Michael Paciocco's Mind

[K-Box]

Here's one I'd like to see dealt with more openly, in terms of psychological impact.

What happens to your head when you live in a world where death is often temporary?

What happens to your head if you yourself recover from what turns out to be a temporary death?

More than once, even?

What sort of twisted morality does it create in your stance toward capital punishment or the use of deadly force?

When a loved one dies, at what point do you stop leaving the light on for them in your window?

Hell, if you harbor any sort of vague spiritual leanings, what does it do to your THEOLOGICAL outlook, once you actually KNOW that there is indeed life after death?

It's perhaps no coincidence that the two guys who seem to have coped best with their own temporary deaths are Superman and Hal Jordan, precisely because they've never really come across as deep thinkers in the religious sense.

In my collection of original characters, I actually have one girl, a ghost who died in her 20s, back when she was just a college psych major doing community service work, and the joke is that she herself always insists that she could merely be the grief-induced hallucination of her ex-boyfriend, and the reason why she insists this is because she's atheist.

Ya gotta admit, an atheist ghost is a pretty cool concept.

[Anders]

Regarding temporary deaths, isn't it more commonly "they weren't really dead" than "they were dead but now they're back"? (Not that the latter is uncommon, really.)

[michaelpaciocco]

pacioccosmind.blogspot.com/2010/02/plot-devices-that-need-to-go-away-9.html

Seriously, Fuck the Chosen One.

Haven't done one of these in a long time, but I did remember that someone asked for it, so here you go. Finally.....

Plot Devices that Need to Go Away #9

THE CHOSEN ONE

Also Known As: Actually, I'm pretty sure that's it, right?

What is it?

There's a prophecy, and a chosen one who is meant to fulfill it. It is usually integral to the plot.




Why Do Comic Companies Do It?

Because almost all mass media genre fiction uses it. Comics aren't a much greater offender than the rest of fiction generally. It's a simple mechanic for getting some bit of plot resolved by the end of the story.
Recent Offenders include but are not limited to:
Hope Summers, Cable (Nathan Summers), Batwoman, Buffy Summers (man, the Summers name comes up a lot, doesn't it?), Hal Jordan, Sodam Yat, Adam Warlock, Harry Potter, and the various characters depicted in these posters.


Patient Zero:
This one goes back to the dawn of fiction and the idea that a special hero who will save the people by sheer dint of his specialness, so it's hard to really pin the wrap on any one character in particular.
Why does it have to go away?
Because there is a difference between succeeding because you are special and succeeding because you're good, and that's a distinction that not a lot of writers are taking the time to make anymore. Our fiction is being saddled with an increasing number of increasingly defective characters that we are supposed to believe are the protoganists are "Special" and often triumph over their obstacles for no other reason than they are special, as oppossed to the fact that they are either skilled, or resourceful, or believe in themselves. Superman isn't the hero because he has powers - it's because he has these powers and never relents in using them for others, that he never stops. Spider-Man is the hero because more than any other character, he uses his wits and determination to come out on top. And so on.
Angles for Redemption of the Device? Let's have heroes who aren't just special: they're GOOD.

And that's the last of these I've got, unless people want to write in some suggestions.

[michaelpaciocco]

HeroeS VS Smallville

pacioccosmind.blogspot.com/2010/02/heroes-vs-smallville-fight.html

Haven't talked about either of these in a good long time (and as you can see by my recycling the Sylar poster below, I don't have much left in the way of Heroes-based posters) so I'm going to just ramble on for a bit.

So, who here figured it would come down to this after 5 years? That Heroes is barely clinging to life, with a very mixed season at best, and a lot of moves that come off more as desperate grabs for attention, is a surprise in and of itself. However, coupled with Smallville, which just seems to keep going and going despite having long since snapped the cables on the suspension bridge of disbelief, is astounding. As you can guess, I have a few thoughts about why this has happened, and what it says about each show.

Now, the first thing we have to note is the rather large difference in approach. Smallville follows the traditional format of a genre show - a series of episodic adventures with a few sub-plot arcs that transition to the main story over time, while Heroes follows the currently popular method best known on Lost of Mega-arcs that play out over long timescales, with very little in the way of status quo. This difference manifests itself in pacing: Smallville gets away with little beats in every single episode (i.e. there's one story beat about Lois and Clark, one about Clark and Chloe, one with Green Arrow and another character, one about Clark coming to terms with what he has to do, a beat resolving the villain of the espisode). Heroes? Has maybe three beats total per episode, if that. So while you might, might get the long term payoff in Heroes if you stick around long enough, you get lots of little payoffs in an episode of Smallville - more bang per hour of watching, if you'll buy that metaphor.



