The Fifth Color
The Grumpy Color: Tom & Carla dismantle 2011, Part 1
Batman & Spider-Man
[Continuing their yearly tradition, Tom Bondurant and Carla Hoffman have joined forces to compare notes on the the relative fortunes of DC Comics and Marvel Comics. Here is Part 1 of 2.]
Tom: Okay, old chum, if it’s late December it must be time to wrap up 2011 and usher in 2012. It’s the New 52 versus dozens of Avengers and Spider-Man titles! Christopher Nolan, David Goyer, and Christian Bale versus Joss Whedon, Andrew Garfield, and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes! High collars versus Point Ones! Judd Winick and Guillem March’s Catwoman versus … who, exactly?
Carla: I read Catwoman #1 and stopped there so this analogy is lost on me. Don’t go where I can’t follow, Frodo.
Tom: That was a dig at Marvel’s lack of female-lead titles….
Carla: Oh! I thought it was about our underwear-clad heroines. She-Hulk and Emma Frost have been flashing their bras at people since the 80′s! And don’t get me started on the Black Cat, how many female creative people we have, etc. etc. =D
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- January 1, 2012 @ 04:25 PM by Tom Bondurant
The Fifth Color | Don’t be the bigger man for Christmas
That's right - I busted out my Dynamic Forces cover for you guys!
It’s okay to hate the holidays.
Really, no secret Santa brigade will beat you into being jolly. In fact, it’s perfectly natural to get a sort of dread around this season. The sun doesn’t shine as much, the weather outside is frightful, it’s the end of a year and the approach of a new one that we can only hope is better. As much as festive decorations, carols and family dinners might say otherwise, this is the season for frustrations.
Dear reader, I understand this feeling. I work retail. It’s perfectly fine to hate the holidays, and it’s perfectly normal to wish things were better. Charlie Brown Christmas Specials are all well and good, and it’s great to aspire to that Rockwell painting of a warm Christmas dinner, but let’s face it: that’s not reality. Reality sometimes is that a roast is burnt, the family just bickers and drinks, and all those Peanuts kids dance like idiots.
We can’t get the perfect Christmastime we want so badly, but sometimes we can be Avenged. We can take Christmas into our own hands, show some Scrooges what for and make them kinder. We can look at all the little things that make this time, if not perfect, uniquely special. And we can rocket a perverted uncle around in a frilly brassiere once we’ve shrunk him to the size of an action figure.
Folks, this is Ant Man’s Big Christmas.
- December 24, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Carla Hoffman
The Fifth Color | The Impenetrable Wall of Comics
See? Even they're confused...
You’d be surprised by how many people don’t know how comics “work.” Really. Moms and aunts mostly, but a few granddads slide in or brothers or other assorted family simply don’t know or choose not to know. Mind you, it’s a little tragic to say that how comics work is unfathomable to anyone who, I don’ know, has functioning sight and understands how to read. You would think that the average Christmas shopper would be able to figure this out, but I stand before you as a retail clerk from a local comic shop and can announce with some shame that “how comics work” is apparently one of the mysteries of the universe.
With this in mind, it’s a little easier to understand how pop culture has accepted our sequential art and storytelling style. Comic book movies and TV shows (as we’ve gotten them in the new millennium) traditionally start at the beginning. People want to be there as our hero dons a mask for the first time or witness the tragedy of Uncle Ben’s death with them, any moment in which mortal man becomes …well, super. The idea that the new Amazing Spider-Man movie could bear the words “The Untold Origin” seems ludicrous since I’m pretty sure this is an origin well explored. But here we are anticipating a new story that’s the same story promising new information on what we already know.
Why? Because comic books are an impenetrable wall that no mere mortal can scale. Despite the fact that the tools are simple, despite the fact that basic characters and story concepts are now known around the world by the mass market, comics remain confusing. To the general public, the common knowledge may be there, but understanding lives underground with the Morlocks and Mole Men.
