marvel

Avengers: Age Of Ultron and the serialisation value of superhero movies

May 10, 2015 by Nick Bryan

Avengers: Age of Ultron is out now all over the place, and I saw it on the opening Friday. The many solo film stars of the Marvel movies re-unite to take on an evil robot, ruptures form among the team and I’ll refrain from over-describing the film as some people might still be avoiding spoilers.

It was good, though – not as no-reservations excellent as the first Avengers movie, due to Ultron not being quite as memorable as Loki and the sheer volume of characters taking away from focus. Sill, among the upper echelons of Marvel movies and successfully kept me invested in the whole Marvel monolith.

Anyway, this isn’t going to be a straight review of the movie as there are plenty of those on the internet. The release of Avengers II served as a kinda peak point of a few months where I’ve been consuming a load of superhero media. Between DC’s FlArrow shows, Gotham, Agents of SHIELD, Daredevil and Agent Carter, that’s a whole lotta tights and tights-related material.

And that’s without even counting Walking Dead and Constantine.

Point being: I love serialised fiction across all mediums, but it kinda started with comics. So I’ve been thinking a lot about how this stuff translates because… much as I’ve liked many superhero movies, I feel like TV might be the ultimate medium for them.

“It matters that I matter,” said Batman, as he wept.

“I hate being a lizard! I must turn everyone else into one!”

Superhero comics, of course, are serialised within an inch of their lives. A lot of stories exist only to set up other stories, Some are massive huge important parts of the narrative, others just feature the characters going on a little fun outing or having development – point being, some issues do not feature top-level tension or mega-disasters. It’s fun seeing the characters just hanging out or taking on a slightly-less-A-list bad guy, but we rarely get that in the films.

Because movies, especially big expensive action movies, really fucking want to matter. Scale is their heroin and they demand every story seem like the most important thing in the world.

Sometimes this works – in Avengers: Age of Ultron for example. This is the climactic movie of the whole second Marvel phase and the threat is genuinely world-ending, so we are willing to grant the film the importance that it craves and needs.

This need for scale and importance, however, isn’t always so well-suited to the material – particularly pronounced in a lot of the earlier attempts at superhero movies, before sequels became inevitable. In a bid for drama and importance, a lot of those movies needed to have the villain assemble some kind of doomsday device and/or threaten mass destruction, often for little reason other than “Gosh darn it, this is a damned action movie picture and we gotta give the folk their destructo-spectacle!”

Which leads us to such odd denouements as Doctor Octopus and the Lizard building doomsday machines in Spider-Man movies despite just being a bit sad before that. Or the Scarecrow deciding to create a fear-bomb in Batman Begins, despite it feeling really at odds with the rest of the movie. Hell, even Magneto pulling a mutant-making machine out of his caped arse in X-Men seemed sudden to me.

Because in a TV show, you see, they could justify a finale where the hero just whacked the villain in the cock – ideally with complication or greater stakes, but still, a fight. But for many movies, that’s never quite enough and it has to be World In Danger.

This is particularly pronounced with characters like Batman and Spider-Man who generally work at smaller scales, so tone skews weirdly when the apocalypse is wanged in there.

“Steve, are people… invested in the Avengers?” said Iron Man, as he wept.

Plus, let’s be honest, too expensive for TV.

The other problem with forcing serialised narratives into movies, of course, is that it changes the nature of cinema to try and make it work, and not always in comfortable ways. TV shows are expected to leave a few loose ends hanging for the next episode/series/season, and even they eventually reach a grand finale where all threads are tied up.

A lot of this might be a psychological expectation – a TV show, as part of its make-up, is there to pull you through episodes. Films, because they’re sold as a singular experience, are expected to be more self-contained, and if all you get out of a cinema visit is that the studio would quite like you to see their other similar films, it’s understandable you’d be pissed off. This is one reason Guardians of the Galaxy was so good – it bent over backwards to be a standalone movie-style adventure romp, rather than an up-budget TV pilot.

If you flipped the psychology, I suppose, you could take this as incentive to be amazing – there’s no space for a filler episode here, guys – every installment has to brilliant in terms of quality as well as franchise maintenance, otherwise the whole house of cards might fall.

