With the Uncanny X-Blog a scant few hours away, The Team At Factual Agreed that Comics of the Weak, if left to be handled in the usual fashion, would not do justice to the week in comics. So, like all the powers of nature, Comics Of The Weak is taking a page from the Girl Talk album and pulling a mash-up: It's a Stunt Casting, with the Virgin Read handling the Questions, and the Comics of the Weak team handling the answers. The subject?
All of the books.
The Virgin Read: Let's start with The New Avengers # 41. Do you hate Secret Invasion as much as I do?
The Factual Opinion: It's fine for what it is. It's supposed to be a big cross-over with a bunch of...I don't know, I don't really care. [The New Avengers] was a boring portion of it. It's all about "what was going on" in the Savage Land. It seems like what Marvel is doing with all these side issues is telling you back-story, stuff that happened "months ago" whereas the Secret Invasion mini-series itself is going to be what's happening right now. I don't know, it's hard to get excited about that.
Virgin: I was looking through the pages, I didn't read it, but it looked to me like Spider-Man fell into a soft-core jungle porn. Is it as good as that?
TFO: No. That would have been a much better comic.
Virgin: Dan Dare. It says Dan Dare but there is a woman on the cover. That is not Dan Dare, true or false?
TFO: Not Dan Dare. She's his second-in-command that he pulled up through the ranks to put in charge of some hardcore military flying.
Virgin: I'm not familiar with this comic. It looks a little science-fiction-y.
TFO: Yes, the opening part was more science-fiction-y than it usually is--it is about aliens and stuff like that--but the military stuff is usually pretty great. Garth Ennis does that military stuff pretty well. I was bored with all that alien shit, but when it gets into straight-up military operations...Ennis does that stuff better than anybody else working right now. When he's at his best, he can be on par with the classic war stuff. It's a good series. I hadn't realized I missed an issue of it, I thought I'd been keeping up. I guess I did, because I didn't understand where it started.
Virgin: Is the alien stuff in this better or worse than the alien stuff in Indiana Jones?
TFO: I don't know. I found the alien stuff in Indiana Jones to be...really fucking stupid. I don't find this to be really fucking stupid.
Virgin: So it was better.
TFO: There wasn't a Spielbergian "let's make a family!" Oh, fathers and sons, they're always estranged.
Virgin: Good. Daredevil, The Man Without Fear. Is he still without fear?
TFO: He's just a whiny-ass motherfucker. Well, he has to be, because they have to play out this whole "My wife is CRAZY. She's never GONNA GET BETTER." kind of thing. I don't know that he's scared. He's a mopey son of a bitch.
Virgin: So he's a man without fear, but not mild depression.
TFO: He's not a man without angst. It's not Daredevil: The Man Without Angst.
Virgin: Question from me, because I read one issue of this: is he still wearing his glasses inside his house alone with his wife?
TFO: Well, she's in the crazy hospital now. I don't know, I'm not sure why I don't look for that. That was a good point. I think he is. I think there's a portion where he's at home when some lady shows up to talk to him and he's wearing glasses. He's also cleaning the house with bleach, and it's burning his nose? Or something? I feel like that would be an all-the-time problem. People clean with bleach on a regular basis, it seems like that should be a constant complaint. Then again, whatever. Who gives a shit?
Virgin: The Immortal Iron Fist i've never read...
TFO: That's not true. You read it, you didn't like it.
Virgin: I did?
TFO: Yeah, you said it didn't make sense, because it jumped from story to story and had different art.
Virgin: Hm. Didn't leave a lasting impression. It had the same thing, I opened to this page where I felt like I fell into soft-core porn, but this time with really skinny ugly people.
TFO: I'd say they are more muscular than they are skinny.
Virgin: Well, they're...what's the word?
TFO: You see that she's gigantic. She's like eight or ten feet tall, and then the other guy gets big.
Virgin: She's ropey. Is that it? Ropey. It's not attractive for porn.
