SJW you mean Superhero right?

Ever come across an insult so non-sensical it makes you wonder what could anyone mean from it, if so you’ve not seen an internet comment section about something related to Marvel comics, Star Wars or Doctor Who. Yes I know such a phrase SJW standing for Social Justice Warrior, this phrase makes even less sense in the context of Superhero comics, the premiere superhero team is called the Justice League because they fight for Justice. I genuinely wonder what people expect from comics if they use this term, like do they want Spider-man to refuse to help a hispanic family from a burning building or did they think that Lex Luthor was the good guy not the guy who fights for “Truth, Justice and the American Way”. The term SJW is synonymous with the Alt-Right and if you don’t know who they are they’re Trump supporters, members of the KKK and the kind of people who think “Hitler didn’t do anything wrong”, and there claim of any form of ownership over comics as an art form is questionable at best. 

So other than ranting online what have these groups done to try and control the Comic book industry; well there was organised harassment of Marvel Assistant Editor Heather Antos because she had such a role in the company and a vagina, the most ridiculous incident was over her posting a photo of her and her friends drinking Milkshakes. While you could argue that her having an assistant editor’s role and very few writing or art credits means she hasn’t earned her seniority a more useful form of harassment would be to send her unsolicited Thor scripts. 

Let’s not forget the Breitbart scandal that removed James Gunn temporarily from the Director’s seat of Guardians of the Galaxy vol.3. What was it over? 8 year old bad jokes about the things Bryan Singer (Director of the Fox X-men movies) actually does (Singer has of course had minimal backlash, he even while it was public knowledge he had molested an non-consenting 14 year old boy directed an Oscar winning movie). Of course thats what they’d have you believe however it was over Gunn being critical of Donald Trump and his policies and not his offensive jokes, similar celebrities got targeted by Breitbart include; Kathleen Kennedy (head of Lucasfilm) Patton Oswald, Sarah Silverman and Dan Harmon however their attempts to remove them from high paying media jobs. 

Of course we can’t forget the poor victimised Richard Meyer who lost his job because of the mean Mark Waid who told his employer Arctic Press, that he wrote hate speech all over the internet under the name “Diversity and Comics”. Wait a second why is Meyer the victim, well he believes he is and has decided to sue Mark Waid claiming Waid abused his power as a writer and editor for Marvel and Archie Comics and is now trying to censor him and is working on a court case to defend his free-speech, but it’s not like Waid went and deleted all of his crap, or all the people on his side claiming that those who side with Waid are “Virtue Signalling idiots”. Virtue Signalling of course meaning a person affirming their beliefs and fighting for whats right which sounds a lot like a group of fictional characters, what are they called, oh yeah Superheroes.

Lets not forget the recent Captain Marvel hoopla, which had groups “review bomb” the upcoming movie to reduce it’s Rotten Tomatoes score. This lead to Rotten Tomatoes changing it’s user review policy which now allows studios to delete any review they think is spam. But why did Captain Marvel get this treatment, well Black Panther and Wonder Woman both did get this treatment, but to lesser degree. Black Panther got annoying “White Panther trolls” who had that one joke. Wonder Woman was made by DC after 3 critically panned movies, it also has a whole host of other problems, some being story changes that seem to be made to appease the Alt-Right like her origin being set in World War 1 not 2 because we can’t just have Wonder Woman punch Nazi’s, or not injuring Steve Trevor just winding him because having her altruistically protecting a man would offend these people, or having the Amazon’s be lead and worship Zeus thus replacing the roles and function of 2 women from Wonder Woman lore (this could be them assuming that Zeus is the only greek god audiences know but thats another from of insulting). That was just what was on screen in the Wonder Woman movie, that doesn’t include known rapist Brett Ratner producing the film and raping someone during a set visit, though after the woman spoke out against Ratner the films star Gal Gadot said she would not do a sequel if Ratner was involved only for the whistleblower to then turn around in the press and accused Gadot of helping Ratner rape her. 

Of course there was a more moderate response of why is Captain Marvel a big deal we had Wonder Woman, even ignoring all the above problems, Captain Marvel was written by 3 women (beating the previous record for women writing a big budget superhero movie by 2 which was previously held by Guardians of the Galaxy) and one man and was directed by a duo (featuring a man and a woman), while Wonder Woman was directed by a woman, but a non-writing Director (which to me means responsible for all the blame and undeserving of the credit) and a writing team of all men which included Zack Snyder (for story only), who is an outspoken Objectivist (a far Right philosophy) and director of the movie Suckerpunch so incoherent and confusing I genuinely think it was actually pro-rape but I’m not sure. Zack Snyder also directed the previous DC Movies that Alt-Right activists have been known to target the fans of for recruitment into their causes.

Lastly I can’t mention the outrage Captain Marvel’s leading lady Brie Larson caused by saying “Can I be interviewed by people who aren’t 40 year old white men”, which Menninists (a group of Men’s Rights activists who deal exclusively in petty first world problems) interpreted as I hate all men everywhere, no men should see Captain Marvel. I can say as a White man Captain Marvel is an Awesome movie. Larson decided to use her powers as star of the movie to help movie journalism become more diverse, which is a good thing, but not to mention some of the creepy shit male interviewers say to actresses on press tours for movies, standard are drooling questions about their costumes, but some are outright disturbing like Kate Mara while promoting Fant4stic got told outright by an interviewer that he “liked her toes and that he had a toe fetish” and that was how he introduced himself. 

