Hanukkah Special: The Top Ten Jewish Comic Characters

This year, Hanukkah officially started Friday night at sunset, so we thought this would be a perfect time to celebrate the many contributions Jewish creators have made to the comic book medium. Indeed, it's no exaggeration to say that if it weren't for the many Jewish creators who worked in comics during the first years of the medium's existence, comic books as we know them wouldn't exist at all. In particular, the superhero genre was dominated by and almost entirely created by Jewish comic pioneers. It's true that some of this was cultural impact from other mediums like pulp magazines and radio broadcasts of the day, but it's also true that Superman, created by the Jewish writer and artist team of Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster, jumpstarted both the comic industry in general and superhero comics specifically.

And Siegel and Schuster were just the tip of the iceberg when it came to Jewish creators in the Golden Age. Undisputed masters like Will Eisner, Joe Simon, Juile Schwartz, Batman creator Bob Kane (okay, his master title is in some dispute) and the king of comics, Jack Kirby (real name: Jacob Kurtzberg) were just a few of the Jewish giants that created the superhero genre and powered the industry for decades. Not to mention the most famous comic creator of all, Stan "the Man" Lee, who was born Stanley Lieber and decided to work under a pen name, not to anglicize it but rather to save his real name for a planned shift to more prestigious literature.

So without further ado, let's wish all of our Jewish friends a Happy Hanukkah and celebrate together with his list of some of the great Jewish characters that have appeared in the comics that have made all of our lives more enjoyable over the past 75 years.



10. Bernie Rosenthal

Having grown up in 30's Brooklyn and fought his whole life against Nazi tyranny, it makes sense that Captain America would make some Jewish friends along the way. So when writers introduced new love interest Bernie Rosenthal (along with Cap's childhood best pal Arnie Roth) back in the 80's, it was a case of "that's so obvious, why didn't they do it before?" While a later change in writers ended up causing Bernie's departure from Cap's life, for a generation of readers, Bernie Rosenthal remains the bets choice for Mrs. Captain America. Are you listening, Marvel?





9. Colossal Boy

One of the most prominent members of the Legion of Super-Heroes, Colossal Boy was, like many of the other members of the 30th century team, given a seemingly outlandish, futuristic name: Gim Allon. Writer Paul Levitz, however, recognized Allon as an actualy Jewish surname and crafted a storyline where Allon and his new, alien wife have to deal with the realities of inter-faith (and in this case inter-species) marriage thanks in part to his Jewish heritage.













8. Songbird

Songbird, the heart and soul (and sometimes the leader) of the hero team Thunderbolts, began her existence as a pro wrestler and villainess named Screaming Mimi. Thanks to Kurt Busiek, though, she got a new lease on life as Songbird. While her Jewish background hasn't been explored (or even explicitly mentioned in the comics themselves) it has been hinted at by creators in interview2s as well as subtly referenced through her multiple Jewish surnames: her real name is Melissa Gold, while her wrestling alias was Mimi Schwartz.











7. Two-Gun Kid

Speaking of characters who are identified as Jewish entirely through their surnames (which seems to be a bit of a theme here, and for fairly good reason; for many years comic publishers were hesitant to identify characters as belonging to any specific ethnic group for fear that this would alienate readers from other groups and prevent them from being a character everyone could identify with), here's the Two-Gun Kid. Long time readers of Marvel will probably be scratching their head, since Two-Gun's name has for decades been Matt Hawk. Recently, however, the powers that be gave Matt a bit of an ethnic retcon, renaming him Matt Liebowicz, with Hawk apparently a nom de guerre. I'm not exactly sure why Marvel decided to retroactively make the Two-Gun kid Jewish, but then again, the western gunfighter was also a time-traveling member of the Avengers for a brief time. So, why not.






6. Izzy Cohen

While most characters were created to be as generic as possible, however, Stan Lee took the exact opposite approach when he created Sgt. Fury and the Howling Commandoes, specifically including as many minorities as he could in the cast to make it as diverse as possible. Thus fans were treated to Irish-Americans (Dum Dum Dugon), Italian-Americans (Dino Manelli), African-Americans (Gabe Jones) and one of the earliest and most prominent Jewish-AMerican characters in comics, Izzy Cohen, a hard-nosed mechanic straight out of Brooklyn. Izzy served as a member in good standing for the entire run on Sgt. Fury, but unlike many of his teammates didn't continue a military career (of SHIELD career) after the war but instead opened his own garage and raised a large family.








5. Arthur

Right from the get-go, flabby sidekick Arthur was one of the highlights of the superhero spoof Tick, lending a touch of normalcy to the otherwise outlandish proceedings (if you can call a grown man in a moth costume "normal"). As it happens, he's also Jewish, as we discovered when he bravely tried to explain Hanukkah to Tick back in 1997. We have a feeling that went about as well as explaining anything to Tick goes.













4. Nite Owl

One of the most influential comics of all time is, of course, Watchmen, and the moral center of that book (if such a thing can be said to exist at all) is upstanding superhero Nite Owl. When he's not wearing his owl suit, though, he's the much more unassuming Dan Dreiberg; with only twelve all too short issues to work with, creators Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons didn't get into Dan's ethnic heritage very much, but then again, it's pretty secondary to saving (or not saving) the world, so we don't blame them.





3. Magneto

Magneto is probably the only Jewish character on the list whose ethnicity is well known outside of comic book circles. That's because Magneto's origin, which includes an internment in a concentration camp, was featured prominently in the first X-Men film. In the comics, this side of Magneto was introduced as an explanation for his mutant-centric behavior, as it was meant to be a case of "never again". In the movies, though, he comes off as little better than a vengeful lunatic who mis-attributes his suffering to humans in general rather than the Nazi regime; this is especially noticeable in the third film where he spurns Mystique upon the loss of her powers. This can be blamed more on brett Ratner than on the character of Magneto, though; issues like X-Men #199, where Magneto and Kitty Pryde attend a Holocaust survivor reunion in hopes of tracking down missing relatives, are among some of the most interesting and in-depth discussions of Magneto's character done to date.





