A little late, but, as the news has reported, Dave Cockrum and Jerry Bails, artist of the X-Men and founding father of contemporary fandom, respectively, have passed away. , and . Both of them will be very missed.

Update: also misses Cockrum, and has some more news about Bails too.

, which may be written by an industry insider, gives some insight into what’s led comic books down the wrong path (Hat tip: Bobb). Note that it’s got some very profane language and graphic content, but in any case, , has something to give a clue about what’s wrong:

My theoretical comic company, which, for the theoretical purposes of my theoretical memoir, I’ll call Gilgongo! Comix, was tired of being “pushed around” in the sales wars and in the court of fanboy opinion (such as it was). So with all the red-nosed gumption and determination of Ralphie from “A Christmas Story” Gilgongo! Comix decided to go badass.

They needed a rape. Because there’s nothing quite so badass as rape, lets face it. And the victim couldn’t been from the usual suspects: “The Black Raven” (done that already plus ovaries ripped out), “Bondage Queen” (wasn’t she raped like every issue–at least mentally?), “Demon-Girl” (she was already paralyzed from the last pseudo-raping and that provided all sorts of logistical nightmares for the artist).

No, they had to find the most innocent, virginal, good-natured “nice” character they could find and ravage her not once but twice.

Theoretically, this character’s name was Vicki Victim.

A whole groundbreaking limited series would be built around Vicki Victim’s rape and murder.

This made me nervous. In the office, I was known as being innocent, virginal, good-natured, and “nice”. I was kidded on it on a regular basis, as well as being told it was exactly those qualities that were “holding me back.”

Of course, it was silly to identify with a dumb old comic character.

Vicki Victim’s fate was sealed in a Gilgongo! Comics confab in which we explored how we could change our comics to be more “badass.” It was decided that the reason we were trailing in sales was because we were “too good-natured and nice.” This would have to stop. Our books needed a grittier edge. We needed a grittier edge.

So our books changed. There was rape, and murder, torture, death, and mutiliation. Superheroes did amoral or outright evil things and the line between good and bad was blurred.

And you know what?

Our sales improved. And this is a fact.

Learning about this, I’m going to have to be quite honest, but it gives a whole new meaning to the term, “we are our own worst enemy.” Because clearly, they were counting on us, the consumers, not to use our common sense and better judgement about buying into a book that stooped as low as Identity Crisis did.

In fact, from personal experience, I once visited an entertainment website a few years ago that first began as a pretty decent one where the staff and people who frequented the forum had rationale. But then, a few years afterwards, some of people with better judgement began to leave, and soon afterwards, people with less common sense quickly took over. I’m not going to name the site, as I once had an ugly spat with the site owner, and by now, I really don’t want to cause him any more trouble than I did, but I will say that at first, he seemed like a sensible guy. However, he then did a peculiar volte-face and began pandering to low denominators, not to mention dumbing down the output of his own site (virtually all the op-eds there started becoming more like promotional ads, and only the site owner himself could be critical, and it wasn’t exactly the industry itself). The site lost a lot of audience, and those who began to become more frequent there were the most prejudiced of trolls, the kind who even worshiped Mark Millar. But what really dealt the site the death knell was when the owner published a vulgar little op-ed of his own against a woman in the industry, that was apparently intended to uphold screeds like Identity Crisis (but very confusingly at that), and the fatal flaw was that he said she should “pull the stick out.”

When I realized what he was saying, I was horrified, because he was more or less insulting a woman, and it made me feel embarrassed to be wasting my precious time there. I got into an angry argument with the site owner, telling him he should apologize to his target. Alas, he wouldn’t do it, nor would he speak to me anymore. No matter, because I had had enough there. But even after I quit writing on the site’s board, I went back at one point to look over some messages written there, and was alarmed to find that, on a thread started by one of the moderators, a troll had written a post in which he said that he loved Identity Crisis because it contained, in his words, “a fight scene, violence, rape.” And noone ever complained about it, nor was it even deleted. Clearly, I had chosen to bail out in the nick of time.

