Notes On A Film: John Carter

This is not a review of a film, it is a question about a film:

Why did the media rag on John Carter so much?

Because I watched a perfectly enjoyable fantasy adventure film, and I’m completely bemused by the treatment the film received. Is it the greatest film ever? No. Is it the worst film ever? No. It’s simply a good adaptation of a book, with beautiful scenery, a conflicted central character, a strong female character, ships that sail on light, four-armed green aliens, adventure, sword fighting, bad guys, mystery and excitement. What was everyone’s problem?

I believe it was a case of 'When legend becomes fact, print the legend' (from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance). For 'legend', read 'story', i.e. not the truth, not the facts, but the fabrication. This influenced all reporting about the film – jokes about the film were made instead of talking about it because it fit the legend instead of the facts. The facts: the film is pretty enjoyable. But this doesn't fit the story. The story is the money. This was a Disney live-action film that cost ~$200 million (plus marketing), and that was all that mattered. Even Mark Kermode, a passionate and intelligent film critic, pressed Andrew Stanton on the money aspect, when it should have been about the film. (But Kermode found the film boring, so it was easier to fit to the legend. But always take Kermode's views on sci-fi with a pinch of salt – he doesn't like or care about the original Star Wars trilogy – and the only genre he cares about is horror.)

The quality of the film didn’t matter – the only aspect that mattered was how much it cost. I stopped reading articles about the film when the budget was mentioned. Yes, films are expensive, CGI films more so, and it’s a gamble whenever a film is made. However, it’s only because of journalists talking about it that we know about this stuff in the first place. I don’t care – I want to watch a film, made by professionals, for entertainment. This film succeeded. It wasn’t perfect but it was enjoyable. You could see where lots of other films have appropriated ideas (George Lucas has stolen big chunks of it: an intelligent princess fighting against oppressors, a loyal pet-like alien, arena scenes where heroes fight against large monsters, the desert as a setting for an alien world) but it was enjoyable in its own right, despite the fact that the original stories have inspired so many other films (the first story, published as a book as A Princess Of Mars, was first serialised as Under The Moon Of Mars in a pulp magazine 100 years ago).

I liked the film – it’s an entertaining adventure on an alien planet, with great CGI aliens in the Tharks and their eight-legged steeds, a plot with several layers of villainy, a protagonist who has a character arc from avoiding causes to taking on the responsibility of leadership for the sake of many others, flashes of humour, and a sense of a story instead of a collection of set pieces linked together with talking bits. I’ve never read the books, but the film made me want to read them. So can we get past discussing the economics of a multi-billion-dollar corporation, please? Are we accountants? I don’t want money analysis – let’s talk about the films.

Notes On A Comic Book: Mysterius The Unfathomable

Mysterius The Unfathomable #1–6 by Jeff Parker and Tom Fowler

This is an oddly charming creator-owned series published by Wildstorm in 2008 about a selfish mystic/magician/magical expert called Mysterius. We meet him when he finds his new ‘Delfi’ – Delfi is the name he gives all his assistants – at a séance that goes awry when the circuit is broken and he loses his client in the other dimension (although he does get him back eventually). His new assistant is a young black woman who follows him because she saw what was going on at the séance. Because of this, Mysterius decides she should become his new assistant (causing her to lose her job as a journalist in order to acquire her for the position), so we get to ‘meet’ him through her eyes – he’s been around for years, hiding in plain sight as a mystic, with his Pullman coach attached to a passenger train and his Mysterium (a sort of sanctum sanctorum) and his ability to move through doorways into other places far away.

The first case they have is a wealthy man who develops a rash of tattoos on his body of the names of the prostitutes he has used, which is an embarrassment in case his wife finds out. He is an auctioneer who turned down the sale of an arcane object due to insufficient funds; it turns out that the buyer was a witch (hence the skin curse) who used paper enchanted to look like cash for the deposit but didn’t have any money in a bank for the payment. Naturally, there is a link to Mysterius’s past – Vinton Du Lac, the first openly practising Satanist, with whom Mysterius had a run-in in the 1960s (shown in flashback). And, as Mysterius says, there are no coincidences … Meanwhile, the man who suffered at the séance has started to see devils in the children’s books of Doctor Gaust: Mysterius recognises the names in the books as the names of Elder Demons, disguised in the form of nonsense poetry, but with the same meter and rhythm as pre-Sumerian spirit chants. This means that the demons can enter this dimension, so Mysterius and Delfi have to enter their dimension (in which everything is day-glow and the dialogue is all in rhyme). There they find Gaust, who deliberately wrote the books so that he could achieve power, and who wants to keep Mysterius and Delfi captive. They escape but only into the hands of the witch who cursed their original client, who is working for Du Lac. He is becoming a god and needs other magicians out of the way; trapped in a burning man with the magicians, it’s at this point that Delfi snaps when she realises how selfish her new boss is and quits, which leaves a lot to finish in the final issue, but Parker does in style.

