Review – Avengers: Solo

The Cover of Avengers: Solo #1

I’ll be the first to confess that until I picked up Avengers: Solo, I had never read anything by Jen Van Meter. The only reason number one went into our pull list was because my partner EvilBob had met Jen at GeekGirlCon, and she was so nice that we decided that we’d give this title a shot.

I’m not an Avengers fan. The closest I ever got was the Ultimates line, but Ultimates vol. 3 kind of ruined it for me. I like some of the Avengers individually, but when they team up, I’m put off.

Fortunately, Solo focuses on (surprise) a single Avenger. I always remember Hawkeye from the Great Lakes Avengers days. It seemed that he played one of two roles, played for laffs or far too serious. I try to ignore it most of the time, because I have a soft spot for the regular guy on the team of world shakers.

Van Meter surprised me with her take on Hawkeye. He’s played as both funny and serious, whatever the situation calls for. I laughed out loud at some of his lines, and I took seriously most of his serious moments. Here we see Hawkeye as what he really is: a more-or-less regular guy surrounded by Gods and monsters, icons and billionaires and all the bad guys out there. Somehow, he still maintains his humanity, without going completely bat-shit crazy.

Roger Robinson does a great job on the art, keeping us focused on what we should be focused on. I’m afraid to say that I really wasn’t paying all that much attention to the art though, because after issue 1, the story hooked me.

Look, I want you to read the story, so I’m going to skip the part where I tell you most of the gritty, spoilerific details. Trust me, this is the best Avengers story I’ve read in a long time. It beats out everything, including the original Ultimates. Basically, Hawkeye gets to play detective, and the people he’s helping don’t want the Avengers involved.

That’s an important thing. Hawkeye isn’t saving people, he’s helping them. He’s not treated like an Avenger. He doesn’t call all the shots. Instead, he collaborates with people, and treats them with respect.

On to the one spoiler I’m giving. If you don’t want spoilers, stop reading here and just buy the comic!

One of the characters in the comic is transgendered. When we get the reveal, Hawkeye treats him like a real person.

No shock, no “what the !@#*?”, none of the usual bullshit we get when a trans character comes out in comics. It’s the most touching, poignant moment I’ve read in a long time…in any format. Better yet, there was a twitter conversation involved:

Twitter proof that Jen is awesome.

“…behave the way I think a hero ought…”

That bit made Jen Van Meter my new hero. Without my even realizing it until I was writing this today.

<rant>

I work in a restaurant in Missoula, MT. I work with people who routinely, without, I think, realizing it, make a lot of racist, sexist, homophobic and transphobic comments and jokes. I need this job. Before getting it, I was unemployed for over a year. So, I didn’t rock the boat much. After reading the reveal in issue #4, something changed.

I wasn’t behaving the way a hero ought. I was being part of the problem. I was using the fact that I’m a cisgendered white guy who is presumed to be straight to avoid having to deal with bullshit. I was hiding.

After reading #4 and having this brief twitter conversation, I stopped that. I’ve called people out on their malarkey. I’ve stopped ignoring comments meant to make people who scare someone feel small. I don’t put up with hate for hate’s sake anymore. I haven’t gotten into trouble at work yet, but it’s probably only a matter of time.

You know what? I don’t care any more. The world needs more heroes, especially in a time where the men running for President of the United States seem to want to roll us back to 1950. When a state wants to require a woman to have an unnecessary medical procedure that violates her person in order to have an abortion.

Fuck.

That.

Noise.

Without realizing it, Jen Van Meter made me behave the way I think a hero ought.
</rant>

 
That right there is the greatest achievement I’ve seen in comics. I read a lot of them, but very, very few have inspired me to change behaviors. Avengers: Solo reminds us that heroes are out there, and that there is more to being a hero than being one of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

If you can find them, buy the loose issues from your local comic shop. If you want the trade, Amazon.com has it here.

The Good: Um, everything? Hands down one of the best hero stories out there right now.

The Bad: It seems really unlikely that we’ll ever see J again, and that is a crying shame.

