THE MARVEL 52 INITIATIVE

INTRODUCTION:
DC has decided to relaunch it’s lineup with 52 new issues starting in September. It’s meant to be a starting point for new readers they hope to draw in and trimming the fat. I’ve looked over what they want to do and I’m quite excited over the idea. My pull list is going to get longer. Again.

Naturally, others have already done this but I thought I’d throw in my two cents over what I would do if Marvel relaunched its line. This is only a thought experiment. I’m more familiar with this corner of the comic universe and I thought this would be fun. This does not in any way suggest that what Marvel is currently doing is bad.

I would just like to trim some of Marvel’s fat. (Particularly the X Men line). And this is how I would do it.
Two things first. No creative teams will be listed as both Marvel and DC are good at poaching talent from other mediums and each other to create the books they sell each month. Also, these are just bare ideas, most not even fleshed out..

Marvel has an ultimate line which is getting it’s own revamp very soon. That tried to imagine Marvel heroes and villians if they had been launched in the 21^st century rather than in the 1960s.
This is how I’d do it if I was launching in THIS decade.
So, yes, folks. Continuity is GONE.

CAVEATS:
Marvel will NEVER do this. But one thing DC is attempting to try with this 52 relaunch is a consistency with the creative teams. So you really will get a year’s worth of issues with the same creative team. I wish both companies would do this consistently. If an artist, in particular, needs a break, maybe have that fill in artists be dedicated to that particular book.
Finally, just for clarity’s sake, Marvel has a dedicated Adults only line labeled MAX. A few of these must be done in this way and I’ve indicated as much down below.
WITH ALL THAT IN MIND, HERE WE GO, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER.

　