This is a packed and fast-moving comic book – the panels are dense with story and information, and the narrative doesn’t hang around. It’s a story which has to set up its own universe quickly and efficiently, which is impressive for a world based on magic – stories about magic can be problematic due to the lack of rules and structure, but this book manages the trick (if you’ll pardon the pun). Parker and Fowler have created a lead character who isn’t necessarily likeable yet he tries to do the right thing despite himself. The art plays a big part in the appeal of the book and the character by being suitably quirky. Fowler is an excellent storyteller – the panel are set in a real world despite the oddness, and his transitions and camera angles move the story along at the same pace as the script. He also draws individuals, people who are instantly recognisable from their body shape and different faces – all the characters look like themselves and nobody else. Mysterius has a bulbous nose and a thin body shape but with a noticeable pot belly, not the way ‘heroes’ are usually portrayed. He also draws weirdness well – the other dimensions and the Elder Demons and the creatures used by Du Lac. It’s cartoony but with a dirty edge to it – I was reminded of the strange body proportions of Larry Stroman with a European style plus a soupcon of Brendan MacCarthy for good measure. A very enjoyable book indeed.

Writer Top Five: Greg Rucka

I’m not sure where I stole this idea from but it seemed a nice adjunct to my posts about comic book artists I like, so I thought I’d go through the list of writers who have the most comics in my collection (from this post), starting with writers who were just outside of the Top Ten, giving a list of my favourite Top Five works by that writer. First up: Greg Rucka.

It was the Eisner award-winning Whiteout that brought Rucka to the attention of the comic book industry (although he was a successful novelist before that). Since then, Rucka has been a name to trust for the quality of his writing and research, and for his approach to story and character, known for his strong female characters in a male-dominated medium.

Before my Top Five, a few mentions of other work by Rucka that I also like: there is Felon, his Image book, which started out as an ongoing series but unfortunately ended up a four-issue mini-series. His current run on The Punisher is the best thing he’s done at Marvel. His first run on Detective Comics, where he introduced Sasha Bordeaux as bodyguard for Bruce Wayne, was great stuff, as was his mini-series Batman/Huntress: Cry For Blood. His run on Checkmate (which used Sasha again) was a great bit of superhero espionage politics, and his Wonder Woman run was a great take on the character (described as ‘superhero West Wing’) until it got derailed by Infinite Crisis. Stumptown is a great private detective series, which has the potential to get on this list (it’s only had the first storyline in four issues so far). I’m also enjoying his webcomic with Rick Burchett (Lady Sabre & The Pirates of the Ineffable Aether), which you should be checking out. As always, this is a list fixed in time – who’s to know whether his new project, the co-creator-owned Lazarus (with Michael Lark) at Image, which was just announced at San Diego, will end up on a revised list?

5. Atticus Kodiak novels
Atticus Kodiak is a professional bodyguard; the stories are the jobs that don’t run smoothly. Rucka writes lean prose that reeks of authenticity and puts you in the middle of everything; most other thrillers I’ve read subsequently seem flimsy and badly written in comparison (I’ve read a Jack Reacher story and it has nothing on Rucka). What’s even better is that the story of the character has progressed: Rucka could have kept the series as just bodyguard adventures, but he evolved the nature of Kodiak and the stories he tells with him. Highly recommended.

4. 52
This is my list, so I get to define the rules. Yes, Rucka is a co-writer on this year-long weekly series (along with Grant Morrison, Mark Waid and Geoff Johns), but I enjoyed the whole thing (albeit in trade paperback form) and particularly Rucka’s storyline centred on Renee Montoya and her development as the new Question. Rucka has often stated his love and admiration for Denny O’Neill’s The Question, and he was instrumental in the development of Montoya’s character, and these two factors come together here perfectly.

3. Detective Comics #854–863
This was Rucka’s second run on Detective Comics but this would have the greater impact: for these issues, Batman was no longer the star of his own book, because it was the official introduction of Kate Kane as Batwoman, the former soldier who quit because of her honour and her homosexuality. The story is more critically praised for the unbelievably phenomenal art from JH Williams, who was doing amazing things with panel transitions and page design and different styles for Kate Kane and Batwoman, but it wouldn’t have had the impact without the writing of Rucka and his great characterisation of the Kate. In addition, there were the back-up stories drawn by Cully Hamner about the further adventures of Renee Montoya as the Question, also written by Rucka, which make for a complete package of great comic books.

2. Gotham Central
Another co-writing credit, but I don’t care: Rucka and Ed Brubaker wrote some fantastic stories with the brilliant premise of focussing on the police who work in the shadow of Batman and his insane rogues’ gallery. I love these stories, perfectly meshing the police procedural with superheroes (who are more on the periphery), with great art from Michael Lark on a critically praised but low-selling title. It was on this title that Rucka would first develop Renee Montoya, which continued on through to The Question: Five Books of Blood.