Alt-Right Comic fans hate Kelly Sue Deconnick, I remember seeing someone make a big stink of her saying “if you don’t like my politics don’t buy my book”, as if this is an unreasonable thing to do and she should be villainised for this statement. In the same interview they got the snippet she commented on people’s belief that Superhero Comics should be apolitical and that they have some belief that they used to be, but the question is when? when was the first SJW Comic book? well for hiring somebody who wasn’t a white male to work on it was Will Eisner’s the spirit, and while the Spirit to some might be the movie where Samuel L Jackson ramblings about eggs and Scarlet Johanson wears a bunch of fetish outfits but it was an important landmark in comics hiring the first female artist Toni Blum (who used other pseudonyms and her real name was Audrey). The Spirit also had the first Black sidekick in Ebony White and although his appearance now is a racist stereotype he was still a first and a progressive move as he often helped the hero and was a character. But it’s not like Will Eisner had any more impact on comics like creating a whole format? wait he did Will Eisner wrote a Contract with God which is often considered the first Graphic Novel the format that most comics are written for and makes up 8/10 of all comic sales now, which nullifies the other claim that SJW characters don’t sell comics because they don’t sell monthly comics but, they sell loads of Graphic Novels. This doesn’t even mention the fact that the biggest award in comics is named after Will Eisner.

But when where Superhero comics Alt-Right friendly? well the 1940’s Captain America and Wonder Woman where punching Nazis, the 1950’s Superman was fighting the Ku Klux Klan and calling them un-American scum, the 1960’s Marvel’s readership where so left-wing they created Iron Man an industrialist billionaire to try and get another opinion in the book, the 1970’s when Green Lantern was accused of being racist and was replaced with a black guy, the 1980’s when the X-men are culturally diverse group of misfits fighting for Civil rights? I guess the answer must be the 1990’s when Marvel filed for bankruptcy. Which is symptomatic of how selfish these people are, they want to take Superheroes away from little kids, Superheroes who are designed to give exciting adventure stories for kids and teach them not to be shi

Holy Over-Baturation

So Batman’s great we all agree on that don’t we? Everyone loves him, his movies gross loads for Warner Bros, I myself have heard people say “I’m a Marvel fan but I like Batman”. Batman is easily the flagship hero for DC Comics, whats the problem? Well thats it really, DC overuse him. You look at DC Comics any month he has about 8 new books being released, if theres a new movie it’s usually Batman (in either Animated or Live Action). The surprising thing is that Batman has spent a good chunk of his publication history as DC’s second-banana.

So why is Batman now so popular? Well it’s because Batman actually stands for nothing. Seriously Superman “Truth, Justice and The American Way”, Wonder Woman “a Champion of Peace and Love” (except in more modern times). Batman has been able to satiate para-military niche (like in Batman vs Superman) but can also be an outspoken pacifist like in Death of Innocents the Horror of Landmines. He can moodily declare “I work alone” meanwhile having more sidekicks than any other Superhero those being; Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Carrie Kelly and Damian Wayne who all used the name Robin (at some point, some have used other codenames), Betty Kane, Barbara Gordon, Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain who also use the name Bat-girl, Kathy Kane as Batwoman, Ace the Bathound, Bat-mite, The Huntress, Bat-Wing and others that are more questionable like Catwoman, Talia Al Ghul, Clayface and Azrael (all who are often written as villains) or support players who don’t help out in the “Field” like Commissioner James Gordon (who gives Batman cases) or Lucius Fox (who supplies Batman with Gadgets) or Alfred Pennyworth (Batman’s Second Butler, his first was conveniently called Alfred) and of course he works with all these people while being on multiple Super-teams like The Justice League and The Outsiders, He’s truly a loan wolf. The only thing thats consistent about Batman is he doesn’t have superpowers, but wait he managed to make a Sinestro Corp Ring fly away scared. So he has no powers other than being Supernaturally scary that he can make a ring that feeds off fear runaway and there was that time he got shot by Darkseid and started reincarnate into former family members or when he had the Black Glove break him mentally and through Buddhist meditation he created a second personality that believed he was from the planet Zurr-En-Al. How could I forget the time he managed to by to perform an indian rope trick to escape a basement (although that was the last season of Batman ’66). Not to mention the ability to simultaneously convince a city your an urban legend and appear on TV with the rest of the Justice League or be able to come up with unescapable death plans for each member of the Justice League (see Tower of Babel) something that Darkseid, Brainiac (a Super-intelligent android with an IQ in 4 digits) or Maxwell Lord (a telepathic billionaire who knows the league intimately).

