Top 10 Comic Book Artists

 Now I don’t like doing top 10 lists that much, but after the last one well I needed to celebrate good comic book art. It’s an easy format but now I have two options. I can act like I am a great authority on the subject or weasel out by stating it’s just my opinion. I could go for a meta-angle I suppose and mock the formulaic nature of this sort of article causing half of the internet to shrivel up. I also want to make sure that my introduction looks weighty enough so it takes slightly longer when somebody scrolls past to find out who is on the list. For those actually reading this just because your favourite artist isn’t on the list doesn’t mean they’re a bad artist well with some exceptions (Greg Land of course). I will of course in the bulk of the text reference other artists to sound knowledgeable in an attempt to make it seem like I haven’t just listed 10 artists that I like.  

Emma Rios

Have you ever seen comic book art and just fall in love? Genuine question. Rios has her own art style and she isn’t just a token pick to prove my SJW credentials. She brings something genuinely new, I could best describe it as, Steve Ditko mixed with Mike Mignola, with a hint of Tim Sale, creating notes of Moebius with a massive dollop of Vincent Van Gogh. Now I can’t rank her too high on the list as she’s fairly new, she could become lazy and complacent like John Romita jr so lets hope her art continues to improve.

Jim Lee

Jim Lee has the best grasp of the human anatomy of anyone working in comics, but what do you expect from a former med student? Jim Lee is also the best selling comic book artist of all time, but that’s got more to do with the speculator boom. The biggest problem with Jim Lee is his comics aren’t that good at storytelling, in fact some books he’s worked on are complete incoherent trash (Superman For Tomorrow or All Star Batman and Robin). A Jim Lee comic is more a showcase for his amazing two page spreads, and he uses this far too much, almost every other page. Sometimes I think DC should just release a book of wall posters by Jim Lee instead. 

Michael Dooney

Michael Dooney is on here for one simple reason, he drew the best Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He has done a few comics, but he’s mostly done covers and the box art for toys. Most notably he did the designs for the 2003 Ninja Turtles cartoon but the few turtle comics he’s done are the best of the TMNT and I want to either bully him more or get people to bully other publishers to hire him to do more comics, he does tones of DC Fan art let him draw a Zatanna mini series or something.

Carl Barks

Carl Barks side-stepped nominative determinism by drawing ducks. That's what he did: he drew ducks for disney, creating Scrooge McDuck in his tenure. He was so good at it he continued in his retirement to draw duck softcore porn (No I will not be showing you that). Bark’s Donald Duck comics reinvented the character, when Barks started Donald was your average suburbanite with a streak of bad luck. Donald evolved into becoming a globetrotting adventurer who searched for treasure and got into sword fights with pirates. Barks created a whole new world for Donald and made it believable that this square would go thrill-seeking with his family. Donald is also the most published non-superhero comic book character and hugely popular in France, Germany and Belgium because of Barks tenure. Carl Barks’ Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck comics were adapted into Ducktales (sometimes replacing Donald with Launchpad because Donald’s speech is limited).

  

Adam Kubert

We all have our ideas of what comic book art should look like. For me what Superhero comics should look like is Adam Kubert’s art. That should be enough praise to give the son of the legendary Joe Kubert, the founder of the Joe Kubert school. But I can actually say the same thing about Adam’s brother Andy, and if I put them both on the list I’m just saying “this art style is better than others”, which isn’t true no one style is better than others it’s all subjective. No what separates Adam from Andy is that Adam drew Neil Gaiman’s 1602 which is in a completely different art style and still looks good (unlike Andy trying to copy Frank Miller on DKR the Master Race).

Akira Toriyama

The only Mangaka on this list. Akira Toriyama to most people is a one-hit wonder known only for DragonballZ. But there is so much more to him, and even Dragonball gets viewed myopically as nothing but fights. Toriyama is great at visual storytelling so much so the Manga is understandable without translation. His fight scene choreography is so memorable that kids will imitate it on the playground. There’s even more, like his use of slapstick comedy or his world design for the Dragonquest and Chrono Trigger video games. Hell, even Dragonball is set in a great fantasy world with flying cars and dinosaurs at the same time (and you don’t question it, you just say cool). 

Gill Kane

If you drew a comic that is often credited with ending the Silver-age, shouldn’t you be a well known name in comics? What if you created one of the Justice League’s big seven? Well Gill Kane did both by pencilling Amazing Spider-man 121-122 better known as “The Night Gwen Stacy Died” and created Green Lantern (the good one Hal Jordan not Alan Scott). So call it personal bias because my two favourite superheroes are Spider-man and Green Lantern but he deserves to be on this list. Most of Gill Kanes work was when Marvel and DC expected artists to work in their house style, so it takes a good look to tell his art from Nick Cardy, Carmine Infantino or John Romita Sr. Kane on his run on Action Comics worked in a new style, a style of his own that clearly inspired Mike Mignola, a more minimalist style that took inspiration from the Max Fleisher Superman cartoons and CC Beck. 

