Heroes and Villains

Villain of the Week: Marvel for leaving John Ostrander out of their "Mighty Marvel Western" revival. Revisiting Marvel Western heroes is cool, but I can't be the only one also hungry for more of John Ostrander's take on these characters a la Blaze of Glory and Apache Skies. What makes this especially hurtful is that the reason seems to be that Marvel would rather focus on Ron Zimmerman’s silly version of the Rawhide Kid. To clarify, I’ve got no problem with the Rawhide Kid’s being gay. It’s the goofy quotient that I object to. Let Ostrander write a gay Rawhide Kid story and I’m happy again.

Hero: Dynamite for publishing both versions of Battlestar Galactica. The fledgling publisher is snatching up licensing properties right and left and picking some damn nice ones. I had a strange first reaction to this news. When I first skimmed the press release, I missed the part about Dynamite's also adapting the new SCI FI channel series, and scratched my head over why anyone would want the rights to just the old, cheesy series. I certainly wasn't going to read them. Now that I've read more thoroughly and know that I can get both versions, I'm more inclined to check out the "classic" stuff. Weird, huh?

Villain: Marvel for pushing too hard. They really want you to buy Amazing Spider-Man #529. News that the issue will feature the first appearance of Spidey's new costume was met with apathy by readers who've become jaded to this type of change, which is always temporary. Now, Marvel is touting the issue as a Must-Read for a new reason, stating that it "lays the groundwork for Marvel's event of 2006: Civil War!" If that doesn’t get folks buzzing, I expect to hear next that J. Jonah Jameson will die in it.

Hero: Komikwerks for a classy celebration of Black History Month. All this month, the online comics site is presenting selected strips from Tayo Fatunla’s Our Roots series, which celebrates and educates readers about great figures and events in Black History.

Villain: Marvel for making Wolverine only half-interesting. Putting Humberto Ramos on the title makes me want to take back what I said about hoping its sales suffer as a result of Wolverine: Origins. On the other hand, rather than giving new writer Marc Guggenheim a chance to explore whatever vision he may have for the character, the new run will kick off with a Civil War tie-in.

Hero: DC for giving Paul Dini a Black Canary/Zatanna project. When I mentioned before that Paul Dini is going to be writing Detective Comics, I didn't bring up something that other news outlets added to the story. In his LiveJournal, Dini confirmed that he's writing Batman and added that he'll be doing that "along with a very special graphic novel starring two DCU darlings near and dear to my heart." The reason I didn't mention it is because I assumed that he was talking about Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. I didn't figure that was a big deal, but imagine my glee when Rich Johnston reported that Dini was actually talking about Black Canary and Zatanna. I'll take fishnets over psychotics any day.

Villain: DC for needless exaggeration. When announcing the cover price for their weekly 52 series, DC claimed that $2.50 per issue is a "special, low price" when it's actually the average price for their better selling books (which 52 is sure to be among). Yeah, it’s way better than $2.99 per issue, but don’t try to make us think we’re getting some kind of deal.

Hero: Clifford Meth for scoring a Jim Steranko cover for his Meth.od anthology. When I first heard of Clifford Meth, I thought, "I've never heard of Clifford Meth." I kind of dismissed him and his book, but that illustrates exactly why guys like Clifford Meth get folks like Jim Steranko, Peter David, Steve Lieber, William Messner-Loebs, and Dave Cockrum to help out with their stuff: to get guys like me to pay attention.