TFO: I don't think there are a lot of ropey actors for porn. You know, I've seen some gay male porn, and those guys--sometimes those guys are pretty skinny. But in straight up vanilla porn, you don't see a lot of ropey people.
Virgin: I don't call porn "vanilla."
TFO: I just mean heterosexual porn.
Virgin: I was kidding. Ms. Marvel, "If you're nasty."
TFO: What does that mean?
Virgin: Remember? From that song..."It's Janet. Ms. Jackson, if you're nasty."
TFO: What? Why would I remember that?
Virgin: I don't know. I do. So what's up--is this somebody that women who read comics like or hate?
TFO: I don't know that there's enough of a fan-base for there to be opinions about her. I could be wrong. I don't know anything about her. The thing is, I've never actually kept up with one of these Marvel cross-over things, where you read all the "spin-off" issues. I knew I wasn't going to do it for DC's Final Crisis, because that's burned me before. I learned my lesson--but I know it's not going to work out this time either. I'm just giving it a try. But it's all going to be shit garbage. Which is what this basically is: it's the definition of shitty, awful, terrible super-hero comics. Whatever-I read some thing that this is going to cost a boatload of money at the end of the year but hey, who fucking cares? Ms. Marvel is terrible. I don't know why anyone would want to read this, ever.
Virgin: Then I won't. Moving on to All-Star Superman. I know that you like this particular comic. Do you still?
TFO: Oh, yeah, it's great. I guess, because it's nearing the conclusion, that this was a little less playful--which is kind of what attracted me to it originally. It's "serious" or whatever you want to call it. There's just a little meaner play this time. There's still great moments in it, it's still the best regularly published super-hero comic. At this point, I'd hate to see it written or drawn by anybody else--even people I like. It's one of the few comics that's actually worth buying. This is one of the few that getting it piecemeal is actually preferable--i've never read it in trade, but I imagine that would be kind of an overload. It's great, maybe a little less "welcoming" then previous issues, but then again...it's a two-parter, it's getting ready to end. The second part will be the conclusion of the series, although there are supposed to be some specials, down the line. They won't be drawn by this guy, Frank Quitely though. Which is kind of sad, I liked the idea that All Star Superman, was this singular creation by these two men.
Virgin: How long have they been doing it?
TFO: That's the 11th issue, but it's taken a long time for it to come out. I think it's three years ago, four years ago? I don't actually know when they started it. It was a while ago.
Virgin: Ultimate Spidey. [#122] How are the kids?
TFO: It's a done-in-one kind of a story. Which is fine, they don't do a lot of those, so it's nice when they do--makes for a nice change of pace. It's funny that this and All Star Superman are right next to each other, because I'd say that these are the best...well, maybe not the best, although All Star Superman is inarguably the best super-hero book--but Ultimate Spider-Man is consistently one of the most entertaining in that strain of super-hero kinds of comics. The art is consistently good, and the writing, I happen to think, is pretty consistently good too. This issue may have felt pointless, in a way, it seems like it just existed to have this one conversation near the end. Even then, it still happens to be pretty clever--hell, you've seen it a million times. Spider-Man gets in a crappy situation, gets out of it, Mary Jane is worried about him...
Virgin: World keeps on turning.
TFO: It's the same-old, same-old. But that's kind of the stock-in-trade of Ultimate Spider-Man. I don't think it's trying to do, or be, anything special. It's just trying to be an entertaining comic--and that's fine. It's fine to want to be a popcorn super-hero comic. It does that, it does it well.
Virgin: Northlanders. This is the Viking comic, right?
TFO: Yes.
Virgin: It looks very biblical.
TFO: I don't think the Vikings have much to do with the Bible.
Virgin: Just the way it's drawn. It reminds me of Moses. Right there, with the long hair and the beard, all against a sweeping landscape. He looks like Crazy Moses there.