- December 16, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by Carla Hoffman
The Fifth Color | How to give the gift of comics this season
I bet you Ben never knows what to get Franklin every year...
Perhaps your family gathering is going to have way more kids than previous years. Maybe the moment is right for you to hand down some traditional comics reading to a son or daughter. Is your significant other a little more receptive toward your choice of literature these days? You could have even pulled a co-worker at your Secret Santa office party who likes to talk to you about the latest comic book movie. Personally, my brother gave me his comic collection when I was a kid, and I always like to try and give him a couple new ones in return, as a way of saying thank you and reminding him of his roots.
We all have reasons for giving comics and comic-related accessories this holiday season. Comics have been vetted in popular culture, can cover a dozen different interests and physical forms, and always have been a perfectly wonderful gift for any age or interest. In fact, I think we’d all appreciate a little recruitment drive to keep comics at the top of the charts and off cancellation lists!
I’m not saying it’s easy, though. Well, it might be. For some fair readers, you could be looking at a big pile of gifts already wrapped under your Christmas tree, taking a deep breath of satisfaction. Then again, you could be strapped for cash, gift ideas and time to make sure that you don’t show up somewhere empty handed. Or worse, you could be the giftee and all Grandma knows is that you like Batman. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a guide to all the best gifts this year? Well, there is, the fine folks at CBR made up a Holiday Gift Guide, while we here at Robot 6 reached out to comic pros to see what they recommended, and I could recommend no finer list made by dashing and intellectual folks.
Then again, what if this is odd gift shopping? Working retail, I meet the clueless, the frazzled, the fearful and the confused for whom a simple and eloquently put-together list would not be enough. So for you, who will still be shopping on Dec. 24, to anyone who has ever gotten two Batman toothbrushes as a gag gift, to anyone who might be sent out into the cold for the first time to find a comic book, this guide is for you.
This is your Fear Gift-self shopping guide.
- December 9, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by Carla Hoffman
The Fifth Color | Keep your eye on the Fantastic Generation Gap
What, did you think I was going to show the panel? Go buy this book!
There is a page in FF #12 that would knock Jerry Springer’s socks off. Not in trashiness, but in the complexity of the relationships of the people on panel. Let’s see who we have here: there’s an alternate Reed Richards who came from a collective of Reed Richards..es. There is the time-traveling Nathanial Richards, his not-quite father. Doctor Doom sits collared by the machinations of alter-Reed, while Kristoff demands justice for his not-exactly father and the inherited name of Doom. Did I mention there’s a Wikipedia entry that has hinted that Nathaniel Richards might actually be Kristoff’s biological father? Yeah, wrap your head around this, because this is key: the relationships of these people on this page are why no one should be dropping this title due to the return of the Fantastic Four.
Potential spoilers for Fantastic Four #600 and FF #12 after the jump!
- December 2, 2011 @ 04:00 PM by Carla Hoffman
The Fifth Color | What to do if your favorite series is canceled
In the future, all comics will look like this!
Holy hand grenade, it’s been a week of nasty cancellations over at the House of Ideas! Yesterday it seemed like it wouldn’t stop as smaller titles were stripped away seemingly far too soon. Ghost Rider feels like it only just got here, but that’s now ending with issue #8. X-23, a successful breakout character in her own right (and currently on my TV screen in Ultimate X-Men vs. Capcom 3) is gone with Kssue 20. We’ll also be saying goodbye to a personal favorite: Black Panther: The Most Dangerous Man Alive is ending as of #529. 2012 does not seem to be a good year for new ideas as, while I can’t say that a Kirby-created character and two male-derivative heroines are all that new, we’re losing some of the more fringe books while our core titles seem to be bringing up old fan favorites.
Then, while PunisherMAX is coming to a conclusion rather than a short and final stop, there’s a quote from a Marvel representative saying that “A big change is coming to the MAX universe and nobody can miss what we’ve got coming.” Couldn’t tell you why, perhaps it’s the littered canceled titles scattered before them, maybe it’s the fact that the MAX titles are a struggle to publish and promote, but this statement doesn’t rest any fears.