Wheels Are In Motion

My partner and I have tried to do art stuff together. As anyone who read TRANSLUNAR (available for FREE here) knows, most apes have more innate artistic talent than I do. I’m still trying to draw, but I know I’ll never be great at it. So my partner makes these fabulous things in like, five seconds (view them here or on Twitter as @evilbob_mt). In the time it takes me to draw a crude interpretation of a poorly shaded sphere, Evil Bob makes around 14,328 really great ink over pencil sketches.

Lately, it’s been chibis, those little stylized things that punch you in the neck with their cuteness. We got to talking, and came up with an Idea. You can tell it’s important, because the “i” is capitalized. That lead to an evening of character design, scripting, and arguing about the relative shapes of goblin heads. Also, horny viking jokes, but that’s not that far out of the ordinary.

Evil Bob’s recap of the evening made me think that I should say something about it, because I have a sneaking suspicion that I’ll be far too busy scripting for a while to really maintain Fishy Intent. It took a lot not to immediately open up Google Docs and start going when I sat down. But I promised to keep you guys in the loop, so here we are.

When we know more, I’m sure you’ll be the first to know. Now excuse me, I have to counteract the cuteness of the chibi style with some good old-fashioned psychological horror and graphic violence.

Eureka!

I am the first person to admit that the Indigo Girls are not usually in my playlists. I don’t dislike them, but musically, they are not my favorite sound. In 1988, they released their self-titled début album. The song “Closer to Fine” peaked at number 26 on the modern rock chart. Sometime in the early nineties (I’m guessing about 1992), I heard the track. It stuck with me enough that I recognize the song when it comes on the radio, and I don’t automatically change stations when I hear it.

Trust me, I’m going somewhere with this.

I’ve tried to work on TANKERS for a while now. I spent time developing characters, writing a first issue, restructuring the first issue a few times and swearing. I keep hitting a wall. I gave up for a while and worked on another project until I realized I was having the same problem.

I had a lot of cool stories, but they weren’t really going anywhere.

This isn't working...

Abandoned fishing boat, Belderg Harbour (Oliver Dixon) / CC BY-SA 2.0

I’ve brooded about this for a few weeks. Today, the canned music at the restaurant I work at played “Closer to Fine.” The song is catchy, but the lyrics that have always resonated with me go like this:

Well darkness has a hunger that’s insatiable,
And lightness has a call that’s hard to hear

Suddenly, I knew where the story was going, how it was going to get there, and what I needed to do. I had a goddamn theme.

The point here, if there is one, is that inspiration comes from weird places, and every story needs a theme tying it together. Now please excuse me, I have to go write some things.

More Backup Ranty Goodness

Over at Newsarama, we have learned that as well as Batman, Detective Comics is also going to a 40 page, $3.99 format. The additional pages will be story content, according to John Rood, the Executive Vice President of DC for Sales, Marketing and Business Development.

So, Batman is for sure getting backups featuring tie ins to the main story. What is Detective getting?

The short answer is we’re not sure yet. Here are a few suggestions:

  • Give us characters we haven’t seen enough of! Look, everyone loves the Bat. But a lot of us love his supporting cast. We understand that it’s expensive to print runs of comics, but here is the perfect opportunity to give fans of the GCPD, or of the many other neat characters who live in Gotham a bit of something to look forward to.
  • Show the women some love! There are a ton of great female characters that DC has basically ignored in the relaunch: Renée Montoya, Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown, Josie MacDonald and Romy Chandler, just to name a few. Give them some decent screen time. You’ve promised us some Steph Brown and Cass Cain, but so far, we haven’t seen either of them. This is your chance to make it right, on the cheap.
  • Give the GCPD it’s due! Gotham Central was one of my favorite titles. Sure, now probably isn’t the time to relaunch the book, but using a backup in Detective Comics makes perfect sense. They are all detectives, after all.
  • Show me some Batgirls! Okay, I’ve already mentioned Cass Cain (aka Batgirl and the Black Bat), and Stephanie Brown (aka the Spoiler, Robin and Batgirl). Both of them are fan favorites, and they both have a history together. Why not show them doing their thing? Fans who don’t read Detective (like me) would buy issues with either of them. They would have a heart attack and buy several copies of any issue with both of them. Want to get even more fans screaming with delight? Do a Misfit run. She tried her hand as the new Batgirl in old continuity, why not bring her troubled, homeless self back?
  • Answer the Question! Look, I loved Renée as the Question, but that seems to be off the table now. So, bring back Vic Sage. He’s a detective, and I loved him in 52. Let a whole new generation appreciate the Question. Even better, use the backups to have Vic train Renée as the new Question. (On another note, if you do this, please put Renée on the Birds of Prey! Her appearance in Gail Simone’s run was inspired. More, please.)
  • Classic villains! Whatever happened to the Riddler? Or Killer Croc? Or Bane? Tell us in a backup!
  • Do some test marketing! Not sure if there is enough interest in a character? Give them a backup. Watch the sales rise and know that fans love Stephanie Brown, and Cass Cain, and Renée Montoya. Experiment. Take chances. People are buying Detective anyway, so take a few risks. They could pay off!