TFO: There's a regular Moses and a Crazy Moses? Do you mean like when he comes down from the mountain with a shining face?
Virgin: Exactly, yeah. Brian Wood does this, right? And he does Local?
TFO: Uh-huh.
Virgin: So this is very different from that.
TFO: Yes. He also does DMZ.
Virgin: Do you enjoy Brian's full scope as a writer?
TFO: Well, he's relatively...for me, maybe he's been around for 40 years, but he's relatively young, and he's relatively new, especially to these serialized mainstream comics. Like Northlanders, DMZ. Before that, most of his stuff, Channel Zero, that was all indy. But yeah, yeah I do. I think Northlanders is a pretty entertaining book--I mean, this is only the 6th issue. I don't think it sells that well, maybe it does, but I don't know why it doesn't. It's far more interesting than most super-hero books. But then again, it isn't that far removed from Ultimate Spider-Man--it's not trying to be anything more than a really bloody book about Vikings. He's done his research. The thing that he's done that I think is sort of interesting, is that the characters talk as if they were talking now. They saw "fuck" and "shit," that's one of the conceits with it. So it's kind of like Soprano's crossed with Vikings, I remember a bunch of people saying that about it. Somebody else said something about it being "emo-vikings" which I don't think makes any sense, because I've never read any issue of it were I thought any of the characters were similar to the Promise Ring. I can't think of a single emo-band that consisted of members who could handle a battle-axe, or would decapitate somebody and put the head on a spike. Every emo band I've ever heard of, or seen, was a bunch of wispy skinny kids with black lipstick or were aggressively metrosexual.
Virgin: Grant Morrison and JG Jones-Final Crisis.
TFO: Grant Morrison's Book Two of the day.
Virgin: So it starts with man...and then "I am Metron?" I can't even....I just can't. Uhhhh. Give me one sentence on your feeling on this comic.
TFO: I like the cover design.
Virgin: ....
TFO: I do! I like it. I think it's a cool cover design. Look, the best covers are on DMZ, 100 Bullets, those Vertical reprints of old manga, Immortal Iron Fist, All-Star Superman. Great covers. Except for All-Star Superman, and I'm sure this [Final Crisis] fucking thing too, stuff with great covers never sells. It's always these shitty covers. Like that Ms. Marvel cover, that kind of--I don't know, but the shit is always the same. I like this design. It's not re-inventing the wheel, but it's clean. It's simple. Comic-wise, it's an event. In a way it's what I expected: that a Grant Morrison event comic certainly doesn't read like any other event comics. It's got all the same shit that I hate about event comics, here's all these characters, all of them are so important...and who even cares? Who gives a fuck about any of these people? When all you really want to do is see some nonsense happen and then see how the big guys deal with it. Maybe somebody gives a fuck about Libra, or Mister Flame. Anyway, they killed Martian Manhunter, supposedly. Which if, they're really for real, killing him, then hey--I don't give a shit. I could care less about the Martian Manhunter. I liked him when I was a kid, but now I don't know him, he doesn't make any sense. I don't care. I don't think I've liked him since I was a child. I don't dis-like him, I just don't care. It's certainly different--it's odd. It's an odd way to do an event comic. It's arty, I don't really understand how it's going to co-exist with the DC Universe, how it's going to co-exist with all the shit they've been doing for the last two years, three years, four years, everything leading up to it.
It's completely unreadable if you are somebody who had never read comics before. If you're somebody who just saw Batman Begins or Superman Returns, and said "I want to read DC Universe 0 and Final Crisis 1." This would be completely incomprehensible to those people--I mean, sure, there's some freak out there, who might do that, they might jump on just to do it. But those freaks are a complete deviation from the norm. Final Crisis is completely for the fan, that at times it's almost off-putting. It'll probably be more "respectable" than Secret Invasion. But at the same time, I think Secret Invasion might be more what the readers want--they want to see punch-punch-punchabunch, everything must change. This is more "let's play with the fictional fabric of the super-hero archetype."