Now the whole not having Superpowers thing is weirdly how he was originally second-banana and how he stopped being the companies number 2 hero (at times). DC’s original flagship hero was Superman, the original Superhero. When Superman first emerged he literally built the comic up, now a common misconception is that DC stands for Detective Comics. That is completely false and one of those things people try to pass off as facts to look clever, in fact DC was originally National Comics and took the name DC after their first acquisition (which was All Star) and at this point the brag “our comics are read countrywide” was no longer a unique selling point, so they took the name DC to try and convince people that their comics where more relevant as they came from Washington which is where the President lives (this was completely untrue). Superman spent most of their shared publication history as top-dog, but Batman first got his taste of being numero-uno in 1966 with the rise of Batmania when after being 4th choice for William Dozier’s comedy superhero kids show, after Dick Tracy and of course Superman which could not be sold to 20th Century Fox due to the TV rights to Superman being sold to the makers of Superman The Musical. Now it was time for the Caped Crusader to outshine the Man of Steel but this infatuation was fleeting by 1972 Batman’s comics sales they where being outsold by Aquaman (so Aquaman’s recent movie success should feel a bit like Deja Vu) and it was even being threatened with cancellation. At this point DC also had the Hanna-Barbera cartoon Super-Friends and if you’ve ever seen that show Superman is the man, there’s a clear Hierarchy, Superman, Guest Hero, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Batman and Robin (who are so codependent I’m sure they have to go to toiler together in this series) and the Junior members (Wendy, Marvin and Wonder Dog in Season one or The Wonder Twins and Gleek in later seasons). Now humiliated and desperate to separate him fro past success DC editorial changed Batman’s creative team to writer Dennis O’neil and Artist Neal Adams. Under these two gone where the days of goofy gadgets and cries of holy, Batman was different a swash-buckling adventurer ladies man able to seduce women like Augustus St Cloud and Talia Al Ghul. O’Neil was a former Newspaper investigative journalist added this experience to his writing and Batman was given more realism than his previous incarnations and with Adams pencil Batman finally had an artist who could rival Supermans, no more of Bob Kane’s chicken scratches or Dick Sprang’s cartoonish characteurs. The creative team increased Batman’s sales so much that they could overturn Editor Julie Schwartz longtime no rogues policy reintroducing Batman’s Rogues first with the Joker in “the Jokers Five Way Revenge”. Although it would take longer for Catwoman to return to the pages of Batman, but she was later in O’Neil’s run on Wonder Woman used as one of her Villains. But even with this new direction it was not enough for The World’s Greatest Detective to get the advantage over the Man of Tomorrow.

Batman would finally beat his rival in 1986 when DC decided to make more “Adult” comic books like the Killing Joker by Alan Moore and Year One and The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, the latter which would have Batman symbolically reject Superman and his ideologies. The message was sent, the sun-god was banished to the underworld by the Dark Knight. Gone was the Bat-tusi and major ret-cons had to be made to reflect the new cynical world view the new Robin Jason Todd had to have a major retcon to his back story. Instead of a rehash of Dick Grayson’s origin, Todd was made to be a tough street-kid who stole a wheel from the Batmobile and with this his personality started to change. Todd went from Dick 2.0 to a brutal coldhearted killer and violent sociopath. Around this point we also had Batfans working on revisionist history which continues to today, the myth that Batman was always “Dark and Gritty” then Adam West came along ignores many facts like the Clock King episode of Batman 66 was written by Bill Finger the same guy fans who dislike Bob Kane claim is the real creator of Batman. 

Now I said this new direction was more “Adult” but thats what the marketers would prefer you to think of them as but a better word is Cynical, and this cynicism isn’t limited to just the Bat-titles. This new ideology of course stripped many heroes of their powers, in the name of “relatability” but this new weaker Superman was less popular and less likeable as a character. Stripped of his smile now forced to scowl and to be more edgy and grow a mullet. The Big blue boy-scout wasn’t the only victim Wonder Woman has in the years since Batman’s rise to top dog has been stripped of her compassion even losing her power of Super-Empathy (easily the most underrated Super-power of all time) and been turned into a Xena knock off. Her origin story has been written so many times it’s hard to find a Wonder Woman Graphic Novel that isn’t a retelling of her origin story, many of which rejecting the ideas of her creator. Of course this isn’t the first time Wonder Woman has suffered the most from Batman’s rise in popularity as her ABC pilot was basically Batman now as a woman where she is the CEO of a major company, reliant on gadgets and isn’t from a magical island populated entirely by women who where victimised by Zeus and Diana being an ambassador for them into the modern world. The only powered character who has benefitted from this mass-nerfing of heroes is Green Lantern as under this new direction his ring can’t just grant any wish to it’s wielder but can make a replica of it from Green Light. Lets not forget the boon it’s given to Green Arrow he now is no longer restricted to being a poor substitute for Batman on the Comic page he gets to do it in his own TV show where he fights Batman’s C-List villains, has an ever growing ensemble of sidekicks and sits in his basement brooding.

The biggest problem is this cynicism doesn’t really extend to Batman himself, the average Batman story has him getting knocked out at some point, and being rendered unconscious is really bad for you. If we where to adhere to the same rules that says we can’t have a man in red tights run faster than the speed of light well, getting knocked out as much as Batman would mean that after a couple weeks of nightly patrols he’d be a brain damaged and would be lucky if he could count to ten. After a few months Bruce Wayne would be confined to a wheel chair being fed soup by Alfred babbling about how he had to stop the Penguin.

DC’s current Alum seem to have no quibble with the current status quo, looking at the “Black Label” DC’s line of creators passion projects, it’s all Batman stories, even Batman stories like White Knight where Batman and The Joker switch roles (a story we’ve actually seen a few times before). The only exceptions of new stories being Kelly Sue Deconnick doing a history of the Amazons (which may be cancelled), the confirmed cancelled “Other History of the DC Universe” and Frank Miller/John Romita Jr. doing Superman Year One which doesn’t fill me with hope as it’s written by a man who has publicly said “I Hate Superman”.  

The worst part of all of this whole idea that Superman is unrelatable is that the concept of  somebody who can solve all the world’s problems, somebody who could enslave the entire human race but doesn’t because he believes in freedom is hard to believe in is really depressing.

How the Daydreamers Saved the Marvel Universe

No this isn’t about how kids daydreaming about their favourite Superheroes grew up to be the writers of Marvel today (which is most likely true). No this is about the short-lived super team from the 90’s. 