Jack Kirby

The most obvious and cliched pick of them all. But sometimes a cliche is true. Jack Kirby probably in his career created more well known characters than any other artist. But what Kirby is best at is storytelling, he made comics the melodramatic medium that they are. Nobody in a Jack Kirby comic is narked; they're consumed by a rage hotter than a thousand exploding suns. Their joy is like a million birthdays at once and they’re not sad they’re in a depression that a lesser man couldn’t escape. Of course critics of Jack Kirby will complain about his anatomy, but they don’t get it. Kirby before working in comics was an inbetweens animator at Fleisher studios and this rubbed off on him. Their anatomy isn’t wonky, it's rubber hose, it stretches and shrinks to convey greater movement. I think 2 quotes from Jack Kirby will explain why he was so good “Comics will only break your heart” because he put his all into comics, experimented to make his craft better and got very little praise in his lifetime or money. “I feel my characters are valid, my characters are people, my characters have hope. Hope is the thing that’ll get us through” because he gave us heroes, heroes to look up to, ones that won’t let us down. They might be flawed but they try to do the right thing and by reading them maybe they’ll rub off on us and we can make the world a better place by their example.

 

Chris Bachallo

Jim Steranko made a name for himself by using unusual panel formats, Chris Bachallo took one look at them and went I can do better. Chris Bachallo must be claustrophobic because his characters are rarely boxed in. He never uses a normal panel layout, and as offbeat and quirky as they are they’re always understandable to the reader (well a western reader and manga fan reads in a backwards N as opposed to the normal Z). 

His style is not just made up of weird panel layouts; he has a unique style of character, which may not be to everyone's taste. If you don’t like your characters a bit on the cartoony side then you’ll probably want to stick with his Shade the Changing man but to me he is the definitive Doctor Strange Artist. Also the comic I’m most excited to read is Non-Stop Spider-man, I can’t wait for the trade to come out so I can see Spider-man bounce around the page.

Honorable mention Klaus Janson

When you say artist that’s almost synonymous with penciller. That’s the interpretation I had for this list, although some of the artists on this list did their own inks, it’s mostly defined by pencil work. But Klaus Janson is the greatest inker ever, want proof? He can make Frank Miller and John Romita jr look good (well not as bad as normal he doesn’t redraw their art). He has a skill that is unfortunately overlooked as many think Inking is just tracing. Klaus Janson wrote the book on inking and in it there's a whole chapter dedicated to that debate most famously seen in Chasing Amy.

Another Honourable mention even though he's not as good, but he's trying would be Instagram.com/KBen_on_Art

John Byrne

I actually questioned this decision, because the title of best comic book artist is high praise. Not for his actual art, but because of what's come out of his mouth (or more accurate keyboard). John Byrne has always been a controversial figure in comics, from an early feud with his hero Jack Kirby to his more recent comments. Some of his feuds he has been in the right and was standing up to bullies in editorial, he’s even shown he can change his mind. Earlier in life he was homophobic but after learning he was wrong created Northstar the gay superhero (Northstar wasn’t allowed to be out and proud because of Marvel Editor-in-chiefs stronger homophobia). But as it stands I’m not sure John Byrne’s mind is in mint condition anymore. He now sits on his little forum espousing ignorant views to it’s 600 members who he’ll ban at a moment's notice for disagreeing with him and call them a “Micro-brain”.  How he got like this I don’t know, and how anyone will get him to see the light also baffles me. Maybe it’s from years of not getting the credit he deserves for Co-scripting Dark Knight Returns (even being the one to add a girl Robin), or reinventing Superman for the modern age and being prophetic by making Donald Trump his archenemy. All I know is Byrne drew the best Fantastic Four, X-men, Superman and She Hulk while managing to get a good balance between anatomical detail and storytelling. So I just want to say John Byrne’s art is alway welcome, his views are not. 