Virgin: I want to digress for a second--you said "Martian Manhunter" and that reminded me that you mentioned some hero guy who's name started with an M--it wasn't Martian Manhunter....
TFO: Matter-Eater Lad?
Virgin: Matter-Eater Lad! What happened to him? What's he doing?
TFO: Nobody has the balls to use him. They're all a bunch of pussies.
Virgin: Anyway. Giant Size Astonishing X-Men! Alright. Here's your question: Are these X-Men in fact, "astonishing." And if not, give me five other adjectives to describe what they are.
TFO: I don't know how to answer that.
Virgin: Either pathetic, or extreme.
TFO: Horny? Angst-y? Buffy-ish? I don't really want to do this anymore.
Virgin: You still need two more. I asked you a question.
TFO: OK.
Virgin: And...
TFO: Did I say moody?
Virgin: Okay.
TFO: Wait, that's all you want to say about that?
Virgin: Yes. Batman: Gotham After Midnight, the first issue. Now, there's another Batman, but that's getting reviewed by me. How many different Batman titles are there?
TFO: I couldn't tell you. They have the regular books that come out twice a month. Batman, Detective Comics. But he shows up a bunch of other places, and then every once in a while, almost every month, they have some kind of random mini-series that comes out. Oh, they also have Batman: Confidential. They usually have this kind of off-shot book, like this. I just read it because it's Kelley Jones. He used to draw Batman, years ago. He draws the cape really funny.
Virgin: It looks like rocks. Is that the cape?
TFO: Yep. All the blue stuff is the cape. It's great, totally ridiculous. It's weird, different--not super-weird, just weird by super-hero standards. As a story--look, it's got fucking chapters. Why are there chapters? Who gives-a-fuck. Why chapters? Shit is twenty pages long. But still. I like looking at the cape. He draws an interesting cape, that man.
Virgin: I'll give him that.
TFO: Oh, and at the end a bunch of strangers kill Batman. Which I always thought would be the best way to kill Batman. I always thought it would be great if Batman, or any super-hero for that matter, that would be the best way for them to die. Hit by a car, or getting shot by somebody that doesn't mean anything--instead of it being an arch-villain, have it be the no-name criminal who just gets the drop on Bruce Wayne and puts one in his brain. That would be great. That would be an awesome comic. It could be written by an eight year old child, and drawn by a...I don't know, another eight year old child. Especially if they stuck to it. Bruce Wayne is dead, forever. Because he got shot by a mailman. Not a villain called "The Mailman." Just a regular mailman.
Virgin: If it was just an accident.
TFO: Oh, that would be even better.
Virgin: Like his gun just went off.
TFO: Why would the mailman have a gun?
Virgin: 1985. I flipped through it, because I was in high school in 1985. I flipped through it, because I was in high school in 1985. It looks like it's a comic book about people who like comic books.
TFO: That's pretty much what it is. The premise is that it's a world where they have comic books, it's pretty much our world, it's 1985, and somehow the villains have come...
Virgin: Come to life.
TFO: Not come to life, they came through a dimensional portal--it would be so much more interesting if they did come to life, like that old A-Ha "Take On Me" video. They stepped out of the comics. But now, they came through a dimensional portal, and the lamest thing...well, maybe it's not kind of lame. It's kind of genius--Dr. Doom, the Moleman and The Red Skull live in a house. It's like "the haunted house" on the outskirts of town, in the woods. Which is kind of an amazing idea: "Who lives in the old Crosby mansion?" "Dr. Doom lives there! With the Moleman, and the Red Skull!"
I just like the idea that they're there, and they share a bathroom. An old creaky haunted house. "I gotta borrow the car, guys."
Virgin: Like a Scooby-Doo kind of thing.
TFO: Yes. That part is pretty great, actually. The rest is just..."oh the terminal uniqueness of the comic book fan. They are the only ones with the imagination to save the world...." And that's just....puke, who cares.