One of the story beats in particular is essential (in my opinion at least) to a superhero story regardless of medium is crime-fighting and saving lives. Smallville has radically improved in this regard over the last couple years with depictions of Clark regularly saving people other than his supporting cast (Lois, Chloe, etc.) and starting to deal with criminals who aren't just the bad guys of the individual story arc. Contrasted with Heroes, which usually offers a total of one "Big Bad" villain per arc, and usually 2 or 3 flunky villains tops for a whole 10-20 episodes. Also, outside of Hiro performing a random rescue or two and Peter Petrelli's stint this season as Super-Paramedic, you don't see a lot of these so-called "Heroes" helping people who aren't integral to the plot. Chew on that for a bit and see how it affects the message of the show.

Now, let's talk about the big moves both shows have made, whether out of a genuine desire to shake things up, or a last mad dash to avoid cancellation. With Heroes, several prominent cast members have been jettisoned (or had their character arcs reduced to virtually nothing), and a major revelation has changed their world forever. In addition to this, the audience is now being asked to suspend disbelief enough to buy Sylar's attempt at redemption. Now, I can't fault the Heroes writers for this; Zachary Quinto is arguably the biggest draw of the cast, and they need a reason to keep him around that doesn't make other characters look even more pathetic for not dispatching the show's biggest villain for the past four years. But it is a big stretch to buy for a series that tries very hard to want to take the idea of superheroes in a real-world context seriously.
Smallville, on the other hand, has ditched reality to embrace the fantasy of the DCU, integrating more and more of the spectacle that the 70+ years of DCU publishing history has to offer, and the results have been a mix of great (Zatanna) and laugh-out-loud silly (Hawkman's cosutme is just terrible, and Stargirl's is worse). One imagines that the writers just decided that there was no way to make this realistic without making it drab (or being accused of stealing ideas from Heroes) and just decided to take full advantage of the cameo opportunities.
So, when we contrast Heroes, with it's long-game plan, and dedication to trying to keep to realistic ramifications, and Smallville's episodic comic-bookiness, where do you stand? For me, as bad as some of the elements can be (Clark - just put on the tights already) I have to stand with Smallville on this one.

[Anders]

I'm not sure Heroes has an actual commitment to sticking to realistic ramifications. Granted, I haven't seen anything after season two except maybe an episode here and there but it seems they equate keeping things realistic with not using superficial superhero comic elements, something I don't agree with. To me, Heroes isn't about superheroes at all; it's a conspiracy/secret history show that just happens to have people with superpowers in it.

Smallville has made a lot of odd and IMO outright stupid choices from time to time, but it's managed to stay alive for nine seasons and has with at least some success made the transition from monster-of-the-week teen drama to an actual superhero show.

[michaelpaciocco]

"I'm not sure Heroes has an actual commitment to sticking to ramifications."

Fixed that for you.

[michaelpaciocco]

The entire Month of March is PS238 Month at my blog. Light material as I'll be focusing on other things.

[michaelpaciocco]

pacioccosmind.blogspot.com/2010/04/found-in-translation.html

Found In Translation:

As a first day back in the old routine, I thought I'd take a look at some comments from the Marvel Gang a few weeks back and put them through the old translator.

JOE QUESADA ON SPIDER-MAN AND THE MARRIAGE:


“We worked too hard to get Peter to this point. I can understand why some of you
want to see the characters grow old, but we have to manage these characters for
the future – a future beyond you and me."



TRANSLATION: "My entire career is riding on this. Listen, we like to think that Marvel's characters are robust and vital with incredible unexplored potentials, but they're not - they are fragile things that can only be used in a very limited number of stories to be recycled again and again."


A married Peter Parker – as cool as that may seem – from a creative standpoint, it handcuffs the character. It’s a very problematic thing for Peter because it cuts him off and makes Peter the oldest person in the book."


TRANSLATION: "We prefer that Peter Be the stupidest character in the book who remains static while everyone else moves on in their lives."