But, as hinted in the previous section, sometimes a quieter episode can build character and make the bigger ones work – honestly, one major problem with Age of Ultron for me? It felt like we were meant to invest in the Avengers as this big substantial organisation that had carved out a role and a dynamic. This would mean Ultron coming along to ruin it was a grand tragedy, striking at the heart of something precious.

Unfortunately, with only one previous Avengers film, it felt like the institution barely existed before it fell. The only chance the movieverse got to show us “a normal day” for the Avengers was the opening scene of the second film. It felt like a story where the main selling point was Smashing The Status Quo, except because we only get one film every three years, the Avengers don’t feel like the reassuring constant required for that to really kick us in the face.

Anyway, that’s just something I’ve been feeling about superheroes for a while, and with all this Ultronitude going down, seemed a good time to talk about this. I will, however, close out positive by saying this: Arrow, Flash, Daredevil, Agent Carter and, yes, even Agents of SHIELD lately, are doing good-to-great jobs of nailing all the stuff I’m talking about. If you like superheroes or serialised adventure in general but have been resisting the TV versions, I recommend giving one or two a chance. They won’t all be everyone’s cup of tea, but they’re all good serialised adventures in their own way.

Ultimate Spider-Man – A Potentially Pre-Emptive Eulogy

April 16, 2015 by Nick Bryan

Last week, the Ultimate Spider-Man comic seemed to come to an end. It’s hard to be certain, as Marvel Comics are being very cagey about the future of their publishing line, but based on some heartfelt words from series writer Brian Michael Bendis on his Tumblr, it looks like we’ve reached the end of that book in its current form.

The character may carry on, but sounds like either he’ll no longer be written by Bendis or the set-up will be radically changed. Either way, I was inspired to produce some words, as this was a comic that meant a lot to me over the years.

Peter The Animal-Themed Villain Slayer?

The Ultimate line from Marvel began in the early 2000s (originally under the title Ground Zero Comics, thankfully changed before 9/11), re-imagining their main characters as debuting in the present day, rather than the mid-20th century. It revised origins, streamlined continuity, tweaked premises to suit modern audiences, and was wildly successful for a while. Many Ultimate changes were adapted into the recent mega-hit Marvel movies.

However, eventually, the Ultimate line grew its own complex continuity, the regular Marvel line offered a more competitive alternative and many of the books struggled. The big exception: Ultimate Spider-Man, initially by indie crime comics writer Brian Michael Bendis and experienced superhero artist Mark Bagley.

It’s just not a great haircut.

At the heart of Ultimate Spidey, and perhaps the reason it lasted such a long time when the others lost their way, was the idea of Spider-Man as a teenage character. Peter Parker re-envisaged as a modern angry, moping nerd, cursed with a terrible floppy haircut and left forever young like Bart Simpson.

If this series had a firm influence outside old Spider-Man comics, it was teen adventure dramas like Buffy The Vampire Slayer, as Spider-Man struggled with his moral obligations, supervillain battles and web of complex teenage feelings. He swung neatly from soap to action to genuinely funny comedy sequences. There was Gwen and Mary Jane, Norman and Harry Osborn, a terrifying Doctor Octopus and even a non-alien Venom. Good times.

I Was A Late-Teen Spider-Fan

I was a late-teenage Spider-Man fan while this started coming out, so I suppose there’s an obvious appeal there. But as someone who loved the sci-fi/soap opera/jokes combo of Spider-Man more than any other superhero, I thought this really captured the spirit of the character for me, distilling it into a pure form without many distractions. After all, Spidey is the forerunner of all teen relatable superheroes, and it was weird that there hadn’t really been many comics where he lived in that genre – sneaking out of school to fight the Rhino and trying to make it back in time for his date.

I also felt the length of the run did a lot for it. Obviously, not every comic book run should go on forever. Still, the feeling of a world developing, characters coming and going, all with Bendis as a unifying creative voice even after the original artist left, gave the series a feeling of authorial ownership and consistency you don’t get from many superhero comics.