I originally got the idea to write about this team as a movie pitch after seeing Into the Spider-Verse. My thoughts where after seeing that movie other than astonishment as to how good it actually was, the inevitable attempts by another studio to recreate an animated movie based on an eclectically mismatched Superteam was “what team”. I quickly realised which team the short-lived Daydreamers, but looking into them I realised there was a secret hiding behind them all about the structure of Marvel comics at the time. But first WHO are the Daydreamers and HOW in the comics did they join up.

The Daydreamers initially spun out as subplot in Generation-X 20-25, the first 3 members to join together where; Artie Maddocks a mute young mutant with telepathic powers, Leech a former Morlock (a group of Mutants who live in New York sewers) with the power to shut off other superpower and has trouble with pronouns like Elmo from Sesame Street and Franklin Richards the recently orphaned son of Reed and Sue Richards of the Fantastic Four. The next recruit was Howard the Duck who was working as a trucker in the Mid-West who gave a lift to Skin and Chamber (members of Gen-X) back to Massachusetts (The Generation-X team where not based at the Xavier Mansion) , after returning the teen-heroes back home (and having a fe bar brawls) the kids introduced Howard to the fifth member of the team. Rigellan Warrior and former Thor villain called Tana Nile hiding on school grounds. Tana Nile is like a female invader Zim who has learnt what empathy is and now an outcast from her species because she doesn’t believe Rigellans are superior to all other forms of life. Lastly joining the team is the mysterious Man-Thing, the guardian of the Nexus of all Reality and the responsible for bringing Howard from Duck-World (although this was a point of contention from the stories original writer and Howard’s original creator Steve Gerber. Who believed Howard came from a world full of different anthropomorphic animals). 

The Day-Dreamers had their own Mini-series although it was short-lived and it’s one weird trip of a story including references to Dr Seuss. But the series was short-lived due to legal issues as Steve Gerber and Jack Kirby’s lawsuit over creator rights was cropping up again as Steve didn’t like them using his character without his permission. Marvel however didn’t know that Gerber and image Comics founder Erik Larsen hatched a plan, Gerber wrote an issue of Spider-man Team up (5 to be precise) where the Web-head would team up with Gerber’s webbed-foot creation and Gambit from The X-men for some reason. Meanwhile over at image comics Gerber and Larsen would create a comic that told the same story but from the perspective of their own characters, Larsen’s Savage Dragon and Gerber (and Jack Kirby’s) Destroyer Duck, but the Savage Dragon/Destroyer Duck story as well as having some minor curse words had an extra twist. In the story Creaux the villain of the story does a voodoo ritual that makes copies of the pale-yellow Duck, the Marvel story ends with Spider-man, Gambit and “Howard” having defeated Creaux and Tombstone but the image version has something different. Savage Dragon and Destroyer Duck grab the real Howard and his girlfriend Beverly Switzler (no copies of Beverly are needed I guess as there are lots of long-legged redheads in Marvel universe I guess). The heroes of the image Comic now place the most popular write-in candidate during 1977 US Presidential Election and his girlfriend into witness protection in the Savage Dragon universe, renaming Howard Leonard and Beverly changing her name to Rhonda Martini.

So how exactly did this team save Marvel Comics? Well in the 90’s was actually 4 different publishers, “Marvel Spider-man” focusing on all things Spider-man, “Marvel-X” focusing on all mutant related books, “Marvel-Dark” which was Ghost Rider, The Punisher, Daredevil etc and “Marvel Classic” (sounding a lot like a soft-drink) which was The Avengers and Fantastic Four. Marvel Classic was entirely outsourced to Jim Lee’s Wildstorm (which produced Fantastic Four and Iron Man) and Rob Liefeld’s Extreme Studios (which worked on The Avengers until he missed too many deadlines and Windstorm took it over as well), to coincide with this transfer of character was Onslaught which killed off both teams and then the 2 teams re-emerged in a newer version of the marvel universe called “Heroes Reborn”. But there was more to Marvel Classic than those 2 teams and Scott Lobdell and Chris Bachello decided to take some of the lesser used features and fold them into Generation-X. With this action the Marvel universe became less disconnected which was always the point of Marvel Comics, and while short-lived it did mean Franklin was still around in the Marvel Universe to bring back the classic versions of the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Thor and Captain America after the lacklustre response to “Heroes Reborn”.  

Dyspraxia and Doctor Who

In 2007 I was formally diagnosed with Dyspraxia, there was always some suspicion of this but back then learning difficulties weren’t well known. The education system looked at them with bafflement, Dyspraxia is also less well known than others, Autism has become a go to for writers to have a character who is “a bit odd but it’s not their fault” and Dyslexia and Dyscalculia are easily defined as “The Words one” and “the numbers one”. 

Dyspraxia is motor sensory and short term memories, because of this it has taken me longer to learn things than most people, like I didn’t learn to tie my shoelaces until I was 12. There are many other things I’ve yet to learn that most people know like riding a Bicycle.

When I was diagnosed I had failed AS levels, including media studies a subject I was passionate about and which was also helped by Doctor Who. Doctor Who had a companion show called Doctor Who Confidential which was a behind the scenes documentary of how the show was made. I also had the shooting scripts for the first series of the relaunch series, this was great for media studies as very few TV shows let you have a peak behind the curtain. 

After being diagnosed I was put through the now defunct Wynfed Dore programme, which was designed to help people with learning difficulties to cope with them. This was a long process and involved me balancing on a wobbly board and learning basic juggling (before this I couldn’t even catch a ball). I had to do strange exercises everyday (changing every few days), not just that twice a day and I was determined to see this through. 