A couple months later, I learned that the site owner actually had (belatedly) apologized to the woman he attacked, and even made an attempt, superficial as it was, to let some dissent be voiced upon his op-eds section about Identity Crisis. But the damage had been done. People saw that he was part of the problem, as he had been picking one-sided arguments with various people on the forum, and since he wrote that foolish “editorial” of his, quite a few people either walked out or got kicked out altogether. Finally, the site shut down.

You could almost say that the now defunct site I cite was a perfect example of the kind of people who were buying into Identity Crisis, and various other books that feature sensationalistic rapes inside, but that would be too much of a generalization. Because apparently, it’s not just people with perverted sickness buying them, but even those whom you’d think had more common sense inside. And unless the better crowd starts to learn why they shouldn’t, the comics industry is going to keep on with it, and it’ll likely happen again.

That’s what I’m beginning to wonder after recalling that talks about the “evil twin” storyline that Waid did, taking an written by Cary Bates and using it as an excuse to “turn and loop everything upon itself.” I’m not going to quote the text, since what the drunken doctor did is something that even I have a limit to putting on this website, but having mentioned the drunkeness of said doctor, I must say that that is one of the most forced-sounding storylines I’ve ever heard of. It also sounds very contrived. But the main problem is that it’s…violent.

People can justly argue that the violence featured in Geoff Johns’ comics, Flash included, was uncalled for. But at the same time, they’d be advised to bear in mind that Mark Waid may have ruined the Flash long before Johns did, as was decidedly the case in the latter part of his run on it.

that she’s not fond of Jenny-Lynn Hayden (but still rightfully wonders why there’s no fanfics about her. I actually tried looking myself, and this one here, , is probably the closest I could get). Okay, so be it, but, in defense of Jade now, and to show that someone is willing to stand up for the Emerald Beauty, here’s what I have to say.

If the way she was used by any writers in the years after Infinity Inc. ended was crummy, the simplest reminder on that matter is, “there are no bad characters, only bad writers.” I have no idea who first coined that phrase, and when I tried to search on Google and find out, I couldn’t seem to turn up anything on the author. But it’s something that’s still found its way around the comics world very well for more than a decade, and you can make a good point from it that it’s not the characters fault - they’re fictional. Rather, it’s the fault of those in charge of the writing, and editing. , the blogger says:

…he was never sufficiently developed as a character and no matter what he did, he never seemed to grow beyond being the boy who just never got a break. Somehow, the writers never managed to make him an interesting character.

And if Jade wasn’t well defined either, there could be an explanation why. Not just because Ron Marz, now that I begin to wonder, wasn’t making a real effort, but also because of…editorial interference, a point I’d like to bring up as often as possible when writing about subjects like this. If Marz did not make any convincing developments with Jade, it could be because the editors shot it down. Not something you’d be inclined to ask at first glance, but which can still be a probable answer.

But, as you can probably tell here, I’m even starting to question if Ron Marz was as good a writer as some might argue. When he went to CrossGen, he certainly hit some stride there, but outside of that, some of his work, when I think about it now, seemed mechanical at best. When he took over the writing of GL, it was when Zero Hour was being prepared, and his task, from what I know, was to get rid of Hal Jordan, under editorial mandate. Same when Alexandra deWitt was offed. And same when Jade and Kyle broke up.

And a fictional character cannot be faulted for being a bore, nor is that a reason to just kill them off. In fact, if there’s a good example of one whose problem was that he’d been grating for a time but was later fixed, it’s Marvel’s everyman Rick Jones, good friend of Bruce Banner, the Hulk, earthly “host” for the late Capt. Mar-vell of the Kree, and who’s famous for that, while he’s been involved with a lot of great superheroes who’ve mentored him, he never really wore a costume (only briefly did he wear one of Bucky Barnes’ old outfits, the rest of the time he was with the Avengers, Capt. America forbade him to do so). Rick, in his early years, had some awfully grating dialogue, certainly when Roy Thomas was writing him in the Avengers, but later writers improved upon that, and by the time Peter David took to writing the Incredible Hulk, the problems were long gone, and he’d been considerably improved in character.