“It’s very tough to write because you want to see Peter and M.J. happy, and in a book where, really at its crust, is a soap opera about Peter’s life, the minute he gets everything he wants and life is happy, the stories get boring. So how do you create [the conflict the drama needs]? You have Mary Jane and Peter butt heads. But now you’re dealing with a marriage that isn’t a very happy marriage and they’re constantly bickering."


TRANSLATION: "Long-term relationships and marriages are either blissful static utopias or constant bickering, with nothing inbetween. This is the consensus of a group of grown human beings living in modern society."


"...when you look at every iteration of Spider-Man out now – the movies, the cartoons – he’s a single guy."


TRANSLATION: "Marvel is all about rigid conformity in brand identity. Our version of the character is now virtually identical to his appearances in other media, except you have to pay more money per story."

JOE QUESADA ON THE ORIGINS OF THE HEROIC AGE:


"The Heroic Age started with a manifesto that came from doing a lot of big company-wide crossovers…and we just needed to get off that treadmill. It felt like we were just feeding the beast: one big event, then another big one, and then it became a matter of diminishing returns."


TRANSLATION: Blackest Night kicked our ass, and even Bendis couldn't figure out how to keep tying into Bendis-run events.

JOE QUESADA ON WHETHER DISNEY WILL INTERFERE IN MARVEL'S INNER WORKINGS:


“Marvel runs as Marvel runs.”


TRANSLATION: The second there's a dip in the box office returns, we're toast.

BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS ON AVENGERS:


"The writer then brought up the fact that every story dealing with Kang has characters worrying about the space-time continuum. “Well, Kang breaks it,” Bendis said with a grin. He added that as a result of this break, readers are going to see characters like Maestro, Next Avengers from the “Avengers” cartoon, Spider-Girl, and folks from the Age of Apocalypse."


TRANSLATION: "I'm doing a remix of Avengers Forever. It's not too soon to do that, is it?"

JOE QUESADA ON THE CAPTAIN AMERICA/TEA PARTY ISSUE:


"What I said was that we made a mistake in identifying a group as an actual existing group in America…and that’s really the truth."


TRANSLATION: "We got caught."


"But the thing that upset me was that when the media ran with it, it was like ‘EIC of Marvel Apologizes” but they didn’t read the remainder of the apology.”


TRANSLATION: "The Media is suppossed to give me a fair shake! Who do they think I am? An internet commenter?"


ED BRUBAKER ON THE CAPTAIN AMERICA/TEA PARTY ISSUE:

"I grew up in the ‘70s reading ‘Captain America’ comics, where Captain America and the Falcon were always talking about race relations – I don't know if we could do that today with the way the media works. For me, I just try to write the characters the way that I perceive them. I just wanted to show that the mood in the country has shifted this way. That's all I wanted to say.”

TRANSLATION: "Everything else worthwile in my Cap run was borrowed from Englehart's run, so I figured I could do this too."


OK, and that's that for this round. I tried finding some similar DC announcements, but couldn't find any that the Translator could make any sense of whatsoever. However, if you like the idea, send me some links and I'll see if I can make this a new regular feature.

[michaelpaciocco]

THE INITIATIVE IN REVIEW!

pacioccosmind.blogspot.com/2010/04/initiative-in-review.html

Alright, so the end of "Dark Reign" and the beginning of "The Heroic Age" is nearly here, so I think it's entirely appropriate to take some time and go over as complete a list as possible of the Initiative's successes and failures. I'll try to be as organized about this as possible given the subject matter:

-Failure to capture Ghost Rider (or is it Ghost Riders? Are there more than one now?)
-Failure to capture the Runaways
-Failure to capture Moon Knight (an out of control murderous vigilante? Isn't that exactly what the Initiative should be cracking down on? And he has no powers? Really, it's that hard?)

-Failure to apprehend Daredevil, thus allowing him to consilidate his power and become head of a criminal cartel (the Hand) known to cause incidents of terror and assassination, along with a team of super-powered vigilantes. Failure to prevent multiple incidents of murder, death and mass insanity in Hell's Kitchen.
-Successfully dismantling the post-Civil War "New Warriors", with some lethal casualties* (Point for Stark)
-Successfully bringing down the Punisher (Point for Osborn)

*(Weird subtext - it strikes me as disconcerting that lethal methods have only been shown being used against the youngest superhumans - machineguns against Patriot in "Civil War", cops killing teenagers in "New Warriors" and my favorite - using TOW missiles against kids in "Civil War: Young Avengers/Runaways. Also, what is up with calling the troops "Capekillers"? Aside from being a bad name, it's weird in the context of the Marvel Universe because the vast majority of Marvel Superheroes don't wear capes to begin with).