1. Queen & Country
Inspired by the British TV series The Sandbaggers, Queen & Country was a great comic book that has all the hallmarks of a Rucka book: a strong female protagonist, realism, well-researched storylines, great characterisation and with something to say. An independent (it was published at Oni Press), black and white comic book that started in 2001, it was about Tara Chace, an operative of the Special Operations Section of the Secret Intelligence Service, it was about the politics and bureaucracy of being an agent, with some hard-hitting spy action thrown in. Smart, exciting, engaging and emotional, it lasted for 32 issues (each arc drawn by a different artist), with several mini-series and three novels of great writing from Rucka; whenever I think of Rucka, the first visual is always Queen & Country.

From A Library – Anno Dracula: The Bloody Red Baron

Kim Newman's Anno Dracula is a wonderful novel blending fiction and history, with characters appropriated from novels and films, into an alternative timeline (in which Dracula wasn't killed but has become consort to Queen Victoria and brought vampires into English society) detective story about a Jack the Ripper killing vampire prostitutes. I enjoyed it, so I was glad that the book was republished recently, perhaps due to the recent popularity of vampire-related material, which has also led to the republishing of the other books in the series. Anno Dracula: The Bloody Red Baron is the first sequel, set in 1918, thirty years after the first novel. After the events of Anno Dracula, Dracula has become the head of the Central Powers, and the First World War has occurred more or less as in history, but with vampires fighting alongside warm (non-vampire) soldiers, meaning that silver was the metal most donated from houses for bullets to kill vampires.

The focus of the story is the battles between fliers: on the German side, the 'Red Baron' Manfred von Richtofen and his squadron, Jagdgeschwader 1 (also known as the Flying Circus), and on the Allies side, the Cundall Condors; Edwin Winthrop is a warm man put in charge of the Condors and the task of discovering the secrets of JG1 at the Chateau du Malinbois (later named Schloss Adler, the castle in Where Eagles Dare), where scientists such as Doctor Caligari, Doctor Mabuse and Professor ten Brincken are performing experiments. Edgar Poe (he has ditched his stepfather's name), a new-born vampire, has been assigned to ghostwrite the autobiography of von Richtofen (to be used as propaganda for the war); Kate Reed, a journalist (and new-born vampire from Anno Dracula), is also trying to find out more about the Chateau, as she continues her crusade to reveal truths about the war – she made a name for herself revealing the ineptness of the French General Mireau (who is the character from the Stanley Kubrick's anti-war film, Paths of Glory); and Winthrop's disastrous first flight leads him on a dangerous and obsessive quest.

The book is well written and well researched, with the feeling of authentic details grounding the fantasy in a reality that puts the reader in the war. The First World War was a horrific war of attrition, as millions died in trenches for no reason, so there is a rather sad element to the book that sometimes stopped me from enjoying some aspects. Also, Winthrop's obsession is one of the main elements of the story, an unsympathetic aspect that I found distancing on occasion. Far more enjoyable are the interactions between Poe and Richtofen (I completely missed the great Peanuts joke the first time) and the flashes of humour that Newman laces throughout the book: for example, the Dracula double who is a Hungarian matinee idol from Lugos.

There is great fun in seeing real people used in this story with aspects of history: Herman Goring is present (a veteran air fighter pilot in the First World War, he was the real last commander of JG1); Winston Churchill is a new-born vampire who is part of Lord Ruthven's government (Churchill was part of the government during the war, becoming Minister for Munitions in 1917); von Richthofen had a brother Lothar, also in the book, and Manfred had silver cups made to mark his victories in the air; Mata Hari is seen as a spy executed in France (although know she is a vampire, so she is killed with silver bullets). However, the real fun is in the use of fictional characters from books, film and television (and I didn't recognise them all – you need the list at Wikipedia to help): some I recognise – such as the American pilot called Allard with a maniacal laugh, who is The Shadow; the English pilot Bigglesworth and his chums Algie and Ginger (I've never read the Biggles stories, but all British people grow up knowing about the character from all the various parodies); Doctor Moreau and Doctor Caligari – but most I didn't and I was glad for the annotations because the book is full of characters from a variety of different material. For example, I was delighted to discover that Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff, the German officer who befriends Poe at the Chateau, is the sympathetic German officer from the excellent The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp. Newman has a love for vampire stories and an encyclopaedic knowledge (Mark Kermode tells an anecdote in his book about how he uses Newman as an unofficial reference back-up when he needs to know something about a particular film), but he is also a very entertaining writer as well, so spot-the-reference is an amusing side game, instead of being the sole reason for the book's existence.

