Okay, so the big controversy this week seems to have to do with a certain Barbie doll dressed as Black Canary. The reactions so far have been interesting.

Brett Singer is bemused by the choice:

For what it’s worth (excuse me while I geek out again) Black Canary is, despite her appearance, a fairly positive female role model. She’s considered one of the best hand-to-hand fighters, male or female, in the DCU (that’s “DC comics Universe”) and is currently the leader of the Justice League. She takes no crap, kicks major ass, and asks questions later. Barbie once said, “Math class is tough!” (source) So you could make an argument that Black Canary is a better role model than Barbie, and therefore the doll is empowering.

I don’t really see the point of doing this, especially since Barbie’s target audience is young girls. So while I think the Vast Christian Right Wing Conspiracy is a bit over the top, I do think it’s kind of an odd choice for a Barbie doll. What’s next, Big Gay Ken? Oh wait, they did that already.

Glenn Walker thinks the Christian Voice needs to do their research:

The other thing, the most important thing perhaps, is that Mattel will be marking this product, due for release in September, for adult collectors. It is specifically part of the Black Label Collection, packaged and marketed specifically for the adult collector market. Hear that, Christian Voice? Not for kids. So why the whining?

And if Black Canary’s costume is so offensive, where have you been since 1947? Where were you when she was featured on popular TV series like “Smallville,” “Justice League Unlimited” (a cartoon! and you all know those are just for kids!) and “Birds of Prey?”

Livejournalist Jarodrussell just doesn’t like the fishnets:

You want to say “some girls just like fishnets,” fine. You wants to make the same, stupid crack about guys staring at her legs, fine. But then don’t go on about how from personal experience you know how wise it is to have a heftier material between one’s skin and the elements. That’s just…AURGH!

AURGH!

I’ve tried to just ignore this, because frankly I think that Barbie Canary looks more like Lord Fanny than Dinah Lance. But when someone goes on about how great a thicker material is for a fight and then all but says, “Except for her legs, because how else are the villains supposed to tranq., cut, stab, or claw her in a fight,” my inner geek won’t be quelled.

So what do you think?

[Yeah, I know the title of this post has almost nothing to do with the movie, but I couldn't resist.]

The Dark Knight is the best Batman film ever made.

That’s not really saying much, mind you — each of the others, including Batman Begins and the animated Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, has its own set of flaws. However, The Dark Knight is also among the best superhero films ever made. The only others in its class are Superman* and Spider-Man 2 – and Peter Parker, if not Steve Ditko himself, would recognize the choices made by the principals at movie’s end. Next to the sprawling urban crime drama skillfully executed by director/co-writer Christopher Nolan and a fine ensemble cast, Iron Man (no slouch itself) looks like a toy commercial.

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Still a little talky, but in a good way, Trinity #7 connected a few more plot points and seemed to confirm some aspects of the story already spotted by certain eagle-eyed commenters.

Of course, there were also some things which this particular commenter realized immediately he should have caught already … but I’m getting used to that.

Busiek’s exit interview for issue #6 contains some interesting observations about Nocturna, Hawkman, and other characters. They’re not exactly relevant to Trinity, but interesting still; and as always I recommend it.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

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Wow, a Joker post! Who’da thought?

With its 20th anniversary having just passed, The Killing Joke has gotten some renewed attention as the quintessential Joker story. However, unadorned as it may be, I still like the original Joker story (unofficially titled “The Joker”) from Batman #1. Written by Bill Finger, pencilled by Bob Kane, and inked by Kane and Jerry Robinson, it’s a taut twelve-page thriller. Essentially, it casts the Joker as an anonymous sociopath with a basic, almost perfunctory motive and a grim, blackly ironic modus operandi. He dares the authorities to stop him from committing crimes he’s already carried out.

Despite all its reprintings, to my knowledge “The Joker” has been the subject of only two direct homages: 1978’s two-part “Laughing Fish/Sign of the Joker” in Detective Comics; and 2005’s The Man Who Laughs* special. (I didn’t read the recent Michael Green/Denys Cowan Joker origin, but from what I can tell it went in an entirely different direction.)

Let’s look at each of these, shall we?

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This summer I ♥ Comics returns to Blog@Newsarama. Each Wednesday comics bloggers and creators will discuss the things they love about the medium.

This week our guest contributor is John Jakala, who you can find blogging over at Sporadic Sequential.

by John Jakala

One of my favorite things about reading comics is finishing the main story and turning the page to discover that there are still bonus features left to enjoy. Back when I was a kid, it seemed like all comics were never-ending stories, with pin-ups and backup stories and schematics of secret headquarters to pore over. Extras were like a surprise dessert after an already delicious meal. It seemed somehow indulgent to get so much comic book content squeezed between two covers.

Of course, most of the extras were reprints of older material, but I wasn’t aware of that back then. As a young boy who simply couldn’t get enough of his favorite superheroes, I was firmly in the “more is more” camp, so it didn’t matter to me where the additional material came from or what vintage it was. All I knew was that bigger was definitely better. (This tendency to evaluate comics based solely on size persists to this day, as evidenced by the excitement I exhibit whenever a thick new omnibus collection is announced.)

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Let’s talk about the Avengers, shall we?

The Avengers are a loose confederation of heroes brought together to avenge the wrong-doings of threats that require the combined strength of gods, monsters and men alike. Some of Marvel’s finest tales have come from Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and I’m proud to have quite a collection of them. I won’t say they’ve all been great (oh, The Crossing!), but it’s certainly a staple of the Marvelite diet.

So where are they? What are they doing? What’s new in Avengers Town these days? secret Invasion says they’re all in the Savage Land (sans Ms. Marvel and whatever alter-continuity that BND-Spidey lives in… oh, Wolverine too… and Iron Man… wait, let’s stop while we’re ahead.). Mighty and New Avengers have been sort of ‘mid-season clip show’-ing through their storylines, pointing out the secret Skrull in the background and showing just how far down the rabbit hole this Invasion really goes. Ultimates 3, well… let’s face it, Loeb’s been writing the way 5th graders play with action figures and the story so far really hasn’t been ‘plot heavy’ to put it lightly. So are there any Avengers stories going on right now?

Good News, everyone! Yes, there are and we have satellite titles Avengers: the Initiative and Younger Avengers Presents: Hawkeye to thank for it (thank you!). Yeah, I know, these issues are a few weeks late, but go see if you can’t find your copies and read along with us as we try and nail down what makes an ‘Earth’s Mightiest Comic’.

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From: ‘Alexander Stevens (astevens@caa.com)
To: ‘Joker’ (misterj@yahoo.com)
Subject: To the future Clown Prince of Hollywood

Mister Joker,

Thank you once again for agreeing to let Creative Artists Agency help steer you through the ins and outs of Hollywood and as we embark on the grand adventure that will be Warner Bros.’ Blockbuster film, The Dark Knight. Everyone here at CAA is thrilled and excited to have you on board and we promise to work our best to serving your needs.

Though we understand that Warner’s’ dedication is to creating a franchise based on Batman, a man who understandably has stolen your spotlight, we at CAA feel the tremendous potential for building the Joker into a Hollywood brand, no less infamous than classic movie villains like Darth Vader, Hannibal Lecter and the Terminator.

We pledge to do everything in our power to represent your interests and needs throughout this project, and hopefully, beyond. Please feel free to contact me should you need anything.

Yours,

Alexander Stevens
Creative Artists Agency

P.S. – If concerned at all about slipping into bed with a large agency, having heard some of the horror stories, no fear; from what I understand a Hollywood agent is only two steps below the folks you surround yourself at Arkham – you’re already ahead of the game.

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It’s a light week — for a change! — with a handful of notable releases.

Two stellar creations by the late Steve Gerber receive the spotlight this Wednesday as Jonathan Lethem and Farel Dalrymple’s Omega: The Unknown miniseries concludes and Howard The Duck gets the omnibus treatment.

Countdown to Final Crisis rises from the grave with a trade paperback, Scott McCloud’s Zot! returns with a black-and-white collection, and Viz Media rolls out Takehiko Inoue’s basketball manga Real.

To see what other titles Chris Mautner and I think are worth mentioning, just keep reading. As always, let us know your choices in the comments below.

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Out of Picture, Volume 2
Written and Illustrated by Andrea Blasich, Nash Dunnigan, David Gordon, Michael Knapp, Benoit le Pennec, Sang Jun Lee, Kyle MacNaughton, Peter Nguyen,Vincent Nguyen, Jake Parker, Willie Real, Jason Sadler, Daisuke Tsutsumi, and Lizette Vega
Villard; $26.00

If I’m going to talk about Out of Picture, I gotta talk about illustrators first. I always note the writers and primary illustrator at the top of my reviews, but I think I might be doing some of the visual artists a disservice by referring to them primarily as illustrators.

An illustration, whether it’s a picture or a verbal thing, is an explanation. It’s intention is to make your story or your point or whatever clearer. Yeah, visual illustrations can be beautiful pieces of work on their own, but they really succeed or fail based on how well they clarify the writing. And that’s a lot different from what we’re asking comic book artists to do.

A comic book artist (or cartoonist, if she’s drawing her own story) has to do a lot more than take a story and make it prettier or – ideally – more understandable. In comics, the visual artist is supposed to be part of the storytelling process. There’s acting to be done, with facial expressions and body language. Yes, the best illustrators do all that too, but it isn’t as vital to – as inextricably a part of – what the book is. That’s why I hate all the arguments about whether the writer or the artist is more important to the final product. It has to be both of them or it isn’t comics. The visual artist has to be every bit as much a storyteller as the verbal artist or your comic sucks.

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Trying to get ahead of the Batman deluge that is sure to come with the new movie’s release, I opted to snag a selection of Bats-related quotes this week. OK, maybe the Batman coverage became oversaturated weeks ago, but I’m thinking otherwise for the sake of this column. And if you are sick of Batman already, skip to the end of the collection for a few non-Batman quotes.

“Sure, a lot of it may not have aged well - all of the Ronald Reagan scenes, for example - but no-one can deny how good it is to see Bruce Wayne come out of retirement to kick some mutant ass and save the world.”
- Graeme McMillan assessing Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns (1986) as well as compiling a list of Batman must reads

“For industry watchers, I suppose this provides another example of the theory that DC’s various editorial offices don’t much communicate, and even try to keep story points secret from each other.”
- J. Caleb Mozzocco noticing that, other than the Batman RIP logo slapped on the front, Detective Comics #846 has next to no connection to the Grant Morrison storyline in the main Batman book

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Astonishing X-Men’s new creative team of Warren Ellis and Simone Bianchi debuted this week to a variety of reaction.

Ryan of Coke and Comics loved the issue:

This title has been receiving over-the-top reviews since issue 1 and I’ve been tempted to hop aboard for a while now. So when I heard that a new creative team is taking over in #25, I just had to pick this issue up. The new creative team has Simone Bianchi as the artist and no less than Warren Ellis as writer. I personally love Ellis’ work and am glad to see him here after reading his run in Thunderbolts. The man is truly the master of science-fiction. No other guy can write SCIENCE and fit it into a superhero story the way he does.

We first find each member of the Astonishing X-men spending some downtime in San Francisco, their new home city. I am pleased to see the roster we have here: Cyclops, Emma Frost, Beast, Wolverine, Armor, and Storm. Sad to see no Colossus but Ororo is a welcome addition, making this the truly “alpha” X-team at the moment. Bringing Emma and Storm together is a brilliant move given their history from before. Both are the strong female type so they’re sure to have a lot in common and Ellis writes their interaction extremely well. I can’t believe how much fun Emma Frost is and I’m definitely looking forward to more of her and Storm together.

The reviewers at duncan_dip’s livejournal didn’t care for the issue:

What will Ellis’ contribution to “Astonishing” be? Too soon to tell. But he’s off to a bad start. To parrot Dave’s review, Warren Ellis writes characters who are so driven by purpose and carry such uncompromising visions of themselves that they sometimes seem incapable of talking about much else. Emma Frost and Cyclops’ morning discussion wasn’t about their relationship, or the changes in the team–they simply talked about themselves at length, as though their sleep cycles were infinitely more fascinating than, say, being superheroes. Armor harbors self-doubt, sure, but it manifests itself as a tedious discussion of her own codename–should she change it or stick with “Armor”?

The self-doubt that Cyclops carried as he led the team, the bitter tension between Emma Frost and everyone else, and the loss that the reader felt when Kitty Pride drifted out into nothingness–these things have all melted away and been replaced with a group of people who just like to hear themselves talk. Talking was never Ellis’ strong suit, and if he doesn’t stick to his talents and draw these characters into a conflict, rather than their morning coffee, “Astonishing X-Men” is going to lose the well-deserved luster it had during the previous 24 issues.

The Star Clipper’s reaction is somewhat mixed:

It’s always hard to develop a full opinion on a creative team after only one issue, but what I can tell from the debut is that Ellis likes himself some chatty X-Men. Ellis’ X-Men even reads more like a sitcom than Whedon’s X-Men, and Whedon is an actual sitcom writer. Perhaps this is just Ellis overcompensating from the get-go to win over long-time astonishing fans, but I know I don’t want to read The Real World: X-Men. Again, this is only the first issue and Ellis has set up a strong plot to send the X-Men to Chapapanga, a beach junkyard, to look for a possible unknown mutant killer. Ellis is setting up a good contained plot and what worked so well for Whedon is how Astonishing X-Men worked as a stand alone story not implicitly tied to X-continuity. Hopefully, Ellis will have the same success.

The other major factor is art, and new artist Bianchi has defiantly not won me over yet. I’m really not crazy for any of the new costumes, but the new X-men street clothes are just atrocious. Emma Frost in camo pants and not even a bit of cleavage revealed. Come on it’s Emma Freakin’ Frost! Plus, did Storm’s street clothes look like a bad homage to 90’s TLC to anyone else? On the other hand, Cassaday stuck with relatively classic x-customs, but still made me completely love Kitty Pride. Meeoww!

So what do you think?

(Sorry about the delay in getting this post up. It was all finalized and scheduled, and set to go earlier today; and then … well, I dunno. I lost half of it and the other half was missing all its quotation marks and apostrophes; and when you played it backwards it said “kill your parents.” All better now, I hope.)

There’s a fine line between characters who are self-aware and those who are simply the writer’s mouthpieces. I thought this issue was a good example of the former. Tarot, Wonder Woman, and Superman had a lot of obvious things to say, but the issue flowed together well and the conversation wasn’t terribly expositional. Sometimes it’s good to have the characters pause and sound things out for themselves, even without the benefits of card tables or pastries.

Besides, there were a number of annotation-worthy references, so let’s dive right in!

SPOILERS FOLLOW

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At last, here’s the final full installment (for now) of my look at the increasing presence of miniseries in the DCU line over the past several years.  (See parts 1 and 2 for more.)  Unfortunately, I won’t get quite up-to-date today, because I want to postpone a more complete discussion of 2008 at least until the October solicitations are out.

Thanks once again to Mike’s Amazing World Of DC Comics for compiling data through the end of 2007!

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The Underburbs #1
Written by TJ Dort and Joe Haley; Illustrated by Joe Haley
Rolling Boil Press; $3.00

Halloween is my second favorite holiday right after Christmas. If we got presents and the day off from work on Halloween, it’d probably nudge Christmas right out. I certainly anticipate it as much as Christmas every year. I start watching horror movies in September as my son is figuring out what he’s going to dress up like. Leading up to the big night, there are hayrides and apple orchards and Jack O’ Lanterns to make. Then on the last day of October my wife takes the boy out into the crisp night air to collect his loot while I stay home to pass out candy and watch Bela Lugosi movies. What could be nicer?

Because I have all these fond emotions wrapped up in Halloween, I’m a sucker for comics like I Luv Halloween, Cryptics, and The Super Scary Monster Show. I love books about cute, little monsters or kids dressed as monsters. Anything that captures that Halloween atmosphere for me. So, when I saw TJ Dort and Joe Haley’s table at Wizard World Chicago, The Underburbs immediately got my attention and I had to stop.

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This summer I ♥ Comics returns to Blog@Newsarama. Each Wednesday comics bloggers and creators will discuss the things they love about the medium.

This week our guest contributor is David Gallaher, the writer of High Moon. The comic wrapped up just recently on Zuda.

by David Gallaher

When I was a kid, growing up outside of Baltimore, Sunday mornings were spent on the living room floor, eating Cap’n Crunch, and reading the funny pages. I must’ve spent hours reading everything from Peanuts to the Lockhorns. Sure, I didn’t get every joke – and every strip wasn’t always awesome, but even at that age, I really grew to appreciate that each comic had its own unique voice, style, and flavor.

What I didn’t realize at first, however, was that each paper had its own comic publishing agenda. Sure, I might be able to find the latest Phantom comic strip in the pages of the Washington Post, but would I find the most recent Marvin strip? When you moved around as often I did – this presented a bit of a problem. I was at the mercy of whatever the local, backwater paper chose to publish that day. I didn’t have access to some of my favorite strips – and there wasn’t a way to catch up on some of the strips I’ve missed.

But, then the Internet came along ….

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Don’t forget! Due to the July 4th holliday, Diamond might be getting your books into your friendly neighborhood comic shop tomorrow. But this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t drop into that LCS, pick up a trade you’ve been eying and say Hi as I can assure you most of the staff will be very confused and a little lost without their books and you, their faithful public.

But today, while we wait and wonder for the week’s books, I’m going to set aside my die-hard love of Marvel Comics to ask Montgomery Scott to grab those bagpipes as it’s time for a sad tune that might still have a stirring ending in sight.

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For those who lament an apparent lack of comics for kids, this Wednesday Thursday is for you.

Not only does this week see the eighth color volume of Jeff Smith’s Bone from Scholastic, but also Jill Thompson’s Magic Trixie and an adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, both from HarperCollins.

Looking for something that skews a little older, and a little more superhero-ish? Then how about the Final Crisis: Requiem one-shot? Hey, nothing says summer fun like a wake for a crispy Martian!

Oh, okay, there’s the “Batman and Son” trade paperback, the fourth issue of Secret Invasion, and a teaser for Captain America: White, the latest in Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s line of “color” books.

To see what other titles Chris Mautner and I think are worth mentioning, just keep reading. As always, let us know your choices in the comments below.

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It’s been a looong time since I did a “roundtable” discussion (never mind an actual column), but I thought this recent post by Comics Comics’ Tim Hodler provided a good opportunity for kickstarting the thing back up.

In his post, Hodler, talks about the journalism panel he participated in at HeroesCon and then segues into this:

If I’m going to be editing and writing comics criticism, it’s important to be able to separate personal friendships and acquaintances from my writing, and it’s already a lot more difficult to do than it was just two years ago. (Being married to a cartoonist, and not wanting to have her work unfairly linked to my opinions — we disagree on plenty, believe me — doesn’t really make it any easier.) It’s not really that difficult, but it’s an ethical distinction that I have to be vigilant about, and it’s also probably the largest single difference between how I currently approach comics and how I read and talked about them pre-CC, when I’d praise or trash comics with impunity. Now I try to make a point of not reviewing comics by people I know well, at least in print or on the blog, and I think that’s probably for the best, at least for now. The comics world is a small world, though, and that policy won’t work forever.

That got me thinking. Comics is indeed a small pond, and it’s almost impossible to avoid some sort of conflict of interest somewhere down the road. How does a good critic handle this sort of situation? If you have friends or family who make comics, do you avoid critiquing their work? Do you avoid cons or meeting professionals at all for fear of “tainting yourself” (I heard somewhere the New York Times will not let you review a book if you’ve ever met the author, even if it was just to shake their hand). Should the critic try to keep the creator’s feelings in mind, regardless of how bad it is, when reviewing a work or is a scorched Earth attitude the best policy? How do you honestly engage the work if you’re friends (or at least on good terms with) the person whose work you’re critiquing?

I decided to take my questions to the blogosphere and see what some noteworthy comics critics and tastemakers had to say about the subject. Read on to see their responses. (more…)