The marketplace is vast; I mean, have you seen a Diamond catalog? While I think it’s a little thinner that usual these days, that doesn’t mean it’s not a PHONE BOOK OF COMICS AND COMICS ACCESSORIES produced monthly. Sure, maybe a little more white pages than yellow, but that’s still a lot of published titles you may honestly never see. Or perhaps want to see, as the range and scope of subject matter extends far beyond super-heroes. Marvel itself publishes Halo and Sense and Sensibility comics, and then everything in between. And while I might think Jane Austen is a bore, someone reading right now might be willing to club me with a shoe for maligning the great Jane’s name (please don’t hit me with a shoe). One reader’s Gravity is another reader’s Sammi the Fish Boy. While every comic may have a fan, they might not always have an audience.
Marvel has canceled books before they hit the shelves, before retailers have had a change to order them, and I’m sure there’s even books pitched right now that might never see the light of day. What do we do? What can we do as readers to change such a system, and how do we keep the hope alive? Here are a few thoughts.
- November 18, 2011 @ 04:00 PM by Carla Hoffman
The Fifth Color | Defining Ultimate Comics
How Ultimate is Ultimate!?
Have you ever seen a word so often that it starts to lose its meaning? Louis CK has a great bit on the word ‘hilarious’, go check the link (right about the 1:38 mark, NSFW language) and you’ll see what I mean. Because it feels like the word “Ultimate” means nothing to me anymore. I don’t know what Marvel means by it, I don’t know why it’s there now instead of a new label, but it’s been on a lot of comics. Just as a word, the adjective has five definitions, all of them relating to a finite point. They’re all various shades of getting to an endpoint.
So what shade do we call this particular line of comics? At NYCC editor Sana Amanat said that it wouldn’t be right to put one label on them all, but one general theme of the Ultimate comics was of identity exploration, with characters like Miles Morales and Nick Fury coming into their own. I don’t think that’s enough. Identity exploration happens in all comics, and labels help you sell those comics. The word “Ultimate” needs to have meaning. Seeing that name should let the reader know what they’re getting, after all, Diet Coke, Cherry Coke and Coke Classic are all different types of soda, but looking at the label, I know exactly what I’m going to enjoy (heaven forbid it say Pepsi!). I believe the Ultimate line started out with such a label, that they were a way to market a particular type of story to a particular type of reader at their inception, but just through time and ever-changing story, the Ultimate name has lost its luster and clarity. As an adjective it can mean five different things, and I’m not even talking about nouns (grammar humor!).
Right now, we have four titles united by one word, all different facets of their totality. Sit down and take note–I’m looking at you, Marvel Marketing–because I’m going to explain this and tie it all together.
Continue Reading »
- November 11, 2011 @ 05:00 PM by Carla Hoffman
The Fifth Color | A new approach from the New Mutants
As the wordwide protests continue, Occupy Wall Street becomes more and more a part of our popular culture. Whether you’re holding a sign, reading about people holding signs or complaining about those signs, protests of this intensity are weighing in our thoughts. There’s a lot to ponder by questioning the establishment, finding a personal connection with hot-button social issues, and the division and unity in all of us.
See, now you just know I’m going to talk about the X-Men!
How can you not, when they are the go-to comic book metaphor to play and experiment with all sorts of social issues. Fear of the future, minority oppression, youth activism, why there’s even this MAJOR SCHISM that divides their public on how to achieve their goals. In the blue states- I mean, Wolverine’s camp, we have a return to the foundation of education and the protection of the next generation. In the red visor camp, we have a more aggressive approach, the idea that war is inevitable and the way to meet a world that hates and fears you is with heavy hitters, young and old. They even have a handy chart to know whose side you’re on (ooh, deja vu).