The book also contains a novella: Vampire Romance, set in 1923, starring Geneviève Dieudonné (from Anno Dracula, an elder with a different line from Dracula) and Winthrop, which is a '1920s Old Dark House weekend mystery', as Newman calls it, drawing on the works of Agatha Christie and PG Wodehouse – the plot involves a gathering of elder vampires at Mildew Manor, the home of 'Aunt Agatha' (from the Jeeves and Wooster stories), to select a new 'King' of vampires to replace Dracula. It also includes other characters from the previous books, such as Dravot and General Karnstein, as well as amusing world-building touches, such as the fact that Charlie Chaplin is the world's most famous film star due to his character, the Little Vamp. It is a charming little murder mystery tale, told in chapters alternating from the point of view of Geneviève and Lydia, Agatha's niece, who desperately wants to become a vampire at the hands (or teeth) or a dashing, brooding vampire, and has a very nice reveal (all good murder mysteries should have a good surprise in the reveal), which left me with a smile on my face. Two great stories in one book, which also contains some annotations from Newman and a treatment for a film that was inspired by the book, mean that this is highly recommended.

Notes On A Comic Book – Doctor Voodoo: Avenger Of The Supernatural

Doctor Voodoo: Avenger of the Supernatural #1–5 by Rick Remender and Jefte Palo

Doctor Strange is a great character but he can’t seem to sustain an ongoing series. There have been some excellent recent mini-series (The Oath by Brian K Vaughan and Marcos Martin, and Strange by Mark Waid and Emma Rios) but Stephen Strange has only been a regular character in New Avengers. Marvel (or, perhaps more accurately, Brian Michael Bendis) decided to shake things up for magical side of the Marvel universe: the Eye of Agamotto chose Brother Voodoo as the new Sorcerer Supreme; formerly the Houngan Supreme, he changed his title to Doctor Voodoo, and was given his own ongoing series. Why Marvel thought it work out better for him instead of Stephen Strange is beyond me, but good on them for trying something new. The series was cancelled after five issues, but I was curious to see what might have been.

The premise for the book is good: Jericho Drumm (with his dead brother Daniel) was created in 1973 but has mainly been an irregular guest star in the Marvel universe, so he is relatively inexperienced, meaning that he is constantly under the immense pressure of proving himself worthy of the title and one of the highest pressure jobs in the magical universe, even with the help of the previous incumbent as a mentor. (Palo does a great job on art – it’s moody and atmospheric and suitably arcane, with hints of early Mike Mignola – but he draws Stephen Strange far too old for my liking.) Also, there is a dark premonition from the Eye of Agamotto that adds urgency to proceedings, and there is the fact that Doctor Voodo does things differently: he uses dark magic for protection of his Hounfour, his sanctum, of which Strange disapproves. So this is a new and very different Sorcerer Supreme, with his voodoo side to contend with and, in his civilian identity, a clinic in New Orleans.

The story starts out hectic and at full pace: Doctor Voodoo goes to see Dormammu and binds him in his own dimension, before he gets attacked by Doctor Doom, who wants the Eye of Agamotto (there’s a lovely page by Palo when Doom enters, and Remender writes Doom really well), and they fight in the Everdimensions (another great page by Palo). The only thing that felt odd for the first issue where you are trying to hype your central character for a new series is that Doom beats Voodoo – Doom gets the Eye but drops it when it shows him something unexpected. (It is also odd that Marvel went with $3.99 for a first issue – not conducive to people trying new material.)

The second issue sees Drumm trying to recover in the realm where Doom left him, where his power doesn’t work; it’s a place he vaguely recognises as ‘unreal’ but he is unsure, unlike the reader, who is given a clue to the master of the realm, which explains everything that happens in the rest of the issue. There is a flashback/dream (drawn by Gabriel Hardman) back to Drumm’s youth in Haiti and an incident that still causes anguish. He escapes to Earth but finds the world is in trouble, overrun by evil; he meets Daimon Hellstorm, Son of Satan, who offers to help, and the truth is revealed – Nightmare has tricked Drumm into helping Nightmare back to Earth (I love the phrase ‘psychodermic mindphibian’ – comics are fabulous) and he has taken over.

Issue three starts with some back story, in another Hardman-drawn flashback, before Nightmare explains to Drumm what has happened and tricking Drumm to using an army of souls, which Nightmare uses to spread his infection across the world (except for Doom’s castle, where he uses an Actuality Shield, another phrase that made me smile). Fortunately, Drumm has his brother Jericho to help him – Jericho takes over Damion Hellstrom – but the Hood shoots Jericho, causing him to succumb to Nightmare’s influence.