Now let's move on to the bigger items shall we?
-The Hulk(s) - escaped captivity, plus the additional creation of Red Hulk, A-Bomb, Red She-Hulk, and others. She-Hulk (Jennifer Walters) is reported MIA after breaking into federal property and nearly causing an international incident abroad.
-Ms. Marvel: Endangerment of a minor (Arana),Failure to prevent many female superbeings from being kidnapped for auctioning. Dismantling of Operation: Lightning Storm, defection from Initiative and subsequent rogue actions.
-Infiltration of Camp Hammond by HYDRA, the Skrulls, and finally, a criminal cabal controlled by the Hood. Subsequent defection of key Initiative leaders to form Avengers Resistance.
-Loss of Prison 42 under Stark, reclaimed under Osborn (Point for Osborn)

-Using portals to the Negative Zone for transport, even knowing it weakens the barriers between universes, possibly threatening all of existence
-Failure to prevent multiple non-registered beings from escaping to Canada
-Failure to prevent formation of supervillain criminal cartel created by The Hood. Subsequent failures to protect Initiative member secret identities from said cartel and allowing their escape from Initiative custody.
-Failure to protect American against Atlantean terrorism, and subsequent failure of SHIELD to contain Atlantis. Failure to prevent Namor/Doom Alliance and Atlantean Sleeper cells from going global.
-Failure to protect nuclear launch codes and government secrets and government properties from a rogue Initiative member Penance







-Failure to stop Menace from killing a Mayoral candidate.
-Failure to apprehend the patrons of known supervillain bars
-Failure to stop a bio-terror attack and thus, creating the conditions for a gang war
-Failure of Initiative personal to prevent assault on high-profile individuals, public and private property, as well as innocent lives by super criminals. All those assaults were stopped by "unregistered combatatants".
-Failure to capture perpetrators of an Alaskan village from Purifiers and Marauders (X-Men: Messiah Complex), which subsequently lead to a cross-country mutant war and the deaths of Sentinel Squad O.N.E., among others. Subsequent failure to police the mutant population and keep them from creating a mutant base camp with easy access to US soil to perpetuate mutant extremist actions, including but not limited to terrorism and assassination.
-Failure to prevent Symbiote Bomb. International incident created by invasion of Latveria. Subsequent failure to maintain Dr. Doom in federal custody. Dropping of all charges.
-Failure to prevent major loss of life in California due to superhuman terror. Multiple deaths of Initiative members (The Order)
-Failure to capture rogue "Captain America", subsequent defection of Black Widow
-Failure to prevent Helicarrier fleet from being stolen by Nick Fury and enemy superhuman forces.
-Failure to prevent world-wide terrorism strikes by Ezekiel Stane. Subsequent failure to prevent Tony Stark from carrying out massive destruction of federal property.

-Number of Helicarrier fleet crashes: Three - Once the entire fleet got grounded by Ultron, a second time by Amadeus Cho, and finally, the Skrull invasion.
-Number of massive alien invasions : Two - World War Hulk and Secret Invasion, both the product of actions taken by Initiative heads Tony Stark and Reed Richards

And Finally: Massive loss of life in act of superhuman terrorism in Chicago, and massive loss of life in Asgard.







Anyone still care to say it was a good idea? Because, no, it wasn't - it was a bad idea conceived poorly because it does break the back of the superhero genre (as it would most other action genres, make no mistake). It's even more laughable because the brain trust at Marvel wanted us to by "No, really, this is the realistic response" and then go back and say "well, of course Tony Stark only kept two copies of all the SHRA's secrets, and one of them was his own magnificent brain". That's eating your cake and having it too; because in a realistic situation, there would have been back ups for that kind of data - some of them on paper, and not all of them under the control of a single human being, because no human being could be trusted to wield that level of secrecy unaccounted for.

But of course, if we're talking realism, then this whole thing would have been scrapped from the get-go.