2. Kitty Pryde

Speaking of Kitty Pryde, here she is at number two on our list. While Magneto may be th emost prominent Jewish character to the general public, Kitty Pryde is undoubtedly the most prominent Jewish character within the comics community. Her heritage and faith have been a central part of the character since her inception, with the Ultimate version even wearing a large Star of David pendant as part of her standard uniform. She's also, by the way, one of the most popular and prominent female superheroes in all of comics. Normally she would place number one on the list, but that spot we had to reserve for a certain ever-lovin' blue-eyed hero known as...










1. Thing

It was a close decision between Kitty Pryde and Thing for number one on our list, but we ended up going with the original clobberer himself. Ben Grimm's Jewish background is technically a recent addition to Marvel continuity, but in a way it's been there since the start. According to many sources, when Stan and Jack originally created the team, Jack began patterning Thing's behavior and background after his own. Thing's outwardly gruff demeanor and his rough-and-tumble past, including run-ins with his former partners in the Yancy street Gang, were based on Jack's own personality and childhood. Extrapolating off of this, then, a few years ago Fantastic Four writer Karl Kesel decided to make the connection to Jack a little more explicit by writing a story where Ben comes in contact with his old rabbi, leading to a discussion of his faith. It's an interesting tale and more than enough reason to put Thing, one of the great comics characters of all time, at the top of our list.

Happy Hanukkah, everyone!

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December Zuda Reviews part 2

Welcome back. I know for the last 24 hours you've been pacing around your den, chewing on your fingernails as you anticipated the second batch of this month's Zuda reviews. Well, the wait is over, so put down that bottle of gin you've been nursing and settle in, because we have five new comics to look at and there's no more time to waste. First up: a little something I like to call One Hit Knock Out.


One Hit Knock Out
Maximo Lorenzo

One Hit Knock Out, the brainchild of Maximo Lorenzo, does a pretty good job of living up to its name, as these first eight pages do a number on the competition. After the lackluster batch of entries we reviewed on day one, One Hit Knock Out comes as a refreshing change of pace thanks to being drawn and written with both competence and charm.

The story, which is about a kid who is entrusted by his grandfather to watch over a special glove imbued with unknown powers, is done in a manga style that suits the lighter tone of the story nicely. It's not perfect, but it is fun enough to leave me wanting to read more, which is something I definitely couldn't say about many of the entrants yesterday. About the only real negative for me was the odd choice of thumbnail to represent the title; this little headshot is about the most awkwardly rendered panel in the whole comic and thus doesn't do the rest of it justice.

My Grade: This is the leader in the clubhouse and gets a solid B+ from me.



SubSuelo
Alfredo Rodríguez & Gabriel Rodríguez

SubSeulo is a well drawn and fast paced action story from the brothers Rodriguez. Or maybe they're cousins. Or father and son, I don't know. The point is, though, that the art for this entry is particularly nice, especially in comparison with some of the slightly subpar artistic entries that have slipped into the competition in the last couple weeks.

The story is also solid, but suffers some from being a bit too fast paced. It's no exaggeration to say that I read this entry at least twice as fast as any of the others and, by no coincidence, the impression it made on me was correspondingly more fleeting, to the point where I had already forgotten the content by the time I tabbed over to write this review. There's certainly some promise in this tale of a guy whose sister gets abducted by some dude from Mortal Kombat, but I'd like to see it fleshed out a bit more before I can get committed enough to care.

My Grades: Nothing bad here to say; nothing too memorable either, though. It's worth at least a B for competence.



The House Always Wins
Josh Hechinger & John Bivens

Though the last two months have been filled with action and fantasy stories, Zuda has been pretty well known since its inception for its horror titles, which frequently do well in the competition. That bodes well for The House Always Wins, which is a solid if diffuse entry in that genre.

John Bivens provides some effectively moody artwork here, but the story feels a bit constrained by the space limitations; with just eight pages to work with, we basically get a guy eaten by his television set and then some kind of "Ghost Hunter" type crew of investigators show up to see what happened. I'm not entirely sure what the title has to do with the story, but I suspect if we have another twenty or thirty pages to unfold the tale, we'd find that this team investigates evil houses that kill people. I'm not sure the slightly annoying/cliched team of investigators is interesting enough to maintain that offbeat premise, but it wouldn't kill me if this moved on. That honor I will apparently leave to my doorjamb.

My Grades: The mood is good, but I wish it were a little more focused; I also got confused by the action in a couple places. B-.



Unseen Tribe
Luciano Vecchio

I'm really not sure what to think about Unseen Tribe other than that it makes me feel very old. The comic, which is sort of a combination of the Teen Titans cartoon and Power Rangers, features a bunch of wise-cracking teens wearing garish pants who flirt and fight their way through a horde of dog-faced attackers in order to, I dunno, save the world. Or buy tickets to New Moon, one or the other.

The art is good in a very stylized, manga-inspired way and the writing holds up as well. Whether or not you'll enjoy this, though, probably depends entirely on your demographic. Personally, I'm now at that stage in life where I am no longer interested in kid-centric pop culture, so for the most part I just wanted to tell these punks to get a job. But that's just me being crotchety; if you're a fan of this sort of thing, and you like the idea of teen mutant lucha libre, then this will probably curl your toes.

My Grades: Objectively I have to admit this is a very solid competitor, so it gets a B. Subjectively, well, I think I covered that.



Villain
Gregory Smallwood

And finally, we end the second (much stronger) batch of entries for December with Villain, which follows the story from the point of view of a supervillain. This is a bit tricky, because this sort of thing has been done a few times in recent years in works such as Wanted, so the creator runs the risk of being unfairly (or fairly) labeled a copycat or, even worse, having the readers tune out because they feel they've seen it before. And I was worried a bit at the start because, though the writing was fine and the art was above average, it didn't feel like anything too new. Of course, this is one of th ebig problems with doing this sort of thing; the comic is intended to be a riff on established tropes, so it has to be familiar, but without becoming rote or derivative. For the first half of the story, Villains toes this line and maybe goes over it a couple times (for example, the protagonists archenemy appears to be Samaritan from Astro City).