Greg Land and The Robot Apocalypse

 Pointing out that Greg Land is a hack, fraud or charlatan is nothing new. Thousands of other blogs have written about his tracing of random sources and calling it his own art. So why would my take on the worst remnant of the speculator boom be any different from the others. Well because Greg Land’s “Art” is the first step to a fully automated comics industry, one devoid of soul or originality. Where comics aren’t created by devoted artists who have studied what came before them but copy pasted crap that devalues the medium. Don’t believe me, read on true believer… 

It is often said that “Nobody gets into comics to make a lot of money” but if you think that you forgot about the speculator boom, when comic stores sold box upon box of Rob Liefeld knock offs to investors who’ve never read a comic. Greg Land started his career in comics during this period of time. So how did he start, well he traced Jim Lee’s Wildcats, renamed the characters and self published it. This work caught the eye of Crossgen comics, whose founder Mark Alessi (nicknamed by Mark Waid “the Donald Trump of comics”) a soul mate. Crossgen comics was set up as a company that would publish creator owned ideas, but instead Alessi insisted it would work like clockwork so if a writer missed a deadline they would be replaced with Alessi’s other soulmate and noted Comicsgater Chuck Dixon. Land worked on Sojourn where he started what he’s best known for tracing porn. After Crossgen folded and was sold to Disney (the speculator boom was now dead, buried and ready to be uncovered by archeologists) for one million dollars. Greg Land jumped to DC Comics and worked on Nightwing but was fired for tracing the previous artist on the book. He then ended up at Marvel, where he still works now. Marvel’s Editor in chief Joe Quesada has commented on Greg Land’s art with “it’s not fair to fire him for what fan’s have alleged”. I do wonder if his opinion has changed more recently since Dark Horse comics have taken legal action against them (Greg Land traced panels from one of their comics). 

With the Biography done, how does this lead to the fall of humanity?

Well his art style is something artificial intelligence can copy, machines have no imagination they can only copy and replicate. They also have no idea how to read emotions and are quite poor at identifying different faces. One look at a page of a Greg Land comic will show he can’t do that either, he’ll reuse the same pic for 2 different characters and they’re just recoloured or the same character will have a completely different face in the next panel. Also according to his comics O-Face runs the entire gamut of women’s emotions. Anytime a man is screaming in a Greg Land comic he looks like he’s jizzed himself so it’s not just women just that he’ll trace for. But with men he’ll also trace pro-wrestlers or once infamously a meme. His run on Iron man was limited because he could only use poses from the first Iron man movies (also Iron man’s armour changes between panels). Similarly his Fantastic Four run was hindered by lack of resources because he traced Bryan Hitch’s depictions of The Thing. 

Now I don’t think Greg Land is actually a robot, but he draws and thinks like one. I realised this fact after reading House of X/Powers of X. Which was luddite propaganda but it’s about Professor X betting the survival of mutantkind on human’s imagination and ingenuity against machines' cold calculations.  Isn’t that what makes us human, the desire to tell stories and make art. Surely to be human is to work on your own art, struggle to get better at your craft? But Mr Land won’t understand that he thinks he broke into the industry quite late at the age of 25 (if you didn’t know most people make it into comics late 30s to mid 40s).  

Keep Ganon Evil!

 You read the title, I stand by it, despite it being a popular idea. The idea of a redemption story for “the king of Evil” is the worst idea Nintendo could make with the exception of the next Mario game having a sex-tape between Wario and Princess Peach. 

Ok why can’t a redeemed Ganon work? Firstly it would mean that Nintendo couldn’t use the character again. The legend of Zelda has one playable hero, Link and to quote Yoshinori Kitase on the creation of Cloud for Final Fantasy 7. “The protagonist has all these secrets to unravel. He isn't a straightforward hero like Superman; rather, he has many mysteries, self-doubts, and a real dark side.” But instead of Superman, he could’ve easily said Link. Link is your straight forward, happy-go lucky hero to muddy the water with the idea he isn’t the helpful hero would undermine the franchise. Link is so good because he is fighting a villain so evil. Link has no doubts and the player (who is embodying the role of Link) has no reason to doubt his motives. This would ruin the game, because unlike other games Legend of Zelda is more simplistic escapism, you want to go to a world with clear cut heroes and villains because the real world is messy. You want to go to a world were the biggest problem can be stopped by fighting an evil warlock in a duel.

In Windwaker Ganon gives a speech about why he did his horrible acts. His reasons were that the “desert is cold at night”. Yes that’s it, that’s why he attempted 3 different genocides. He was trying to alleviate the suffering of a people who are perfectly adapted to the desert climate. Yep, he infested Hyrule castle town with the undead forcing thousands from their home because he didn’t know what a blanket was. He fed the Gorons, (Rock people who live by a volcano) to a dragon because he couldn’t make a fire. He froze the Zora (fish people) because, well, he had no justification. 