After I had managed to graduate the programme with a better sense of balance and co-ordination something happened with Doctor Who. We had a new Doctor, a clumsy, Hunchbacked version. Now I had floppy hair covering my face to try and hide the fact to walk around I was looking down at my feet, and so did this new Doctor. To me this Doctor was Dyspraxia. Doctor Who had presented the world with the Pacifist, caring Dyspraxic Superhero. I was sold on this new incarnation, while many disgruntled fans dislike the change from David Tennant to Matt Smith, it didn’t matter to me, this was My Doctor.

The Doctor as well as his apparent coordination issues was clever and funny. He was loved by his friends and he went on great Adventures with his friends the Ponds and later Clara. The show had lost it’s tedious connection to contemporary times which has always baffled me, why would you if you had a time machine that could go to any planet ever go back home. So your parents will do your Laundry? The Tardis surely has a washing machine (I actually know it does because it appears in the Free Comic Book Day comic in the 10th Doctor’s adventure). 

Of course Matt Smith had to leave the role and was replaced by Peter Capaldi, I still loved Doctor Who just not as much. It didn’t help that the character relationship between the Doctor and Clara was made messy. With 11 and Clara there was a romantic tension, the change to the 12th this was dropped sort of. If anything the Doctor had now become Clara’s ex, and not a good one a nightmare one that shows up at 3AM unannounced drunk. This dynamic lasted for a series and after a natural exit for Clara, the character stayed now with this unuttered feeling of Stockholm syndrome. The Toxic relationship fortunately ended and Peter Capaldi’s Doctor got a better companion dynamic with Nardole and Bill Potts. I loved these 2 new companions they where funny and Bill was bubbling over with excitement when she was on the Tardis just like I’d be. This era of course had to end but if anything I was prepared for Doctor Who to change, for the Doctor to change. When it was announced that the new Doctor would be a woman I was excited, they where finally going to address the systemic sexism within the show, being that the show works on the Doctor is brilliant and solves all the problems and the companion finds new ways to get into trouble in history or alien worlds. But then the actual show started again…

Now Jodie Whittaker’s version of the Doctor I have no problem with at all. My biggest problem is that we have the first in canon “Dyspraxic companion”. The character was weirdly summed up by a promotional gif of him giving up and throwing a bike off of a cliff that the Facebook page labelled with “He tries so hard”. 

Ryan’s Dyspraxia is untreated, he has no training about how to function with it but… he functions with it better than I do. I genuinely other than the first Episode can’t think of an example of him having trouble with his coordination or balance and I can’t chalk this up to lack of communication between different writers because 8/11 Episodes where written by Chris Chibnail. So much so I thought his Dyspraxia was dropped from the series, it was almost confirmed up till the episode Ker-Blam where he mentions he “has trouble learning new things”. This Episode also has a one off character who is clumsy and walks with her head down a more obvious Dyspraxic which lead me to question everything about this run. Why have a companion with Dyspraxia if you don’t know what it is and then I realised their intention was revealed in the Rosa Park’s episode (which was co-written by Chibnail) they think learning difficulty means thick. Ryan despite his Grandmother being a huge Civil rights advocate with a T-shirt that says “Spirit of Rosa Parks” and is so outspoken about the subject and time her new Boyfriend and Ryan’s Step-Grandfather is an expert on it and Ryan himself has no idea who Rosa is. Ryan also occasionally freezes up and needs a pep-talk but his Dyspraxia seems intermittent at most (Wikipedia actually says the character's symptons are mild). Ryan is an example of how to let a learning difficulty beat you (in his introductory episode his Grandfather claims he uses his Dyspraxia as an excuse for everything). And that is why I don’t like this new direction of Doctor Who. 

Totally Meta Ninja Toys

Picture the scene, Christmas Eve 1988 and the parents of children all across are searching for the toys their children have been pestering them for. The toy with a name made up of various seemingly un-connected nouns in an order the keep muddling up, was it Mutant Ninja Teenage Turtles. Searching store to store for this toy from the ad with an imitator of Rob Paulsen (rumoured to be Sean Schemel who would later voice Goku in Dragonball Z) riling them into a frenzy.

We all know about this we’ve heard stories about toys being sold out on Christmas Eve, the weird part is… The Ninja Turtles did a story about it 3 years before they released the toys that swept America by storm. To quote the Tales from TMNT series “Let me tell you story…”

Michaelangelo 1, (a One Shot Comic they label as a Micro-Series) is all about this sort of thing. It’s kind of like the movie Jingle All the Way but with a more believable everyman than Arnold Schwarzenegger in it’s main role, a Five foot tall talking Turtle.

The comic opens on a winter scene of ice skaters and sledding and Michelangelo (his name spelt like the Renaissance painter). Michelangelo is thinking of getting presents for his brothers but with just $10 realises that this is a difficult task. He also stumbles across a stray cat that he gives the most logical name that a Turtle trained in Japanese Martial Arts named after the painter of the Sistine chapel could give a cat “Klunk”. Mikey looks into a toy shop where parents are frantically searching for “Little Orphan Aliens” the most adorable toy in the world. So adorable that a gang of hoodlums (one of whom is called Hector) steal a truck full of them that where to be donated to the nearest orphanage in hopes to sell them for a massive profit.

Michelangelo proving he’s the best of the Ninja Turtles, stops them on his own, but in the process ends up stealing them. Of course a truck of stolen toys would get the attention of the police so Michelangelo is now on the run from the cops. And of course him getting caught by the police would cause no end of questions like “What is he?” or “Why would you call a cat Klunk?” (who has spent most of this time stuffed in Mikey’s coat). 