Not that Jade ever had any real problems with an annoying personality (unless you include her breakup with Kyle, which was forced), but if the problem were that, what’s the difficulty in asking for a repair job, if the writers haven’t thought of it themselves?

And if there’s anything that could be done to give Jade some real direction as a character, IMO, it’s to do the same thing that Marvel did with another green-skinned lady (and whose first name is Jennifer too), the She-Hulk. Jennifer Walters had been played seriously when she first became a green-skinned powerhouse hottie in 1980 (I have the third issue of the original series produced from back then), but it was decided early on to give her a tongue-in-cheek direction, and that’s how she was depicted for many years in her own adventures. This humorous take first began as early as 1982, when David Michelinie added her to the Avengers cast. If it worked for She-Hulk, why couldn’t it work for Jade as well? That’s something I’d like to see being done!

Of course, let’s not forget that both Rick Jones and She-Hulk are Marvel characters (and that the former is male), and that Marvel’s staff, at least up to a point, was willing to give them a more of a chance than DC has ever been willing to give Jade. So if you realize that there IS a chance to develop the characters provided that the writers have interest and the editors are willing to allow them to do so, that’s why it’d probably pay to start asking now. (In that case, I better go and look around for the right address to mail.)

Plus, it’s better to avoid approving of killing off characters, because there’s every chance of a domino effect occuring, and as seen in the past year, that’s what happened. Not just Jade, but, quite a few of the original members of Infinity Inc. who survived the Crisis seem to have been killed off (and Obsidian, who remains now, has been outed as another homosexual character in the pages of the new Manhunter!). I’m very unhappy about that, as it suggests that DC is throwing away the cast of one of the best books they had in years past, when here, all these folks, Hector Hall, Al Rothstein and Jenny-Lynn, are probably some of the best characters to lead the JSA, yet they’re tossing them all but out? Disapprove.

I think this calls for asking for the original Infinity Inc. to be published in trade collections by now. Because the original material is by far the best place where to get an idea how to get a handle on the members.

, and I do my best to shred their fluff-coated mess. So, let’s see what we have here:

Civil War made Maxim magazine’s “Most Awesome” list for 2006 in the December issue.

So what else is new? That’s just claiming success based on getting into a major magazine alone. Writer Capt. Comics really needs to be more creative than that.

What You Need To Know: Is Civil War that big a deal?

I already know. It’s not. So quit asking.

Let’s see: Civil War is a storyline wherein Marvel’s Congress passed a law requiring everyone with superpowers to reveal their identities and become licensed law-enforcement agents. Most heroes, led by Iron Man, agree that security outweighs civil liberties, and sign up. The rest, led by Captain America, believe the reverse and become an illegal, underground resistance group.

But it’s gotten even uglier from there. The government has enlisted the registered heroes, the superspy agency SHIELD and even hundreds of murderous supervillains to hunt down Cap’s crew, resulting in at least one death (Goliath, introduced 40 years ago as Bill Foster). The Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards has created a gulag to incarcerate unregistered heroes (without habeas corpus), and his wife and teammates have left him. Spider-Man’s secret ID is public knowledge, and he and his family are on the run from the government, Iron Man and hundreds of costumed killers. And there’s still two issues to go!

Well whoop-dee-doo, and what else is new? Seriously now, it’s apparent that Mark Millar has really plumbed the depths by depicting the government willing to go so far as to hire even supervillains to do the dirty work! That may be Millar’s way of resorting to the moonbat claim that the US government employs its own enemies to attack its own citizens. Simply distasteful. Unfortunately, the columnist makes no attempt to be discerning here:

So like it or loath it, “Civil War” cannot help but reverberate throughout all of Marvel’s titles for years to come. If nothing else, who’s ever going to trust Iron Man again?

See, that’s the problem. Or, put another way, who’s going to be able to appreciate Shell-head again at ease, after what Marvel’s been doing with him here? And the audience’s opinions do not matter to our sugary columnist here. No, what DOES matter are the dollars that come rolling in over this horrid mess.