If you take a look at Cyclops and his Extinction Team (Really? What a terrible name), Dani Moonstar and her friends are listed as “Clean-up,” which one would think means some kind of X-Force-like hit squad (X-Force being mysteriously absent from these breakdowns). It’s a strange sort of listing, and once you read New Mutants #33 and understand what exactly these characters want to do, you’ll see how this might just be the answer for an entire out-of-place generation.
WARNING: We’ll be talking about New Mutants #33, so spoilers and nostalgia to follow. Grab a copy and read along!
- November 4, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by Carla Hoffman
The Fifth Color | Forward into the past with Marvel solicitations for January 2012
Oh Phoenix Force, we know you...
As most of you CBRians know, Marvel’s solicitations for January 2012 came out last Friday, so our look forward into the past is a little delayed. On the bright side, the first of 2012′s books seem like something that deserve a few more days reflection. After all, 2012 is the year it all comes together! You guys, there’s going to be an Avengers movie. A real, live action, big budget, A-list star Avengers movie! All Marvel’s rather crazy Hollywood ideas are paying off next summer and, with a little hard work, the House of Ideas could come to a beautiful fruition.
So while our celebratory May month is still off in the distance, the recently hung Chrismas decorations let me know that January is just around the corner. Can we get an idea of what next year will look like, through the first books to roll out at the start of the year? Let’s just read along and find out, shall we?
Continue Reading »
- October 28, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by Carla Hoffman
The Fifth Color | End of the line with Marvel’s December solicitations
That's a strange amount of whimsy from Matt Murdock...
Now, I will admit that the Distinguished Competition has given this month an air of finality. So many No. 1 issues, what could possibly come next? Tonight there will be drinks raised high and hands shaken to a job well done as their Wrap Party ends this publishing month at Golden Apple Comics. And it does seem a little final, doesn’t it?
It’s the perfect mood for looking ahead to December, where the last of the Marvel books published this year will leave 2011 not with a bang or a whimper, but with a dawn of things to come. I’m not saying it’s a very big dawn or a brilliant one either; right now, I will full admit things look kind of so-so for December at Marvel …
… then again, I have been wrong before, so let’s take a look at December’s books, shall we?
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- September 30, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by Carla Hoffman
The Fifth Color | X-Men history doesn’t repeat itself, it rhymes
X-Men: Schism - it's kind of like this
The sad truth is that comics aren’t real. While mankind may have actual mutations (and some of them are super cool), none of them really warrants a special school or a uniform. Fighting for acceptance and tolerance thankfully doesn’t come by fighting giant robots designed to kill you. And, I hate to say it, but declaring yourself a sovereign nation off the coast of San Fransisco takes more than just an OK from the mayor’s office. So there is no way for the X-Men to be real, and therefore we can’t hold them to a truly “realistic” point of view.
At the same time, however, we do need to be able to relate to these guys, and that’s something the X-Men do nicely with a theme of social justice, teenage angst and the ever-vigilant battle of acceptance. Recently, these basic concepts have been taken in much more broad of a sense than, say, when they first started. Characters have grown up, loved and lost, tried to sustain families, and had their numbers physically shrink and dwindle. And then Apocalypse drove a giant floating sphinx over their house. In ever-escalating stories, the base concept of the X-Men was devoured for bigger and more dramatic concepts. In today’s comic market, it’s hard to keep our interests, and some days you have to try something new on top of something else new to keep things fresh and exciting.
Then again, going back to basics doesn’t hurt either, and X-Men: Schism seems to be on its way into familiar territory. A clear example of how the world hates and fears mutants, Sentinel proliferation as a nice metaphor for our own nuclear-weapons issues, old villains returning with new faces and a clear motivation that is nothing but evil — this is starting to feel like the comics I used to read, just revved up with a new engine and a new coat of paint. Hope and her crew are a great way to keep close to heart the “youth against the world” sentiment of the X-Men as they fight for the future.
Everything seems to be right on track … so why is Wolverine out of his canucklehead mind?!
(WARNING: Spoilers ahead for X-Men: Schism #4, so grab your copy and read along!)