Mikey then stashes the Truck in an alleyway away from the police because the toys would end up impounded and wouldn’t end up with the Orphans who are completely innocent in this whole affair. Michelangelo then returns to April’s apartment to tell her and his brothers about his Christmas Eve. His Brothers and April then dress up as elves and Mikey as Santa Claus to give the children their toys.

Now this story was later adapted into an episode of the 2003 animated series (which for it’s first 2 seasons was mostly adaptations of the original Turtle comics). But this is a blog about comics so I wrote about the comic, also I have the 1990 reprint that has a bonus story… and heres a quick review of a Christmas Carol but starring Raphael, it sucks, it’s as contrived as it sounds. 

Strange facts about Stan Lee

With the recent passing of the most famous comic book writer of all time I thought I’d write a piece about him. But what should I write about a man who has become the comic book industries grandpa. Well how about a list and explanation of some of the bizarrest facts about the man.

He created the Power Rangers (sort of).

I told you these would be weird. In the late 1970’s Stan Lee sold the rights to Spider-man to Toei a Japanese TV studio. The end result of this being a “Super Sentei” series. A Japanese staple of entertainment about a Teenager or a group of Teenagers (some series change the age of the protagonists) who gain transformation powers and battle monsters. 

Stan’s plan after selling the rights to the old web-head to a japanese company was to then splice the action scenes, which where more expensive and dangerous to film and also Japan has a lot more experienced martial arts actors and stunt men, then splice them with new footage of a western actor who would be the series Peter Parker.

Unfortunately this grand scheme of Stan’s was unusable as other than the iconic suit, this series in no way resembles the Spider-man western audiences are used to. It now lives on in infamous as remember the time Spider-man fought aliens from mars with a giant robot.

But as I said this idea would later be used by Saban entertainment to make the Power Rangers (and other short-lived franchises from the 90’s like Big Bad Beetleborgs and VR Troopers). So as I said the idea for Power Ranger’s production cycle was created by Stan Lee.

He Cameo’s in movies because he doesn’t work for Marvel anymore

Ever wonder why he actually crops up in Superhero movies? Well the answer is quite simple, he wrote into his severance contract “if any characters I created are to make a movie I must appear in said movie”. Stan insisted on it, The fact he has appeared in movies of characters he had nothing to with the creation of like Deadpool or the Princess Diaries 2. 

As well as these movie cameo’s Stan is known for doing voice overs in Marvel cartoons, and again there is a simple explanation for this. No one else was available to be the narrator for 1980’s Spider-man series. That said who else could deliver his lines with the same bombastic quality that made Marvel comics so Exciting and exhilarating? Or like they’re written by a sentient Thesaurus?  

But if you where wondering why Stan Lee doesn’t appear in Logan it’s because Stan Lee never wrote a single comic featuring Wolverine.

He grew his Moustache for a reason.

Stan Lee’s Glasses and Moustache combo is unmistakable and iconic. So Iconic in fact my Mum once in HMV once thought a piece of Breaking Bad merchandise was Stan Lee (and to be fair it was amongst a lot of Superhero stuff). But nope despite what you might think Stan Lee was not born with his facial hair and his first words may or may not have been “Excelsior”. Stan Lee in his most famous and prolific time as a writer for Marvel in the 60’s had a full beard this was until a disgruntled Jack Kirby left Marvel for their rival DC and created the Fourth World Saga. Within the Fourth World Saga is a character called “Funky Flashman” a con-Artist deliberately modelled on Stan Lee (subtlety not being something often attributed to Jack Kirby). With this being such an obvious piece of slander Stan had to change his look because it’s harder to con people if they know what you’re like.

Unfortunately him shaving his facial hair down to just a moustache made him look more like Peter Parker’s tyrant boss J. Jonah Jameson.

And one last piece of Stan Lee Fourth World trivia for you, after the first broadcast of Apokolips Now Part 2 (an episode of Superman the animated series), an extra who looked like Stan Lee was removed from the background of Dan Turpin’s funeral scene.

He tried to make the Marvel Cinematic Universe since the 70’s

After semi-retiring from writing comics Stan set his sights on Hollywood and had limited success. He had greater success with television selling the rights to the Incredible Hulk which ran for many seasons and was very successful making a household name for bodybuilder Lou Ferringo (also starring Bill Bixby as The Hulk’s alter ego David Banner). But just having one show was not enough for Stan, green-lit for a whole series was Captain America starring Reb Brown where Steve Rogers is an ex marine who cruises around america in a van solving crimes. A more faithful Spider-man starring one of the kids from the Sound of Music (Nicholas Hammond) which bored viewers into comas and often tops lists of worst TV shows. A pilot for Doctor Strange where psychiatrist Steven Sanders battles peoples magical psychological problems summoned by Morgana Le Fey played by Jessica Walters (best known for either Lucille Bluthe from Arrested Development or Mallory Archer from Archer). And not making to the screen was a version of Daredevil devised by Angie Bowie (ex-wife of David Bowie) that never finished a script for a pilot, but did have costumes made and a photo shoot done for it with herself as then Daredevil sidekick Black Widow. And of course the TV movie the Incredible Hulk returns was a back-door pilot for a Thor series.

All that is nothing compared to Stan’s now notorious Dazzler pitch which was to be set in a post-apocalyptic world with the warring factions of Rock and Roll and Disco, and was to feature Kiss and Donna Summer. It was also to have cameos from Spider-man and the Avengers as well as having then relative unknown stand up comedian Robin Williams playing Alison Blaires (Dazzler’s secret identity) boyfriend.

