Nate Cosby should write everything.
Okay, maybe that’s not exactly true; he’s probably got his hands full with the upcoming Image series Pigs, as well as Cow Boy for Archaia and putting together the Storyteller anthology (with all manner of incredible creators including Roger Langridge, Colleen Coover, Katie Cook and Paul Tobin, amongst many others). But on his NateCosBOOM blog, he’s been sharing his takes on existing superheroes in the forms of imaginary quotes from them under the “[Character X] (If I wrote [Character X])” banner, and… well, they’re all really rather great. For example, Superman:
I was eight. Pa was working the field, he’d been up since four. The tractor ran over this root, messed up the blade he was dragging. Pa’s not an angry man, but he doesn’t like anything going wrong in his field. He jumped down and kicked the root, cursed at it. Angriest I’d ever seen him. I wanted him to stop being upset, so I ran over there, grabbed the root. I yanked so hard it tore up about fifty feet of the field. I tossed a root that probably weighed a thousand pounds about three hundred yards. Then I looked at Pa. That’s when he knew I was different.
Air is overrated. In the water I feel everything. Every fish, every crab, every boat, every kid splashing on the beach. I feel it because the ocean sings to me. It is my home, my calm, my all. Do whatever you want with your little islands. I’ve got an entire world underneath you, and I’ll protect her until saltwater stops pumping through my lungs.
I hate Nazis and crime and I don’t mind crashing. So I strap a rocket to my back and pray God’s not ready to see me just yet.
Evan Shaner even drew up his take on Captain Marvel, and I have no idea who wouldn’t want to see this kind of thing on a monthly basis:
I say it again: Nate Cosby should write everything. Or, at least, publishers should at least ask him to.
August 31st, 2011 at 1:04 pm
You might be providing an example of how comics fans separate characters from the stories they appear in. Providing a quote that illuminates the core of the character doesn’t mean he can write stories about him, or even one story that does more than tell readers what they already know about him.
People tend to regard the hero as the idea when they say, “It’s not the idea, it’s the execution.” Simple ideas tend to yield simple stories, though. If someone has the idea of basing a story on quantum entanglement or quantum computing, he has to understand the concept, or the story can’t work, regardless of the execution.
SRS
August 31st, 2011 at 1:23 pm
Then what’s the job Geoff Johns has called? Where he basically directs the entire universe.
That’s what Nate should be doing. Not necessarily writing it. Just keeping the core of the characters centered in the minds of the creators.
I’d go for that. At the very least, give him Earth-2.
August 31st, 2011 at 3:08 pm
Yeah, I have to agree with Steven R. Stahl, nothing here suggests that he could write actual stories about these characters. For that matter, all of their voices sound more or less the same.
August 31st, 2011 at 10:33 pm
So he can write The Avengers then?
ZING!
September 1st, 2011 at 9:43 am
How’s about I’d love to see him edit all those titles, with those blurbs as guiding principles?
March 18th, 2012 at 10:18 am
Wow, superb blog structure! How lengthy have you ever been running a blog for? you make blogging glance easy. The whole look of your site is great, as well as the content material!
May 1st, 2012 at 1:43 am
I was eight. Pa was working the field, he’d been up since four. The tractor ran over this root, messed up the blade he was dragging.