Continue Reading »
- September 23, 2011 @ 05:00 PM by Carla Hoffman
The Fifth Color | A look at what could have been from the Thor DVD
Thor didn’t come with a tiny hammer and I, my friends, am sorely disappointed.
I’ve been pretty excited for this movie to come out on DVD since I saw it back in May. Despite Captain America: the First Avenger‘s incredible achievement in crediting Marvel Studios as a real-live movie-making studio rather than a tentative wing of a funnybook publishing arm, I still like Thor better. I love the tone of the film, I love the music and the actors, I love the costumes and the pageantry, and I wanted to take it all home from the moment I walked out of the theater.
A lot of movies I adore come out with special packaging for their big release, and chain and online stores will often stock a limited thingamajig with your DVD sale. Iron Man came in a metal case when you bought it from FYE, and when my friend bought the first “Bayocalypse” Transformers movie, there was a bevy of different boxes, statuettes and editions he could choose from. It’s a nice bonus to being a nerd sometimes: we get cool stuff for liking cool stuff.
When I went to FYE this Tuesday to grab myself a copy of Thor, we chatted about this as I bought my very plain edition of the Thor movie. No tiny hammer. No statuette. The box wasn’t even shaped like his head. The only extras were a digital copy (that refuse to ever work when I download them), some Avengers hype, an awesome little short on Agent Coulson (see it here!) and some interesting featurettes on how this movie was made. All of them seemed very short but were more than simply accolades for all the people working on the film. I actually feel like I learned something about the production’s process, which brings me to the best part of the DVD that isn’t the movie, the deleted scenes.
In the featurettes, they mention that the director Kenneth Branaugh would take a lot of “one more” shots, giving the actors new and interesting directions as they went along. Some of these off-the-cuff innovations weighted Thor’s more dramatic moments stunningly, but that got me thinking about the choices that didn’t make it into the movie. What did they want to do before they shot this scene this way? Going through the deleted scenes, you could almost use them as puzzle pieces, trading one exchange out for another to make a slightly different movie for a different audience.
Join me, won’t you, as I take a look at these deleted scenes from Thor and try to figure out what could have been.
- September 17, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by Carla Hoffman
The Fifth Color | This Banner…This Hulk!
Apologies for my absence, but I think it all worked out in the end, because this week we celebrate the end of Greg Pak’s six-year run on the Incredible Hulk. And we do so by talking about someone else’s comic.
Fantastic Four #51 is titled “This Man… This Monster.” It’s one of those inspiring cover blurbs like “Spider-Man No More!” and “This Issue: Everybody Dies!” Phrases which catch the eye and demand you read the book. “This Man…This Monster!” is about the struggle of man… versus also man; our darker parts or outer appearance versus who we really are, inside. You’ll notice there is nothing between the man and the monster, just an ellipsis. It’s not “This Man AND This Monster,” which would suggest two different people, nor is it “This Man, This Monster” suggesting they are one and the same. Three little dots almost let the reader decide as to what exactly the inner struggle is. And that’s kinda what I’ve been doing with the Incredible Hulk throughout my adoration of the book.
No matter who he fought, the internal battle is key. It’s tortured scientist Bruce Banner versus his raging alter-ego in a never-ending stalemate over who gets to be human. I can’t say this is always the thrust of an issue or storyline, but it IS the thrust of the really good ones. The ones that make you think, and linger with you long after you’ve put the book away. We come for the “Hulk smash,” but stay for the “Hulk think.” And then Incredible Hulks #635 came along and blew my freakin’ mind.
Because after six years, the struggle is over. (A few SPOILERS after the jump!)
- September 9, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by Carla Hoffman
The Fifth Color | Forward into the Past with Marvel for November 2011
I hate to start it out this way, but we have to talk.