I don’t want to ignore the artists – Mark Bagley cemented himself as not just a definitive Spidey artist here, but one who can convey lengthy conversations just as well as superhero action.

The subsequent artists – primarily Stuart Immonen, David Lafuente, Sara Pichelli and David Marquez – were all top-notch too, continuing in the tradition of exciting, dynamic art that flowed through the action. They made the superhero action look like it had real weight rather than abstract gesturing, while still selling all the emotional beats.

And I haven’t even talked yet about the other major thing Ultimate Peter Parker got that the regular one probably never will: an ending.

Even-Ultimater Spider-Man

Lovely Miles Morales costume.

I cried when Ultimate Peter Parker died, I’m not ashamed to admit it. Series original artist Mark Bagley came back to draw that last storyline and gave him exactly the sacrifice you’d want. Seriously, if you’d been reading all along, it was a brutal, sad pay-off. Even though he might now be back from the dead, it doesn’t deaden the impact of that issue for me.

Plus it meant Ultimate Spider-Man could innovate yet again by giving us the all-new version: Miles Morales. An young biracial teenager inspired by Peter Parker’s death and just happening to acquire similar-but-not-identical spidery powers, Miles donned a redesigned Spider-Man costume and picked up where Parker left off.

Paving the way for many more diverse superhero replacements in recent years, Miles kept up the bold Spidey tradition of likability and humour in the face of horrible suffering. With Bendis still on-board as writer, he’s kept the tone consistent, continuing the Ultimate Spidey tradition of making old tropes seem new and exciting. The inspired part, I think, was yanking away the Parker-era safety net of recognising characters/stories from the original universe, but keeping the tone intact.

Sales of the Ultimate initiative trailed off in recent years, and we’ve finally reached the point of winding it down. Bendis and Bagley are re-teaming for a finale story called Ultimate End, which should be heartwrenching. Still, they’ve all but confirmed that Miles Morales will stay around in some form – based on some news stories, he may even join the Avengers.

Nonetheless, part of me feels an overhanging sadness. As I’ve mentioned, the glorious tapestry of the Ultimate Spider-Man universe is a big selling point. Bendis built a world populated by likable and memorable characters, all the better to make us suffer when he starts swinging the hammer into them.

If we lose that, even if Miles Morales himself survives, I will feel something has been lost. What about his friendship with Ganke, dammit?

Yes, the character and what he represents are important, but the Ultimate Spider-Man series, supporting cast and style meant something to me too, and if this is the end, I’m sorry to see them go. But I got to read over 200 issues of this thing I like, with pretty much uniformly great art, so I suppose my suffering isn’t quite the worst in the world.

Black Panther by Christopher Priest – A Homage

April 24, 2014 by Nick Bryan

I recently subscribed to Marvel Unlimited, a Netflix-esque system that gives me all-I-can-eat Marvel comics for a fairly low price. Not bang-up-to-date ones, but I’ve not read half the comics I wanted to over the last decade due to financial concerns, so I can keep trawling for a while.

However, as well as striking out for new material, I’ve also re-read some old favourites, and I’d like to talk about one of those now: Black Panther by Christopher Priest and various artists, a series that ran from 1998 to 2003. The Black Panther character has existed since 1966, King of a fictional African nation called Wakanda, and mostly associated with standing in the backdrop of Avengers groupshots in the later decades of the twentieth century.

Attentive readers may note Priest also wrote Quantum & Woody, a series even closer to my heart than Black Panther. I started reading Panther due to following Priest over from Q&W, barely knowing who the character was, and Priest made me love it in approximately one issue. If you want a gushing tribute to Q&W, here’s one I wrote in September 2012.

But anyway. Black Panther. What was that about?

“The bathroom had no door. I still had no pants.” – Everett K. Ross wins my heart in one page.

As you may have guessed from both the name and his status as King of an African nation, the Black Panther (aka T’Challa) lives outside the standard white American superhero demographic. And yes, particularly in the old days, black superheroes did have a bad habit of having the word Black in their alias.