1. Fantastic Four: A cosmic accident turned a partial family into a celebrity super group.
2. Iron Man: Billionaire Industrialist Tony Stark uses his suit of armor to keep himself alive and make a difference in the world of armed conflicts.
3. Hulk: Bruce Banner is on the run from the experiment that created the monster inside him.
4. Ms. Marvel: The same accident that created the fantastic four irradiated test pilot Carol Danvers and granted her superpowers. Now she goes where the military can't in a quest to prove herself and get justice.
5. Spiderman: An irradiated Spider bit college student Peter Parker and changed his life forever.
6. Black Widow: Spy action from a former Russian agent who defected to our side.
7. Captain America: A soldier out of time. Retired during WWII by being cryogenically frozen. Woken up to combat a new kind of terror.
8. Fury, Director of SHIELD: Fury heads a special ops squad that goes where others can't to intervene in a crisis.
9. Thor: An Asgardian exiled to Earth for a crime he didn't commit has found a new home and a new reason to fight.
10. Journey into Mystery: The Asgardians is Marvel’s wild take on Norse Mythology and considering how much some of those gods like to intervene on Earth this is their book and the Marvel Universe’s reaction to it.
11. She Hulk: Bruce Banner's cousin Jen Walters once saved Bruce's life and her own has never been the same since. Bounty Hunter, Skip Tracer, Lawyer, her natural desire to help gets her into all kinds of trouble.
12. The Pantheon: If Journey into Mystery is about the Norse Gods, this one is about the Greek Gods. The Greek Gods love to play with us. Unless we fight back.
13. The Avengers: Occasionally there are threats too big for one hero to handle. When the city and the world is under threat we need their help.
14. Damage Control: A group of Insurance Agents pursue claims filed by those who have been victimized in some way after heroes and villians have clashed in the city.
15. The Defenders: This is a group of humans, all affected in some manner by the insanity happening in their city, trying to build a bridge between super powered beings, mutants, and humans through whatever action they can to promote peace.
16. Daredevil: A lawyer who works New York’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood for justice. When that justice fails he dons a mask and gets justice his way as Daredevil.
17. Elektra: (MAX) An assassin with one line she'll never cross--unless her life depends on it. If you become her target nothing short of her death will stop her.
18. Thunderbolts: Former Supervillians attempt to make a fresh start tackling tough cases that only they can. A member of the Avengers oversees them and outside of a core few, they take who they need from a rotating roster depending on the mission.
19. Dr. Strange: A paranormal psychologist taps into mystical powers to save us all from a darkness that very few can perceive.
20. The Punisher: (MAX) One man wages a never ending war on the vilest criminal set.
21. The Daily Bugle: Investigative reporters dig up the stories that no one talks about in a world gone very very strange.
22. Avengers Academy. New heroes are always needed to combat new threats. This is where they receive training, with the hope that they can better the world in the future.
23. Mary Jane: Gossip Girl in the Marvel Universe. Should appeal to all ages.
24. Blade (MAX): A hybrid creature of darkness hunts others of its kind and a lot more. When the sun goes down, the Marvel Universe gets dark very fast.
25. Runaways: Kids with a variety of powers and origins discover that they have supervillian parents. They go on the run to defeat those parents but in the process make enemies of everyone they meet. They’re looking for a place to settle so they can clear their reputations.
26. Black Panther: Political intrigue in a country in the midst of a revolution.
27. The Starjammers: Outerspace action with encounters of the strangest beings in the cosmos.
28. Ghost Rider: A spirit of vengeance posesses a human to make the guilty atone for their crimes. But what if the vessel is the guiltiest one of all?
29. Werewolf By Night: It takes a monster to slay a monsters.
30. NY X: Not every newly manifested mutant has access to Charles Xavier. Those that don't make other options.
31. X Men: (The 2000 film had this right). Scott, Jean, Ororo, Beast and Angel. Xavier and Magneto and their idealogical clash over where the mutant race should go next.
32. Generation X: Academy for the gifted and their struggles at school. A rotating team of instructors for guest shots. Primary students are the following: Rogue, Kitty Pryde, Bobby Drake, Pyro, Jubilee and Nightcrawler.
33. Wolverine (MAX): solo adventures of a semi team player trying to understand who and what he is.
34. X Factor: A Mutant organization designed to police it's own in a world that fears them. Wolverine leads this as he's trying to atone for past sins. Domino, Wolfsbane, Bishop, Sage, and Elizabeth Braddock (before she got the Ninja Assassin body) make up the team.
35. Shang Chi: Master of Kung Fu. I was thinking more spy action but in a more over the top way like Bond. Perhaps an industrial espionage angle.
36. Black Widow: Pale Spider (MAX): This is Yelena Belova, a graduate of the same school that Natasha came from. (And featured in a mini with the above title). This is hardcore spy action--as realistic as we can be in the Marvel Universe.
37. Exiles: Perhaps to pay homage to all this continuity we lost we can assemble a team that does a sort of wormhole hopping multiverse tour of all creation attempting to right wrongs . This way we get glimpses of what the Marvel Universe used to be like.
38. Marvel Team Up. It always pays to have a friend along to help out.
39. Marvel Comics Presents. This is the place for mini series and other vignettes featuring our favorite heroes and villians.
40. What If: Alternate tales of new and old tales, taking an Exiles approach to storytelling.
41. The Hellfire Club. When humans, mutants and super powered beings worked together to create chaos, this group leads the charge.
42. The Eternals. These are the beings that keep the universe in order. And they don’t always get along.
43. Marvel Illustrated: This line has been used the in the past to publish adaptations of classics but I would go further and leave things for stuff like their Stephen King adaptations or Orson Scott Card's novels.
44. Marvel Adventures. This is the kid friendly take to stories featuring the characters we know and love.
45. Icon: This line is like Marvel Illustrated only it’s reserved for creator owned properties.
46. Crossgen: To date, Sigil, Ruse and an upcoming Mystic are three titles that used to belong to a separate company that went bankrupt a few years ago. Marvel has acquired these assets and has so far produced these mini series. I would just put this in a single line and rotate them accordingly. Personally, I’d like to see “The Path” come back.
47. Weird Western Tales: Marvel has a number of Western heroes and villians in their stable (sorry). Use this to showcase them.
For titles 48-52 I’d like to borrow an idea from somewhere else and call these titles the open slot positions. Do something completely new either from their original catalog or more breathing room for other creator owned ideas.

Will this ever happen? Who knows? This is only a thought experiment.

Two Films Virtually Misunderstood.