If any of these happened in the pages of Detective, I’d put it in my pull list in a heartbeat. So, listen up, DC. You have a chance to right some of the wrongs you’ve done in the past.

Batman and Backups

Over at The Source, DC’s official blog, they’re talking about backup stories. Starting in issue 8, the comic

will feature the first of a series of back-up stories exploring the dark history of the Court of Owls, the mysterious and malevolent secret society wreaking havoc upon Gotham City in the ongoing series.

The Source Blog, January 9 2012

 

SPOILERS AHEAD!

I love backup stories. The backups from the new Action Comics are wonderful. Steel has appeared, but the story of Jonathan and Martha Kent really shined, and made me hope that Action would keep doing little stories at the end of a larger comic. I’m happy to pay an extra dollar for these gems.

Now, back to Batman. The price goes up a dollar, and we get…more Court of Owls stuff. For those of you unfamiliar with the Scott Snyder run on Batman, the Court of Owls is a mysterious organization that has done bad stuff in Gotham since the town’s founding. They are responsible for the death of at least one of Bruce Wayne’s ancestors, and possibly more.

Why do we need a backup for this?

Look, I like the Court of Owls stuff. It’s nice to see Batman not completely controlling Gotham City. It’s nice to see him wrong. But to me, a backup story should avoid direct tie ins to the Main Event. A backup can work if it’s coming at the Main Event from another direction, but this sounds more like a history lesson.

If we need history, why not include it in the Main Event? At least some of the backup is told from the POV of Alfred’s father. Neat, but I’m paying an extra dollar? When that could be included in the Main Event as diary pages, flashbacks or any number of other bits?

Okay, I get that it’s cool. Snyder has a great history of doing backup stories. I would rather, though, get a feel for the story from other characters that I care about. Say, Detectives Harvey Bullock, Renée Montoya or Crispus Allen. Even Commissioner Gordon would work. Seeing them working the case from a different angle would be interesting, and allow Gotham to develop from a viewpoint we rarely get to see.

Gotham City is a character in most Bat titles. It needs another point of view to develop it. The Wayne family is important, but there are other people in Gotham. I’d like to know how they see the city and the stories that have shaped it so much.

People Making A Difference In Comics Part 1

These people are making a difference in comics, at least to me. They’re changing the way I look at comics, doing really spectacular work, and generally kicking ass and taking names. You may agree, you may not, but I don’t care. This is my list, after all. I love these people. I’ll spread some more love around another time, but these were the first to spring to mind.

In no particular order:

Megan Lavey-Heaton
Megan Lavey-HeatonMegs is part of the team behind Namesake, my favorite web comic. She and Isa (see below) are the reason I was thinking about this today.

I’m scripting a comic, but realistically speaking, the chances of breaking into comics right now is very, very wee. I’ve been toying with the idea of publishing it online, but I keep coming back to the fact that I can’t bring myself to do that until it is at least one tenth as awesome as Namesake. That’s much more awesome than it is right now.

I enjoy a lot of web comics, but Namesake made me realize that a comic on the web could be more than a replacement newspaper funny. There is a story, rather than a series of comedic events. There is character development. While reading the comic, I’ve laughed, I’ve cried and I’ve cringed in horror. If there was any justice in the world, Meg and Isa would be able to work on this full time and make as much money as they could want off of it. If there was justice, I’d be able to find issues of Namesake at my FLCS, as well as trades and figurines of Emma, Warrick and the Card Soldiers.

Instead, I read Namesake on the internet and look forward to the day when I can buy their first book.

