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Don’t worry, I’m not hitting you folks with yet another week of nothing but Swamp Thing posts. However, I received an e-mail from one of the readers of this weblog, who asked a question about something that I hadn’t thought about until now. The writer asked about the fate of one of the characters from the very first issue of Swamp Thing from 1972, who is introduced in this panel:

Pictured there are Ferrett (the fella in the green suit), Bruno (who is named later in the scene) on the left with the short-cut hair, and the unnamed long-haired thug on the right. It’s that long-haired chap that we’re concerned with here.

Here’s a better look at him:

Now I’d just figured it wasn’t important who that guy was…he’s just some muscle accompanying Ferrett on their errand for the mysterious “Mister E.” (not to be confused with this Mister E), who is after the Hollands’ secret biorestorative formula.

However, as my reader noted in his e-mail, that unnamed thug is the guy who actually plants the bomb in the Hollands’ laboratory, as seen here:

Most of you longtime Swampy fans are probably extremely familiar with the bomb in question, having seen variations on this next panel in many flashbacks over the character’s thirty-plus-year run:

And, as we all know, the bomb goes off, the flaming body of Alec Holland plunges into the swamp, and Swamp Thinginess promptly ensues.

The conclusion of the first issue involves Swamp Thing’s revenge on the thugs what turned him into a monster…however, only two thugs get their just deserts. Swampy grabs Bruno (whose hair apparently goes grey from fear in that second panel…or it’s a coloring error, one of the two):

And then Swamp Thing gets his mossy mitts on Ferrett:

But that long-haired guy? Nowhere to be seen. The guy who actually planted the bomb that set off this whole chain of events got off scot-free. Even as we encounter the secret boss-man “Mister E.” in subsequent issues, he has other assistants and thugs involved in his nefarious goings-on.

I don’t know…maybe that guy got a job as one of the Riddler’s henchmen, or became a Leif Garrett impersonator, or something. But now I’ve gone from not thinking about this at all to “Hmmmm…I wonder if that plot point will ever get addressed….”

And there’s your hyper-obsessive Swamp Thing post for the week. Enjoy, won’t you?

Okay, folks had been piling on Wizard Magazine recently, and I don’t mean to add to the sturm und drang now that it’s been mostly sturmed ‘n’ drung, but I was flipping through the latest issue on Saturday and noticed a couple things:

1. From the Frank Cho/Brian Bendis interview regarding the forthcoming Mighty Avengers series:

“With Ms. Marvel and the [other Avengers] so ingrained in the Avengers mythos, will we see the differing views that fueled Civil War completely disappear, or will an animosity still linger?”

“CHO: Look at it this way; I have family members I don’t talk religion or politics with. I love them, but there are certain topics that we are completely opposite on. they believe what they think is right, and I believe what I think is right, but we still get along.”

So, that’s a post-Civil War spoiler, in that the end result of this conflict will be Avengers members being slightly more grumpy at each other in the team lounge.

2. I’ve mentioned that Wizard has sort of undermined its own raison d’etre by emasculating its price guide, containing only partial issue listings for the titles present in that guide. For example, the listing for Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian has prices for 1, 2, 3, 14, 15, 23, 24, and 275. Issue #50? Who knows? The primary value of Wizard is now as a supplement to the Overstreet guide, indicating current trends that the yearly Overstreet can’t keep up with.

Most of the titles listed are ones of current interest or otherwise “hot,” but there was a couple that stood out. Gatecrasher and Just A Pilgrim are both included, with full listings of every issue, even though I’m fairly certain there’s little or no interest in these two series anywhere (even with Garth Ennis as writer on the latter). So why are they listed?

They’re published by Black Bull, which is (or was, I guess) Wizard‘s comic book publishing branch.

Ah.

To its credit, Wizard didn’t list the prices as $150 apiece with “RARE! HOT!” notations on them, which is exactly what I would have done in its position, because I’m a jerk.

(DISCLAIMER: I haven’t been able to keep up with a number of the recent comicsweblogosphere brouhahas in relation to Wizard, that Frank Cho interview, and so on, other than being aware that they exist, so I have no idea if I’m repeating points other folks have made. I’m a bad weblogger.)

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Oh, this could be very offensive…I apologize in advance:

“I’d rather Dick did it with a dude than Babs Gordon”

“Hopefully, they NEVER EVER EVER get back together. I can’t stand her, and they make a horrible couple anyway.

“Their whole relationship consists of quippy back and fourth remarks about nonsense. Wow, what a deep connection. They seem more like brother and sister than anything. So the romantic crap between them always seems like forced writing. I’d rather Dick bang a guy (as long as it’s just about sex) than some chick who’s like a sister to him.

“Did I mention I hate Barbara?
One time she called him ‘twentysomething wonder’ and I found myself wishing the Joker had been a little more lethal with that bullet.