Virgin: They're the only ones who really believe.
TFO: It's like Kick-Ass, more jerking off to the idea that you're so special because you read comics, you're more special than people who do sports, or people who watch movies, or people who read Harry Potter. It's just--Fuck You. It's just a goddamn hobby, just a way to spend your time. You're not any better, or more downtrodden, than anybody else with the money available for luxury time. Nobody gives a shit what anybody does on their downtime. They just want you to not show up late for work, and not forget their fucking order at a restaurant. No one cares how special you are.
Virgin: You're just telling people what they need to hear.
TFO: Hell, nobody needs to hear it. I think they just want too. It's more of that "I like comics, and that makes me different and special." Fuck you, you're fourteen. Whatever.
Virgin: OK. Little rage.
-Tucker & Nina Stone, 2008
All of the books.
The Factual Opinion: It's fine for what it is. It's supposed to be a big cross-over with a bunch of...I don't know, I don't really care. [The New Avengers] was a boring portion of it. It's all about "what was going on" in the Savage Land. It seems like what Marvel is doing with all these side issues is telling you back-story, stuff that happened "months ago" whereas the Secret Invasion mini-series itself is going to be what's happening right now. I don't know, it's hard to get excited about that.
Virgin: I was looking through the pages, I didn't read it, but it looked to me like Spider-Man fell into a soft-core jungle porn. Is it as good as that?
TFO: No. That would have been a much better comic.
TFO: Not Dan Dare. She's his second-in-command that he pulled up through the ranks to put in charge of some hardcore military flying.
Virgin: I'm not familiar with this comic. It looks a little science-fiction-y.
TFO: Yes, the opening part was more science-fiction-y than it usually is--it is about aliens and stuff like that--but the military stuff is usually pretty great. Garth Ennis does that military stuff pretty well. I was bored with all that alien shit, but when it gets into straight-up military operations...Ennis does that stuff better than anybody else working right now. When he's at his best, he can be on par with the classic war stuff. It's a good series. I hadn't realized I missed an issue of it, I thought I'd been keeping up. I guess I did, because I didn't understand where it started.
Virgin: Is the alien stuff in this better or worse than the alien stuff in Indiana Jones?
TFO: I don't know. I found the alien stuff in Indiana Jones to be...really fucking stupid. I don't find this to be really fucking stupid.
Virgin: So it was better.
TFO: There wasn't a Spielbergian "let's make a family!" Oh, fathers and sons, they're always estranged.
TFO: He's just a whiny-ass motherfucker. Well, he has to be, because they have to play out this whole "My wife is CRAZY. She's never GONNA GET BETTER." kind of thing. I don't know that he's scared. He's a mopey son of a bitch.
Virgin: So he's a man without fear, but not mild depression.
TFO: He's not a man without angst. It's not Daredevil: The Man Without Angst.
Virgin: Question from me, because I read one issue of this: is he still wearing his glasses inside his house alone with his wife?
TFO: Well, she's in the crazy hospital now. I don't know, I'm not sure why I don't look for that. That was a good point. I think he is. I think there's a portion where he's at home when some lady shows up to talk to him and he's wearing glasses. He's also cleaning the house with bleach, and it's burning his nose? Or something? I feel like that would be an all-the-time problem. People clean with bleach on a regular basis, it seems like that should be a constant complaint. Then again, whatever. Who gives a shit?
TFO: That's not true. You read it, you didn't like it.
Virgin: I did?
TFO: Yeah, you said it didn't make sense, because it jumped from story to story and had different art.
Virgin: Hm. Didn't leave a lasting impression. It had the same thing, I opened to this page where I felt like I fell into soft-core porn, but this time with really skinny ugly people.
TFO: I'd say they are more muscular than they are skinny.
Virgin: Well, they're...what's the word?
TFO: You see that she's gigantic. She's like eight or ten feet tall, and then the other guy gets big.