The fourth issue shows Daniel helping Jericho by inhabiting his brother’s mind, in a flashback drawn by Alessandro Vitti that returns to Haiti and Daniel’s death and Jericho’s guilt, to snap him out of it and free himself from Nightmare’s influence by gazing into the Eye of Agamotto and escaping to Bondyé (seen in flashback in issue three). Nightmare has to change tactics (there are some cute panels of his control of various superheroes under his influence: Captain America and Hulk were funny, but best of all was Punisher being haunted by his children) with the aid of a magic-based army – Ghost Riders, Magik, Man Thing, Dracula – to attack Doom, to whose aid the Drumms have turned to protect reality.

The final issue has Voodoo and Doom defending reality in an epic and unexpected team-up. Jericho reads from the book of Vishanti to come up with a plan to stop Nightmare, using Daniel as ‘an Actuality Shield suicide bomber’ (I do love comics) – the plan works but then Doom absorbs Nightmare’s power (which was his plan since he left Jericho in Nightmare’s realm in issue one after walking away from the Eye) and demands the Eye. However, Jericho is smarter than that and had planned for a double-cross: the spell he read was a spell of trust, causing Doom to release his protection in the form of the Actuality Shield, allowing Daniel to possess Doom (‘Wow – lot of crazy gypsy swearing going on’) and for Jericho to throw Nightmare into Bondyé and save the day, and he even punches Doom in the face. Victory. (I do like when smartness wins the day, and the clever plotting from Remender.)

Strangely, there are two pages at the end of the book that reveal the villain for future stories that were never to be seen, and there is no explanation or a letters page (the previous issues had included the origin of Brother Voodoo by Roy Thomas). It’s a very odd end to a good book. Remender writes the character well and Palo has a distinctive style that is very appropriate for the types of story being told, so the book wasn’t cancelled due to the quality of content. The lack of awareness of the character didn’t help in the current market, and the sudden replacing of the beloved but not commercially popular Doctor Strange probably caused some negativity towards the book before it arrived. The creative team wasn’t high profile enough to launch the book, and there was no tie-in to a company-wide crossover to help boost awareness, so it’s perhaps not a surprise that the book was a cancelled. However, it’s a shame because this was an interesting book with lots of potential.

Notes On A Comic Book: Power Man and Iron Fist

Power Man and Iron Fist #1–5 by Fred Van Lente and Wellington Alves

This mini-series launched out of the Shadowland crossover, with ‘The All-New, All-Different’ on top of the logo – the new is Victor Alvarez, the new Power Man, a young man with the power to absorb chi from the environment to make him super strong, who is like an arrogant teen Luke Cage. As a fan of the recent revival of the ‘kung fu billionaire’ Danny Rand in The Immortal Iron Fist by Brubaker, Fraction and Aja, and a fan of Fred Van Lente’s work, I thought I’d give this a try.

It’s a strange story – it starts off with the Commedia Dell’Morte (the Comedy of Death, also the title of the trade paperback), then a Mexican gangster called Don of the Dead (‘I kill your face!’), which suggests a more off-beat and oddball approach to the book, perhaps similar to Van Lente’s work on The Incredible Hercules with Greg Pak, but the rest of the story is played fairly straight as a private investigation story. The plot begins when Daniel Rand is told that Jennie Royce, who was office manager for Heroes For Hire, has been convicted of murder. After Heroes For Hire, she worked for another hero for hire called Crime-Buster – when he was killed, her fingerprints were on the gun. Daniel swears to get to the bottom of it, but Victor impulsively starts without him and gets into trouble with a character called Noir in Crime-Buster’s apartment, and then with Commedia Dell’Morte (Europe’s greatest assassins).

Daniel investigates Commedia Dell’Morte in the second issue while Victor is studying at the Alison Blaire School for Performing Arts (cute), which leads him to a secret auction of a Commedia Dell’Morte mask held by obvious villain Pokerface, who has a poker through his head coming out of his eye (are we that short of villains now that it has to be so literal?). An aside: half of this issue is drawn by Pere Perez, who also draws half of issue three, which isn’t a good sign for a mini-series. He is a solid artist but has a different style from Alves – Perez is a sharper line with simpler colouring compared with the dirtier line and murkier colouring of Alves.

The third issue finds our heroes on Twilight Idol, an underwater base, for the action that that turns into an Arcade-like concept, as Pokerface makes a bet with Iron Fist for the information that Iron Fist needs involving the number of drug-transformed vagrants beaten by Power Fist in a combat situation, while Power Man is told another story by the villains. The next issue reveals that the masks of Commedia Dell’Morte are cursed – Baron Mordo trapped the souls of the originals in the masks, which possess people to do the crimes, which it does now: Joyce Meachum, Daniel’s girlfriend and current executive director of the Rand Foundation, wears one and believes she is Columbina (which explains the death of Crime-Buster and the innocence of Jennie Royce). After help from a cameo from Luke Cage, the final issue is set up for the big fight when the head of the Penance Corporation (who are taking over the running of prisons) takes Victor prisoner and releases all the prisoners in Riker’s Island to attack Iron Fist.

