Villains of the Week: DC and Judd Winick for screwing around with Captain Marvel. Honestly, I don’t know how to make the character more popular either, so I’m very aware of the glass walls around me as I pick up this stone. All I know is that Cap’s just as honorable and interesting as Superman (and has a way cooler costume) and it’s a shame that he’s getting the equivalent of a mystical desk job in his new mini-series while Freddy Freakin’ Freeman is going to get to fly around and play the super-hero role. I’m afraid to know what’s happening to Mary. Jury’s still out on Winick’s idea to separate the SHAZAM pantheon from Wonder Woman’s, but maybe you’ll understand where I’m coming from when I say that I don’t have my hopes up.
Hero: IDW for bringing back Day Taylor and Chris Faison’s Hero Happy Hour for another round in August. Night Ranger, Scout, and the rest of the Hideout Bar and Grill gang have been sorely missed.
Villain: Newsarama and Joe Quesada for making us think Joe Fridays was dead and starting all sorts of speculation as to why that might be.
Hero: Newsarama and Joe Quesada for bringing back Joe Fridays. It really is an excellent feature. Joe deserves extra Hero Points for being willing to put himself in such a vulnerable spot every week. The risk is worth it, Joe. Thanks for doing it and welcome back.
Villain: Paradox Entertainment (owners of the rights to Conan), if the allegations made against them by Red Sonja, LLC are true. It’s understandable that Paradox would want to promote their Robert E. Howard character Red Sonya, but trying to do so by deliberately confusing her with the very popular Roy Thomas/Barry Windsor-Smith Red Sonja character is going too far. You know… if the allegations are true.
Hero: Random House’s Villard division for picking up Elk’s Run and publishing it as a complete graphic novel. It’s about time someone with the right resources threw some support behind this baby.
Villain: Marvel for going back to the “X-Men’s Early Years” well again with X-Men: First Class. Just release a Children of the Atom hardcover already.
June 12th, 2006 at 5:31 am
I think the Robert Howard character is also named Red Sonja. At least that was the name of the Nielsen-Schwarzenegger movie based on the Howard concept. I don’t see why they’d change the spelling back in 1982 when they were trying to cash in on Conan anyway.
June 12th, 2006 at 11:21 am
Howard’s version is spelled with a “y.” She was a Russian from — I think — the 1500s.
Roy Thomas liked to adapt Howard’s non-Conan stuff and put it in the Marvel series, so he took the Red Sonya character, changed the spelling of her name slightly, and re-introduced her as a contemporary of Conan’s. Ironically, even though most people think she’s a Howard creation, Thomas’s version is the one that everyone likes.
July 27th, 2006 at 10:30 pm
I’d really like to know more about this. I can’t fiçnd any corporate info about Red Sonja LLC and how they came into owning the Roy Thomas character. Nor can I find much about Paradox and their Conan Properties subsidiary, and how they claim to have acquired rights to all the Howard characters and stories. This is quite a conundrum as quite a bit of Howard’s works (including several Conan stories) are actually in the public domain, so I wonder how anybody can claim property in the first place. If more info could be had, I’d be glad to learn of it.
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