He goes so far as to do a weird subtle insult next:

I can hear those of you who don’t read Marvel Comics saying, “Is that bloody thing still going on?” Ironically, like the real-world Iraq war that inspired it, Marvel’s Civil War refuses to stay on anybody’s schedule. It was originally supposed to end this month, but the creative team fell significantly behind.

What You Need To Know: No worries. Marvel has dragged its feet in releasing related titles, so that the stories more or less match up to what was originally intended. All that matters, assuming no further delays, is we’ll be singing “Happy Christmas (War Is Over)” in January instead of November.

Good grief! It sounds like a cryptic anti-war message! Boooo, booooooooo! (Anyone got some rotten tomatoes and cabbages handy?) And considering how bad CW is, that’s one more reason why the lateness is unjustified.

Civil War has “guest-starred” in a lot of titles over the last seven months, and completely taken over books like “Amazing Spider-Man” (you can distinguish Civil War-connected books by the unmistakable, color-coded trade dress).

Spoken as if it were literally a wonderful thing. Boring.

Many fans have been complaining about Iron Man acting more like a villain than a hero. We get a look behind the helmet, and his rationalizations for hunting his friends, in “Iron Man” Nos. 13-14, this month and next.

Sorry, not interested, and this fluff is downplaying the fans’ complaints to boot.

Speaking of villains, “Civil War” No. 5 showed the government hiring hundreds of supervillains to track down unregistered heroes. That continues into “Thunderbolts” No. 110 (shipping Jan. 10), with superstar writer Warren Ellis coming on board to weave tales of psychopaths with badges.

NOOOOOOOO!!!

Speaking of villains some more, The Punisher joined Cap’s anti-registration side in “Civil War” No. 5, since the government is now hiring mass murderers that Frank would very much like to kill. That continues into “Punisher War Journal” No. 1 (shipping Nov. 22), and Marvel says to “expect blood and lots of it” in this new ongoing title.

Yep, just what we need. More bloodletting. And more attacks on the government for the wrong reasons.

Oh, and what’s this - Capt. Comics must be trying to “soothe” the audience or something:

…don’t get too worked up when a comics publisher crows that a title has “sold out.” That really doesn’t mean much in comics.

But that’s just the problem. The more comics continue with overly-political biases, the less sales will mean in any case. Now, lastly, what’s this, he’s sliding back on his biases, is he?

…that’s a lot of titles connected to Civil War! Marvel swears that you only need to buy the “Civil War” miniseries to follow the story, and all the crossovers, etc., are icing on the cake. If you believe that, I’ve got a used web-shooter to sell you. Still, you don’t need to buy every blinkin’ one of them, and hopefully I’ve just steered you to the ones you’ll find entertaining.

Nope, sorry. You haven’t steered me to any of this tomfoolery, and I’m not buying your used web-shooter either. But if anyone’s got a used edition of Thor’s Mjolnir or Hawkman’s mace, I’ll buy those most heartily, as they can be a great help in smashing up dumbed-down, fluff-coated propaganda like this column here!

Update: I can’t believe ). Our honorable army deserves much better than this dreadful article.

Here’s a little bit of something I could do here every now and then. To write about some of the back issues I’ve got of various series in my wonderful little collection. The primary purpose of this blog was to shred the mainstream press’ coverage of comics, but of course it’s also possible to write about some of the books I’ve got in my collection too. In this case, it’s The Incredible Hulk #218, which I thought to bring up because it spotlights a supporting character, that being Doc Samson. It’s also one of those “because you demanded it” moments in Marvel history, something they’re unlikely do today, if at all. My collection of Hulk issues isn’t that big, but this, interestingly enough, is the oldest back issue I’ve got, and gives what may be comicdom’s first psychiatrist superhero a chance to prove himself as a crimefighter.