“Animated Series Barbara is okay. Better than the comics version anyway.
But then, animated Dick Grayson isn’t as cool as comics Dick Grayson. See, it’s just not meant to be.”

Apparently this poster has a…history:

“You keep mentioning various BatFamily characters and gay sex. Are you gay?”

“So you’re okay with man-on-man sex, but a deep emotional bond between two men creeps you out? Whatever, I’m not criticizing but I usually see it in reverse on these boards. Or is it sex with a handicapable person that bothers you?”

The original poster responds:

“No, a deep emotional bond between two men is great.

“But I don’t see Nightwing as a homosexual. So I think he could have sex with other guys for fun, be close to them as a friend even, but he’d always go back to women.

As for Barbara, being in a chair has nothing to do with it. Has she ever used the word ‘handicapable’ before, or did you get that from somewhere else?
Because if she has said that, well, it’s another reason to hate her.
They should do a story where it’s revealed she’s been faking her handicap for years. The reason can be mental illness.”

And it just goes downhill after that:

“Dick could never be gay. Too many gay jokes. I mean he’d be a male underwear model who wears spandex by night and used to be a short-shorts wearing boy who lived in a cave with a grown man. Oh, yeah, also his name is DICK!”

“They should put Dick in a wheelchair too. Then they can have handicapped sex. :D”

“What the f*ck is your issue? You must just hate handicapped people.”

Again, from the original poster, and I’m hoping he was trying to be funny:

“Yes, it’s just Barbara I hate. I found the handicapped girl on Degrassi Junior High rather delightful. Her name escapes me, but she probably likes being referred to as ‘that girl in the wheelchair’ anyway.”

Back to the other commenters:

“I’d rather Dick did it with a dude too, work out all those long represed bat-fantasies. Babs deserves better anyway. :)”

“It’s obvious that you have REALLY STRONG FEELINGS about guys having sex with other guys for fun but always going back to women – are you doing this with guys?”

“I find that it’s really horrible to talk so crudely about one of DC’s first heroines. She was the only heroine back then in Detective Comics save SuperGirl and WonderWoman. I honestly think that relationships create a lot of unnecessary animosity. Just because one doesn’t like the couple doesn’t mean one bashes the other person their favorite character is with. I admit I really, really don’t want Black Panther with Storm, but I don’t make demeaning jokes about him.
As for Dick’s romantic love/sex/dating life, I really think that he should just back off of any relationship, may it be with a woman or man. His life is too f**ked up already, considering the list of problems he has:”

And then there’s a list of 17 points…well, 16, actually, since #17 is “The list goes on and on…” Other points include the following:

“3. People might sue him and take his remaining money because of the casualties of the Circus going down.”

“5. Jason Todd is back. That speaks for itself.”

“7. His Outsiders team kind of to almost completely sucks.”

“11. Batman’s still being a big b***h about him having to be under his shadow or some bull like that.”

“12. He currently has an identity crisis with that other Nightwing that confuses the hell out of me as to who it is.”

To wrap up:

“find Kory a WAY more interesting character and her relationship with Dick far more fascinating because of how different they are. Dick and Kory are like thinking outside the box. Dick and Babs are that couple trapped in a boring little box. Whoever he ends up with, I just would definitely not want it to be Babs !”

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You know, my posts were a lot shorter early on. I’m sure most of you miss those days.

from the Superman Book & Record Set (Peter Pan Records, 1978)

So when we received the Kingdom Come Norman McCay/Spectre action figure two-pack on Wednesday, I half-jokingly commented “Hey, I wonder if the Spectre figure is naked, ha ha.” Since, as you may recall, the Spectre in the Kingdom Come mini-series was naked, save for his strategically-billowing cape. And, aside from that remark, I didn’t think about it again…

…for about five minutes, when I received the first of many, many inquiries from customers wondering the exact same thing about that figure. I have no idea how to answer them. The figure’s cape looks like it’s molded in such a way that it’s permanently shut in the front of the figure, but I’m assuming that the cape isn’t a big solid piece of green plastic from about the waist down. You’re gonna be able to peek under it.

I’m guessing he’s either got some green trunks on, or he is indeed going ghost commando, and either way, you’re just gonna have to deal with it, baby.

We’ve sold a couple of the sets, and it did briefly, very briefly, cross my mind to ask the customers they could pop open the box for me. Then I realized that I’d be asking a customer if could see if the action figure they just purchased was naked, no, really, I’ve had other customers asking me this, honest…and I decided that my customers already have a low enough opinion of me, there’s no reason to pile on.

I also considered doing a search on Google, but considering the recent brouhaha AOL found itself in, I don’t want a search for “naked spectre action figure” getting traced back to me. Look, I’ve already Googled “Aqualad slash” for you people…I’ve got to draw the line somewhere.

