Before the Big Two: Part 1

I named this blog "Beyond the Big Two" as a way to signal that I'd like to mention lots of comics that are outside of the DC/Marvel umbrellas. I had/have a whole series of ideas that I wanted to write about concerning the different eras of comics, and I'm not really sure how I wanted to do that.

Today, the Big Two are, as mentioned, Marvel and DC. But, back in the Golden Age of comics, the Big Two, if anyone cared to call it that, were probably National and Fawcett, or, and this is likely more accurate, it was a Big Three, with MLJ added in.

At that time, Timely and Quality and Fox did okay, with one of Fox's main characters outshining everyone until Fawcett's big reveal.

Today only three of these six companies remains in operation: Timely Comics took the name of their most popular line and became Marvel Comics; National Comic Publishing took the initials of their most popular line and became DC Comics; and MLJ, reeling from having their second most popular character ripped off and being overshadowed by the new character, went in another direction, leaned into the popularity of their beloved character and changed their name to reflect that, and became Archie Comics.

DC Comics bought the rights to Quality, Fox, and Fawcett over the years, and characters that had been independent and popular, and rivals, even surpassing the sales of giants like Superman and Batman, have been absorbed into the DC Universe.

Two I wanted to briefly point out got their starts as outside the umbrella of what today are considered established companies, but, at the time in 1939 and 1940, everything was just starting out. This first character was wildly popular for a time, and predates all Golden Age heroes except Superman (1938) and Batman (March 1939):

Blue Beetle had a radio show and a park day and popular costume. 1939 was a good year for comic heroes, as we get, in this particular order: Batman, Blue Beetle (Fox), Human Torch and Namor (Timely/Marvel), Captain Marvel/Shazam (Fawcett), and the Shield, the forerunner to Captain America (MLJ).

In 1940, before Captain America debuted, before Archie and the Spirit showed up, Quality released a character who could absorb sunlight to various ends:

The Ray, as a character, is still around the DCU, as is a new iteration of Blue Beetle, as well as a whole cast of characters purchased from their early rivals.

While I like the history of BB and the Ray, neither were remotely as popular as the heights attained by Captain Marvel and Archie and Superman and Batman. Blue Beetle may have been trending that direction, but Captain Marvel ended that.

It takes 80 years to fully appreciate how wild the origins of an entire artform's medium and commercial market were.

Shazam and Archie deserve their own posts...

We Get OUR Movie, and Possibly a Cinematic Universe

Reports are that the possible Valiant Cinematic Universe are wrecked, and if that's the case, then bummer.

But at least we're getting a Bloodshot movie.

It stars Vin Diesel as our titular anti-hero, and while I don't have a hate-on for Vin, it seems like plenty of fans, and the general chatter in the dark recesses online, are firmly anti-Vin.

He may not have been the first person I would have chose, but he's certainly not a bad choice. And look, THIS IS HOW MOVIES GET GREEN-LIT TO GET MADE. You need a star's name.

To paraphrase David Simon, co-creator of "The Wire," if given to opportunity to make a movie/television show based on your written content, YOU DO IT, even if the movie/show is garbage. It will always raise awareness of the source material.

And hey, the trailer doesn't look bad, which is a good sign.

Spawn Hits Major Milestone

Congratulations to Todd McFarlane and Spawn, one of the all-time independent comic titles of all time, and, hell, one of the all-timers full stop. They made it to issue #300. This is the variant cover I picked up at my LCS:

I remember when Image was founded, and Spawn was the flagship title. I remember when it was a huge deal that someone named Greg Capullo was taking over the pencil work on Spawn.

I remember these things because they were big deals, but not because I was an avid reader or collector of Image content. I was a Valiant fan and appreciated the writing of those stories over the flashy visuals and slick paper of the Image books.

I have certainly grown to appreciate what Image does for artists and can fully support their success.

The variant cover I only learned about this evening is the one I would have preferred. I have set it up against the cover that upon which it is based:

Both by McFarlane.