Virgin: She's ropey. Is that it? Ropey. It's not attractive for porn.
TFO: I don't think there are a lot of ropey actors for porn. You know, I've seen some gay male porn, and those guys--sometimes those guys are pretty skinny. But in straight up vanilla porn, you don't see a lot of ropey people.
Virgin: I don't call porn "vanilla."
TFO: I just mean heterosexual porn.
TFO: What does that mean?
Virgin: Remember? From that song..."It's Janet. Ms. Jackson, if you're nasty."
TFO: What? Why would I remember that?
Virgin: I don't know. I do. So what's up--is this somebody that women who read comics like or hate?
TFO: I don't know that there's enough of a fan-base for there to be opinions about her. I could be wrong. I don't know anything about her. The thing is, I've never actually kept up with one of these Marvel cross-over things, where you read all the "spin-off" issues. I knew I wasn't going to do it for DC's Final Crisis, because that's burned me before. I learned my lesson--but I know it's not going to work out this time either. I'm just giving it a try. But it's all going to be shit garbage. Which is what this basically is: it's the definition of shitty, awful, terrible super-hero comics. Whatever-I read some thing that this is going to cost a boatload of money at the end of the year but hey, who fucking cares? Ms. Marvel is terrible. I don't know why anyone would want to read this, ever.
TFO: Oh, yeah, it's great. I guess, because it's nearing the conclusion, that this was a little less playful--which is kind of what attracted me to it originally. It's "serious" or whatever you want to call it. There's just a little meaner play this time. There's still great moments in it, it's still the best regularly published super-hero comic. At this point, I'd hate to see it written or drawn by anybody else--even people I like. It's one of the few comics that's actually worth buying. This is one of the few that getting it piecemeal is actually preferable--i've never read it in trade, but I imagine that would be kind of an overload. It's great, maybe a little less "welcoming" then previous issues, but then again...it's a two-parter, it's getting ready to end. The second part will be the conclusion of the series, although there are supposed to be some specials, down the line. They won't be drawn by this guy, Frank Quitely though. Which is kind of sad, I liked the idea that All Star Superman, was this singular creation by these two men.
Virgin: How long have they been doing it?
TFO: That's the 11th issue, but it's taken a long time for it to come out. I think it's three years ago, four years ago? I don't actually know when they started it. It was a while ago.
TFO: It's a done-in-one kind of a story. Which is fine, they don't do a lot of those, so it's nice when they do--makes for a nice change of pace. It's funny that this and All Star Superman are right next to each other, because I'd say that these are the best...well, maybe not the best, although All Star Superman is inarguably the best super-hero book--but Ultimate Spider-Man is consistently one of the most entertaining in that strain of super-hero kinds of comics. The art is consistently good, and the writing, I happen to think, is pretty consistently good too. This issue may have felt pointless, in a way, it seems like it just existed to have this one conversation near the end. Even then, it still happens to be pretty clever--hell, you've seen it a million times. Spider-Man gets in a crappy situation, gets out of it, Mary Jane is worried about him...
Virgin: World keeps on turning.
TFO: It's the same-old, same-old. But that's kind of the stock-in-trade of Ultimate Spider-Man. I don't think it's trying to do, or be, anything special. It's just trying to be an entertaining comic--and that's fine. It's fine to want to be a popcorn super-hero comic. It does that, it does it well.
TFO: Yes.
Virgin: It looks very biblical.
TFO: I don't think the Vikings have much to do with the Bible.
Virgin: Just the way it's drawn. It reminds me of Moses. Right there, with the long hair and the beard, all against a sweeping landscape. He looks like Crazy Moses there.
TFO: There's a regular Moses and a Crazy Moses? Do you mean like when he comes down from the mountain with a shining face?
Virgin: Exactly, yeah. Brian Wood does this, right? And he does Local?
TFO: Uh-huh.
Virgin: So this is very different from that.
TFO: Yes. He also does DMZ.