Anyway, Leonard Samson is strolling through a suburban valley in New Mexico to ponder his own personal problems as a psychiatrist, scientist, and friend of Bruce Banner’s and Betty Ross too, at the time when the Hulk was written with an all but low IQ and a caveman dialect, and Betty had up until then been married to Glenn Talbot. Samson is reading a newspaper that mistakes the Hulk for dead following a battle of his with the Bi-Beast on a S.H.I.E.L.D helicarrier (and to prove that he’s not, the ol’ jade giant turns up on one of the pages later, annoyed at a pair of fishermen who accidentally got a fishline tangled on his head. Not too annoyed, since, as they flee, they leave him some lunch). He doesn’t have time to fully contemplate that, however, as he discovers a train bridge has had one of its trestles damaged, and to make matters worse, there’s a train fast approaching.
With his ability to take wide-ranging leaps just like the Hulk, Samson is able to quickly reach the top of the cliff where the bridge is built, and braces himself against it to support the weight of the train until it’s safely over it. He’s successful at that, but the damage was still enough so that the bridge crashes afterwards. Samson then joins the grateful train staff and passengers to keep an eye on the train as heads for its next destination, since, as he suspects, someone had deliberately tried to sabotage the bridge and the train. Unbeknownst to Samson but beknownst to us, the Rhino is the guilty party, and he’s not going to give up so easily. He’s on a mercenary job, and as he says, “the guy I’m workin’ for don’t take kindly ta failure…”
He races after the train again, and this time he succeeds in knocking it over and stealing a package from the train. Samson tries to stop him but is unsuccessful. However, as a professional doctor, he decides to help all the passengers out of the wreckage before he goes after the Rhino again. When he does, he tracks him to an abandoned mining village where the Rhino is celebrating over beer, and the showdown begins.

It’s no easy feat, as Samson learns, but, with a little work, he’s soon able to pound Rhino a good one. However, the Rhino manages to retreat a bit, and falls into the well where he tossed the beer bottle he was drinking from.

Samson’s won, but still walks away feeling unsatisfied, because, while he may have managed to overpower the Rhino, he didn’t succeed in capturing him and finding out who the boss was for whom the mercenary villain stole the package from the train (it was probably dealt with in a later issue, I figure).

Overall, it’s a pretty good issue in which writers Len Wein and Roger Stern were able to spotlight Doc Samson in his own starring story, and in which he could prove himself against one of the baddies the Hulk is more accustomed to fighting. The weak point that the Rhino’s got is that, while his skin may be thick, it’s also very thin, just like some real rhinocerouses can be, and if a superhero can exploit that weak point, it may give them some leverage, as Spider-Man figured out when he first fought him in Amazing Spider-Man #41 in 1966.

I’ll try and pull out some more stuff from my collection over time whenever I can. It should be fun.

As overhyped as Marvel’s Civil War is, it does seem to be showing some signs of crumbling when you see that they’re :

Without fanfare, Marvel slipped out some comics that are crucial to the ongoing “Civil War” story line, namely “Black Panther” No. 21 and “Wolverine” issues No. 46 to 49. Track these books down, especially the Panther issue, to find out important facets of the “Civil War” arc that has dominated the Marvel universe most of the year.

Sorry, no sale. Still, this IS surprising in some ways. Considering how Marvel cashed in ad nauseum on Wolverine’s popularity for many years, I would’ve thought that they’d stand by book even now. But if not, does that suggest that Logan’s popularity starting to wane?

I didn’t know much of anything about Fables before, but now, from looking at , I do know some more about what it’s about, and why Bill Willingham is clearly not a writer whose books I want to read:

“No more happily ever after.”

That appeared on a wall, scrawled in blood, in the first issue of “Fables” in 2002, a monthly comic-book series starring characters from folklore. And it’s a concept that continues with “Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall,” one of the best graphic novels of the year.

If it was scrawled in bloodletting, something tells me that remains in question.

“Snowfall” is based on “Fables,” which is based on fairy tales. But not your mommy’s fairy tales, as indicated by that bizarre graffiti.

“With blood on the wall, the readership (was) duly warned that this is not your Disney-type story,” chuckled series writer/creator Bill Willingham in a telephone interview.

Uh oh. Any writer who’s going to chuckle like that about bloodshed isn’t getting very far in convincing me, I’m afraid.