The story is a bit of a mess – the plot is explained in the last two pages of the book, revealing the identity Noir and the head of Penance, how everything happened and how Crime-Buster was truly killed. I don’t know if the attempt to do a complicated, twisty plot in the confines of a five-issue superhero mini-series was too much for the book, or if trying to do it under the confines of requiring fights scenes meant that it didn’t have room to breathe, or if Power Man and Iron Fist isn’t the best fit with the material, but it doesn’t quite work. I liked the interaction between these characters, a new dynamic for a new team, but there isn’t enough of it to enjoy. Alves has a tough job following David Aja, who redefined the style of Iron Fist, and his fight scenes come off badly in comparison – they are functional and uninspired when they should be stylish and invigorating. I wanted to like this more than I did, but unfortunately I didn’t. Perhaps next time for the dysfunctional dynamic duo.

Comic Books I Want As TV Shows

Comic books have been the source for television programmes before – Batman, Wonder Woman, The Incredible Hulk, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Smallville are perhaps the most famous live action series, and there are many animated series as well – but these were based on well-known franchises. Now, things are different, and in a good way.

Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead has been adapted into a very successful television series. Powers by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming has been filmed as a pilot for FX!, although its future is as yet unknown. Chew by John Layman and Rob Guillory has been optioned for a television series at Showtime. Marvel Television is planning adaptations of Alias by Bendis and Michael Gaydos (to be called AKA Jessica Jones) and Cloak And Dagger on ABC. These are not the usual suspects of comic books to be adapted to television. Interesting and different source material is being adapted, so I thought I’d compile my list of comic books that I want on television (in addition to Powers and Chew).

Fell by Warren Ellis and Ben Templesmith
Ellis has written various police procedurals but this is the one that is a template for a lean weekly police drama. Homicide detective Richard Fell is transferred to Snowtown, a ‘feral’ city worse than the worst inner city. Detective Fell has excellent powers of observation, which he uses to compensate for the ‘three and a half detectives’ for the entirety of Snowtown, trying his best to make the city better. There is an ongoing mystery about why Fell was transferred there, and there is a supporting cast, including the young woman who owns a local bar and the background character of a nun wearing a Richard Nixon mask. Each of the issues so far (the first of the slimline comics to reduce the price with fewer but denser pages) is the blueprint for an individual episode; it’s a shame that Ellis had a computer meltdown that lost his notes for series (the pair hope finish the series eventually).

Global Frequency by Warren Ellis and various artists
A bit of a cheat, this one – a pilot was made, with Michelle Forbes as Miranda Zero, with John Rogers as the writer/showrunner, but The WB didn’t commission the series. However, I still think it would have made a good series. The Global Frequency is a covert intelligence organisation run by Miranda Zero (an alias for a former intelligence agent) with 1,001 people on the Global Frequency, called up when needed for their specific skills through the communication coordinator, a woman with the codename Aleph, to protect and rescue the world from the weird and dangerous. Each of the issues was a standalone story, much like a television series, although I doubt the show would employ a different visual style each episode to match the different artists on the twelve issues that were produced. I‘d still like to see a series for this comic book.

Scalped by Jason Aaron and various artists
I’ve been a big fan of this book for a while now and I’m still surprised that nobody has optioned this for a television series. The shorthand for this book was usually ‘The Sopranos on the Rez’, which is indicative of the nature of the book. The book is about Dashiell Bad Horse returning to his (fictional) Indian Reservation, Prairie Rose, in South Dakota where he gets involved with Chief Lincoln Red Crow, who is starting a casino and has a history of violence. There are many other aspects to the story, including the murder of two FBI agents thirty years previously, organised crime, local politics, Native American culture, and the poverty on the Rez. It’s a great comic book, and I think it would make a great television series.

100 Bullets by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso
The book with the great hook: the mysterious Agent Graves gives someone who has been wronged a gun, 100 bullets, the information to confirm the identity of the person responsible and the guarantee that there will be no investigation into any revenge taken. However, there was more going on than just this aspect, which played out over 100 issues written by Brian Azzarello and drawn by Eduardo Risso. Like its Vertigo stablemate Scalped, this is another comic book that would make a great television series, with the elements of noir and pulp and violence and intrigue and a sprawling crime saga.

Fables by Bill Willingham and various artists
I haven’t watched Grimm but I have seen some of Once Upon A Time, both of which have to admit to some sort of connection to Fables, and I think it’s safe to say that Fables as a television series would be great because Once Upon A Time isn’t good enough. Fables was developed by NBC back in 2006 but didn’t get past the script stage (NBC would later make Grimm); then ABC got the rights to develop a pilot, but nothing happened (ABC would make Once Upon A Time). No connection, right? Fables, created and written by Bill Willingham, is about all the characters from fairy tale and folklore living in secret in our world (a community in New York City and ‘the Farm’ in upstate New York) trying to survive life here after being forced from their homelands by The Adversary. The fact that it is still going strong after 100 issues is an indication of its quality and its scope for stories. We might not have the television series, but we’ve still got the comic book.