Despite fan apathy, despite the louder bolder act from the Distinguished Competitor, Fear Itself is a mighty fine event book. It has a very easy premise that people unfamiliar with comics can get into (hey, you know Thor? It’s like all the bad guys are that strong now), it’s got that “Versus” style atmosphere where people can debate all day long on who should have really been the first down or defeated in the Worthy vs. Heroes, it’s got a super-powered upgrade coming up for us by Iron Man, there’s been some tragedy and some triumph, and coming up in October, we’ll have closure with an ending that multiple comics can build up or down from.
Fear Itself #7.1
Fear Itself #7.2
Fear Itself #7.3
Or maybe not.
Remember in the last Lord of the Rings movie when they just kept having to tie up so many loose ends or add so much finality to the main story that it just felt like the audience just didn’t know where to applaud in a well-made film? Or even worse, you drank a really big soda during a three-hour+ movie and really wanted it to have a firm sense of a finish so you could escape? Yeah.
So, thanks to some New Math numbering by Marvel, it looks like #7 of Fear Itself really doesn’t end so much for our heroes because come November, we’re getting a Captain America ending, an Iron Man ending and a Thor ending (Depending on how well you do playing through the game, does this unlock any achievements?) If your mini-series is seven issues long, you should be able to tell me a complete story between issues #1 and #7. Afterwards, if there is a banner theme running around the books as they’ve done historically since Avengers: Disassembled and even further with some of the old annual arcs, so be it. I think, as comic readers, we’re more familiar with picking up what looks good coming out of a major event and deciding for ourselves that hey, let’s see the prologue with a certain character after the book is finished. Even a Fear Itself: Thor #1 one-shot would be more preferable, because at least with some distance from the main series, it feels like we’re moving on and not buying a very sneaky issues #8, 9 and 10.
Yeah, it’s probably too much of a sour note to play against the backdrop of a very solid set of storytelling, but man. What a way to start November.
Let’s see what else is coming from the House of Ideas in November 2011, shall we?
Continue Reading »
- August 26, 2011 @ 03:30 PM by Carla Hoffman
The Fifth Color | Your supporting cast and you
Spider-Man can be on every team!
So, yeah, it looks like Fantastic Four, one of the most important comics to come from the House of Ideas, will return for its 600th issue. A momentous occasion to be sure, as a little less than a year seems to be about enough time for people to understand Johnny Storm’s place on the team, what makes the Fantastic Four different without one of its founding members and, hopefully, we’ll all appreciate him a little more now that he’s … well, on the cover. Gotta wait for the issue to be super-sure, but let’s give the boys in the Bullpen the benefit of the doubt and say that the Human Torch is back to stay.
Technically, he’s been gone for nine months, an auspicious amount of time as the rest of his team has somewhat given birth to an absolutely new idea: the Future Foundation. A sort of in-house Illuminati, if you will; the same old adventuring team paired off with its greatest villains, looking to safeguard all their interests at once. The white-and-black uniforms don’t really do that idea justice, do they? That’s a lot of gray area to be working with. And in the end, it was all masterminded by a little girl named Valeria.
The Richards’ kids have their own plot, their own motivations and their own secrets to keep. These two supporting characters have taken a lot of the center stage, both in Future Foundation and even in Fear Itself (seriously, go read Book Five and tell me these kids don’t deserve their own title). Franklin’s been around for years, an interesting new generation that actually was born and grew into an independent character as we read. He’s like the child actor who grows up and gets his own prime-time TV show.
Tell me that’s not cool. Tell me that seeing background or supporting characters step into the foreground and, sometimes, even get their own books is not a masterful trick of storytelling. Writer Jonathan Hickman wasn’t telling the story of the Death of Johnny Storm, he was telling us of the Rise of Franklin and Valeria. And now when November hits, Future Foundation stories will have gotten their foundation, so to speak, and support themselves as their own title while the newly reformed FF can go have a different style of adventure.
More about character balance, the size of your supporting cast and M.O.D.O.K. fighting Nazis after the break …
- August 19, 2011 @ 04:00 PM by Carla Hoffman