So, um, if any of you do have this figure set…er, could you, you know…drop a line or something and answer my question? My customers’ questions, I mean. Yeah, my customers.

The other thing about this figure set is that if you buy it, you’re gonna have an action figure of Alex Ross‘ dad, who modeled the character of McCay for his son. An action figure based on the artist’s pop, packaged with a naked ghost. I just don’t have enough caffeine in my system to deal with this some mornings.

One, I called as soon as the book your son special-ordered came in, and we still had the book set aside for you nearly a month later. I’m not going to hold onto things indefinitely, and that’s why we’ve since sold the book.

Two, when you tell me “every time we drove to your shop to pick up the book, you were closed, even though you were supposed to be open,” that just tells me that you either can’t read our clearly-posted hours or that you’re a liar. Because, if it’s one thing we’re absolutely, positively fastidious about, it’s being open during our posted hours, since that’s a particular pet peeve of mine about certain other shops I’ve been to.

So too bad, so sad. If you can’t make it to the shop for some reason, you can always call us…but don’t come to my shop and lie to my face.

Love, Mike

So, on that cover of Justice League of America #1, who’s holding up the invitation? I’m guessing Snapper Carr. Pal Corey guessed that it’s the zombie corpse of Max Lord.

Some other new releases:

Swamp Thing #29 – The last issue of the current series, which I already sorta eulogized a while back, leaves Swampy at the same point he was at in Alan Moore’s last issue way back when…just a monster living in a swamp, shacked up with Abby. And, like I’ve said once or twice, I’d like to see Swamp Thing return to the general DC universe. Moore’s work on the character casts a long shadow…in fact, this last issue features the return of Woodrue, following up on his appearance in Moore’s first storyline from over twenty years ago. Throwing Swamp Thing back into the DCU may be one way to gain a little more distance from Moore, and quite frankly, I’m kind of Vertigoed-out on the character. However, we have a new Vertigo Un-Men book to get past before that can happen….

Elephantmen #2 – I noted about the last issue that I was pleasantly surprised by it, with its lush art and emotionally-affecting story. This issue isn’t quite as satisfying, which isn’t to say it’s not good. One story features the Crocodileman, Elijah, being interviewed by a very, very (i.e. “not at all”) thinly-veiled Howard Stern parody. Effective in presenting the common man’s perception of the Elephantmen, but the creepy payoff when the Stern parody pushes Elijah too far makes the fairly thin story worthwhile. The other story features hippo detective Hip Flask in a nasty fight with Elijah, with the only text being captions quoting the Bible’s Book of Job. Kinda high-falutin’ for what’s essentially two anthropomorphized animals beating the tar out of each other, and, frankly, I would have preferred some actual dialogue to quotations. But the art’s nice, the fight is brutal, and seeing these beings behave like the animals they’re based on is unnerving.

Batman #656 – Grant Morrison’s second issue is very ’60s Batman TV show-ish, with the amusing conceit of the word balloons in the pop art decorating the story’s gallery setting commenting on the action in the panels in which they appear. (Example: pop art painting with a character saying “Look, up in the sky” in a panel where Batman is about to be attacked from above.) The occasional painting with a large sound effect is very evocative of the Batman TV show’s giant “POW! BAM!” effects that would be inserted into the action. Almost guaranteed to annoy somebody.

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Sorry, not much in a weblogging mood today…to make up for it, please enjoy this computer-generated fan-made trailer for Charles Burns’ Black Hole:

Sort of looks like a Black Hole video game, doesn’t it? Good Lord, what a nightmare that would be.

You’re faced with many decisions in life: which college to attend, where to live, what job to take, what car to buy, what insurance coverage you need, whom to vote for, whom to marry, how to raise your children….

But never will you make a choice more important, more earth-shattering than this:

THE PLANTIMAL…

…OR THE WEIRD MUMMY INSECTS?

Choose wisely.

This was news to me: a DVD release of Masters of Horror: Jenifer by Dario Argento, a live-action adaptation of “a short story by Bruce Jones,” it says in the Amazon listing…a story I first encountered in comic strip form illustrated by Bernie Wrightson several years ago. It originally appeared in one of the black and white Warren magazines, and it was later reprinted in color in the PC/Eclipse-published mini-series Berni Wrightson Master of the Macabre.

Well, better add that to the Netflix queue. Not sure how the beautifully grotesque comic will translate into film, but if anyone’s gonna be able to do it, it’ll be Argento.

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So in response to this morning’s post, commenter Jeff reminds us of DC’s War of the Gods, another company-wide crossover series that was heavily dependent on specific timing of all the tie-in titles. Specifically, that the series had scheduling problems of its own, with issues coming out of order and spoiling things in other issues and…well, as Jeff notes, that’s surely what Marvel desperately wanted to avoid.