The second half, though, doe sa better job of playing off expectations while still being fresh, as the main character (a supervillain by the name of Shockwave) is sent to a prison dimension (a la the Phantom Zone) where he is ganked by a couple of other supervillains who were previously shanghaied there. This sets up an appropriately familiar but still intriguing concept where we'll have to follow this amoral villain as he fights his way not only through this prison planet of evil, but also somehow back across the dimensional barrier to somehow exact his revenge on the heroes who exiled him. It could be interesting if it manages to stay fresh and doesn't veer too far into cliche.

My Grades: The art was very nice and the writing was good too. I'm just not sure if the genre can support even more deconstruction. Plus, I'm not sure I want to read about a complete toolbag. overall, then, another solid B rounds out a batch of B's. After a slow start this turned out to be a solid month even though there aren't any true stand-out works. It will be interesting to see how the voting goes.

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December Zuda Reviews part 1

Yesterday we reviewed the results of last month's Zuda competition, and that means it must be time for a new batch of fresh faced and wide-eyed applicants to the prestigious title of official Zuda winner. That's right, we've got ten new strips waiting to be read and dissected, just like that newspaper frog, so what are we waiting for? Let's get right down to it!


Ayanna
Wai Kwong Chan

First up is Ayanna, a fantasy-tinged story about a woman and her pet monkey, who live in a seemingly peaceful, primitive village. That peace is shattered when, while the menfolk are away hunting, a pack of deadly animals attack the town. The twist? The animals appear to be controlled by a race of dinosaur-people.

The art in this entry isn't half bad. It's nicely detailed and the colors work well. Creator kenkwong does undermine this occasionally with some odd composition decisions; he seems to favor having people's faces half on and half off panel, which sometimes works and other times just seems inexplicable.

More detrimental to the story than this personal art quirk, however, is the scripting, which is weird at best, mainly because of the odd cadence. It seems as though he's trying to emulate current comic pros who like to write in a naturalisitc conversational style, but that is a dangerous thing to attempt without the skill to back it up. The non-word "um" is like a land mine that can blow up any line of dialogue if placed incorrectly, and here it takes out a few well-meaning word balloons. A little more conventional writing could have gone a long ways to shoring this up.

My Grade: It's not terrible, and I think I see the hint of something interesting in the plot, but it's not enough to make up for the blips in the writing and art. A solid C.



Daemon's Sphere
Andrew Hartman

Next up we have Daemon's Sphere, which, like Ayanna, suffers a bit from some gnarly art choices. Of maybe choice isn't the word; while the pacing is decent in this entry and the layouts and coloring work, for some reason all the figures look like they are made of Play-Doh. You know those stress ball things, that are like a pink rubbery goo and no matter how you squeeze them they just flex back into place? Well, the faces of our protagonists seem to have almost but not quite completed the process of returning to their normal form.

Facial malleability aside, this one isn't too bad. It's got an Indiana Jones style adventure feel to it, which could make for a good comic in the right hands. I did think the transition to the Arctic Circle or wherever in the last two pages was a bit abrupt and the (spoiler!) betrayal by the hired guy was right out of the adventure movie book of cliches. But there is some potential here, especially, as we will see, in a pretty weak field of entrants. This might have a chance.

My Grade: I guess it's a spoiler for the next few reviews that I said this has a chance even though I can only give it a B- at best. But keep reading anyway. Maybe I'm tricking you!



Goop Jr.
Mike Robinson

And in this corner we have a giant walking booger named Goop Jr. No, I am not bagging on the comic; that's literally the story: the main characters are to enormous sentient boogers that are sneezed up by a de-thawed Yeti from the distant past. Now they have to stop the Yeti before he accidentally infects all of humanity with the pre-historic disease he is carrying.

You know what, why the hell not. One thing I will give this story is that at least it seems to be having fun. A couple parts are farily well done, even; I particularly liked the younger booger's sad facve after his dad gets nailed by an oncoming car. Oh, don't worry, boogerphiles: being a snotman has its upside, one of which is that you just squish around when a car hits you. No permanent damage. That's pretty much what your reading experience will be like as well: it's not going to win an Eisner, but it won't do any major harm either.

My Grade: I do have to give the strip minus points because of the main character's unquestionable resemblance to X-Men character Doop. Having said that, I'll give it a B-.




Jason and the Argonauts Redux
Barry Keegan

I have to give Jason and the Argonauts Redux props for truth in advertising. After all, if you're going to do a new version of an old classic -- which, after all, is what almost every mainstream superhero comic is doing -- you might as well admit it right up in the title. Not that we really get much into Jason's story, much less see any Argonauts, in the first eight pages. Rather, we're treated to a vignette where the youthful Jason, watched over by his father, kills a marauding jungle cat, only to learn that it's some kind of robot thingy. As his dad is a centaur, though, we've already gotten the idea that something is slightly different here, so the robot's appearance isn't completely out of left field.

I say treated because the artwork, at least, is very sharp, with obvious Mignola influences. The writing, well, it's serviceable anyway, though there are a couple basic punctuation issues and some of the dialogue is a bit stiff and formal. This seems to be the main problem with most middle of the road Zuda entries: it's obvious which ones are done by writers (because they have subpar art) and which are done by artists (because of the subpar dialogue). I'm not sure why more people don't collaborate in order to raise the level of their game, but in this case it doesn't hurt the comic too much; the art is strong enough to carry past the iffy writing. For now, anyway.

My Grades: This gets a B from me. A little more polish on the writing and it could move up, though.



Mark Wolfchild
Shipeng Lee and David Levack

Finally, we have Mark Wolfchild. Who, you might note, has an eyepatch and a trenchcoat. Right off the bat my alarms are ringing, because this has all the makings of a serious parody (if that's not contradictory); the fact that the series actually plays this guy straight is a pretty bold move, because a lot of readers may have a bit of a hard time getting past the main character.