No Ganon was originally the king of the Gerudo, being the only male he was their king or the god. All the female Gerudo fulfilled his every wish, but that wasn’t enough. He grew more and more jealous of the king of Hyrule because he wanted to be the only one who was worshipped. So the Gerudo became bandits, so that Ganon could have more and more. Once he had enough wealth he tried to overthrow the royal family and take the Tri-force. But he was only worthy of one third, he did not have the Wisdom to use it properly or the Courage to do what’s right (those thirds belong to Princess Zelda and Link). His lust for power transformed him into his perfect avatar and drooling pig. Later in Breath of the Wild he became an entity of pure evil energy called “Malice”. Ganon is  not a nice chap.

 

So why would anyone want a redeemed Ganon, well it all comes from fan art. Because somebody drew a hot Ganon the concept of physiognomy came into play. Nothing from the previous games would support anything else, but people libidos overrule the fact he’s literally called “the King of Evil”.

How Influential was TMNT?

 The term influential is used a lot, and sometimes wrongly. Sometimes it's used as a pseudonym for popular but “influential” means it influenced others. A list of the most influential comics would probably include Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, The Jack Kirby era of Fantastic Four, Jim Steranko’s Nick Fury and some more obscure comics like Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg or Will Eisner’s Mission from God (The first Graphic Novel). But Eastman and Laird’s Turtles is often overlooked, and I’m going to explain why it’s one of the most influential comic series.

Simply put the original Ninja Turtles was Punk rock. Like Punk it wasn’t about professionalism, in fact that's part of why it worked. A couple of art school rejects just sat down and drew their comic, giving it a DIY feeling like Punk. The Ramones or the Sex Pistols weren’t virtusos but they had passion and energy. Nobody would confuse Peter Laird or Kevin Eastman’s art for John Byrne’s in fact a common criticism of their work is that it's “amateurish” but that’s part of the appeal. Some fans probably picked up their self published comic and thought “I can draw better than these dudes” but that’s ok, from the drones of The Ramones came more mainstream music like Blondie so the same applies to comics. Without the massive success of the Turtles would Ben Edlund have self published The tick? Not to mention other self published comics like; Xenozoic tales, or Mike Allred’s Madman or The Crow. Would the Image comics founders have left Marvel without knowing that there was a market for comics not made by Marvel or DC? Not to mention the amount of knock offs like Solson publications “Sultry Teenage Super Foxes” or “Cold blooded Chameleon Commandos'', “Geriatric Gangrene Jujitsu Gerbils”, “Pre-Teen Dirty Gene Kung Fu Kangaroos”, “Bucky O’Hare”, “Samurai Cop” (which is the first comic published with art by Jim Lee) or “Reagan’s Raiders” and that’s just from self published comics. Knock off cartoons trying to get a toy license The Toxic Avenger (a trashy and ultra-violent B-movie by Troma) was reworked into a cartoon called Toxic Crusaders, Street Sharks, Biker Mice from Mars, Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce go!, Butt Ugly Martians and more. To try and capitalise on this craze Dic entertainment did a butchered dub Kyatto Ninden Teyandee renaming it “Samurai Pizza Cats”, it was so blatant an attempt to copy the TMNT that it even had “They’ve got more fur than any Turtle ever had” sung in the theme tune. 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles wasn’t the first self published comic to find an audience and longevity, (that would be Cerebus the Aardvark which we don’t talk about for obvious reasons) but it was the first to have a mainstream crossover appeal. Almost from the beginning they had merchandising offers for merchandise, the famous one is The Playmates toys who made the action figures, but earlier deals they made were with Palladium to make a Tabletop RPG and Solson publications with Martial Arts training manuals. But more interesting and relevant is mini figures for the Tabletop game made by Dark Horse, yes the same Dark Horse known for Usagi Yojimbo and Hellboy. 

Comic book art in the 80’s started to change, the default art style for Marvel was John Buscema’s and DC’s was very similar, but suddenly these elongated hunky characters were changing. Now comic heroes were more muscular and squat, Eastman and Laird weren’t shy about talking about their love of Jack Kirby, going so far as to give Kirby a cameo in the Donatello one-shot and drawing him a Birthday card. But Kirby had fallen out of favour, his art was now seen as more crude like Eastman and Laird’s. Jack Kirby was also now infamous for his failures, like Thundarr the barbarian, Devil Dinosaur and The Eternals. His projects at DC all under performed and were hated by the publisher, but now The Fourth World Saga is considered a classic, Kamandi and Etrigan the demon are also now cult favourites. DC probably thought Jack Kirby’s work for them would replicate his successful Marvel work but I don’t think anything could because when Jack created Captain America,The Fantastic Four or The Mighty Thor for Marvel that was fresh. Even though his work at Marvel wasn’t all hits, Incredible Hulk was cancelled after 6 issues. But the narrative around Jack had changed by 1992 that Image Comics asked Jack to be their figurehead (like Stan Lee is for Marvel). 