Isabelle Melançon
Isabelle MelançonIsa is the genius behind the art of Namesake (and some of the story), so everything I said above applies here. But there is more!

Isa is one of the most talented artists out there. She captures the essence of every character in the story perfectly. She uses color better than just about anyone else out there. Often, when I see a black and white image with a splash of color on it, I just shrug and think to myself “Wow, that’s gimmicky.” I have never said that reading Namesake.

By turns joyous, pensive, creepy and outright terrifying, Isa reminds me that art can make a comic better. I’m a reader first, and look at the art second. Except when I’m reading Namesake. It is literally the only comic I’m reading where I could not tell you if I like the art or the writing more. Every other comic I’m reading right now the art comes second. Way to go, Isa!

Ed Brubaker
Ed BrubakerI am a sucker for crime stories. No one writes crime like Ed Brubaker. I recently had the opportunity to read his Criminal series, and it knocked my socks off. Okay, not literally, but it was close. If I hadn’t been wearing shoes at the time, my socks would have come right off.

Look, any writer that is willing to tell a story where the villain just fucking wins is rethinking how to do his job. He’s now writing Fatale, a book that I read yesterday. I need to read it again, because in horror noir things are never what they seem to be. Brubaker makes me hopeful that it’s still possible to tell the story you want to tell, rather than what editorial wants you to tell.

Jen Van Meter
Jen Van MeterI’ll be honest, I had never heard of Jen until my partner met her at GeekGirlCon. We only picked up one of her comics because we felt bad that she was so nice and we hadn’t read anything she had done.

Damn, am I glad that we did that. Avengers: Solo has somehow made the Avengers relevant again. It’s a five part mini-series, and I’m really, really sad that it’s going to be over soon. Jen’s Hawkeye is spot on. He isn’t played just for laughs (though laughs happen), he isn’t just dark and broody (though he has his moments) and he isn’t a complete fuck up. He’s a person, and that’s rare in superhero comics. Jen makes it work, and for that I’m grateful as hell.

Greg Rucka
Greg RuckaI fell in love with Greg Rucka reading Gotham Central (also Ed Brubaker, it must be admitted. Seriously, whoever thought to put them together is a genius.) Then I read Stumptown. Now I’m hooked. Want more? Greg is writing the Punisher.

I’ve never been a Punisher fan. I read the first Garth Ennis run years ago, and I was much younger then. It seemed cool at the time, but rereading it has been…unsatisfactory. It did not stand the test of time. Frank Castle talks too damn much.

Rucka, on the other hand, hardly bothers with Frank Castle dialogue. He treats the Punisher more like a force of nature, something that happens to people. He’s not a hero. We know that, but Rucka makes us feel that. The stars are people around Castle, the victims the Punisher is avenging, the cops who have to deal with the fallout. It is one of three Marvel books I’m reading.

Oh, and the sound of Detectives Clemons fiddling with the knife from issue #7 still haunts me.

Work Is Begun

I’ve only written a page, but writing has officially begun on TANKERS #1. Now I just need to finish it and find an artist.

NaNoGraphicMo is nigh!

Last year, I wrote a 48 page graphic novel for NaNoGraphicMo. Participants wrote and created art for a European length GN, in the span of 30 days. It was frustrating, enlightening and maddening. I’m really proud to say that I did it, and I had a blast watching everyone else who was participating.

I learned a lot of valuable lessons last year. First and foremost, I am not an artist. I’m an okay writer, but drawing is not my thing. I manipulated photos for last years insanity, and that was enough to drive me crazy. It also means that I’m not quite satisfied with how Translunar turned out.

I want to do it again (and it starts tomorrow!), but I’m not sure that I can handle the art again. Instead, I’m giving myself a different challenge.

I’ve had two ideas floating around for stories (read about them here) lately. I’m going to spend the month of November writing five issues of one of them. That is 110 pages of comic scripted. In thirty days. At two pages of script per page of final comic, I’m looking at 220 pages of writing. That comes out to 7 1/3 pages of script per day.

And here I was, worried that this wouldn’t be as challenging.

The screaming starts tonight at midnight. If you’re on twitter, look for the hashtag #nanographicmo. Check out the Nanographicmo website. If I can do it, you can do it, probably better.