The effort to be taken seriously, though, is aided by the fact that this entry is, as it happens, the result of a collaboration (see? people do listen to me!) And the focus each part of the team brings to their element shows right off the bat with a pretty stunning full page cityscape that suggests you're about to read something a cut above the other strips.

That promise, unfortunately, is never quite realized. While the rest of the art is decent, it doesn't quite live up to the first page, in part because the figures aren't quite as competently rendered as the buildings. There's also an occasional disconnect between the writing and the art, which I guess is the flip-side of collaborations. The main beef I have with the story, though, is that the plot twist at the end seemed a bit rushed and forced; after the careful craftsmanship of the opening, it seemed like they rushed things a bit on the back end. A little more time working out the kinks and bringing the whole submission up to the level of the opening would have gone a long ways for this one.

My Grades: Started off well, even with the ridiculous main character, but lost steam right at the very end, which left me cold. Objectively this is probably a B- or maybe even a B, but for my personal enjoyment I can't go above a C+.

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November Zuda Wrap Up

It's December, and that means a new batch of comics over at Zuda, and that means they've declared a winner for November, and that, my friends, means it's time for out November Zuda Wrap Up where we dissect just what happened in last month''s competition and why. Yes, today we're just full of meaning, which we admit is not usually what we're full of, but there's a first time for everything.

And was the winner? Well, it was none other than In Maps & Legends, the fantasy tale by writer Michael Jasper and artist Niki Smith. When we reviewed In Maps & Legends last month, we commented that the strip was interesting but that the presentation didn't seem to quite live up to the potential. It seemed to be a case where the whole was less than the sum of its parts.

So what can we take away from the fact that it won? Well, besides the obvious fact that people are not yet giving our opinion quite the weight it deserves, it's also interesting to note the similarities (and differences) between In Maps & Legends and last month's winner, Pluck. Both are fantasy titles and, perhaps more importantly, both stories jumped out to a first week lead and held on for the rest of the month despite strong competition.

In the case of Pluck, that competition was from Doc Monster and Where Evils Dare, both of which received an overwhelmingly large number of page views which didn't seem to translate into votes; despite both of those strips starting with 20,000 more views in the first week, the standing remained static for the entire month.

In Maps & Legends, on the other hand, faced a strong challenge from Children of the Sewer, which rose from the middle of the pack to finish at number two in the voting. But while the two finished roughly even in the number of page views, Children of the Sewer actually grabbed a significant lead in the number of readers who selected it as their favorite strip, ending up with roughly 1400 favorites to 1000 for In Maps & Legends.

This is particularly odd because in order to choose a favorite, you have to be registered on the site, meaning that either the people who voted for In Maps didn't pick it as their favorite, or people who chose Sewers as their favorite didn't end up voting for it. Honestly, I'm not sure what to make of it. Pluck's victory could be easily explained by the simple fact that people who were reading other strips may not have felt compelled to register in order to vote. But when everyone is already registered but somehow ends up voting for comics other than their chosen favorite... yeah. Not sure what to make of that.

The other difference between the two winners is the level of competition. While Pluck was a surprise winner thanks to the high level of competition, In Maps caught a bit of a break, as most of Novembers entries were mediocre at best. That's not a knock against, Maps -- after all, you can only play the opponents on your schedule -- but it seems likely that if Doc Monster or Where Evils Dare had been in the November competition instead of the October competition they would have fared better.

But the bottom line is they weren't and as a result, In Maps & Legends is the new winner, despite the strange disparity between it and second place Children of the Sewer in terms of favorites. We're not sure we liked the first eight pages enough to commit much time to reading the next chapters, but we might check them out at some point and we wish the creative team the best of luck in honing their craft and getting the most out of their potential.

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Pearl Harbor in Comics

December 7, as you may know, is a day that will live in infamy, as today we mark the 68th anniversay of the attack on Pearl Harbor. On Sunday, December 7, 1941, a horde of Japanese attack planes descended on America's Navy outpost at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and launched a suprise attack that left the U. S. fleet decimated, thousands of sailors dead and America faced with sudden entrence into World War II.

Less importantly, however, the day also had a significant impact on a burgoening artform that was just taking hold in the National consciousness: comic books. When the attacks on Pearl Harbor occured, comics were just getting into full swing, thanks to the surging popularity of the superhero genre. Since the debut of Superman three years earlier in 1938, comics had taken hold and were growing to become one of the most popular and ubiquitous forms of entertainment in the country. And that growth was unquestionably hastened and bolstered by the beginning of the war.

World War II was a watershed time period for comics not only artistically -- stories featuring superheroes battling Nazis and other Axis menaces became so synonymous with the genre that the period is now known as the Golden Age of comics, with the influence of those stories still being felt in just about every page of modern superhero books -- but also commercially. GI's on the front had little in the way of entertainment to speak of, except for comics, which were cheap enough to ship in bulk and lightweight (and disposable) enough for soldiers to read on the go. It's estimated that up to 90 percent of American troops received comic books while overseas, with tens of millions of comics in circulation among the armed forces alone.

Thanks to that, when the soldiers returned home form the war, they brought with them their new wartime habit: reading comic books. Sales boomed even more, with ever more mature subject matter catering to a now adult reading population that had left superheroes behind, a trend that eventually led to the witch hunts and comic burnings of the 1950's and the collapse of the industry.

All of that, then, indirectly stems more or less from the attack on Pearl Harbor. But if Pearl Harbor had such an effect on the comic business, what kind of effect did it have within the pages of the comics themselves?

Interestingly, comics and stories set during Pearl Harbor have been fairly uncommon. There have been, for instance, historical depictions of the attack (such as in Antarctic Press's Pearl Harbor: the Comic Book) and special commemorative editions honoring the fallen heroes (1942's Remember Pearl Harbor, for example), but compared to many historical events, there have been relatively few cameos by comic book characters. While I'm sure there have been a few here and there, my research hasn't turned up a whole lot other than the usual suspects (such as the fact that Sgt. Fury and his best pal Red Hargrove were predictably stationed at Pearl Harbor during the attack, where Red was killed in action).