Not a bad legacy for a comic that Pawn Stars only valued the first 5 issues of at $250. (note issue one usually sells for about $2000). 

X-men Movie Pitch

Let’s try something different, I’ve criticised Bryan Singer’s attempts at making the X-men movies. So for a bit of fun and me putting my money where my mouth is, here’s my pitch for a fully incorporated MCU X-men. I know the chances of Kevin Fiege reading this blog and me actually writing the next X-men movie are minute but, sorry I mean I know you religious read my blogs Mr Fiege, why are you so shy and not commenting on them.

The Characters

Heroes

Professor X- As a young man at Cambridge, Charles Xavier became the leading expert in genetic anomalies that he dubbed “Mutants”. After publishing his Doctoral thesis on the subject he caught the eye of Hydra. Refusing to let his research be used to make new “Super Soldiers” he went into hiding and created an underground railroad for all Mutants known as “The X-men”.

Charles Xavier does have the mutant power of Telepathy which he uses to find new Mutants, which helps him stay a step ahead of Hydra. Charles is now a very oldman in a wheelchair but he sticks to his convictions that Mutants are people not weapons.

 

Wolverine- Not every Mutant is lucky enough to be found by Charles Xavier. Hydra first found Wolverine as a prisoner of war in World War 2. The Nazi’s when torturing him found out he had an uncanny ability to heal from any wound. After finding this interesting he was sent to Hydra who augmented him further and gave him chemicals so he had no memory. He still hasn’t recovered his memories, but he still wears a set of rusted dog-tags (he thinks they’re his, but he can’t read the name on them) around his neck and wears an army jacket. An earlier mission by the X-men they found him in a giant test tube of chemicals and have been trying to rehabilitate him. He doesn’t speak much, mostly grunts and snarls, he’s prone to fits of uncontrollable anger. Despite his lack of speech it’s clear he’s not dumb just introverted and traumatised by his past. Ideal casting Henry Rollins.

Kitty Pryde- The newest member of the team, Kitty Pryde serves as the point of view character for the audience. Kitty Pryde likes computers and Dungeons and Dragons, because of this love of D&D the first chance she gets, she befriends a small dragon and keeps it as a pet. As the newest member she’s shy and uncomfortable with the team's personal drama. Despite her being more reserved, when she does assert herself she manages to save the day (or gets a pet Dragon).

Cyclops- Scott Summers is a bad leader. He’s not respected by the team and is only good at parroting back what Charles Xavier says. He used to have a lighter side but since his girlfriend Jean was lost during a mission and presumed dead he changed. He’s also bitter, insecure and reckless. He also lacks any empathy or compassion.

Storm-  Storm is the real leader of the X-men, adept at thinking on her feet, filled with compassion, she has every quality Cyclops lacks. She takes an instant shine to Kitty Pryde, she also counsels Wolverine and tries to help regain his memories (with aid of Professor X). The best description I can give for Storm is “Badass” and a Rock. 

Nightcrawler- Kurt has never taken anything THAT seriously, a constant joker and peacemaker. A former circus performer, Kurt is a total show-off. He first joined the X-men after it was discovered he wasn’t wearing a costume and was chased by a mob of religious extremists thinking he was a demon (ironic seeing as Kurt is Catholic). Cyclops blames him for the loss of Jean and gives him a hard time any chance he gets (despite Kurt’s attempts at peacekeeping).

He’s also the first person to get through to Wolverine; he even once made him laugh this is because Kurt reminds him of one of his old Army buddies (same actor just not under the Nightcrawler make-up). Casting note: Andy Samberg or Zach Braff.

  

Forge-  A proud Native American and the team's Tech expert, he also has a thinly veiled crush on Storm (he doesn’t get much screen time; sorry).

Team note- based largely on the second team without Colossus. This is because the second lineup was the team that launched them to being Marvel’s Flagship series. Colossus was cut because he’s superfluous, his main character trait is his relationship with Kitty which is one of the worst aged aspects of the Comics.

I also took inspiration from the early years of the comic where the X-men are a secret because otherwise we would have heard of them earlier in the MCU.

  

Villains

Mr Sinister- Genetic expert and Eugenics enthusiast. He did well in Hydra, he’s obsessed with creating the ultimate “Super Soldier”. He’s the kind of classic Super-villain that wouldn’t look twice at his own name.

 

Sabretooth- Similar to Wolverine, Sabretooth is a living weapon, the only difference is Sabretooth loves it. He’s Callous and sadistic, he loves killing but the one thing he likes more is playing with his “Prey”. He has similar abilities to Wolverine and calls him runt, Sabretooth is a bigger meaner and nastier Wolverine. 