Characters outside the standard demo didn’t tend to hit mega-sales in the pre-2010s US mainstream Marvel/DC comic market, but Priest found ways to embrace that. First up, he introduced Everett K. Ross, T’Challa’s new state department liaison and self-proclaimed King of Useless White Boys. With Ross serving as narrator, comic relief, audience POV character and exposition monkey, Priest took a different tack with the title character.

He made Black Panther effortless, dangerous and scary, and T’Challa a ruthless, brilliant schemer with the world’s finest poker face, an enigma one step withdrawn from the reader thanks to the Ross-focused storytelling. He also dug into the real implications (or as real as you can get in a fictional superhero universe) of the politically active King of a nation choosing to wear tights and play superhero, and the international politics of the Marvel Universe. All while Everett K. Ross flippantly monologued about the oddness of superheroes and explained T’Challa’s labyrinthine plots to us.

And seriously, labyrinthine is not hyperbole. I was in my mid-to-late teens when this comic came out, and re-reading it at the ancient age of thirty, I now realise how little of it I understood, especially in the latter, really confusing storylines. The out-of-sequence storytelling in the opening two or three years didn’t help matters, nor did reading it in twenty-two page monthly chunks.

Ironically, comics have milked death beyond death

All those things probably contributed to the constantly middling sales on Black Panther, but reading back now, I’m glad Priest stuck to his guns, as it’s great. A uniquely idiosyncratic, smart take on a genre that really has been milked to death and back again. People talk about adult comics as the ones with tits and blood, but this is adult in the sense that it can be denser than a lot of political thrillers. In many ways ahead of its time, considering how much reading comics in collected edition format has exploded in the 2000s, not to mention recent industry moves to diversify a little from the white male superhero demo.

I’ve focused on the writing as that’s my area of interest, but I would be a prick not to mention the artwork – especially the gorgeous painted art by Mark Texeira and Joe Jusko in early issues and the reliably beautiful, clear, emotive work by Sal Velluto after that.

Sadly, Priest’s Black Panther had the poor fortune to be published just before collected editions of everything became standard practice, so it’s not available through many venues – except the afore-mentioned Marvel Unlimited, which has it free and easy, but for some reason it’s not on Comixology yet. Well, they have one issue, but it’s a midstoryline episode published because it crosses over with Deadpool, and would be utterly incomprehensible to a new reader.

Indeed, the series as a whole is quite dense on Marvel Universe guest stars at times. Still, considering we now live in a world where everyone in the geekosphere knows roughly who the Avengers are, it’s worth a go if you can find it and fancy a good, different superhero read.

Post-Panther Notation

Black Panther (Kasper Cole version) by Dan Fraga

The above is talking about the bulk of the Black Panther series by Priest, specifically issues #1-49. After that, other things happened…

With #50, the series underwent radical retooling – Priest stayed on as writer, but New York cop Kasper Cole took over as Black Panther after finding a costume abandoned in an alleyway. Cole’s adventures never hit the dizzy joyous heights of the best Priest/T’Challa/Ross stories, but they’re good, engaging super-crime stuff.
Alas, the Kasper Cole revamp was not enough to get sales up, and the book ended with #62. Which is about fifty more issues than a low-selling book gets nowadays.
Proving that point, Priest and artist Joe Bennett launched an ensemble book called The Crew partly spinning out of Black Panther, featuring Kasper Cole teaming up with a few other characters. It lasted seven issues, and that’s a shame, as it was excellent. Also available on Marvel Unlimited, happily.
Priest himself hasn’t done much in comics since the early 2000s, but seems to be dipping his toe back into the water at the moment, with an upcoming Quantum & Woody sequel mini-series and a short story in a recent Deadpool anthology issue. My fingers are predictably crossed that this leads to more – and not necessarily on existing superhero characters, I’d be just as up for a new property for a smaller company.
If you want more in-depth (and at times brutally honest) essays on Panther from the author himself, there’s a few on his website.

More blognotes may follow if I want to spotlight anything good on Marvel Unlimited. Or I might just plough through endless old Avengers and X-Men issues rather than taking the time to write about them. Let’s wait and see!