Perhaps the most interestnig appearance of Pearl Harbor in comics, then, was in National Comics #18, where Uncle Sam daringly helped fight off a deadly attack on the naval base... by Germany. Yes, strangely enough, this issue, featuring a cover story depicting a surprise attack on Pearl harbor, actually showed a fictional version of events, but for a good reason: the comic came out in November of 1941, before the attacks happened. With a cover date of December, the story (which was featured here on the Comics Should be Good blog) detailed what seemed like pure fiction at the time -- an Axis attack on neutral America's Pacific stronghold. In an eerie foretelling of Japan's strategy, the story also detailed how the Axis would us simultaneous attacks on other Pacific bases as well, including Guam, to shock and surprise America with one massively co-ordinated offensive.



Unfortunately, those soliders and sailors who faced the real attacks in the early days of December, 1941, didn't have superheroes like Uncle Sam or the ghost of John Paul Jones to help them out. But while stories like those in National Comics #18 have become little more than historical curiosities, we as a nation should do just what the comics tell us to do, and always Remember Pearl Harbor.

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December Answers From the Vault part 2

Welcome back to part two of this month's Answers From the Vault. Yesterday we fielded questions about the dearth of female supervillains, the lack of Image discussion at the Vault and why more superheroes don't wear pants. as hard as it is to believe, though, we have an even more exciting pile of queries today, so put on your thinking caps and let's jump right to the questions.

Or, actually, let's not. Before we get to them, we do have a little addendum from yesterday. Fervent comic book lover Chesley was wondering if we might be able to provide pictures of female supervillains Cheetah, Moonstone and Mist for her, and since we aim to please, here they are. Both Cheetah and Moonstone have gone through a number of costumes, but I went with this slightly savage but not outright feral version of Cheetah, while for Moonstone I decided to go with her classic original costume. And, of course, Mist only looks like this when she is using her powers; otherwise she's just a slightly butch goth girl who could be serving you lattes at the corner Starbucks. Hey, if her archenemy Starman doesn't wear a costume, why should she have to either?

Click on this to make it slightly larger:



Okay, now on to the questions.


Why is Mary Jane the hottest chick in comics? -- Ben


Well, I'm not sure I agree with you, but I don't necessarily disagree with you either, so I'll just answer the question under the assumption that Mary Jane Watson is the hottest chick in comics. I think the reason she is the hottest is because she's not just hot, she's also cool. She's accessible. She seems like someone who would be fun to hang out with and would accept you for who you are. In other words, even though she should way out the reader's league, she's not some unattainable ideal.

This goes hand in hand with the popularity of Spider-man himself. He became an icon because he's just an average nerd with average nerd problems; he could be you or me, but more probably you, because I'm a little cooler than that pencil-neck Peter Parker. Yet, Mary Jane still dug Peter; and if we could be Peter, then by extension, Mary Jane could fall for us.

But of course, if we're Peter, then our relationships will likely be erased because we sealed a deal with Satan to destroy them. So that equation isn't necessarily all positive.


What's the best issue of What If? -- Ben

For those not familiar with What If?, the Marvel series told hypothetical stories about what would have happened if key moments in Marvel history had gone differently. For example, what if the Fantastic Four hadn't defeated Galactus in Fantastic Four #50, or what if Phoenix hadn't died in X-Men #137? It was a cool series, though slightly limited by the fact that you had to already be familiar with the original story for the new ones to mean anything. Because of this, in the second What If? series, they eventually started just creating alternate realities that didn't necessarily have a jumping on point in continuity, making them more accessible but less meaningful.

Ben's fellow reader Rob pitched in with his own pick, which is What If? #29, featuring "What If the Avengers Defeated Everybody?", which spins out of the classic Avengers story in Avengers Annual #2, which itself is already an alternate universe tale. As an Avengers fan, I have to say that's a fine choice, though I would probably go with What If? #3 as the best issue, which tells the story of "What If the Avengers Had Never Been?", which shows what would have taken place if the Avengers had disbanded in Avengers #3.

But for sheer WTF purposes, my actual choice is going to be What If? #14, featuring the tale of "What If Sgt. Fury Had Fought World War II in Outer Space?", which is a strange blend of Nick Fury's WWII adventures with Star Wars for reasons that still escape me.

I strongly suspect, though, that each person's individual favorite issue of What If? will be strongly influenced by which original stories they liked the most, so this is a hard question to objectively answer.


Why doesn't Aquaman get any respect? -- Rob

Thanks for the question, Rob. Another fellow reader, James, also jumped in to answer this question, suggesting that it might be worth the time to check out this anti-Aquaman rant, which does, in fact, go a long way towards explaining why Aquaman doesn't get much respect.

But, as it happens, I think there's a simpler reason: he's not Namor the Sub-mariner. Namor, you may or may not know, first debuted in 1939, while Aquaman didn't appear until two years later, in 1941's More Fun Comics #73. What was more fun about it? Well, that issue also is the debut for Green Arrow, meaning there was, in fact, another character in the comic that was more fun than Aquaman. But the point is that comics already had a big name hero that had underwater powers; and, more to the point, Namor was also granted a truly unique and interesting personality among superheroes, being the original anti-hero, which led to compelling battles against other heroes (like his opposite number, the Human Torch) and character development.

Aquaman, conversely, didn't have any of that; he's basically a bland, whitebread version of Namor. He's not as visually compelling either. So while some fine writers and artists have done their best over the years, and there is a dedicated but small fan base for the character, Aquaman's main crime is that he is not, and will never be, Namor the Sub-mariner, no matter how many times DC tries to grit him up to make him more like the original.


Can I call you Brother Power the Geek? What is your favorite riddle? Who are you voting for on December 8? -- Lance

Thanks for the questions, Lance. For those of you who don't know, Lance is a hardcore comics fan, so he probably already knows the answers to all his actual comics related questions. Still, I'm happy to answer these as well.

1) I'm afraid that Brother Power the Geek is still copyrighted by DC Comics, which likely also has a side agreement with legendary creator Joe Simon, who developed Brother Power the Geek for DC back in the late 60's. I'm sure it would be a fine nickname, but for legal reasons, it wouldn't be advisable.

2) I actually don't care for riddles. Sorry, Edward Nigma! For the most part, I think riddles are kind of annoying. About the only one I can think of off the top of my head is the old "what walks on four legs in the morning..." groaner. By default, I guess that would be my "favorite," which is a bit misleading since it implies that I don't find it trite and annoying. Because I do.

3) Lance is referring to the Massachusetts Democratic primary on December 8 to fill the Senate seat made vacant by the death of Edward "Nigma" Kennedy. There are four candidates; three of them are viable and one is Steve Pagliuca. As you can guess, I won't be voting for ol' "Money Pags," because he's such an empty shirt that he actually makes Mitt Romney look like a man of substance, which is almost boggling to contemplate. Hey Steve: you can buy name recognition, but you can't buy competence.

That leaves Michael Capuano (who seems competent but also irritable, angry and petty in many of his debate appearances); Alan Khazei, who has a lot of social programs and interesting ideas and details plans and positions on every major issue and thus, as you might expect, is badly trailing in every poll and has no chance of being elected; and Martha Coakley, the Attorney General of the state, who has had solid debate performances as she sits back and grins while the others blow themselves up on stage.

So who am I going to vote for on Tuesday? Well, if it looks like Coakley has a big enough lead in the polls, I might vote for Khazei just to bump up his numbers for future races. Otherwise I'll have to vote for Coakley to make sure she gets in. Not that Capuano would be a disaster, but why take a chance.



Okay, that wraps it up for this month. We'll be throwing the doors of learning open to the internet public again some time next month, so if you didn't get your answers this time, don't worry. We'll get to it sooner or later.

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December Answers From the Vault part 1

Welcome back to this month's edition of Answers From the Vault. Yesterday we threw open the doors of knowledge to the general public and the result was a torrent of queries. The reading public has an insatiable appetite for information and we here at the Vault are happy to oblige that noble quest. So, after carefully winnowing down the literally quadrillions of questions we received yesterday, here are the answers to the select few that made the cut. Don't worry, though, if your question isn't answered today, we'll probably cover it tomorrow, because this batch was so big we had to split it into two parts!

So are you ready to get your brain enlarged?


Following up the occasionally heated discussion of how women are portrayed in comics, can you identify your favorite villainous female character in comics (in spite of criticisms to the way said character may have been drawn)? And how might said appearance attract or detract from the character herself (or does it at all?)? -- Chesley

Wow, Chesley, that's a mouthful. But we'll give it a go. Strong female supervillains are about as rare -- or even rarer -- than strong female superheroes. When you think of the pantheon of great supervillains, pretty much none of them are women. For instance, when IGN did their NCAA bracket-style battle of the super-villains a few years ago, only six of the 64 contestants were women and of those six, most of them weren't necessarily villains per se. It's an interesting point to note: very few women in comics are really allowed to be full-on evil. Most female supervillains have a softer, more sympathetic side to go along with more ambiguous motivations. This often ends up with the villain becoming a hero or anti-hero or at least someone who the main heroes sometimes identify with or team-up with.

You're not going to see that happen a whole lot with, say, Joker or Dr. Doom, but it happens all the time with female supervillains. Probably the most famous female supervillain is Catwoman, but she's hardly a villain. Heck, she's Batman's main love interest. The six so-called villains who did show on on the IGN list also included Dark Phoenix (deranged alter-ego for X-Man Jean Grey, thus only sort of a villain), Elektra (Daredevil's girlfriend and not really a villain) and the White Queen (sometimes a villain, sometimes a member of the X-Men). The only true villains on the list were Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, neither of whom are quite A-listers, though I guess Poison Ivy is fairly close. Other examples of this include some of the most prominent female villains at both Marvel and DC, such as the Enchantress (who teams up with Thor as often as she opposes him and is no longer considered a villain by most), Scarlet Witch (who was so popular and sympathetic when she debuted as a villain that Marvel quickly turned her into a hero) and Star Sapphire (usually Green Lantern's girlfriend, Carol Ferris).

So why aren't there more good (or, to be more precise, evil) female villains? I'm not entirely sure. I suspect it might have something to do with the traditionally male readership (and creator pool) and the assumptions and stereotypes that have come along with that. In some ways it's the flip side of the sexulization issue -- comics might have their heroines be overly sexed up, but they also don't want their women to be too mean, so many of the villains end up having softer, more sympathetic portrayals. In other words, the idea of femininity doesn't necessarily match well with being a supervillain. Perhaps because of this, relatively fewer female villains seem to be (consistently) depicted in an overtly sexual fashion compared to their heroic counterparts (Harley Quinn, Catwoman and Poison Ivy did get a mention in my essay, but Gotham Sirens treats them as protagonists rather than villains).

The only major female villain that comes to mind who has an overtly sexual nature is White Queen, but for her, I think it works because it fits in with her manipulative personality. She uses her sexuality as just another tool to control people, which makes it fitting, I think, for her to wear an altered dominatrix costume, because that's kind of her whole schtick; she just usually does it through telepathy and mind control rather than physically.

Anyway, I haven't technically answered your question because I'm not sure I have a favorite villainess in comics. There are some solid female villains who break some of the stereotypes I mentioned; DC's Cheetah is probably the best known of these, while Marvel also has Moonstone as an intelligent and mostly evil woman (though even she sometimes plays a good guy when it suits her). Another well done female villain was the Mist in James Robinson's Starman (more on Starman in a later answer). But a favorite? Hm. Well, Mystique would probably have been my choice back in the 80's when she was still a real villain, but nowadays she seems to just be Magneto's moll thanks to the X-Men films. Hela is great in Thor when they bother to use her, and Sin has been turned by Brubaker from a footnote into a legitimately evil and fun character. Giganta has promise. But my favorite female supervillain is probably Viper (aka Madame Hydra), in part because she is the one female supervillain that is crazier, deadlier and more downright evil than just about any other.


