know-what aren’t new? As shows, they were probably around as early as the mid-70s!

And after reading all about the “revelation” at the time as to who the mercenary Black Manta, one of Aquaman’s most notable adversaries, was, that being a black man under the scuba-diving outfit, all I can say is - it’s going to take a lot for me to keep from vomiting.

Most incredulous about this waterlogged shipwreck of an Aquaman story, aside from how Black Manta as presented here is shown taking off his helmet underwater, is that it was written by David Michelinie, one of the most notable writers of the Avengers and Iron Man during the late 70s-early 80s; I just can’t believe it. Then again, even in the Avengers, if I’m not mistaken, there was that story he wrote for Jim Shooter* in which Hank Pym slapped Janet Van Dyne and…oh, never mind.

An important note to be made on the quip that Manta makes about Peter Benchley: this story came out during 1977, the same year that The Deep was adapted to film, and while I don’t know about the novel, I do know that the movie submerged itself in racial stereotyping, when it depicted a gang of black voodoo worshipers from Haiti as the ruthless villains of the pic, even going so far as to subject Jaqueline Bisset to some distasteful abuse, at least twice, during the proceedings. Are we to assume that Michelinie was trying to sink lower than Benchley at the stereotype studio when he wrote this?

If this issue of Adventure Comics is obscure by today’s standards, I’d have to figure that that’s a good thing. This is most definately not something anyone with sense would want to have to remember.

I should hope that post-Crisis, DC made sure to get rid of all the racial insults that Mr. Michelinie’s horrid little story perpetrated back in the late 70s. I don’t know what Black Manta’s exact status is today, but then, maybe that’s why I should try and find and buy more Aquaman material from recent in order to know.

* Shooter, as was discovered in past years, manipulated some of the writing on titles like Avengers when he became the EIC of Marvel Comics in 1977. And that may have been one of the reasons why he eventually got shown the door, even at Image Comics.