Torn…

Have you ever had two projects competing, sumo wrestler-like, in your brain? I have, and I’ve never been good at prioritizing. I’ve actually got three ideas now, but everyone knows that you never get to item number three on the old to-do list. The other two are rolling around like behemoths in my mind, trying to incapacitate the other, or at least knock it out of the ring.

Well, I live in America, and we say we’re a democracy, right? So, I’ll put it to a vote. I’ll even give you some information so you can base your vote on something other than flipping a coin. Of course, this is America, and we’re actually a Republic, so don’t think that your vote counts for much beyond public opinion polling. I’m in love with both of these stories, and this might be an exercise is figuring out which one I love just a tiny bit less.

Here are the bare bones of the two projects I’ve got going on now. You can make your opinion known in the sidebar at the right.

TANKERS

I did some teaser work for this a while ago, and it’s been developing more since then. The basic concept here is retro sci-fi. Imagine, if you will, a world where the Second World War turned out differently. The British, in their darkest hours, tried every crazy thing they could think of to turn the tide of the war. One of them worked.

Growing humans rapidly from a single sample helped the British win the war, but the ability to fill an empty mind with the knowledge of the greatest soldier of the day pushed them over the finish line. Training troops went from months to days, and growing troops went from years to weeks. With the glut of identical troopers, the British never needed any of the Allies. With little thought for the unintended consequences, the program is rushed into production.

After the defeat of the Nazi Reich, Great Britain found itself with an enormous standing army, and nothing to do with it. Rather than have hands become idle, the Empire continues to expand.

Told through the eyes of a squad of clones (also called tankers), the story will weave through the war years and the uneasy expansion of the Empire. The tankers deal with enemies inside and out of the Empire, and with their own government’s difficulties dealing with their existence. Along the way, we’ll learn how King George VI deals with his tankers need for women, how the French Resistance deals with clones, and how America reacts to the threatened Canadian border.

PALADIN

PALADIN is a direct result of me reading way too much Greg Rucka lately. This story was a throw away idea for much of the last year, until I realized that it was actually much more interesting if I rearranged the events a bit.

Virgil Caine was a Minneapolis cop, until he took the fall for a botched response to an Occupy Minneapolis protest. His career stalled, reputation tarnished and his future bleak, Virgil does the only thing he can think of: resign in disgust.

The story should have ended there, but a few years later things have gotten worse. MPD is talking about going on strike, the state government is talking about shutting down again, and the 99% are still getting shafted. Oh, and Virgil’s partner in the P.I. business just turned up dead, and his ex-partner is leading the investigation. When she’s told to back-burner the case, things start to go bad.

Through a backdrop of civil unrest, paranoia, backroom dealing and unexpected love, Virgil starts what he thinks is a quest for vengeance. Eventually, he comes to terms with a situation that has gone from worse to even worse. PALADIN tells the story of a lost man finding his (admittedly violent and illegal) way in a world that is giving up on itself.

Back From The Edge

So, after spending a few weeks packing all of our worldly goods and hauling them across county lines, I found myself in the local grocery store at 0100 looking for a single honeycrisp apple, because I really wanted one. I’d been suffering from stress related dementia and a sinus headache that just wouldn’t go away, and let me tell you something, honeycrisp apples make everything better.

Whilst wandering the ails of the local fooditorium, I found myself engrossed in an elaborate fantasy wherein I was Batman’s new sidekick, along with Damian as Robin. My sole purpose for the team up was to put two in the head of the Joker, because Batman clearly didn’t have the stones to save the lives of potentially thousands of Gothamites. Damian totally understood me, by the way.

Anyway, after putting rounds on target Batman got upset, and the freakin’ Secret Six (all eight of them from the later part of Simone’s recent run) showed up to watch my back. King Shark was a really nice shark, and Catman totally hit on me during the banter phase of the showdown.

I never really found out how it ended, because I had to drive to my new small-town Montana home. I like to think that I would have hooked up with Blake, but resisted the urge to join the Six. Instead, I ate half my apple and passed out for thirteen hours.

Needless to say, I’ve missed writing here. The move and resulting illness has knocked me down, but I’m getting back up. NaNoGraphicMo is coming up, and I’ve got solid outlines for two projects.

Expect more rambling soon.