Of course, it wasn’t so much a problem with War of the Gods, since the series wasn’t really all that good anyway (even with the George Perez art), and as such I don’t know if that many people were really captivated by the events in that series to the extent that they are with Civil War.

And despite my misgivings with how the Civil War schedule was handled — if you have an event series upon which the scheduling of the rest of the line is dependent, you’d better make sure it comes out on time — it had been succeeding in the goal it shared with all other crossover series: it got readers looking at other books Marvel publishes. That’s really the only object for series like this…it’s not “NOTHING WILL EVER BE THE SAME AGAIN” (because any significant changes will be undone in short order), but rather that it’s advertising for the company line. It got a number of customers at our store, at least, excited about each new chapter that was released, and checking out books they normally wouldn’t buy just to keep up with the story.

Now whether those customers stick with the new titles they’re trying out is a whole ‘nother question altogther, but at least Civil War got some people excited about their comics again, and that’s nice to see. As a funnybook seller, I like to see more comics in more people’s hands, which Civil War was facilitating. I don’t expect the delay to make much of a dent in readership, other than maybe losing some of the casual readers attracted by the real-world news coverage the series had been receiving. But, it’s still frustrating how this production turned out.

Okay, that’s enough Civil War talk for now…you’ve been seeing it everywhere else, you don’t need to see me grousing about it too.

I was pondering the whole delayed Civil War thing and the importance of timing for DC and Marvel’s crossover events, when I was reminded of Secret Wars II.

In the Iron Man series at the time (and I’m going from memory, so forgive the vagueness of details), there was a big lead-up to a final confrontation between Tony Stark, who had given up on being Iron Man, and some arch-nemesis or another, which was going to result in the debut of a new suit of Iron Man armor…but would it be Tony inside? The big reveal was going to be in the double-sized issue #200…but, oops, Secret Wars II #5 came out first and blew the secret.

Civil War has managed to avoid this, more or less, even though there was that bit of dialogue in an issue of Thunderbolts that blew the Spider-Man I.D. reveal from Civil War #2, but that was because Thunderbolts was sent out to retailers the week before as part of the Marvel preview pack, and not because of a shipping delay.

And the point of all this is not to slam on Civil War, but, instead…remember when it used to be a big deal when Iron Man got a new suit of armor? I sorta miss those days.

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Okay, now I’m going to slam on Civil War, but just a little.

One of the defenses for the Civil War delay that I’ve been seeing is the importance of maintaining the consistency of the creative team. And, you know, that’s fine. Shame it mucked up the shipping schedule so much, but I can understand. But the defense given here:

“On another board, Bryan Hitch correctly pointed out that nobody today really remembers the four-month wait between ‘Dark Knight Returns’ #2 and #3 – heck, most of the people reading this likely first read that story as a collected edition. And that’s because the work is strong, and has stood the test of time. It wasn’t compromised simply to meet the monthly schedule, and as a result, DC and the retailers will be able to sell it forever.”

…Well, a company-wide crossover series, designed to propel an editorially-mandated direction for a shared universe, isn’t really the same thing as a mini-series where the creator’s particular vision is sort of the point. (And Dark Knight‘s lateness didn’t take the rest of the company’s output with it.)* Ultimately, it doesn’t much matter if the creative team remains consistent throughout a crossover series…it’s nice if it does, but it didn’t hurt Infinite Crisis any to have a few fill-in artists, and I doubt it would have hurt Civil War any. It may have been worth saving the grief Marvel is getting from fans and retailers if they’d gone ahead and had a few pages by another artist in Civil War…and let’s face it, there are plenty of fans who wouldn’t even have noticed. (Though, as Tom pointed out, it’s not like the fans aren’t going to buy it anyway, whenever it does come out.)

And, unlike Dark Knight, if a Civil War trade paperback is even still in print a decade or so from now, it’ll probably sell as well as DC’s Zero Hour trade paperback does right now, and probably be about as relevant. (See also….)

* EDIT: Just noticed Michileen Martin had made a similar point in response to Alan David Doane’s take on the matter.

The lead story involves some meddling aliens or some darn thing, but really it’s just an excuse to show lots of girls piled up on top of each other. There’s phone booth stuffing, there’s “bed-racing,” which eventually results in this scene:

And then there’s the famous “transparent medicine ball” stunt as seen in this panel, which will soon be featured on my new website “thisisafetishforsomebody.com” — “woo-woo” indeed:

The second story is “Wonder Woman’s Surprise Honeymoon,” in which Wondy’s longtime paramour Steve Trevor is knocked out and, while unconscious, dreams of married life with the Amazon.

He imagines that he’ll find Wonder Woman’s fame a tad frustrating:

More problems arise in Steve’s rich, and not at all sexist, fantasy life:

Eventually Steve comes to, and learns the hard way that men probably should keep this sort of thing to themselves:

To wrap up, here’s a final word from Wonder Woman on this issue’s letters page: