Too bad they never made an X-Men movies in the seventies: As The Beat notes, Rick Veitch could have totally played Wolverine. If Clint Eastwood were unavailable, of course.

All of Africa…?: I’m torn by The Source‘s mention of “The Batman of Africa” in this announcement, as it plays into the Africa-as-a-country-rather-than-a-continent stereotype (note all the other Batmen are referred to as the Batmen of specific countries). On the other hand, up until recently there was only one Batman, making him the Batman of the whole world. And then we have to consider the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh, a non-Bruce Wayne Batman who was also the Batman of an entire planet. Hmm…

“Good god! You’re calculating-”: Ryan North’s T-Rex does the math on the “EXPECTED REAL-LIFE BATMAN GENERATION RATE.” No one tell Batman how low the odds of generating a Batman actually are, as it could really screw up his whole world-wide franchising Batman, Inc. plan.

“But by the beard of ‘Uncle Elvis’…”: Michael Cavna of The Washington Post explains why DC was right to bring back the letters pages. One element I liked was the goofy punning letter page names that say “correspondence” and “Suicide Squad” at the same time, like, I don’t know, Deadman’s “Dead Letter Office” or The Spectre’s “Aiiieeeee-mail” or whatever. If I reall, new titles generally held some sort of reader-submitted suggestion contest in order to come up with a good name.  I’m going to start thinking of a letter column name for the new Red Lantern monthly right now (Blood-puke-o-grams? Red Letter Letters? Rage, Rage Against The Dying of the U.S. Postal Service? Hmm, this might take some thought…)

That’s a hell of an 88th birthday present: Stan Lee, the elder statesman of super hero comic books, just received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There were a plenty of stories in the mainstream and comics-specific media about this, but I’m going to link to this one on CNN.com, because it refers to Lee as “Spider-Man’s ‘dad’” in the headline. What does that make Steve Ditko? Spidey’s mom?

The first week of January seems pretty early to make what’s sure to be the biggest publishing announcement of the year: Fantagraphics is going to publish the complete Carl Barks. Wait, that’s not right. Let me try again: Fantagraphics is going to publish the complete Carl Barks! (There, that’s better.) Chris Mautner of Robot 6 scored the exclusive announcement, and interviewed publisher Gary Groth about the project.

Cyke on skates?: The National Hockey League and Stan Lee’s previously announced plan to create a different superhero for each of the NHL’s 30 teams sounded pretty cool when first announced, although the first of the NHL Guardians to hit the ice is a little less than impressive. He’s the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Penguin, he wears yellow and black, and has a weird little cape thing that gives him “super-maneuverability,” plus a magnetized suit and “ice missiles.” You can get a look at his costume here and an unimpressed reaction from the sports world here.  I’m a little disappointed myself, but I suppose cool costume creation is more in a Project: Rooftop wheelhouse than that of Stan Lee, who specialized in the word half of the comics equation. Penguin is joined by The Los Angeles Kings’ hero, The King.

Ty Templeton vs. religion: The talented cartoonist and prolific blogger has been counting down some of his best work from the year ending, and this superheroes vs. religous figures post is pretty fantastic. Superman vs. Jesus, The Hulk vs. Buddha and Batman vs. some monsters of the Bible…place your bets before clicking.

New rule—Brian McLachlan is the only one allowed to do licensed movie comics from now on: I don’t know why Google News Alerts alerted me of this post from way back in August of 2010 just this past weekend, but I’m not going to let it stop me from posting a link to the Smooth ‘n Natural web comic creator’s many awesome-looking movie comics that never existed but should have covers. (Via Geeks of Doom)

Abhay connects the dots: The Savage Critics critic talks about some of the most talked about comics of 2010, noting that Charles Burns’ X’ed Out is basically the same comic as Grant Morrison and Sean Murphy’s Joe The Barbarian, and Morrison’s Batman comics are basically a desperate cry for help.

Places I Didn’t Ever Expect To See Green Lantern Discussed #41: Ohio Department of Transportation press releases. The Plain Dealer‘s Michael Sangiacomo shares the release about the state’s plans to use green lights on their snow plows, which the release introduces by bringing up the superhero identity of our old friend Hal Jordan.

Perfect for last Halloween!: “How to make your own Rorschach Mask”

“Two new books recall the gory glory days of horror comics”: Dennis Drabelle covers Four Color Fear and The Horror! The Horror! for The Washington Post.

Well, superheroes will always have movies and TV: “Superhero Comic Books Are Still Dying”

Jeffrey Brown draws everything on TV ever: Well, not everything, but Fraggles and Pee-Wee’s Playhouse character and some of those crazy Yo Gabba Gabba creatures and some Kroft characters and so on. Top Shelf’s Brett Warnock shares the illustration on his blog.

Check out The Leaf: I wouldn’t expect a superhero named The Leaf whose costume is based on The Canadian flag to look half as bad-ass as this one turned out, but what do I know about Canadian bad-assery? Phil Latter talks to Leaf creator John Helmer on his blog. (Via Sequential)

I’d say Bully is insane, but his head is full of stuffing: Bully, the little stuffed comics blogger, is following up his year-long 365 Days With Ben Grimm and 365 Days With Hank McCoy features with perhaps the most ambitious and daring comics blog feature yet—365 Days With The Guy Freaking Out On The Cover of Action Comics #1. Man, that calf is golden.

“We tend not to have any nudity in comics, but violence can get pretty out of hand at times and violence is an essential part of what comic books are”: That’s David Finch, talking about one of the weird ironies of mainstream superhero comics, in this nice little feature from his local paper about his just-released Batman: The Dark Knight. The premise of the article, alluded to in the sort of vague headline—”Batman series creator tones down the violence”—is that while Finch has drawn all sorts of super-decadence in his career, Dark Knight apparently won’t have anything like The Blob eating The Wasp’s entrails (NSFW, that second link) in it. (The story also features a photo of Finch, which makes me feel a little bad about the many ungenerous things I’ve said about his artwork over the years—I didn’t realize that Finch was bald, and thus he and I are brothers.)

“Why Does This Glee Comic Book Exist?”: Writing for Vanity Fair, Brett Berk takes a look at one of Bluewater’s biosploitation comics, and asks himself the same question so many do when faced with a such a comic—of course, his asking also provides the answer, since this particular book has now been covered by Vanity frigging Fair. Berk is quite familiar with the Glee television show and the various ways in which various folks have attempted to cash in on its popularity, but has very limited experience with comics, and it’s always intersting to see someone who can communicate really well engage a comic book from that outsider’s persepective. Well, it’s always interesting to me, anyway.

“8 Superhero Movies That Broke The Mold (Please Copy Them!)”: That’s the headline for this i09.com story, which I found quite amusing. The premise is basically that these eight superhero movies were good or interesting superhero movies because they differed from the pack, therefore the pack should imitate them…a sort of “I wish everything could be unique exactly like that thing is!” construction. I found quite alarming the particular movies listed, some of which are just terrible, terrible films, and only one of which I would classify even as a very good film. But hey, it’s the Internet—everyone’s entitled to their opinion, and the propagation of it.

This headline is just tempting God to send a meteor hurtling towards Broadway: “Could the Spider-Man Musical Saga Get Any Worse?”

The Daily Planet‘s funnies page is even less funny than your local paper’s funnies page: Using the modern “miracle of DVD technology,” Mike Sterling is able to scrutinize the funnies in a scene from an episode of Superman: The Animated Series (my favorite episode, if anyone cares). Does Paul Dini’s last name rhyme with “meany?” I always thought it was pronounced “Dinn-y”…this could radically alter the way I yell at his comics as I read them…

Today’s must-read: Tom Spurgeon’s holiday tradition of interviewing various comics folks during the traditionally slow weeks at the end of the year is always worth paying attention to, although today’s interview is with perhaps one of the most fascinating figures in cartooning in the world at the moment: Zulkiflee Anawar Ulhaque, better known by his pen name of Zunar. If you read much about political cartoons or cartooning in general—say, if you have a Google News alert set up on those subjects, to aid you in your linkblogging for Blog@Newsarama—Zunar’s is one of the names you’d see most often, although his struggles with his country’s government doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves here in the states.

Christmas left-overs: Ty Templeton has been blogging up a storm about Santa-related comics covers of late, although his list of The Seven Most Inappropriately Naughty Comic Book Christmas Covers is probably my favorite list so far. Meanwhile, renaissance elf James Kochalka made a Christmas song identifying various DC super-folks in the lyrics. I love the fact that Hawkman’s villain slot goes to “Thanagarian criminals,” while Wonder Woman Man’s goes to “Steve Trevor.” I hope to hear Kochalka’s “Super Christmas Men” playing in malls while I do my Christmas shopping next year…

Let’s start with the bad news: Dirk Deppey, who has long been responsible for The Comics Journal‘s Journalista news blog, has apparently been laid off,  and today will be his final day. I honestly can’t tell you  how much that news saddens me—at least not without sounding like I’m exaggerating—but I Deppey’s blog was on of the first places I visited on the Internet each weekday morning, reading it was something I looked forward to every day and, when Deppey blogged-in sick or took a vacation, I missed him. I hope you’ll join me in wishing Deppey the best in his future endeavors.

Two think-pieces of note: At Graphic Novel Reporter, Brigid Alverson discusses “The Pitfalls of Age Ratings,” while at The Comics Journal R.C. Harvey tries “Defining Comics Again.”

“Brainiac is an interesting case that we’ve been thinking about. As an intelligent computer, does he have rights under the Constitution?”: The New York Times‘ John Schwartz chats with the guys behind the new-ish Law and The Multiverse blog, which deals with legal issues in comic books.

Two for Christmas: Jesse Hamm re-gifts his art featuring various maids of might a-milking, and Top Shelf’s Brett Warnock shares some of the Christmas cards he’s been getting, including one in which Dean Haspiel draws a hell of a Santa Claus.

“Is that where Batwoman’s victory comes in, by pointing out what a wankbreak Batman is, letting him look like a freak in comparison to her well-adjusted normal life?”: This Mindless Ones review of Batwoman #0 focuses on what the plot—Batman dressing up in a variety of terrible disguises to follow Kate Kane and Batwoman around for, like, weeks—says about Batman and what a deeply, deeply weird weirdo he is. (Via Dirk Deppey, who I stole that scan from; I think that is my new favorite image of Batman)

‘Tis the season: At The Hooded Utilitarian, Richard Cook collects a bunch of cover appearances by Santa Claus through the decades.

His own private WildStorm: Tom Spurgeon bids farewell to DC’s WildStorm imprint by remembering some of his favorite books from the once influential publishing line.

Suck it, “Graphic Novels”: T. Hodler demonstrates that the term “comic book” is far more popular than the term “graphic novel” …with graphs!

“Any of you remember the ‘Comics Code’ in America, effectively shutting down the most creative comics artists in the US in the 1950s…?”: Writing for The Comics Journal, Roland Kelts discusses the just-passed “Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s revised bill to amend the Youth Healthy Development Ordinance–a piece of legislation otherwise known as the ‘non-existent youth’ bill.” It’s an opinionated piece, and a great starting point for learning more about the potentially chilling legislation, and many of the ironies surrounding it.

Speaking of manga…: David Welsh suggests some of the year’s best manga, in the hopes that Eisner judges are listening.

“Top 10 Reasons Why I Should Direct ‘Iron Man III’”: Peter David would like to direct the next Iron Man flick (along with, I assume, plenty of other people), and he counts down the reasons why. I agree with #3; director Jon Favreau is one of those guys who was just active enough that when I was a film critic I’d find myself writing about him every once in a while, but never so often that I memorized the spelling of his last name. If someone  with the surname “David” were to direct the next one, imagine the seconds of film critics’ lives that would be saved….!

“This was the year where the worm turned, and those of us who bought crap by design—because it made us laugh—sobered up and realized that we’d actually become a target demographic”: Tucker Stone remembers the, um, “Year in Stank.” Can you match the panels of poorly-constructed superhero decadence to the comics they came from?

I hope it’s the cycloptic tree one: At DC’s Source blog, David Hyde teases that a Green Lantern will rejoin the JLA line-up next March, and asks fans to speculate which one.

“It’s the same idea of you’re riding your bike, and you love riding your bike, but then one day, it’s all about how you look riding your bike”: On the occasion of the release of her must-read Picture This, The Onion’s AV Club interviews Lynda Barry.

The more I see of the Ryan Reynolds movie they ended up making, the more I wish they woulda stuck with the original plan: Hey, remember when Jack Black was going to star in Green Lantern, and it was going to be a comedy? Digital Spy does…and so does Black. Maybe they can costume him like John Candy from Spaceballs to play G’Nort in a sequel…? Or hell, there’s always Hawkman…

“Archie Gets Married and Goes to Hell”: Slate’s feminist/women’s issue blog Double X catches up with Archie’s possible-future marriages. You know, it didn’t occur to me until I saw this story, but these “Archie Marries ____” are basically Archie’s Dark Knight Returns. In a way.

I always hated Hitch’s: Maybe toss him out and put in Val Semeiks, and I can agree with Ben Morse’s “Five Favorite Martian Manhunter Artists” list 100% instead of just 80%. I do like the old Silver Age depiction of  J’onn Jonn’z where he basically just look like a mostly-naked green bald guy or, as read in the black-and-white Showcase Presents collections, a naked bald guy. (Semeiks, by the way, drew J’onn in JLA: Foreign Bodies, DC One Million and the underrated JLA: Incarnations series).

To him, maybe—I seem more kids dressed as superheroes than as boys with antlers at Halloween: “Jeff Lemire On Why Superheroes and Boys with Antlers are Equally Great”

God, I hope not: “Superhero fiction: the next big thing?”

“Superman Symphony’s Surprise Grammy Nominations”: Last Friday’s episode of NPR’s All Things Considered featured Michael Daugherty’s Metropolis Symphony, which has been nominated for a Grammy. You can read and/or listen to the story here (listen though, so you can hear some of the music), and the symphony’s entire fourth movement, “O, Lois!” can also be heard there.

Great work from great cartoonists: Here’s Ward Sutton’s extended Dr. Seuss homage, How WikiLeaks Stole Christmas! (man, that guy can ape a cartoonist’s style like no one’s business!), and here’s Kate Beaton’s series of New York Sketches, full of anecdotes about a visit to the city (My favorite panel is the one with the little girl’s reaction to what Beaton does for a living).

Henry and Glenn (Anti-)Christmas Cartoon: Over the weekend The Beat posted this six-minute animated cartoon featuring the Henry and Glenn Forever characters (plus a substantial commercial for the comic). I was pretty happy to see it because, while I had mixed feelings about the overall quality of the book itself (nothing inside it is really as funny as the idea of the book itself),  I was most struck by Tom Neely’s character designs, and the fact that the Glenn character looked like some kind of messed-up old-school Disney cartoon character. So it was great to see him get animated.

This looks like the cover to an Elseworlds comic I’d really like to read: Annie Wu responds to a complex character redesign challenge, coming up with an awesome-looking punk rock version of the Justice League (The Justice League of Anarchy, maybe…?). Also, it’s worth noting that her punk Wonder Woman is yet another better Wonder Woman redesign than the one currently in the comics with the jacket and the pants and what not. (Link gaffled from Comics Reporter)

They also make swell gifts for thirty-something comics bloggers hint hint: “Kids love their old-time comics”

Minor DC heroine Katana is foremost among inexplicable blips: Noah Berlatsky discusses Mike W. Barr and Jim Aparo’s Katana character from the initial run of Batman and The Outsiders, and how she failed to conform to the standard cheesecakey, flirty superheroine stereotype. Berlatsky also notes that the height of her popularity seemed to come at this period, and no later attempts to give her more revealing costumes did anything to help her Q-rating.

Batman on a horse: I haven’t been the biggest fan of Tony Daniel’s Batman work over the last few years, but it looks like his latest issue will feature Batman riding a horse, and, little-known rule of comic books, Batman riding a horse always works.

Okay fine, I’ll play along: Over at DC’s Source blog, David Hyde has a few blind items…

1) Which superhero team is losing their headquarters? Hopefully the JLA, because I never liked that cartoon Hall of Justice in D.C. plus also a satellite accessible by the door technology from The Authority but, eh…probably the Teen Titans. Maybe the new direction of the book will be that instead of killing off members, they start killing the places they hang out…?

2) What classic cult favorite DC horror series is getting the DC Comics Presents treatment next year? Wow, this is a hard one. The anthologies all seem to be pretty well-covered by the Showcase Presents program. Maybe the pre-Alan Moore Swamp Thing? Or…hmmm…I, Vampire? The kids today all like vampires, right?

3) Who is pulling the strings of the Legion of Super-Villains? Huh. I must not be reading enough DC comics, because I didn’t even know the Legion of Super-Villains was appearing anywhere at the moment. I’m going to assume it’s Dan DiDio. No wait, Bob Harras. Yeah, Bob Harras is pulling their strings. Oh, wait! I was thinking of the Legion of Doom! The Legion of Super-Villains is probably a Legion of Super-Hero thing, huh? In that case, Paul Levitz.

(I’m not very good at blind item guessing…)

Now that’s comics journalism!: Mike Baehr’s “Things to See” link round-up on Fantagraphics’ Flog blog from Wednesday had so many great items in it that I could probably have stolen each one to list here in my link round-up. So I’ll just cherry pick one, and then suggest you go see the things “Things to See” suggests you go see. That one? Oh, how about this Noah Van Sciver interview with Geoff Johns, a partial panel of which you can see above. Van Sciver puts his questions into the dialogue bubbles of fans in an interview line at a convention, and, to pack in a little more action than most interviews manages, adds a lot of fighting and gun play. That’s something you can’t do in old-fashioned prose journalism.

This, on the other hand, is just too bad: Writing for Comics Comics, T. Hodler noticed that The Onion‘s AV Club ran a review of a book that not only hasn’t been released yet, but also hasn’t even been finished yet. If you read the comments section and the updates, you’ll see the AV Club‘s Keith Phipps responded to the situation quickly and, I think, correctly, although this is still one of thos sad for everyone sorts of things—the AV Club is embarassed, the writer loses a gig (justifiably, of course, but I’m sure that doesn’t mean the writer’s not gonna be bummed out) and the book in question…well, maybe it’s okay for the book in question. There’s no such thing as bad publicity, right? (It’s Dean Mullaney and Bruce Canwell’s Genius Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth from publisher IDW, by the way. See? Publicity!) Is this a teachable moment? Maybe. Future and up-and-coming writers in the reading audience, never lie. At least, not on the Internet, because it is full of people who can  and will catch you.

“RASL a worthy successor to Bone”: I don’t think Jeff Smih could ask for a better assessment of his current series than that.

“So yes, feel free to invite me unto one of your fine programs and browbeat and berate me in the name of saving America and its children”: That’s writer Dara Naraghi addressing Fox News regarding the existence of the War On Christmas in a blog post hyping the just-released DC Universe Holiday Special 2010 #1 on his blog. Naraghi chimed in with this very link in the comments section of my Tuesday night ‘Twas… post, but I thought it worth sharing here, since I assume most of you have stopped reading Tuesday night posts. There too I alluded to DC’s holiday special being part of the War on Christmas, since it dealt with diverse winter holidays, but man, I didn’t realize how diverse until I read it for myself. There are six stories dealing with six different holidays: Caveman Winter Solstice, Cowboy Chanukah, Space Ashura, Thanksgiving, Norouz and the 31st Century’s plain-old Holiday. Notice something missing? That’s right, Christmas! It’s not DC Comics attempting to annoy Christians though; as Naraghi’s post makes it clear, it may just be the creators and publisher’s attempt to get on a cable news show.

“Keeping Up With The Goonses”: Here’s a big, long, idiosyncratic post about words and phrases that comics have contributed to the language by Alex Buchet at The Hooded Utilitarian. It’s labeled part one too, so there should be plenty more to follow.

Should there be any “hands off” corporate comics characters?: Jim Mroczkowski discusses the concept  of characters that should only be written or worked on by certain creators, using Steve Gerber’s (or is it Marvel’s..?) Howard the Duck as a starting point. It’s an interesting discussion to have with one self, and I can’t help but see it both ways.

For example, I don’t think anyone’s  Fantastic Four has ever matched Kirby and Lee’s,  but damn, it’s been a blast watching dozens of different artists draw Things over the decades, you know? On the other hand, I hate the thought of someone other than Neil Gaiman writing his Sandman characters for any real length of time. On the other-other hand, Gaiman didn’t create so much as re-create his Sandman, and if DC’s original Sandman was “hands-off,” we never would have gotten Sandman. Nor, if their characters were hands-off to all but their creators, would we have ver gotten Alan Moore and company’s Swamp Thing. Or Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns. Or… Well, you get the idea.

More on breaking into comics, more on 10-page stories featuring Daily Planet staffers: In our last installment of Linkarama, I linked to Abhay Khosla offering a bit of breaking-into-comics advice while hyping his Jimmy Olsen short story in next year’s Superman 80-Page Giant. Khosla’s fellow Savage Critics contributor Tucker Stone offers plenty of good (and/or “good”) advice in his column at Comixology. And over on his blog thing, Neil Kleid discusses his Perry White ten-pager with artist Dean Haspiel for that same Superman 80-page giant. Normally I wouldn’t just link to hype-type stuff, but Kleid’s discussion is pretty interesting, and, c’mon, Dean Haspiel drawing Perry White!

“How Reality TV Translates Into Into Comic Books”: Bryan Young discusses Judd Winick’s 2000 Pedro & Me in an issue of his publication devoted to some sort of weird Jersey Shore theme. Strange how prevalent reality television has become in the last decade and a half that MTV’s early Real World shows don’t even seem to be the same sort of animal as the modern reality show, do they?

“Catwoman’s redemption an example to follow”: I have never once found myself in a situation where I would stop and ask myself What Would Catwoman Do? (The answer usually involves stealing a statuette of Bast and making cat puns, right?) But this guy thinks it might not be such a bad idea. The transitioning-from-villain-to-hero bit of Catwoman’s backstory, not the cat puns.

Let’s talk about this Raven CW show thing for a moment: You’ve already read about this over on the main site, right? The New Teen Titans Era character created by Marv Wolfman and George Perez who has vague emotional and teleportation powers as the subject of a post-Smallville DC superhero-based television show on the CW?  It’s also been discussed recently here and here). I had a couple of thoughts I wanted to throw out there:

1) Raven is at first blush an extremely strange choice, given her relatively low Q-rating among DC’s pantheon of superheroes, especially when compared to the other character’s whose names have been thrown around as potential TV stars—Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Robin etc. On the other hand, I think that Teen Titans cartoon made her a relatively obscure comic book character who is probably better known by “civilians” than someone entrenched in the comic book world might expect. Also, hasn’t Smallville asically devolved into a show about random DC characters guest-starring, to the point where Clark Kent isn’t the draw so much as the people who appear with him? Couldn’t you choose pretty much any DC character to continue that format?

2) Did any of you—sales figures indicate that not many of you!—read 2008′s five-issue miniseries DC Special: Raven by Marv Wolfman and pencil artist Damion Scott? I read it mainly for Scott’s art, as I’m a huge fan of his work, but it was strikingly disentangled from Titans continuity and the DCU in general (I think Psycho Pirate’s mask was a maguffin in it…? None of it was terribly memorable, really), and, in retrospect, wasn’t too far removed from a pilot for a show about a teenager with dark magical powers.

3) You know that weird bird-in-profile icon silhouette that Raven could like, step into and fly around in or make the Titans disappear in and out of or whatever? (New Teen Titans was way before my time—what’s the term for that? Her soul self or some such?) That’s one of those things that seems very specific to a hand drawing on a piece of paper that would be impossible to replicate 100% accurately in live action and not look silly. They could always not do it of course, but as TV-ready as elements of the character may be, she does have at least one very comics-specific trait (Just like Starfire’s hair turning into a comet trail mapping her flight path  just wouldn’t be the same off the comics page).

“Did you guys try chilling out and watching SAVED BY THE BELL?”: Writing at The Savage Critics, Abhay Khosla dabbles in self-promotion regarding next year’s Superman 80-Page Giant 2011 #1, which will feature a ten-page Jimmy Olsen story written by Khosla. It’s a typically smart, funny and substantially long piece, veering from from how the guy who wrote this fantastic takedown of Countdown to Infinite Crisis #1 in 2005 ended up writing for DC Comics a few years later to thoughts on Jimmy Olsen in general (“Only really Batman does more than Jimmy Olsen,” Khosla observes, regarding Olsen’s amazing versatility).

I guess it had to happen eventually, but I wouldn’t have expected it to look so good: Check out Adam Watson’s Seuss Wars images, which are, of course, Star Wars scenes drawin in the style of Dr. Seuss. I suspect links to the site will be popping up in several places, as I’ve already seen a couple, but this is the one I saw first.

Hmm, I think I liked Mask of the Phantasm better, but I can sorta see that: Noah Berlatsky on the best superhero movie of all time. Here’ s a hint: It’s almost 45 years old.

“For all Batman knows he buried the kid alive, like he did with Alfred that one time”: Cracked’s “5 Absurd Ways Comic Books Have Resurrected Dead Superheroes” includes Jason Todd’s return, which is one that makes less and less sense the more one thinks about it. And it didn’t make any sense at first.

I would have guessed it was malt-based economy: At The Comics Curmudgeon, Josh Fruhlinger shares a rather plausible theory regarding the Riverdale economy (You’ll have to scroll past the Mark Trail sexiness and Mary Worth tawdriness).

I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say the truth hurts, but it does sting a little: Tim O’Neil sums up many of your favorite superheroes, in a sentence or so.

Here’s the publishing news of the week: Or month, or year, or decade, depending on what circle of comics fans you’re talking about, I suppose. Anyway— “Fantagraphics to Publish Crockett Johnson’s BARNABY”

“He really was ‘The Greatest,’ and so is this book”: Andrew Smith of Scripps Howard News Service enthuses over Superman Vs. Muhammad Ali.

“Schumacher doesn’t really seem to grasp what sets Eisner’s considerable output apart”: Charles Solomon reviews Michael Schumacher’s Will Eisner: A Dreamer’s Life in Comics for the LA Times. He didn’t like it much.

“So, now in Ireland’s darkest hour who can the Emerald Isle count on to save the day?”: Damien McCrossan’s article for BBC News meanders a bit, but the subject is interesting and fairly thoroughly covered. Where are all the Irish superheroes, he asks, ticking off various familiar names and eventually naming some emerging characters who could be part of the, um, Emerald Age of comics.

“For the occasional comics reader, the search for a satisfying graphic novel can be frustrating; it’s a market that still caters to aficionados”: At Salon, Laura Miller makes some recommendations of some high-quality comics for the graphic novel-curious. As one of those “aficionados” the market caters to, I second this list as a pretty strong one—maybe not the best nine books available or anything, but certainly nine quality works that are all likely to come up in conversations about graphic novels at mixed-company holiday parties.

Oh yeah, this war’s still on, isn’t it?: Perhaps the most damning criticism of President Barack Obama’s relative failure to magically undo all the ills of the “War on Terror” era of American history is the fact that David Rees’ Get Your War On comic, launched at the same time the Afghanistan war was launched, returns. It’s in New York magazine, where it can apparently be most easily read, but you can also view it online in a less-than-ideal format. Rees’ foul-mouthed, funny-because-it’s-unfortunately-true, clip-art driven strip isn’t for everyone, but, as a perusal of the complete collection or online archives proves, Rees was more right more often than just about anyone who had anything to say about America’s wars over the course of the last decade. It’s unfortunate that the subject matter is still around and thus GYWO can return, but if we have to be fighting many wars forever, then I’d rather there be more funny comics about it than less.

You know, I think I like these more than most 90′s X-Men art that Marvel published: Ben Morse shares the sketches of the X-Men that he did as an 11-year-old. They are awesome.

Golden Age Flash is hard core: Living Between Wednesdays‘ Johnathan shares a few panels of Jay Garrick being unbelievably violent and cruel to some thugs. That seems like an awfully Spectre-ish sort of punishment; I guess the JSA was a bad influence on Jay.

I thought they started doing that in the seventies?: “Should Comic Book Companies Bring Fanfic Writers Into the Fold?”

“Pair hope Macon comic book convention could become economic superhero”: There’s a pretty interesting lede in this Macon, Georgia Telegraph story about writer Rhett Thomas and curator Eric O’Dell’s work on a MaCon comic book convention—the idea of comic conventions as mini, economic stimuli for the cities they’re located in. Like any industry conventions and meetings, they bring in a decent amount of money being spent at local hotels and restaurants, and I’m sure they’re therefore welcome in just about any city.

“‘Young Justice’ cartoon a better adaptation than ‘Teen Titans’”: I hope this Thom Casey fellow’s assessment of the new cartoon show is dead-on, because that Teen Titans cartoon was really great.

“Anyway, it’s a nice poster, right?”: Will Pfeifer spends types a couple of sentences about one of the two green superhero movies scheduled for 2011.

“Lynda! Barry! Everything! Finally!”: Are you curious about this Lynda Barry person everyone is so enthusiastic about, but aren’t sure where to start reading? Well then does Drawn and Quarterly ever have an announcement for you! And speaking of D+Q product announcements, do you like comics? Do you like Canadian comics? Do you like teen melodrama? Do you like Bigfoot? (Heck, who doesn’t!) Then the publisher has another great-looking book that may interst you.

Reminder: Wilbur is a dick.

“It can be done”: In the process of handing a negative review to the comics adaptation of The Alchemist, writer Douglas Wolk gets into some of the core difficulties of adapting prose works into comics.

“Is it a bird? Is it a play? It’s a superhero”: This headline atop another piece about the Spider-Man musical is a pretty good riff on one of the go-to gags newspaper editors always turn to when thinking up a headline for an article mentioning a superhero.

See, Tucker can write just as well about comics he likes: Tucker Stone, one of the Internet’s most clever and amusing basher of terrible comics, writes at some length about Flash #6, praising its art and colors and noting the bittersweet nature of the disposability of comics means that as beautiful as the book is, “it will make no lists and find few libraries.” I…I almost teared up a bit at the end there. Tucker Stone touched me. And not in a bad way.

“Seasonal gift from a famous resident”: Here’s a nice little story from Northampton about “world-famous Northampton writer” Alan Moore donating a few thousand pounds worth Christmas “hampers” (bags, in American?) to his local Salvation Army. It’s a story about Alan Moore being generous around the time of the holidays, and Alan Moore has a long white beard so, um, I’m sure there’s a Santa Claus joke in there somewhere, but I don’t feel like writing it.

“‘Spider-Man’ starts to emerge from secrecy”: Now The New York Times takes a turn peeking behind the curtain of the Spider-Man musical.

“‘Superman: Earth One’ is a disappointment”: This Scripps Howard News Service wire review of the much ballyhooed original graphic novel isn’t necessarily great comics criticism or anything—I didn’t know anyone actually used the term “epic fail” in a non-ironic, un-sarcastic way—but it’s well worth a read for the author’s dismantling of Superman’s practice of journalism.  One of things that always charmed me about the Silver Age Superman stories, especially after working in a newspaper, was how incredibly unprofessional the staff of The Daily Planet was. Those reporters—all three of them, and their one editor—were constantly making the news about themselves, and putting big, huge, 80-point font headlines with their names above those stories about themselves right there on the front page.

Great headline, guys: “It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane…It’s Comic Book Artist Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez”

“Weisman…promises over 150 characters in the first 18 episodes alone”: This TV Guide article about the upcoming Young Justice show sure makes it sound like a big show. Producer Greg Weisman goes on to say that about 98-percent of those 150 are based on existing DC characters. I’m not sure how the math works out against Justice League Unlimited or Batman: The Brave and The Bold, but that sure sounds like a lot of DC characters.

“Hathaway rumoured for Superman”: But she’s make a terrible Superman, why, she’s not even a man! I can’t–Oh, for Lois Lane, huh? Okay, I can see that then.

“Christian Bale says the next Batman film may be his last”: Oh no! Laughing at Bale’s goofy, growly Batman voice is my favorite part of watching Nolan’s Batman movies!

“It’s just Ultimate Spider-Man. Who cares?”: Ken Raining uses the announcement of the “Death of Spider-Man” story as a springboard to discuss Marvel’s Ultimate imprint, which is nearing its tenth year of existence.

Speaking of dead Spider-Men…: Check out Gipi’s Spidey Pieta.

“…in a team comic book it’s hard to care about anybody when there are eleventy-billion characters”: Bob Temuka looks at the history of Marvel’s x-ploitation of the X-Men franchise.

The Curious Case of the Creator Credit Conundrum: Don MacPherson notices that Paul Levitz earns a creator credit for The Huntress on Batman: The Brave and the Bold cartoon, but the character’s co-creators don’t. What’s up with that? MacPherson hunts for answers.

The Golden Age of Canadian Comics: The Torontoist‘s Historicist feature this week is dedicated to the brief flowering of the Canadian comic book industry in the 1940s, as economic factors associated with the war shut off the importation of U.S. super-comics after they had already created demand. It’s quite an interesting read.

Sex won’t sell her: “Tough, new age Spider-Girl is no sexed up super-hero”

Who looks better in green, Ryan Reynolds or Seth Rogen?: The occasion of a new trailer for next year’s Green Hornet gave some superhero movie fans the chance to compare it with the recently released trailer for next year’s Green Lantern. Cinema Blend says “New Green Hornet Trailer Stakes A Claim As The Best Upcoming Green Superhero Movie,” and at Movie Line, Christopher Rosen writes, “The easy joke over the last eighteen months was that audiences wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the Seth Rogen-led version of The Green Hornet and Ryan Reynolds’ Green Lantern. Well, this week, an easy distinction revealed itself: The Green Hornet doesn’t look like death warmed over.” Ouch.

That’s strange: Comic Book Movie hears that the next Batman film will be based on the 1990 Legends of the Dark Knight story arc “Prey” by Doug Moench, Paul Gulacy and Terry Austin. That would make the villains Catwoman and Professor Hugo Strange, the latter of whom seems so unlikely an antagonist for a Batman movie—little name recognition, not terribly colorful, doesn’t make for good toys—that he would actually be something of an inspired choice. If a Moench-written Batman comic does end up being the basis of a film, that’s great news for the folio artists—Moench writes the best sound effects.

Come on DC—Paul Pope doing Jack Kirby characters is always a good idea: Comics Reporter has some links to Pope-drawn images from a Kamandi pitch. (Of course, he went on to do Batman: Year 100, so maybe the fact that this comic never came to be was for the best)

Retroactive solicitation?: I’m not a retailer, so I’m just guessing here, but isn’t this the sort of information that you’d want to know before you place orders on what seems to be a minor, unimportant one-shot like Steel #1? It was solicited in mid-October, with a the name of a writer new to comics (but someone who apparently wrote for some British sci-fi shows) and an artist who is talented and has a resume, but isn’t someone with a huge, sell-the-book-all-by-himself following (That would be Steve Lyons and Sean Chen, respectively, although dccomics.com currently says Ed Benes is providing the art; I sure hope that’s a typo, since I pre-ordered it thinking Chen was drawing).  A month later, DC revealed the Steel comic is actually part one of a five-part story that will continue in Outsiders, Justice League of America, Superboy and a yet-to-be-named title. Such information would presumably affect the number of copies of Steel a store would want to have on hand, right?

Who are the Satyr Masters From Abyss?: Only Evan Dorkin knows. And the other cartoonists involved in the story. And everyone who reads Dorkin’s blog.

The Death of Thor: While the mainstream media seemed at least a little interested in the Ultimate Death of Ultimate Spider-man, it was another Marvel comic “death” that seemed to generate more thought and higher word counts online. As my fellow contributor David Pepose shared earlier in the week, Roger Langridge and Chris Samnee’s ongoing Thor comic (i.e. The Good Thor Comic) is going the way of Captain Britain and MI13, SWORD, and Atlas. What exactly that means has been a hot—well, warm—topic of conversation on the comics blogoshpere since.  At Comics Reporter, Tom Spurgeon offered “Five Quick Thoughts On The Cancellation of Marvel’s Thor: The Mighty Avenger” (including a call not to let the event become “fuel for one of comics’s cliche engines”). At The Beat, Heidi MacDonald asks “Who killed Thor The Mighty Avenger?” and answers with a (facetious?) accusation (The comment thread is well worth a sift through as well, by the way). And at iFanboy, Jason Wood uses asks “Can the Direct Market Support All Ages Material?”

Is Batton Lash’s Wolff & Byrd, Counselors of The Macabre the next comic book series to be adapted to the small screen?: The answer to that question may be up to a judge, jury and some actual lawyers to hammer that out, depending on how close this in-development supernatural lawyer drama ends up being to Lash’s series of the exact same premise.

Many deaths means many graves: Bully takes a typically amusing look at an off-to-the-side element of the Marvel Universe, this time focusing on all the different markers and monuments the X-Men have erected over Jean Grey, the X-lady who has died about as many times as I’ve had the flu.

Dear IDW, can Mike Sterling please write a Dungeons & Dragons one-shot or something?: Comics blogger and retailer Mike Sterling shares a conversation he had with employee Employee Aaron regarding the new, gelatinous cube-free D&D book.

The second appearance of Michael Bloomberg?: I’d have to consult a price guide to see exactly how many times NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg has appeared in comics now, but he’s apparently teamed up with Spidey to, like, help fight unemployment or something.  No offense to artists Phil Jimenez and Todd Nauck, whose art I generally like, but I think I like Fred Chao’s Bloomberg from Johnny Hiro better.