What about some Image coverage? How has the creation of that company and titles affected the big two and the industry in general if at all? -- Ben

Well, Ben, the answers to your questions actually go hand in hand. There isn't a lot of Image coverage on the Vault mainly because I don't like Image. I know that will come as a shock to some of you (as I know there are some ardent Image fans reading this) but it's true. That, in turn, means I don't know too much about what is going on in their books or with their characters. And one of the reasons I've never cared for Image is because I think the creation of the company had a negative impact on both the big two (especially Marvel) and comics in general.

Now, to be honest, a lot of the problems that came up because of the founding of Image were caused by Marvel, so there's plenty of blame to go around. But essentially, the creation of Image (and the hype that guilt up around the Image founders prior to their defection from Marvel) was the height of the speculation era. Millions of copies of books by hot artists were flying off the shelves, being bought up by speculators who figured they could sit on the books for awhile and then turn them around for a big profit on the secondary market. Because of these artificial sales figures, both Marvel and the artists began believing in an art first idea, where the storytelling was secondary to the kewl pictures. This was exemplified by Marvel's decision to dump Chris Claremont off of X-Men after nearly 20 years on the title that he had taken from nothing into the biggest book on the market, all because Marvel wanted to placate their new hot artist Jim Lee by giving him creative control. The big problem here is that a) most of these sales were to speculators, not fans, and thus weren't a fair assessment of what was actually popular or artistically successful and b) those new fans that were being brought in by the hype were receiving sub-par products because all the good writers had been dumped in order to let the artists write everything.

Now, there are plenty of artists who are fine writers, but as Marvel and DC chased the golden goose and began having all of their artists ape the Image style at the expense of story and storytelling, fans began fleeing in droves. The product just sucked. For a few years there in the early 90's it did seem that the industry as a whole would still be okay, because a counter movement began, with self-published books booming like never before, to the point where they actually were commanding a pretty large part of the marketplace (something like 15-20% at the peak if I remember correctly). This actually kind of mirrors the rise of grunge and alternative rock as an antidote to the processed pop and hair metal being put out by the major labels during that same time period. But then Marvel decided to buy out all the major distribution companies, which in effect shut out all their smaller "competitors", with the result that the entire market crashed and burned, Marvel went bankrupt and comics have never recovered. With no indie alternatives to the mainstream rubbish being put out by Marvel, Image and DC, fans just left comics entirely.

Obviously, not all of that can be laid at the door of Image, but some of it can, and more importantly, I've never enjoyed any of their titles. I read Spawn for awhile but that was more out of habit and a feeling of obligation than out of real enjoyment. Plus, the company rarely seemed to live up to it's own premise; it was supposed to be a haven for artists to control their own properties, but it seemed instead to only be a haven for the select few big names that had the box office clout already to get into Image's exclusive club.

And then a lot of the creators ended up farming out their titles to freelance employees anyway, like McFarlane with Spawn, meaning they hadn't created a revolution at all, they had just built their own version of Marvel. Sort of like the Pilgrims coming to America for "religious freedom" and then persecuting the Quakers for worshiping differently. Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss.

To be honest, for me, Image ended as an entity years ago even though they still put out books. After all, some of the founders ended up taking their titles to other places (Jim Lee's Wildstorm went to DC, for instance) for reasons that still escape me, meaning that the Image imprint seems to be little more than a distribution plot; there's no cohesion to the line, it's just a bunch of random, unconnected studios putting out whatever they want and slapping the Image logo on it. Which makes it even more difficult to review, because you are in effect talking about a bunch of separate companies. While Invincible is supposed to be one of the best hero books on the market, is it really fair to lump it in with Youngblood?

Tell you what, though. If Image ever does anything I like or that is newsworthy, I'll discuss it here.


Are there any decent super heroes that don't wear spandex and why don't more heroes realize that a pair of jeans can go a long way as far as durability goes. For that matter who are their tailors? -- Ben

Good question, Ben. To answer the last part first, the creation of superhero costumes has been handled a number of different ways over the years. Marvel in particular has highlighted the ways their costumes come about, with various explanations. For instance, most costumes are made from unstable molecules, invented by Reed Richards, which allows them to stretch and get burnt and whatever without just falling apart like normal fabrics. As for the design, different costumes have different designers. Some people got new costumes, for example, during Secret Wars thanks to an alien costume generator. On the lower tech side of things, Spider-man and Kitty Pryde were both shown in their early days struggling to hand-make their own costumes, while the Wasp's alter-ego of Janet Van Dyne is a noted designer in the Marvel universe and not only made all of her own costumes but frequently designed costumes for other heroes.

But I think you were more curious about the jeans thing. Well, there have been some notable heroes who wore their jeans into battle. One of my favorite Golden Age heroes, Crimebuster, had perhaps the simplest and most utilitarian costume in comics history, as his "costume" was actually his high school hockey jersey, except with a cape. Over the course of time he eventually even dumped most of that; in order to impress a girl, in Boy Comics #50 Crimebuster ended up ditching the cape and his hockey pants, meaning that for the rest of his long career, he fought crime wearing jeans and his hockey shirt, something that a number of rappers would later more famously emulate.

Another case of a hero duking it out in his denims is, of course, Luke Cage. It's not entirely clear in some of his early appearances whether his pants are jeans or spandex... or fleece... but that's mostly due to the presence of his giant buccaneer boots. These days, there's no doubt that Cage is wearing his jeans into battle; this cover from New Avengers #49, for instance, apparently shows Cage just as he's about to go out on patrol with his group of fellow gigolos.