Some news  was announced recently that 2006's video game adapation and horror film "Silent Hill" is getting a sequel.  This news, coupled with the chilly reception that Zack Snyder received for "Sucker Punch" got me thinking about how a product gets judged, particularly between the general public and fans of original source material if it does exist.  The short answer is there is no dichotomy--some are just louder than others.  The longer answer needs some background.

"Silent Hill" adapts the first video game in the series pretty much carte blanche.  The protagonist's gender is changed (you are a dad in the game) and the nature of the cult controling the town is also changed, and in my experience, makes a little bit more sense than the video game version.  (This might be a product of the way the first game was designed--you can play through the entire game and depending on the amount of exploration done you can miss an entire sub plot that helps with what's ultimately going on).  Elements of the second game in the series are echoed in the movie in the husband searching for his lost wife.  (And if I'd been a successful screenwriter in LA at the time I would have told my agent that I could pitch Silent Hill 2 right now!)  The third game in the series will be the basis for the upcoming sequel.  (A teenage girl discovering who she really is when she goes to Silent Hill). 

For the film, however, Director Christophe Gans succeeded in conveying all the atmosphere and terror of the original game and in my mind, gave us not only a  great horror film but probably the best adaptation of a video game yet made.  It does this by giving us a complete story within the movie that requires no knowledge of the game.  If you do have knowledge of the game I think you'll admire just how close Gans got to putting you inside your own head when you were playing the game.  It also replicates the experience of the game through it's atmosphere and pyrotechnics.  There are images and sequences in this game that will stick with you for a while.  What made the game work was a never ending sense of "I don't know exactly what I'm looking at here but it's freaking me out" and the film does a good job suggesting this too. 

I recall two major complaints that video game fans and the general public seem to agree on with this movie and I'll address them without spoiling it.  I also have to do this because this film is open to interpretation but no so much that it's inexplicable.  The first complaint had to do with character actions as Rose is exploring the town.  She encounters things like a trussed up dead body and retrieves part of a key without knowing really why.  She explains this--she's being led--it's in the dialogue.  The second has to do with how it ends.  This won't spoil it.  THEY DON'T GET OUT.  I'll leave you to interpret why.

"Sucker Punch" is another film with an interesting reaction from gamers and general audience.  Both seem to hate it equally for various reasons.  Sucker Punch has video game roots in that it's structured like an adventure game.  Some games are obstacle courses--find a key to unlock a door or a sledgehammer to create an opening in the wall.  (The "Silent Hill" series is all about keys and locked doors).  In Sucker Punch our protagonists must find five things that will help them escape and the fantastic sequences with dragons and zombiefied soldiers play out in the mind while the girls acquire the items.  I thought it worked and I thought it worked beautifully.  There was also a bit of an unnerving subtext in this movie.  It's never explicitly stated but what exactly is happening to these girls during these fantasy sequences.  Because the director doesn't answer that (and he shouldn't have) we're left to imagine it--and it's not pretty. 

It's occurred to me that a lot of my favorite films (like the two above) often get massacred at the critical level.  Now, I can be accused of trying to justify why I like something and my friends no I've done this before.  I've also been proven wrong enough that I've changed my mind.  And I never want to use box office tally as a measure of a film's success.  Silent Hill did better than Sucker Punch probably will in the end.  But I think both are worth a second look and will stand out over time.

By the way, it's a different writer/director team for the Silent Hill sequel and the cast is returning from the first film.  I'm quite curious to see how this all works out sometime next year.

To close this out:  Here's a review of someone who understood what Sucker Punch was trying to do.
Here's also a review from someone who understands Silent Hill.  He brackets the spoilers away, though which is good. 

Sucker Punch and a brief mention of another kind of female action hero.

So,  I had this dream last night.

No, really, I did.

I swear it feels like director Zack Snyder took images from inside my head and crafted something that either is going to be supremely awesome or collossally stupid but somehow I don't seem to care.  Fire breathing dragons, samurai monsters, and women with swords and guns and sometimes both.