Phoenix- Former X-man Jean Grey/Marvel Girl after being left behind on a mission she’s been experimented on has no memory. Mr Sinister dubbed her “Phoenix” because she has been reborn. Her Telepathy allows her to be the ultimate “Super Spy” able to extract information from targets, she can also get close to targets by creating illusions in their minds and if that does work her telekinesis can help her defend herself. Mr Sinister has also perfected a new form of control where she is fully programmable with set memories that can be added for her mission. So with her telepathic abilities she could fully become another person and gain the trust of her target.

 

Story

Opening the X-men (Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine and Nightcrawler) fighting Krakoa (we want something big and weird for them to fight). Cyclops barks an order to teleport at its mouth, Storm yells back “that’s crazy”, Cyclops then yells “fine I’ll do it” and Blasts it to pieces with his Optic Blast. The team then erupts into an argument, “See if Nightcrawler knocked that branch down it would’ve toppled”. Storm has none of this, Nightcrawler defends Cyclops whilst trying not to upset Storm.

Elsewhere Kitty Pryde is sitting at a bus stop reading a comic, when she suddenly phases through the wall into an ATM machine, making the machine go wild and spray cash everywhere. Bank Security then chases the girl, until Forge appears from an alleyway and says “your mother probably told you not to trust strangers, but for once don’t listen to your mother”. Once they’re clear Forge says to Kitty, “I know you didn’t do anything wrong, but they won’t understand that”. He then lifts up a turf to reveal some sort of Jack Kirby-esque flying machine. “Ya see Kitty you’re a mutant, and mutants aren’t looked on so kindly”. “About the best you can expect from people is ‘why aren’t you in The Avengers’ but I know a place you can hide out”.

The next scene is Kitty and Forge landing at the X-mansion and Kitty getting the tour of the place from Professor X. We’re also formally introduced to the team. “Is this all the X-men?” Kitty remarks, “well there was another one once” Xavier will reply.

From there we segue to a nice normal dinner with an attractive redhead and an older man sitting down. The man will comment with “your hair is looking very blonde today”. The Dinner will go well until he comments “where are the kids” to which the woman has no answer. After a few moments of umming she’ll say “So much for playing Happy Families” we then get a scene of her ripping the information she wants out of the man’s head. The man then passes out and she telepathically messages Sinister that she’s got what she came for. 

The next scene is Wolverine in repressed memory therapy with Professor X and Storm. Cyclops interrupts the session calling Wolverine a dumb animal and to tell them Forge’s mutant detector just got a reading. The team suits up for a mission. The mission is to stop, Sabretooth is wreaking havoc in New York. But this is a trap by Sinister, Wolverine and Nightcrawler end up being captured by Phoenix and Sinister who takes them to a secret lab. 

Storm and Cyclops regroup in the X-mansion, Kitty asks if she can join the team. Cyclops says no way but Storm points out they need all the help they can get and Professor X agrees. Using Cerebro they find Sinister’s lab (by searching for Nightcrawlers and Wolverines minds). 

Nightcrawler regains consciousness, and Sinister starts monologuing. Nightcrawler points out how ridiculous Sinsters name is and hears Wolverine chuckle. 

After landing and infiltrating Sinisters lab, Kitty finds a jar with a dragon in it. Kitty befriends the Dragon much to Cyclops' chagrin. Storm points out that a Dragon they saved could be a good ally and Cyclops changes the subject by asking Professor X to give them directions. (Professor X is in cerebro communicating telepathically). 

Climactic fight scenes, Nightcrawler asks if Kitty thinks Mr Sinister is a silly name and she replies with “was Professor Jerk taken then”. Good guys win, bad guys lose.

 

Post Credits

First: Sabretooth meets Magneto, who offers him a place in the Mutant Liberation force. He agrees if he can do more killing

Second: Jean asks Scott if he wants to form a new club, like the X-men but with more “Hellfire”. 

OK so that's a rough draft. But I’m pretty sure the actual Marvel movies weren’t written up in one afternoon. But that's the bare bones of my idea for an X-men movie… 

Can the Munsters work today

 Since the dawn of time man has wondered many questions, but since last week when Universal studios announced a reboot of the Munsters, I’ve only had one. That is can The Munsters even work in a modern context? Hopefully Rob Zombie (who was named as Director and screen writer) won’t make the same mistakes of the past. But if he doesn’t this blog may serve as proof that I am the man to bring the Munsters into the 21st Century.

