Less Of A Question, More Of An Accusation Followed By Some Slander
Would that someone had anything smart to say about fandom; ah well
Comic book publisher panels at comic book conventions are not supposed to be interesting, right? Sure, they might feature somewhat newsworthy announcements, like, say, Deniz Camp and Javier Fernandez continuing the Absolute Universe’s reinvention of the Justice League with their part-Ditko part-Pynchon and already hyped past the point of white-hot ABSOLUTE MARTIAN MANHUNTER, but there’s usually nothing to glean from these events that you couldn’t get from the marketing materials, and at most one interview at one of the last websites talking about comics still standing.
Certainly, you’re not supposed to pay attention to what happens during a Q&A session at one of those panels. There’s a reason why they’ve been so thoroughly derided all across pop culture as the sort of tedium that can only come from having a room booked for a set amount of time and no less than that. I’ve read my share of panel transcripts over the years, and, with all apologies to the many journalists reporting from the scene, sometimes right as it happens, none of them are worth revisiting. There’s no insight to pull from the exercise that will be of superior worth to anyone than what reading the actual comics would offer; that’s just the nature of the beast, and thank fuck for that, because it’s saved me a ton on plane tickets.
And yet here we are, discussing events that took place during the Spider-Man and his Venomous pals panel at New York City Comic Con. What the fuck happened? What kind of mismanagement could have led to several days of dramatic headlines, fueling the circus of bad faith insinuations and outright lies that has surrounded The Amazing Spider-Man since the start of Zeb Wells’ run? I must stress: this was supposed to be easy! The audience for one of these panels will usually self-select itself such that you’ll have mostly people happy to be here; doubly so if you provide some kind of souvenir to celebrate their attendance.
The first and most obvious fact is that Spider-Man fans have not been a happy bunch for a good long while, a fact not helped in any way by a comic book run so insulting to their intelligence, such as it is, that its grand thematic statement ended up being “Spider-Man is Peter Parker”, which isn’t so much an “A to B to C” as it is an “A to A to A again”. But audiences have been frustrated by bad comic books, as well as good comic books that they’ve been told are bad by men on Youtube, for as long at there have been bad comic books (which scientists are saying first occurred in 1992.) These hardly caused the kind of mild commotion we were witness to last weekend.
What I think is that, as determined as some had been to call Nick Lowe to task over the past twenty years of Peter Parker’s adventures, there wouldn’t have been such a hunger to make the furore a matter of news and thinkpieces had Marvel been able to provide any kind of vision or direction to the people in attendance.
Consider what had been put in front of them in the hour previous. There was the forthcoming The Eight Deaths of Spider-Man, which, from all angles, feels like you just picked a writer from the Brand New Day brain trust at random and asked them to come up with a filler arc you’ll be able to sell under the banner of One World Under Doom. Then, you followed that up with Charles Soule’s new Carnage book, which is going to get unfairly compared to Al Ewing’s continuing Venom no matter what take he and Jesús Saíz bring to the material, and therefore feels just a little bit pointless. And on top of all of that, you’re asking people to get interested in Spider-Verse vs. Venomverse, the long-expected face-off between a completely played-out idea and an idea about to be played out.
None of these announcements feel bold or memorable enough to create a new narrative around The Amazing Spider-Man, and that, in my opinion, is the actual problem. Nick Lowe and his editorial team have rendered themselves inaudible through their insistence that theirs was the correct way to make a Spider-Man comic and that nothing needed to change. There is nothing too original in pointing that conflict out.
Here is what’s been interesting me in this story: Nick Lowe is not the only editor at Marvel to have expressed the belief that the characters under their care and the troubles that they faced should more or less keep to an evergreen version of themselves, that you couldn’t push them too far without losing out on potential new readers hungry for the clearest and simplest expression of the concepts at play. This is the same approach that was taken on the recent relaunch of the X-Men under Tom Brevoort. How long until it proves to be a dead end there too? How many shitshows exactly like this one can we expect in the near future? This can’t be worth it, can it?