Oh well. I for one am glad to be done with this final list of the many, many failings of the concept. RIP, SHRA.

[michaelpaciocco]

pacioccosmind.blogspot.com/2010/04/comics-journalism-made-easy.html

Because you could write these things in your sleep

Comics "Journalism" made easy!

Hi everyone! Want to break into the exciting field of online comics journalism, but you lack the skill, the connections, or the ability to hold a conversation with anyone for more than 30 seconds at a time? Well, now it's easy! The "interview" template is easy to use! Just fill in the Blanks!
INTERVIEWER: Explain to me the appeal of (TITLE)?
WRITER: I've always loved (TITLE) ever since and his epic (WELL RECEIVED STORY FROM CHILDHOOD). The book has unlimited potential with the wide array of characters and settings available.
INTERVIEWER: Awesome. But what do you think of the characters?
WRITER: Well I've always liked how (MAIN CHARACTER) is (MAIN CHARACTER TRAIT) and their interactions with (SECONDARY CHARACTER). That dynamic has always struck me as a strong one and it's one I want to explore. Something that I've always tried to make sense of is how (GENRE TROPE/INTERNAL CHARATER CONTRADICTION) works, so I think I'll look at that too.
INTERVIEWER: Tell us about your plans for the story
WRITER: Well in my first issue we're going to have (MAIN CHARACTER) in a new kind of situation. This is going to force to re-evaluate certain preconceptions and existing relationships, particularly with (SECONDARY CHARACTER).
INTERVIEWER: What can you tell us about (ARTIST)? What do you feel he brings to the series?
WRITER: He's a great guy and one of the best in the industry, a real diamond in the rough. He does some amazing work trying to (ARTIST STYLISTIC QUIRK) that is note perfect for where I want to take the series.
INTERVIEWER: Any final thoughts or spoilers?
WRITER: Two Words: Stay Tuned.
Give it a try today!

[Anders]

Yeah, I've read that one once or thrice.

[michaelpaciocco]

And today I go after a so-called sacred cow - Mark Millar's "Superman Adventures" run

pacioccosmind.blogspot.com/2010/04/popular-comics-myth-busted.html

"Mark Millar's Superman Adventures run proves he can write good, positive super-comics."

I've heard this one a lot over the years - usually as some kind of back-handed defense of Millar's current output. I've even seen this one from my good friend and comics-blogging mentor, Alan David Doane. Pity it's not in any way, shape or form true.
Oh, on the surface, there's a degree of positivity. Superman does heroic stuff, fighting bad guys and so forth. One imagines that it's the bare minimum expectation for what a corporate super-comic should be, and I think the fact that this is considered extraordinary says alot about how degraded and depraved the corporate spandex hero genre has become. However, a look at the subtext displays a lot of what makes Mark Millar's writing absolutely insufferable.

There's the absolutely-out-of-nowhere fake-outs and deux-ex-machinas, showing his failure to play fair with the reader. There's the focus on villains doing really out-of-character actions (such as the Parasite) and the high level of nonsense covered by layers of "high stakes". But worst of all is the way Millar's budding cynicism just bleeds through even this heavily edited material. In the (much lauded, for some reason) "One Year Later" storyline, Superman finds that through a mad science accident, he's been transported one year into the future, where he finds that Lex Luthor has risen to the challenge and helped to solve all super-crime and make the world a better place. Of course, by the end of the storyline, we find out this is an alternate Earth, and Superman returns to his own world, but the damage is done and Millar's true face revealed. Not only does he heavily imply that Luthor is right, but in doing so, shows Superman as a vainglorious fool for not immediately leaving his own world to allow Lex to rise to power to make the world better.
And that's pure 100% Mark Millar folks. I'll stick with Scott McCloud's run on the book, thanks.

[michaelpaciocco]

It took a month, but I read this...

pacioccosmind.blogspot.com/2010/04/thoughts-voice-of-fire-by-alan-moore.html

Finally got to read Alan Moore's prose book, Voice of the Fire, and I'm just going to give a few random scattershot thoughts, because when it comes to Alan Moore, I'm not sure I'm in a position to offer a review on this work.