The biggest shadow over the Munsters franchise is the idea that it’s just an Addam’s family knock off. But this is a false statement for 2 reasons, firstly the Munsters was in production first with two different unused pilots. The first was a five minute short using minimal animation (similar to Mr Magoo, Gerald McBoing-Boing or Rocky and Bullwinkle). The second pilot actually has the same script as the broadcast pilot, but had to be retooled. The script, Herman, Cousin Marilyn and Grampa were going in the direction of the Munsters are a nice family who happen to be horror movie monsters whilst Eddie was a feral wolf child and Phoebe had little to no screen presence. After the pilot Eddie was recast and made to be more of the standard sitcom kid and Phoebe was replaced with Yvonne De Carlo as Lily who using her Hollywood film experience dominated the scenes. With Lily as the strong matriarch of the Munsters family this gave Herman room to become a child like doofus and for Grampa to join him in his Hi-jinx.

Unfortunately, retooling the pilot delayed the release of the Munsters and ABC’s horror-comedy based on Charles Addams comic strip made it to the air first. With both shows being the same on a surface level, both being set in a mansion, filmed in black & white and featuring an unusual family. They got lumped together, even though they’re different takes on the same idea. The Munsters are a standard sitcom family who are also monsters (a subversion of the Universal monsters). That Addams are a normal family who act like monsters (a subversion of the sitcom). To illustrate this look at how both shows introduce their patriarchs (Herman and Gomez). Herman is introduced, opening the door for Marilyn at the end of her date. Marilyn date is scared off by the 7 foot tall Frankenstein monster who just opened the door. Herman then comforts Marilyn as the family try to figure out why Marilyn’s dates always end so badly. All the while oblivious to the fact that her family are the universal monsters, “poor cousin Marilyn” (which would become a catchphrase of the series).

Gomez is introduced with a big beaming grin, casually throwing his brief case away and declaring “Honey I’m Home” then to reveal he had “a great day at work, 3 of his clients were convicted guilty and ones about to get the death penalty”. The Addams won the battle of the ratings, (this being back in the days with 1 TV per household and no cable) by appealing to the counter-culture. The Addams subversive humour was subtle enough to go over the heads of children and network censors, who never realised that the Addams are inbred to the point of being insane, openly practice BDSM and often engage in cannibalism. Interestingly Al Lewis who played Grampa Munster was a lifelong socialist, so the Munsters being a working class family of immigrants and the Addams being aristocratic psychopaths was sub-text that he probably didn’t miss.

Any high concept piece of genre television made then was deemed as kids stuff. So with the Addam’s being the more popular show, it got more spin-offs like the crossing over with Scooby Doo and more animated versions that ignored the actual humour of the original. Well the original comic strips seemed to be “ha ha goths are going fishing”, further enforcing prejudice that the Munsters were fighting against. But with them as victors they stole more and more from the Munsters, or at least tried to. The most fondly remembered reboot is the Barry Sonnenfeld movies trying to cash-in on the success of the early Tim Burton movies (the Addams always resurface when a successful horror-comedy is made). The 90s movies where the Addams are now inhumanly invulnerable as well as seemingly trying to indoctrinate youths into Ayn Rand Objectivism so much that I wonder if they have an unseen cousin Scott who makes Dilbert strips.

Attempts have been made to reboot the Munsters, the first being “Munsters today” AKA how not to reboot the series. Monsters today is about the defrosted Munsters now living in the late 1980’s, but the only clue to them being the Munsters is in the theme tune because they sing “we’re the Munsters''. Fred Gwynne was offered to reprise his role as Herman and declined. Al Lewis who was still playing the character on Saturday mornings on a cable access show where he hosted horror movies (similar to Elvira but more family friendly) was never asked to be on the show (however this was lovingly parodied in Gremlins 2). The Munsters in Munsters today are everything that the originals weren’t: crass, crude, antagonistic and knowingly cruel to Cousin Marilyn. The innocence of the originals is replaced with active villainy. I genuinely think the makers of Munsters today wanted to make the Addams Family but couldn’t get the licence and went with the cheaper option instead. Monsters today is like a bad SNL sketch where the punchline is the fact the Munsters even existed.

Thankfully the next attempt Here Comes the Munsters was much better, it could’ve become a full fledged reboot series but behind the scenes problems lead to Munster’s Christmas. Munsters Christmas makes the opposite mistake to Munsters today, they made the world around them too cruel, it’s similar to the 90s Brady Bunch movie. Lastly we have 13-13 Mockingbird Lane, a stealth reboot, written by Bryan Fuller (best known for Star Trek Voyager and American Gods), directed by Bryan Singer and Eddie Izzard as Grampa. Fuller and Singer have both stated they got the balance between Horror and Comedy wrong, but to be honest it’s not the Munsters, it's a more a reboot of Dark Shadows (not that awful Tim Burton movie) or a prototype What we Do in the Shadows. For those who don’t know, Dark Shadows was a 60s TV show about the day to day life of a Vampire trying to hide the fact he’s a Vampire.  The humour comes more from the mock soap opera, also Izzard’s take on Grampa I don’t want to tuck me in at night and read me a bedtime story like Al Lewis’ Instead I’d be hiding under the covers.