Virgin: Do you enjoy Brian's full scope as a writer?
TFO: Well, he's relatively...for me, maybe he's been around for 40 years, but he's relatively young, and he's relatively new, especially to these serialized mainstream comics. Like Northlanders, DMZ. Before that, most of his stuff, Channel Zero, that was all indy. But yeah, yeah I do. I think Northlanders is a pretty entertaining book--I mean, this is only the 6th issue. I don't think it sells that well, maybe it does, but I don't know why it doesn't. It's far more interesting than most super-hero books. But then again, it isn't that far removed from Ultimate Spider-Man--it's not trying to be anything more than a really bloody book about Vikings. He's done his research. The thing that he's done that I think is sort of interesting, is that the characters talk as if they were talking now. They saw "fuck" and "shit," that's one of the conceits with it. So it's kind of like Soprano's crossed with Vikings, I remember a bunch of people saying that about it. Somebody else said something about it being "emo-vikings" which I don't think makes any sense, because I've never read any issue of it were I thought any of the characters were similar to the Promise Ring. I can't think of a single emo-band that consisted of members who could handle a battle-axe, or would decapitate somebody and put the head on a spike. Every emo band I've ever heard of, or seen, was a bunch of wispy skinny kids with black lipstick or were aggressively metrosexual.
TFO: Grant Morrison's Book Two of the day.
Virgin: So it starts with man...and then "I am Metron?" I can't even....I just can't. Uhhhh. Give me one sentence on your feeling on this comic.
TFO: I like the cover design.
Virgin: ....
TFO: I do! I like it. I think it's a cool cover design. Look, the best covers are on DMZ, 100 Bullets, those Vertical reprints of old manga, Immortal Iron Fist, All-Star Superman. Great covers. Except for All-Star Superman, and I'm sure this [Final Crisis] fucking thing too, stuff with great covers never sells. It's always these shitty covers. Like that Ms. Marvel cover, that kind of--I don't know, but the shit is always the same. I like this design. It's not re-inventing the wheel, but it's clean. It's simple. Comic-wise, it's an event. In a way it's what I expected: that a Grant Morrison event comic certainly doesn't read like any other event comics. It's got all the same shit that I hate about event comics, here's all these characters, all of them are so important...and who even cares? Who gives a fuck about any of these people? When all you really want to do is see some nonsense happen and then see how the big guys deal with it. Maybe somebody gives a fuck about Libra, or Mister Flame. Anyway, they killed Martian Manhunter, supposedly. Which if, they're really for real, killing him, then hey--I don't give a shit. I could care less about the Martian Manhunter. I liked him when I was a kid, but now I don't know him, he doesn't make any sense. I don't care. I don't think I've liked him since I was a child. I don't dis-like him, I just don't care. It's certainly different--it's odd. It's an odd way to do an event comic. It's arty, I don't really understand how it's going to co-exist with the DC Universe, how it's going to co-exist with all the shit they've been doing for the last two years, three years, four years, everything leading up to it.
It's completely unreadable if you are somebody who had never read comics before. If you're somebody who just saw Batman Begins or Superman Returns, and said "I want to read DC Universe 0 and Final Crisis 1." This would be completely incomprehensible to those people--I mean, sure, there's some freak out there, who might do that, they might jump on just to do it. But those freaks are a complete deviation from the norm. Final Crisis is completely for the fan, that at times it's almost off-putting. It'll probably be more "respectable" than Secret Invasion. But at the same time, I think Secret Invasion might be more what the readers want--they want to see punch-punch-punchabunch, everything must change. This is more "let's play with the fictional fabric of the super-hero archetype."
Virgin: I want to digress for a second--you said "Martian Manhunter" and that reminded me that you mentioned some hero guy who's name started with an M--it wasn't Martian Manhunter....
TFO: Matter-Eater Lad?
Virgin: Matter-Eater Lad! What happened to him? What's he doing?