Preacher by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon
This excellent comic book has had a very complex history in trying to reaching the screen: several film companies have tried, with James Marsden cast in the lead as Jesse Custer back in 2003, but which never got into production; this was followed by Mark Steven Johnson setting up a deal at HBO for a television series to do each issue, including the specials, as an hour of television, but this also fell through. The next name associated with it was Sam Mendes on a film adaptation (using a script written by John August; the previous film scripts had been by Ennis) back in 2008, but this didn’t seem to go anywhere over the next few years, because last year DJ Caruso tweeted to say that he’d signed a deal to direct a Preacher film. However, I can’t find any other details on this try. Despite Ennis being a fan of film (which is evident if you’ve read the series), I think this would work best as a television series to be able to cover all the aspects of the book.

Y: The Last Man by Brian K Vaughan and various artists
Although there is a deal in place to make this comic book into a film, it’s another case where a finite television adaptation would be a better way to service the story of Yorick, the only male mammal (apart from his pet monkey) to survive a plague that wiped out anything with a Y chromosome. What I find stranger is the fact that the writer, Brian K Vaughan, worked as a writer on staff on Lost – surely being involved with all those people could have led to something happening on television? The book is a great comic book, with a great cast, a great story full of humour and adventure amid the depressing scenario – if The Walking Dead can work on television, I believe the same of Y: The Last Man.

Quantum and Woody by Priest and MD Bright
This very enjoyable comic book written by Priest and drawn by MD Bright was the highlight of the Acclaim books of the mid-1990s and was basically an action sitcom with just a hint of superpowers. It was about Eric Henderson, a decorated army man who is also an overly serious black man, and Woody Van Chelton, a fun-loving and lazy white man, who used to be sort-of friends at school; they are reunited at the deaths of their fathers. Due to an accident, they become pure energy, and they have to wear metal gauntlets that have to be slammed together every 24 hours to restore their energy matrix. This is just the reason to keep them together: the fun is the mixing of the opposite personalities as they put on costumes to investigate their fathers’ deaths; Eric chooses the codename Quantum, but Woody just uses Woody. It was funny and smart and silly and I would love to see it as a television series.

The Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius by Judd Winick
If we can have an animated pilot for Welcome To Eltingville, based on characters in Evan Dorkin’s Dork, then we should have an animated series for Barry Ween, which was written and drawn by Judd Winick. There was an option for an animated series but nothing has ever happened, but an Adult Swim series would be a perfect home for this hilarious comic book. Barry Ween is a 10-year-old boy with the greatest brain on the planet who invents futuristic devices that nobody but his best friend Jeremy knows about. It is profane, irreverent, smart and hilarious; Winick created three three-issue mini-series back in 2000–2002 but nothing since; however, Winick has been involved in the world of animation since, creating The Life And Times Of Juniper Lee for the Cartoon Network (which he described as Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets The Simpsons), so it’s a shame that he couldn’t get something working for Barry Ween – I know I’d love to see it.

Notes On A Trade Paperback: Underground

Underground #1–5 by Jeff Parker and Steve Lieber

This book is perhaps more famous for the piracy/sales incident (see this Robot 6 piece or this Comics Alliance piece for more information) when somebody posted scans of the whole book on 4chan but Lieber interacted with the pirate and then saw a spike in the sales of the book (although how large is still not clear), so it’s easy to forget that there was an actual comic book involved. [You can read the book online for free (payment on an honour system), because Lieber has put the whole thing on the official site; I preferred to buy it.]

The basis for the book was a short story written and drawn by Lieber to see if the cave interior setting would work over the course of a full book (the short story is included in the back of the trade). When it came to the full story, Lieber brought in his old friend Parker to write the script. Set in Marion, Kentucky, the story is about two park rangers, a young woman called Wesley Fischer and a young man called Set Ridge, and Stillwater Cave, ancient caves with fragile formations that is closed to the public but which are in the sights of a local entrepreneur called Winston Barefoot, who wants to open them up as a tourist attraction. He is so eager to advance this that he sends some men into the cave illegally with dynamite to blow the entrance wider, to help sell his endeavour. Seth is on duty and investigates when he hears the explosion, but gets into trouble; fortunately, Wesley finds him, and her knowledge of the caves is needed when the dynamiters bring back others to help clear up the mess.

This is a smart thriller with a strong hook (Lieber likes his artistic challenges, e.g. Whiteout) – the cave setting is an unusual setting, claustrophobic and unpredictable, even with Wesley’s knowledge to aid in the escape from the men chasing them, and the tension is maintained throughout as the pages change between the darkness of the caves and the colour of the daylight above as the other rangers try to control the situation on the surface. The two lead characters are a great pair and Parker and Lieber make you feel for them as people.