The title is a reference to Snow White _ a much more assertive character in “Fables” than in the Disney movie _ who travels to the land of Arabian fables to forge an alliance with Ali Baba & Co. against the Adversary. Unfortunately, the sultan of that land intends to treat her as he does his own women _ by marrying her, having a one-night honeymoon and then executing her. But, as the title implies, Snow pulls a Scheherazade to forestall her doom.

Am I detecting the underlying contempt for women setting in already? Hmm. It’s bad enough that this was what one of the subjects spoken about in the forward for Tales of the Arabian Nights had to risk, but this is decidedly going too far. I knew that even the Brothers Grimm clearly had some kind of a bad influence on some people, Walt Disney being one of them!

“Snow White, when she’s in dire straights, she’s experiencing snowfall,” Willingham said. “(It’s) not quite a pun. … ‘1001 Nights of Snowfall’ is just 1001 nights in which Snow is in terrible jeopardy.”

Nights during which she tells stories, 10 of which are included in this graphic novel. Written by Willingham and illustrated by an all-star cast of artists, many are origins of a sort, revealing the history of some of the major characters in “Fables.” Not that you need to be a regular “Fables” reader to enjoy “Snowfall.”

Not that I need to take that last sentence at face value either. Stop trying to trick people into falling for this trash, please.

“This (graphic novel) was specifically designed to be a stand-alone,” Willingham said. “There are more than 50 issues of ‘Fables’ out, all in collections now, so if you want to read all of those, that’s great. But if you want to pick up just ‘1001 Nights of Snowfall,’ it’s a pretty self-contained story. … You don’t have homework to do before you can read and enjoy this.”

Because the graphic novel isn’t about the characters as they appear in the regular series, so much as backstories about how they became the characters in the regular stories. Most of which, Willingham says, he had rattling around in his head before the first issue of “Fables” hit the stands.

If I’m reading here correctly, what they mean is that it’s not actually about Snow White, Prince Charming, or even the seven dwarfs, it’s about the fairy tale stories that Snow herself is telling the sultan. So, that would imply that the seriousness of barbarism is pretty much trivialized in favor of a story that gets its kicks out of seeing a woman in jeopardy. Wow, what a pip.

And all this gives but a clue to what’s wrong with Bill Willingham’s approach to women in his books, and why a commentor on old Blogger software a year ago said that his work is “seething with contempt for women”. Johanna Carlson’s old entries from then are no longer there, but I remember it well.

And the following sums up just about all I need to know that this isn’t my cup of tea, any more than the rock bottom tales of the Brothers Grimm:

So we see how Frau Totenkinder _ the wicked witch of many, many tales _ got her taste for children. We discover how the Wolf got so big and so bad, and acquired the ability to blow down houses. And, yes, we find out the true story of Snow White and those mysterious dwarves.

Most of which is pretty grim reading, and definitely nor for the kiddies. Which isn’t all that much of a remove, when you think about it, because fairy tales were originally pretty ghastly tales designed to frighten children into behaving.

“They were absolutely grim and they were … lessons in behavior,” Willingham said. “My favorite being Hansel & Gretel, with the implied threat there being ‘You kids behave or we might become the kind of parents that drop our kids off in demon-haunted forests.’ … Even worse than that, it’s like ‘If you kids don’t behave, this character is going to bake you up in a pie and serve you to your daddy when he gets home.’ Which appears in so many different fairy tales that it was apparently just a standard thing.”

I’m sorry, but, Willingham fails miserably in convincing me. Because most of the children who were told or read those stories ended up becoming pretty grim themselves. (By the way, how come the name “Brothers Grimm” doesn’t appear in the text of this item? Not trying to protect their “good name”, are they?) And any parent, I hate to say, who’s going to abandon their kids in the forest are BAD parents, IMO. Not to mention that the original story of Hansel and Gretel was not exactly a “lesson in behavior”. No, it was the story of a child-hating wife of a woodsman, who wanted her hubby to get rid of the children, who promply ended up being menaced by a wicked witch who enjoyed eating children (ready to vomit now), and not only did it give me some insight into the mindset of what Germany’s then backwards society was like in their views of women, it also gave an idea of what their views of Jews, Gypsies, and other Europeans whom they despised, were like during WW2 as well.