His Superheroes are a reaction to constrictions on Horror Comics

The publisher now known as Marvel comics didn’t always make nothing but superhero books, both the explosion of superheroes in 1961 they published various genres from Westerns to Romance comics. But what they sold more of was Monster and Horror Comics unfortunately due to the Comics Code Authority there was a ban on all thing occult or too violent so how do you get around this?

Well have a band of explorers get hit by Cosmic rays of course. Then they can fight as many monsters as they like and have an archenemy who dresses up as the Grim Reaper. But it’s not just The Fantastic Four that have roots in Horror in fact most of the heroes debuted in Horror books like “Tales to Astonish” where a man invents a shrinking serum and then must battle what are now giant ants later becoming their king. A man who if he loses control becomes a giant green monster who destroys everything around him or a slender man who likes spiders and skulks around dark alleyways waiting for criminals to tangle up in his web. Not to mention a master of Occult arts who battles other sorcerers and demons and band of misfit freaks who must hide from the world but also want to save it. (if you didn’t work that out that was a description of Antman, The Incredible Hulk, Spider-man, Dr Strange and The X-men).

He Wrote for Publishers other than Marvel.

We associate Stan with Marvel but he did do projects with other companies as well as couple for Marvel nobody talks about like Ravage 2099 or Nightcat an experiment to have a hair metal singer who was also a Superhero. He also created the Adult animated series Striperrella starring Pamela Anderson (which the level of series humour is she’s Agent 69 if you sniggered at that you’ll love the show). 

But Comics wise he created the Mighty 7 for Archie Comics (pre-reboot) which similar to Nightcat tries to merge the barriers between universes by having Stan as an actual character and these are his superhero chums. For Darkhorse he wrote comics for the winners of the reality contest series on the Sci Fi Channel (and a rehashed version in the UK with kids that was broadcast on CBBC) “Who wants to be a Superhero?” which also featured Stan giving the contestants tasks and judging who needs to leave at the end of the episode.

More interestingly is he did do a mini-series for DC called “Just Imagine Stan Lee’s…” where he reimagined DC’s most popular characters; Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Robin, The Flash and Green Lantern. Superman reimagined as a hard-nose space cop now stuck on earth, Batman as a pro-wrestler (and a black man) which seems in line with the fact that in the Marvel universe Wrestling is real and often performed by Super-powered beings like The Thing and Spider-man. Green Lantern as a High School Biology teacher who now must protect nature from pollution and Robin as a young street tough who is fostered into a cult by the series villain the Reverend DARRK. 

He started writing comics professionally at 17

Stan’s whole career started at 17 and he was promoted to writer and editor from office boy after most of the staff where drafted into WW2. Stan wasn’t allowed into the Army due to him being underaged as well as in shades of Captain America too skinny and Jewish. But Stan was told his time as editor was temporary and that the owner of the comic publisher would “come back with a grown up” to take the responsibilities off the young kid but he never came back.

And what Stan did with this was truly something great he co-created some of the most well known characters in the world as well as creating an environment where the Artists would flourish under creative freedom. While DC under Bob Kane everyone was made to draw Batman like he did so that he could trace the panels for later use. Stan allowed Jack Kirby draw like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko draw how he wanted. The Marvel method gave a lot of freedom to the artist but was heavily reliant on somebody like Jim Steranko to make a truly dynamic layout that could tell a story well. While modern comic writers are more strict with layouts Steranko at time threw the rulebook completely out the window and did more pop art inspired pieces, pages with no panels, scene melding into scene. Under Stan Lee, Jack Kirby could come into the office with sketches for his new character a naked silver-man from space, that Stan in his own words “thought was a weird idea” but it became a legendary character. Without Stan around Marvel would never have become what it was, and we thank you styrofoam packing peanuts I mean EXCELSIOR!

Those Un-Fantastic Movies

The Fantastic Four haven’t had the most well-regarded of film adaptations, have they? 3 different directors have had a go at making a film version of Marvel’s First Family (Roger Corman, Tim Story and Josh Trank respectively). So this obviously means the adventures of Mr Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch and the Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Thing are ‘uncinematic’ or ‘unadaptable’, right? Well, if you keep making the same obvious mistakes over and over again, then yes. I mean sure, the individual films have their own unique problems, like Roger Corman’s incredible shrinking budget and Josh Trank’s refusal to show up to work. But the same 4 (an oddly appropriate number) problems keep on happening.

The FF are Explorers, not Crimefighters

This one’s a real problem. What’s even more strange is that they acknowledge this in their origin “Exploring Space”. But then it’s dropped once they get superpowers. It’s almost as if they went just to pick them up, like a suit from the dry cleaners before a job interview. Most F4 comic book story lines revolve around them exploring somewhere new and making enemies with a tyrant or befriending a friendly king. The number of places in the Marvel Universe that was first explored or discovered by this family from New York include Attilan, Atlantis, the Blue Area of the Moon, Wakanda, Latveria, the Negative Zone, the Skrull Home World. And those are just the greatest hits. 

Removing them as space adventurers robs them of what makes them so special. If theres a mugger in New York, there are at least half a dozen heroes all tripping over each over to stop them (Spider-man, Luke Cage, Daredevil, Shang-Chi, Black Cat, Venom, Jessica Jones, The Prowler and Kirby knows how many more). But the Marvel Universe has only one team of super-powered explorers. 

I think this change is made because movies don’t like what is known as a Flat-Arc (wherein the hero isn’t changed by the story). But this is ridiculous because they can still evolve on an alien planet. 