But probably the best example of what you are looking for would be Jack Knight in Starman. Knight was the younger son of the original Golden Age Starman and was a bit of a black sheep. Rebelling against his father's superhero ways, and dismissing all that superhero stuff as juvenile nonsense, Jack was understandably out of place when he was suddenly forced by circumstance to become the new Starman. So he decided to keep true to his style and, rather than adopt the classic Starman red spandex, he got a pair of vintage flight goggles to shield his eyes when flying, threw on a leather jacket for warmth and protection against body blows, and fought crime just like that. His outfit was suitable for either crime fighting or catching the Smashing Pumpkins down at the local civic center. Fittingly, Jack ended up retiring for good after being active only a few short years, deciding to live a normal life rather than deal with the craziness of the superhero world. His protege, Stargirl, fights crime the old fashioned way: in colored pajamas. (By the way, Starman also was arguably the best superhero title of the 90's and is more than worth the time to read).


Tomorrow: The next batch of questions and answers. Aquaman! Mary Jane! What If?! And Brother Power the Geek! Be there!

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Giant-Size Ask the Vault

Welcome to another edition of the internet sensation that's sweeping the nation, Ask the Vault. Yes, our first issue of Ask the Vault (the answers of which can be read here) was such a smashing success that we thought it was high time for another go-round.

The rules, of course, are simple: you ask us here at the Vault anything you want about anything (but mostly comics) and we will strive to provide you with the types of answers that crappy services like wikipedia or the library can't possibly manage. And if we somehow fail to come up with an answer for you? Well, in that case, you get a special bonus prize; us telling you to stop being so obtuse.

So what are you waiting for? Send us your questions, either by posting in the comments here, on facebook or via email and once we have rounded up a suitable batch we'll bring you the answers faster than a Superman/Flash race. But space is limited, so get your question in first; after all, you don't want to spend the rest of your life wondering what happened to Brother Power the Geek #3, now do you?

Don't ask the Freemasons, ask the Vault!

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Movie Trailers: Clash of the Titans and More

The holiday season is on us, and that means one thing: shopping. But if it meant two things, the second thing might be new movies, because this is one of the busiest seasons in the cinematic year. And a slew of new blockbuster films means an equally large helping of new trailers, as studios want to get their hot properties for 2010 in front of as many turkey-sated viewers as possible. That, of course, means a third thing -- a batch of new Movie Trailer reviews from the Vault.

As usual, we'll be reviewing how effective and interesting the trailer is first and foremost, and the content of the movie second, as making a good trailer is an art form in and of itself (as the great trailer for the horribly bad Pearl Harbor proved). Up first on this month's docket: the high budget, high profile remake of Clash of the Titans!


Clash of the Titans
Scheduled release date: March 26, 2010

Fans of a certain age will fondly remember the original Clash of the Titans, a sprawling 1981 epic that featured state of the art stop motion special effects that now, of course, could be easily duplicated by a six year old on a iPhone. Still, the movie had a certain je ne sais qois that has endeared it to fantasy lovers over the years.

Well, judging from this preview, it doesn't appear as though effects will be an issue this time around. Dialogue, of course, may be, as evidenced by the oddly jarring modern jargon emnating from the mouth of the legendary Pete Postlethwaite. The editors behind this clip, therefore, were probably wise in making that the only dialogue in the trailer, crafting the rest as what appears to be a frenetic Mastodon music video.

This does have the unfortunate effect of relegating stars (and seeming box office draws) like Liam Neeson to blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameos, but other than that odd choice, this is a pretty effective teaser that should get the younger crowd invested. I guess all those part about plot and character can be fit into a later trailer down the road if for some reason they think that sort of thing is necessary.




My Grades: As a teaser goes, this one is pretty good. I'm not sure about the dialogue, but since there's too little to judge, I'll have to give this an B+. I'd already rather watch this movie than see 300 again, that's for sure.



Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
Scheduled release date: May 28, 2010

Looks like we have a theme going: two trailers, two big budget fantasy epics. Unlike Clash of the Titans, though, which features current It-guy Sam Worthington in the lead role, Prince of Persia has made the curious decision to have the googly Jake Gyllenhaal star as its action hero.

So how does that work out? Well, the trailer does have one thing going for it: it does, in fact, look a lot like a video game. Whether or not this will make people want to watch a movie, of course, rather than just fire up their console, is a different question, but the CGI towers of the city resemble nothing so much as a cutscene from the game, a feeling only heightened by the swooping camera work which is reminiscent of a player rotating the vantage point to get a better look at the next tricky jump.

As for Jake the Snake, well, he seems to have a fake accent for reasons that currently escape me, which is okay because everything that happens in this trailer is helpfully narrated by the female lead. IN other words, it's a totally by the book trailer filled with "dazzling" action shots, wads of exposition and an overview of the entire plot. Is it by Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer by any chance? Oh, look, it is.

Least surprising credits ever.




My Grades: All things considered, the trailer for the video game is actually better than the one for the movie. That's not a good sign. This gets a C-, which would be lower if the bad guy wasn't being hammed up by Ben Kingsley in full BloodRayne mode. I'll probably take a pass on this one unless I am reallllly bored next summer.



Kick-Ass
Scheduled release date: April 16, 2010

Hey, look at this: an actual comic book movie based on an actual comic book! That's almost too topical for The Vault, but at the risk of being predictable, I'm going to take a look at it anyway. As a bonus, I've managed to avoid reading the actual comic, which, to be honest, isn't the worst policy when it comes to Mark Millar. Yeah, I know, some people think he's the third coming of Jesus, but he's pretty hit or miss with me. For film people, he's also behind Wanted, so that should tell you something; whether that something is good or bad I'll leave up to the individual to decide.

I have to admit, though, that as far as trailers go, this one is a pretty solid hit. Instead of a stream-of-conscious montage of unrelated images like many trailers, this one starts with one sustained scene that takes up half the trailer and nicely sets the tone and presents the concept of the film while still being mildly entertaining in its own right. Then we do get a couple brief scenes and intros to other characters, just enough to whet the appetite without blowing the whole gig.

I'm not sure this clip is kick ass, but it's not half bad, anyway.




My Grades: This is an effective and memorable trailer. It's not Gladiator, but it's pretty good. A-.

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