TFO: Nobody has the balls to use him. They're all a bunch of pussies.
TFO: I don't know how to answer that.
Virgin: Either pathetic, or extreme.
TFO: Horny? Angst-y? Buffy-ish? I don't really want to do this anymore.
Virgin: You still need two more. I asked you a question.
TFO: OK.
Virgin: And...
TFO: Did I say moody?
Virgin: Okay.
TFO: Wait, that's all you want to say about that?
TFO: I couldn't tell you. They have the regular books that come out twice a month. Batman, Detective Comics. But he shows up a bunch of other places, and then every once in a while, almost every month, they have some kind of random mini-series that comes out. Oh, they also have Batman: Confidential. They usually have this kind of off-shot book, like this. I just read it because it's Kelley Jones. He used to draw Batman, years ago. He draws the cape really funny.
Virgin: It looks like rocks. Is that the cape?
TFO: Yep. All the blue stuff is the cape. It's great, totally ridiculous. It's weird, different--not super-weird, just weird by super-hero standards. As a story--look, it's got fucking chapters. Why are there chapters? Who gives-a-fuck. Why chapters? Shit is twenty pages long. But still. I like looking at the cape. He draws an interesting cape, that man.
Virgin: I'll give him that.
TFO: Oh, and at the end a bunch of strangers kill Batman. Which I always thought would be the best way to kill Batman. I always thought it would be great if Batman, or any super-hero for that matter, that would be the best way for them to die. Hit by a car, or getting shot by somebody that doesn't mean anything--instead of it being an arch-villain, have it be the no-name criminal who just gets the drop on Bruce Wayne and puts one in his brain. That would be great. That would be an awesome comic. It could be written by an eight year old child, and drawn by a...I don't know, another eight year old child. Especially if they stuck to it. Bruce Wayne is dead, forever. Because he got shot by a mailman. Not a villain called "The Mailman." Just a regular mailman.
Virgin: If it was just an accident.
TFO: Oh, that would be even better.
Virgin: Like his gun just went off.
TFO: Why would the mailman have a gun?
TFO: That's pretty much what it is. The premise is that it's a world where they have comic books, it's pretty much our world, it's 1985, and somehow the villains have come...
Virgin: Come to life.
TFO: Not come to life, they came through a dimensional portal--it would be so much more interesting if they did come to life, like that old A-Ha "Take On Me" video. They stepped out of the comics. But now, they came through a dimensional portal, and the lamest thing...well, maybe it's not kind of lame. It's kind of genius--Dr. Doom, the Moleman and The Red Skull live in a house. It's like "the haunted house" on the outskirts of town, in the woods. Which is kind of an amazing idea: "Who lives in the old Crosby mansion?" "Dr. Doom lives there! With the Moleman, and the Red Skull!"
I just like the idea that they're there, and they share a bathroom. An old creaky haunted house. "I gotta borrow the car, guys."
Virgin: Like a Scooby-Doo kind of thing.
TFO: Yes. That part is pretty great, actually. The rest is just..."oh the terminal uniqueness of the comic book fan. They are the only ones with the imagination to save the world...." And that's just....puke, who cares.
Virgin: They're the only ones who really believe.
TFO: It's like Kick-Ass, more jerking off to the idea that you're so special because you read comics, you're more special than people who do sports, or people who watch movies, or people who read Harry Potter. It's just--Fuck You. It's just a goddamn hobby, just a way to spend your time. You're not any better, or more downtrodden, than anybody else with the money available for luxury time. Nobody gives a shit what anybody does on their downtime. They just want you to not show up late for work, and not forget their fucking order at a restaurant. No one cares how special you are.
Virgin: You're just telling people what they need to hear.
TFO: Hell, nobody needs to hear it. I think they just want too. It's more of that "I like comics, and that makes me different and special." Fuck you, you're fourteen. Whatever.
Virgin: OK. Little rage.
-Tucker & Nina Stone, 2008
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