Of course I should address the smaller elephant in the room, there is a show that recreates the Munsters perfectly and it’s not called the Munsters. It’s called Vampirna, no joke, it’s almost the same, tackling prejudice and presenting monsters as just quirky people. So, yes proven The Munsters can work for modern audiences, provided that audience is pre-school girls…

But as for an adult or a wider audience we might be too cynical, the average sitcom family isn’t what it was in the 60’s. The Addams’s subversion became more the norm, although normalising horrible sitcom characters became mainstreamed by Seinfeld and then its as or more successful copies Frasier and Friends. It would be weird for the nicest family on TV to be Dracula and Frankenstein, but for the Munsters they have to be nice. 

Have the Fantastic Four become Marvel's New Gods

SPOILER Warning: For Wanda Vision (better catch up on the series or I'll spoil a reveal)

No Artist has launched as many profitable IP’s as Jack Kirby. But the two series that are most associated with the King of Comics are the Fantastic Four (the series that launched him from obscurity) and The New Gods (his failed DC follow up). While Jack Kirby launched, The Hulk, X-men and Iron Man he did the more issues of the Fourth World Saga (an umbrella term for almost all of Kirby’s DC work in the 70’s) and Fantastic Four (which he and Stan Lee still have the record for collaboration on series). But to the more casual fans these series are most loved for their Villains Dr Doom and Darkseid in particular topping best villains list.

When Marvel sold the film rights to their First Family to Roger Corman’s Constantine films in the 1980’s they had no idea what a thorn in their side this would be. The Fantastic Four were Marvel’s first big success and every subsequent title would either be spun off from a concept introduced in the series or legitimised by a crossover. The Hulk’s sales got so low that series would get cancelled, look who guest stars in issue 12, Stan Lee wants Spider-man to be a success Fantastic Four Guest star in Amazing Spider-man 1. Dr Strange was introduced as the second feature in the Human Torch’s solo book, The Kree were introduced in Fantastic Four 13 to be the ancient enemy of the Skrull who were introduced in issue 2. Shield and Nick Fury first appeared in Fantastic Four 21. Wakanda and Black Panther first appeared in Fantastic Four 52 with Ulysses Klaw introduced in the next issue. 

With Fox buying Constantine Films and making Fantastic Four movies just to keep the license (I have already written a blog about those movies), Marvel’s film productions had constant arguments over who owned what, and what characters could be used. Joss Whedon wanted to use The Skrull in Avengers but instead they had to create the Chitari. After this Marvel realised they had very few villains to work with so instead had to make deals with Fox until buying the company out completely. Ulysses Klaw was the first F4 villain to make it off the comic page into the MCU, then Ronan the Accuser appeared in Guardians of the Galaxy (who debuted in Fantastic Four 65). A deal had to be made so that James Gunn could use Ego the Living Planet in the sequel to Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain Marvel in its current state would’ve been impossible without the Fox/Disney Merger. Wanda vision in it’s latest episode revealed that Agatha Harkness was behind everything (with a theme tune that sounded suspiciously like the Munsters). Agatha Harkness the live in Nanny to Franklin Richards the son of Mr Fantastic and the Invisible Woman. Agatha Harkness the mother to Dr Strange and Fantastic Four Villain Nicholas Scratch.

The future of the MCU looks to continue this trend with rumours of Dr Doom as the villain for Black Panther 2 and Kang the Conquerer for the villain in Ant Man 3. Kang may not be a Fantastic Four villain but he is the time travelling descendent of the team although the F4 often clash with his alter ego The pharaoh. Kang has many different personas from different altered Timelines and is often in conflict with himself.

So what of the New Gods? well Darkseid is the villain in “Snyder-cut” of Justice League. The Super Powers team cartoon (the later less goofy version of Super-Friends) had Darkseid, Desaad and Kalibak as frequent villains appearing in the show more than Lex Luthor, the Joker or the Legion of Doom. The earlier or “Whedon” cut of Justice League had Steppenwolf as the antagonist. But where are the heroic New Gods, Orion, Big Barda, Mr Miracle, Light-Ray or The High-father? Does anyone who doesn’t obsess over superheroes even know who they are?