The Character’s are Wrong

It’s fair to say that the Fantastic Four are a product of their time. While Sue is best defined as the “World’s Greatest Super-Mom” even before having kids (I’m sorry but it’s kinda true), the other three have different personalities to their movie counterparts (even with that said Sue isn’t very Sue). 

Reed Richards is the embodiment of 1950’s Rugged Manhood. He’s not just the smartest man in the world but square-jawed and emotionally distant as well. Reed in the movies is a wimpy nerd who has to bring extra lunch money so he can still get a cookie after the less nerdy nerds beat it out him. These two things are not the same at all and it’s really stereotypical. 

Johnny Storm is, frankly, an immature kid in high school who likes to show off. Sue has spent half her life looking after him after their parents were killed in a car crash when Johnny was 7, partially why Sue is the “World’s Greatest Super-Mom” before she even had her own kids. Johnny in the movies has his “Rebel Without a Cause” side cranked up to 11. But all this does this is create a really shallow version of Johnny Storm, especially as all of the Fantastic Four have above average intelligence (the other three are just dwarfed by Reed Richards). Johnny is more Marty McFly (complete with short temper) than a 2nd rate James Dean. 

The worst offender for the movies getting wrong is most probably Ben Grimm, the heart and soul of Marvel Comics. In the movie adaptations, he spends his time moping about lamenting that he used to be a handsome man but now he’s a giant toenail (fun fact: Ben Grimm’s rock skin is actually more similar to toenails than rock. Here’s hoping he doesn’t get athlete’s foot). While this is true of the comic counterpart to a degree, he actually gets over it pretty quickly. He’s a changed man as soon as he meet Alicia Masters. Ben Grimm is a fun-loving party animal. He loves to drink, gamble and fight. He always has a joke ready for when he punches a bad guy and he’s the Idol of Millions. He’s basically like the Marvel Universe’s Mr. T.

You’re Wrong about Doctor Doom

Doctor Doom first appeared in Fantastic Four number 5 and he was a fully formed character. He had an army of robots, a suit that made him look like the grim reaper’s stunt double, a magic castle, his own made-up kingdom of Latveria and a time machine. He forced three of the members of the F4 to get him some magic pirate treasure. And thats a million times better than what we got in any of the movies. Sure, Doom has a personal vendetta against Reed Richards but it predates him becoming Mr Fantastic. It’s not that Doom is an entitled shmuck who wanted to marry Sue. No. Doom’s hatred of Richards is much more intense and much more personal, Richards destroyed his experiment, his one chance to talk to his deceased mother, and it scarred his beautiful perfect face. 

Doom is no tag-along, Doom’s power is all self made. He didn’t hitch a ride with the other four, he studied the Occult and raised his own army. And all to fulfil his destiny to complete his goals of getting revenge on Reed Richards for disfiguring him, redemption for his mothers soul (she sold it to Mephisto to protect their village from the Nazi’s) and total conquest of the world. Not to destroy it though, rather so he can rid the world of disease and poverty as everybody will be too busy worshipping his magnificence. 

Doctor Doom is almost always the aggressor in his stories with the Fantastic Four, as their insistence on still existing always circumvents his plans to bring much needed order to a world gone mad. But due to his popularity (he was even Stan Lee’s favourite villain), he’s appeared as an adversary for almost every Marvel hero. He’s gone to war with Wakanda and even tried to seduce Spider-man to the ways of villainy. Doom is a complex character as well as being an over-the-top characteur of a fascist. 

There are More Villains than Doctor Doom

Doctor Doom is possibly the greatest villain in all of Superhero comics. However, his back stories and motivations are more complicated than the average disposable movie villain. The method of adding him into the origin of the F4 just plain doesn’t work. It belittles him. Fortunately, the Fantastic Four have many villains. Assuming this is to fit into the MCU, Ronan the Accuser and the Skrull Empire have already been used, but they still have many more that haven’t yet been used. They include evil magician’s like Diablo and Nicolas Scratch, the communist villain the Red Ghost (who gained super powers for him and his apes by copying the F4) and Dragon-Man (often partnered with Diablo) who’s whole shtick is a bizarre lie as he is an Android and neither a Dragon or a Man. The Puppet Master, Alicia Masters step-Father, controls people with puppets he makes. The Moleman is the ruler of an underground world with loyal subjects called the Moloids. The Mad Thinker and his Awesome Android, The Frightful Four (a rival group of Scientists who make themselves an evil copy of the heroes). Annihulus and Blastaar (rival rulers of the Negative Zone who the F4 keep getting in the way of). Heck, even their original villain Namor the Submariner. With him, you can keep the whole “I love Sue, you don’t deserve her” shpeil as that’s actually his motivations.

So is it that the Fantastic Four are uncinematic? god no. The Movie versions have been plagued with problems, Roger Corman was hired to make the first one because of his extremely fast turnover in productions and Constantine films didn’t want to lose the rights to the series so they made a movie of them. Tim Story’s Fantastic Four was made for similar reasons, coupled with the popularity of the Spider-man and X-men movies they thought it could make a profit and it did and it spawned a sequel that some how managed to be worse. Tim Story also only had 1 previous directing credit for a box office flop starring Queen Latifah. Josh Trank’s Fant4stic was also made under the pressure of not wanting to lose the rights to the series. While his vision of a darker version of the F4 seemed strange it had some merits to it, like how Stan Lee’s original pitch for the series had protagonists all slowly dying from their super powers.

The most compelling argument for the Fantastic Four not fitting into a film structure is that the comics often revolve around on going plots from issue to issue. However that idea is flawed by the fact that all Marvel comics have that and well Spider-man has done pretty well on the big screen.