It would be really easy and really fun to make fun of Tom Taylor and the comics that he has written. I do it all the time, and I’m about to do it some more. Why wouldn’t I? I mean, let’s start with the fact the most notable parts of his oeuvre are big moments designed to be quoted out of context on social media in reply to any of the old tiresome arguments laid out against superhero comics, their fans, or the arrested development of both, that never really feel earned because of a scandalous lack of connective tissue. And then, let’s get into his two modes of storytelling, which are sanding off anything even remotely interesting about the characters he’s writing to do aggressively wholesome sitcom antics, and increasingly desperate shock value tricks, from hyperviolent imagery to ill-considered but really sacrilegious sounding retcons.
His biggest transgressions, however, come from the tendency of his stories to turn into polemics for a simplistic, “wouldn’t it be nice to just be nice”, completely unserious view of the world, which acknowledges in no uncertain terms the problems facing us right now, but cannot bring itself to devise an answer more radical than grandstanding and convincing the world of your own righteousness. Obviously, I am saying this because his treatment of Jon Kent is a historical fumbling of the proverbial bag, which means that part of me will resent him forever for making my young adult bisexual Superman forced to grow up witnessing the worst of all possible worlds into a guy that would even consider for a moment the notion that fascism can be hugged away.
And yet: I think that a gig as high-profile as Detective Comics #1090, the All In relaunch meant to follow up on what had been the unequivocal best thing going on in cape comics until the new volume of The Ultimates, was exactly where Tom Taylor needed to be. The bar seems higher, but it is actually way lower, owing to the fact that Batman is maybe the simplest character in comics. The immediacy of the action detective thrills means you set your own complexity level: Batman can have a child’s morality and still be recognizably Batman. It works, and the issue cleverly doubles down on this aspect by focusing its character study on Bruce Wayne as the child of quasi-saint Thomas Wayne.
Even more inspired than that, however, is the choice of reinforcing the frailty of Batman as just an aging guy slightly too broken by his prolonged war on all criminals. It’s a necessary readjustment, especially in an editorial context where the Justice League is supposed to return to some level of prominence, and it compliments really well the ripped-from-the-headlines billionaire biohacking plot thread, which is executed with as much subtlety as it deserves, which is to say none whatsoever.
On top of all of that, you’re also getting the next level in Mikel Janin’s evolution as an artist AND colorist. The obsessive focus on situating his characters in the physical space is still there, but his feel for texture has massively improved. His sense of plasticity, which I have praised many times before, is even stronger here. In the flashbacks, he gets to be steady, warm and intimate, with a gentle and soft palette. In the heat of the action, everything gets wonderfully unhinged, as the night turns into a barrage of clashing neon colors that is up there with FCO Plascencia (WHO NO ONE SHOULD EVER TALK SHIT ABOUT, GREG) in terms of absolutely brilliant visual boldness.
I had a great time with this comic. I understand that one should go into a Tom Taylor with a pessimistic outlook (I mean, I’ve read his Nightwing until the point when it got too boring, which was three issues in. (CHECK THE ARCHIVES! I DOCUMENTED IT!)) You can’t help the feeling that it’s all going to crash and burn, especially with that final panel. The ideas are too big, too combustible, for things to work out as intended. But this issue, this week? I’d be lying if I claimed it didn’t work for me.
I expected to have more to say about Absolute Wonder Woman #1, which is a really good comic book. As was the case with Absolute Batman, you’re getting your fair share of strict inversions of the familiar story, with the odd subversion involving established figures, and it is all done with an exceptional sense of style.
But where Dragotta, Martin and Snyder packed their opening statement with clever tricks and bits, Hayden Sherman and Kelly Thompson have taken a more leisurely approach. It luxuriates in its setting, taking the time to get up close and personal with its characters. It’s an origin story without the shortcuts, and there is something genuinely beautiful to some of the things it finds on the way.
The fact that Sherman gets to show off with some of the most imaginative layouts you’ll see in a comic all year? The fact that the action completely kicks ass? The huge monsters, the blockbuster feel? They’re all there; it’s just that this comic lingers. Which is a lot harder to write about. That’s gonna be my excuse.
And that’s gonna be all of it for this week! We’ll get to everything else, your new Iron Man and that still-good Superman comic, in due time. But now is the part where we say goodbye! Now is the part where I tell you I’m on bluesky! And yes, inevitably, this is where I tell you once more to HUMBLE YOURSELF BEFORE COMICS!