As Spawn comes to surpass Cerebus with issue #301, I may post a retrospective on the title.

Explaining it is Difficult

Andrea Sorrentino and Jeff Lemire are up to their usual tricks:

These are the last two issues of Gideon Falls, for which I've heard they're making into a television show.

One of the workers at my LCS was asking about it, saying that it was getting close to time for him to start reading it. "What's it about?" he asked.

"Well..." I started, and then paused. He mentioned that it was probably a good sign that it's hard to describe. It's sci-fi, and horror, and something else wrapped up into one beautiful and unsettling story. He said someone told him it was like Twin Peaks.

I said, well, kinda, yeah, it's partially like Twin Peaks, but it's so much more, and different in weird ways. It's like a Murakami book in the sense that, after sixteen issues, I still barely know what's happening.

By the Cover

I bought a comic based on its cover the other day:

I'd been planning on checking out Vault Comics for a while, but as real life has ratcheted up, my energy for comic shopping has dwindled.

But then I saw this, an obvious homage to one of my favorite books and characters ever, the first issue from the Helix imprint (before Helix was swallowed up by Vertigo and one of the Big Two) of Transmetropolitan:

It was labeled as an ode to Geoff Darrow, which I can understand.

The comic itself follows a self-proclaimed professional guinea pig, a person who subjects themselves to drug testing from pharmaceutical companies as they try to search out a mythological city that...is special...I can't remember that well.

I used "they" as a pronoun instead of "she" or "he" because neither the character nor the writer nor the artist is transparent about the gender of the main character, and that's pretty interesting from my standpoint. Maybe not for everyone, but for someone who'd never purchased Vault comics before and did solely based on the Transmet cover homage, there's a good chance that reader wouldn't be turned away by that.

FCBD Haul 2019

My LCS had far less variety this year, and I labored to find the cool bizarre things I like. But I've come to terms with that, because Free Comic Book Day isn't about me and other long-time comic collectors, it's about bringing in the occasional fan or the non-fan-but-fan-of-Marvel movies and Star Wars.

My shop gives a free book for coming, and one for each can of food or dollar donated to the Long Beach food bank. I give a ten spot, and leave with 11 books. I'll start bringing my son when he knows not to destroy the colorful paper.

The Interceptor from Vault was the closest thing to Valiant that I could find. I grabbed Spiderman for my son (destroyed), I grabbed the Captain America history magazine from 2016 for my son (nearly destroyed), I grabbed the DC Essential TPB catalog to replace the original one my son destroyed...The Star Wars, Avengers issue, Year of the Villain, tiny Catwoman thing, all for my boy in due time.

I did thumb through that Avengers issue and saw the pages of a new Savage Avengers team, with Wolverine, Elektra, Venom and Conan teaming up?

Birthday Sharing

Happy Free Comic Book Day!

I got my books today in a sadly lackluster offering from my local shop. I love the place, certainly, and came to the realization that the free stuff was going to be for casual fans and not hard-core sequential art heads like me.

Anyway, I have a colleague who is also a fan and who shares my (our) birthday. Each year we get each other books for the day, and this year he gave me the anthology "Where We Live," the artifact that is the grieving process for Las Vegas and the survivors of the attack back in October of 2017. It's sobering, fantastic, and HEAVY.

I got him a book about Louise Michel, a leader of the French Commune in 1871, a civil uprising and taking over of Paris and French government. The Prussians had marched into Paris, and the government capitulated and cut deals to hold power, and this pissed off the commoners. When the Prussians party ended, the split, and the people tossed out the collabortors and set up the Commune.

That this happened ever intrigues me to no end.

Anyway, Louise Michel wore red, and became known as the Red Virgin, and while she was a feminist revolutionary leader, she was also a teacher and a writer of Utopian fiction, an early kind of speculative fiction, like sci-fi.

Hence the name:

Both are worth the time.