Parker and Lieber do a great job on this book, with Lieber really making the cave scenes work, which is a tough job with all the shadows; he’s got a nice, loose style, a mix of a realistic approach with a cartoony edge. Apart from the cave scenes, Lieber is really good with little details that make the story tick along – there’s a look between Barefoot and a ranger in the fourth issue that speaks volumes, and there is a soulful look in Seth’s face near the end that says more than a word balloon ever could, just two of several moments throughout the book. This is a really good story that puts you in the action and has you rooting for a happy ending.

Book Review: Turbulence

Turbulence by Samit Basu, Titan Books. Published 7 July (£7.99).

Basu is not an author I was aware of before I read this novel, but he’s not a novice writer: he published the first book of his fantasy series, The Gameworld Trilogy, at 23 and has also worked on comic books – he wrote Devi for Virgin Comics and co-wrote the graphic novel Untouchable with Mike Carey. In Turbulence, he has combined these two elements to write the first in a trilogy about super-powered individuals in the real world.

This is a book that populates our world with the craziness of comic book abilities: there is a man who can surf the internet and control computers with his mind; there is a woman who can duplicate many copies of herself, including copies of whatever she’s holding; there are individuals with invulnerability, healing, invisibility, teleportation, the power to shape-shift, the power to grow very large, the power to animate the dead; there is an individual who can turn into a tiger-man, and another who can turn into an anime character with anime-style weapons.

Basu knows comic books: there are references to Superman, the Justice League, Wonder Woman, Iron Man, the X-Men (there’s even a reference to Multiple Man). The big fight scene set in London has echoes of Miracleman, and there’s a reference to Watchmen in the line, ‘Superman exists, and he’s not American’. And he is soaked in pop culture: there are references to Kill Bill, The Matrix, Bruce Lee and Tony Jaa. Notably, he doesn’t reference the one thing to which it is similar: the television series Heroes (in the sense of ordinary people discovering they have super powers and the formation of groups), but that was probably deliberate.

The set-up is straightforward: the passengers on a flight from London to Delhi arrive in London to discover that they have super powers that are related to their needs/desires. An air force pilot can now fly without the plane; a physicist can now invent futuristic machines; a woman who wants to be a Bollywood star finds that everyone likes her and wants to help her; a wife who has so many demands on her life can create copies of herself; a cricketer can now see slightly in the future so he can hit sixes every ball. However, some of the people on the flight have gone missing, and Aman, a young man who can now control electronic communications with his thoughts, and who has read enough comic books to know what has happened and that there will be good guys and bad guys, is gathering people to help them survive. In his group is Tia, the duplicator; Bob, who can control the weather in his vicinity; the Scientist, who makes the crazy inventions in his sleep. They share a house in Mumbai while they try to figure out what to do. They intercept Uzma, the would-be Bollywood star, and bring her back to the house to help her and explain the situation; shortly after, events start getting stranger when crowds suddenly turn into angry mobs trying to kill specific people (such as the cricketer at a cricket match); also, Vir, the flying fighter pilot, contacts the group and Aman warns him about his team leader Jai, who has plans to use the super-powered individuals to make India a superpower again.

Setting the novel in India is the distinguishing feature here, providing an interesting flavour to proceedings, and sort of makes sense when you consider the pantheon of Hindu gods. Basu, who was born and raised in India and partly educated in England, gives you the sense and feeling of his Mumbai settings, from the coffee shops to the cricket grounds to the busy streets, with an authenticity and colour that makes the places come alive. He also knows London, even if the locations he uses in the book are perhaps a bit more tourist-centric (St Paul’s, the Millennium Bridge, Oxford Street, Hamley’s), and this adds to the multicultural dimension of the book.

There is a question on the blurb on the back cover which asks about the book: ‘Will it end … in a meaningless, explosive slugfest?’, which suggests that the novel will have a different approach to the traditional comic book altercation. However, the set-up and mystery are more interesting than the resolution, which does end in the big fight between super-powered people; the rest of the book suggests that the author has avoided the usual trappings and was taking his story in a different direction. Basu has obviously read lots of superhero comic books and thought about a novel angle to examine some aspects of super-powered people in the ‘real’ world – you could even say that the Aman character, the pop-culture-soaked young man who is the person who tries to do something for the benefit of humanity with his powers without resorting to hitting people, is a stand-in for the author as he talks about the concepts of heroes and villains and the nature of paranormal ability. I don’t think he has quite achieved all his goals; the resolution doesn’t completely satisfy (and not just because it is left open-ended for the sequel) and his prose isn’t as scintillating as some of the really good authors in comic books – he uses pop culture references as a shorthand instead of using his own words to express himself. However, in Turbulence, Basu has created an interesting world with intriguing characters plucked from comic books and told an enjoyable tale.