-The first chapter of this book is one of the most challenging things I've ever read in my life.
-The "fires" are those of lust, of avarice, of fears and insecurities, and how they consume us.
-It's a book about Alan's hometown, given a pantina of fiction and drawn through thousands of years of development.
-Ultimately what probably holds me back from truly enjoying this work is that while I acknowledge Moore's insane level of talent, I don't care for his bleaker, darker tales - I acknowledge that this is probably a failing on my part and an inability to separate Moore's darkness from the nihilism of the "grim'n'gritty" modern corporate comics landscape that aped all of his tricks without any of his heart or brains.
-It is a book that questions everything, even itself
-It is a story about a place, and how people create their environments, and their environments in turn create (or destroy) them.





So, that's what I have to say on that. I do recommend the book as a challenge or for people who really really want to try to understand the properties of fiction the way Moore does. As for me, I think I prefer his more lighthearted stuff

[michaelpaciocco]

This week's set of posts focuses on the upcoming Iron Man 2...

pacioccosmind.blogspot.com/2010/05/funny-how-that-works.html

I'm finding the resurgence of the Black Widow in recent Marvel comics (predating her introduction now in Iron Man 2) to be rather interesting. After all, she's been around almost five decades now, and she's never really had an established niche. Heck, it wasn't even that long ago they were trying to phase her out for that blond Black Widow that Rucka came up with (that was Greg Rucka, right)? And yes, while "Hot redhead in a black leather catsuit" should be an easy sell to fanboys, she's only recently started to build a place for herself in the Marvel Universe, and I think there's a few things about that.

First, her character arc probably has greater relevance now than any time in her history since the Cold War. We live in a era of constantly nebulous and shifting allegiances, and a time where espionage and the moral grey areas of international policy are being highlighted more and more in the public arena. Natasha, who as a character, is defined by her own shifting allegiances and her difficulties in gaining and accepting trust, strike a natural chord that probably hasn't been present in a while.

Then there is the fact that unlike a lot of modern superhero tales, hers are relatively easy to depict. There aren't a lot of calls for exotic powers, technology or mysticism attached to the types of stories she'd appear in (barring her work with the Avengers), so it's relatively easy for most artists to give her simple but dynamic and catching action sequences simply using references from existing spy-action tropes. It also helps that even a new reader can come in and understand the action plainly enough.

Finally, there is the fact that with her establishment within the Marvel Universe as a member of the Avengers, and working with SHIELD/Nick Fury, she's got an easy go-to-excuse to fit into any story. Need to have Natasha in Ghost Rider? She's investigating what happened to her old Champions teammate. Punisher? Checking up on him for Nick Fury. Nova? On a mission with the Avengers. Very simple explanations that easily get her into the story and doesn't drag down the action.

Of course, the catsuit probably doesn't hurt.

[michaelpaciocco]

Why the Iron Man movie matters, and the comics don't
pacioccosmind.blogspot.com/2010/05/why-iron-man-movie-matters-and-comics.html

Numbers.

That's it, just numbers. This movie is going to have a viewing audience of what? 10-20 million? And then on DVD and on-demand and Blu-Ray and whatever the hell else comes out as a format for movies, plus airings on networks for decades to come?

How the hell do the comics compare to that?





The market for corporate super-comics? It's tiny- maybe what, a million? Two million?
They're too expensive ($4 US? Are you nuts? For 1/6th of a story?), they are paced for another format entirely which also isn't cost competitive because while a $20 Trade Paperback is comparable to the DVD price when the movie is first released on DVD, the DVD price will eventually drop with demand - this does not hold true for the TPB.

Oh, don't get me wrong; I love comics, or I wouldn't do this blog...but the atrophied market says something and we might as well say it now.



OK, you know people like Chris Sims? Sure you do - heck, I like him, and think he's probably one of the top (if not the top) comics blogger out there. Heck, I've probably discovered a few comics thanks to him. I love how he talks about the comics he loved when he was growing up and how they influenced him.

And there's the problem - 20 years from now? There's probably no next Chris Sims. And if there is, he'll be talking about how the Iron Man movie "totally rawked" - he won't be talking about Matt Fraction's "epic run" because he won't have read it. Very few will, because the corporate supercomic groups aren't marketing to him, and have no idea how to get a comic into his hands at anything resembling a sane price.



A lot of people I know call this "The Fanfiction Age of Comics", but the more I think about it, the more I think another label is appropriate.

Welcome to the Forgotten Age of Comics.