And that’s what Willingham is inflenced by? Dear dear dear. I don’t want to know what the “true” story of the seven dwarfs is either.

And whether or not it was a “standard thing”, does that make it any good? The short answer is NO. They were sick, stupid stories laced with ugly stereotypes, and had a very bad impact on generations to come. Willingham is also distorting and blurring up just where it was that the grisly elements he cites can be found, and it’s not in Hans Christian Anderson, that’s for sure.

And as for the expected squawk that fairy tales are the preserve of the young, Willingham dismisses the concept.

“Children’s stories are kind of a new invention in our society and our culture,” Willingham said, beginning around the Middle Ages. “(And) every ‘Fables’ issue is plainly marked for mature audiences. … The intended audience is older, so the premise that these stories are for kids, I don’t accept.”

Which is evident in “1001 Nights of Snowfall,” a collection of fairy tales for adults. There may not be a happily ever after any more, but that just makes it more interesting.

But not to me. This just gives me some clues and insight as to how bad Fables really is, and explains why he was the wrong writer for Robin two years ago. He writes a story in which Tim Drake is targeted by a female assassin, uses the Ravens as adversaries in another, and, lest we forget…that War Games story in which Stephanie Brown is bashed up by Black Mask, who’s got a drill in his armory. And of course, there was also that story in which he set up even an old woman, Leslie Thompkins, to take the fall, the next year in Detective Comics. And in Day of Vengeance, he sets up Jean Loring to for more victimization when he turns her into a female version of Eclipso. And all his contempt for women there seems to stem from what he wrote in Fables beforehand.

Willingham may have since left the Batbooks, and won’t be missed, but he still left a lot of damage in his wake, and Robin’s sales have dropped.

I’m also tired of the self-justificatory argument that comics, fairy tales, or anything else of the sort isn’t just for children, or not at all. If Fables is written for adult consumption, that’s fine in and of itself. But that doesn’t justify the kind of grisliness it features, and even for adults, the kind of propaganda Willingham is foisting can do harm. And considering that the premise sums up a lot of what today’s comics are becoming, that’s why I don’t find it very interesting at all, contrary to what that horrid comics column I came across would like to make me think.

Margot Kidder, who played Lois Lane back in 1978 in the Superman movies of the time, was a . Noel Neil, who’d played Lois in one of the Superman movie serial entries from 1948, was also a special guest.

The comics industry has yet one more member to match any of the lowliest people in Hollywood you can find, this being one John Cassaday, artist for titles like Planetary (written by Warren Ellis, if I’m correct), who gave a , in which he resorted to moral equivalence, and even sleaze talk:

[interviewer:] You worked on the Marvel Knights relaunch of Captain America. Did you have any idea how controversial some aspects of the series would be at the time, and how do you feel about that in retrospect?

[John Cassaday:] I was traveling in Europe when it was released, our military was already sweating through Afghanistan, and the book got the full range of responses in Europe and back home. Many Europeans felt it was easily labeled right-wing propaganda, then I’d get the responses from people in the states that seemed to come out of nowhere on the other side of the argument. In fact, film reviewer, Michael Medved, wrote a review on it. He claimed our Captain America was a “traitor” and sympathetic to the terrorists! There was no winning! But I loved that about it. We produced a book that affected people and had them talking. Maybe the times were still too volatile, but I couldn’t be happier with the results. It’s one of the books I’m proudest of. I get tons of fans telling me that they started reading Cap again because of our run and that it’s their favorite. Cap was and is my favorite superhero because there is something very relevant and timely about him. And that was the point.

AAAAAAAARRRRRGH!!! And he’s saying all this without even taking into account that the Marvel Knight book’s sales did go down and the book became even more unreadable as it limped along. The man certainly knows how to bring himself down to the level of some of the weakest of Hollywood’s elite, and with that kind of contempt, he does not deserve a career.

about how Hollywood stars were risking popularity for politics. Cassaday may have added himself to the list.