If you take a look at the second trailer you'll discover that this is more or less a prison break story.  Discovering what is real and inside her head will be part of the fun.  We already know that this is, at least, going to look very pretty with all the eye candy.  My hope for this film is that it sticks to its own logic and doesn't  break its own rules whatever those end up being.  My suspension of disbelief can be pretty high but it does have limits.

My blockbuster summer comes early in 2011. 

On another sort of related note.  For an action heroine that doesn't need to rely on swords or superpowers, check out "True Grit."  Haylee Stienfeld has a breakout role this year in a very convincing protrayal of a frontier girl in over her head as she hires a marshall to track down her father's killer.  This is a very good adaptation of the original novel and doesn't step on the toes of the John Wayne version from 1969. 

If you're looking for another story like this, I'd like to point out "Ride the River" by Louis La'mour.  It was the last novel written in his "Sackett" series.  It stands alone like the others and chronciles the adventures of "Echo Sackett" who must claim an inheritance but then outwit some outlaws as she tries to make it home. 

Cracked Mirror's Edge

I've been playing video games since the late 80s and having grown up with that and my love of story I always appreciate the way some games attempt a good narrative, even if they fail in their execution on some level.  This also results in me being late to the party for some games as I take an extraordinarily long time to finish some of these things.

Game narrative can be as simple as finding a way through an obstacle course (a zombie infested mansion, for example) or saving a kingdom from a marauding dragon with the aid of questionable allies.  Regardless of how a game executes a particular story I can be particularly harsh on what it gets wrong because I see the potential for greatness.  This brings me to an action game from 2008 called    "Mirror's Edge".

There's a lot that this game gets right--a dystopian setting, a logical extrapolation of censorship taken to extreme measures, an attractive heroine with realistic proportions and authentic ethnicity (at least within the game engine, but more on that in a second) and finally, the game's selling point as that trailer shows, a first person parkour experience that is nearly perfect.

Basically this is an innovative approach to a first person perspective obstacle course.  When the obstacles are rooftops, gaps, ladders, sewers and the like, the game is an adrenaline rush.  The game shows its cracks when the obstacles become human.   Attacks are handled in first person like everything else but attack is limited to high, low and a disarm move.  The disarm move is particularly frustrating because its the result of a timed button press that can be easy to miss.  When the disarm happens you automatically acquire the weapon of your opponent.  But you can just as quickly drop the weapon.  There's good logic behind this move as carrying a weapon slows you down and this game, particularly during the action set pieces, is all about speed.

Other critics in pointing out the game's flaws have speculated that perhaps combat is difficult to encourage you to avoid it.  When I played through this I had fun trying to outdo my opponents and fire as few shots as possible.   It results in a lot of trial and error but, because I liked what I was seeing I continued to push through. 

The game's story is only hampered by two other things.  The first is it doesn't tell a complete tale.  You solve the game's main problem that propels your adventure but it doesn't really explain all the reasons why behind the action.  Like many Hollywood productions, it leaves room for a franchise.  The second thing breaks the immersion and this is where I feel the potential for greatness is truly lost.

The chapter breaks convey their narrative via these animated cut scenes with some really horrible art.  And considering how good the action looks inside the game what I wanted was to see them use that engine to convey those same scenes.  If it had done that I think it would've done a great job keeping you engaged within that game world.  When you're navigating the obstacle courses it's convincing.  When it transitions to in game scenes while still staying within the game engine it's immersive.  I just wanted to see the rest of it conveyed the same way.  I have seen other games be successful at this.  In the case of this experience I just feel it was a lost opportunity.

For those of you who want to check it out it's available for cheap for the XBOX 360 or PS3. 

Think of this as keys to my basement

It's occurred to me recently that if I were to fill my current basement up with all the things I've held in my possession over the years that did not involve furniture, appliances or transportation I believe I would have a basement full of narrative items.

By that I mean books, comics, video games and films and the means to watch or play them.  All of these, in one form or another have entertained me with Story.  And that, primarily is what this blog will tackle.

I'll be looking at Storytelling through the arts, primarily books, films, comics and video games.  It is my hope that I may make you aware of something that strikes your interest or perhaps makes you look at a topic in a different way. 

So, for those of you whom I've invited directly or have stumbled upon by accident, I bid you welcome and be well.