Green Lanterns are unique...

There are two mirrored lines at the end of DC versus Marvel cross-over referring to Batman and Captain America that go something like this:

He became one among many, but remained forever unique...

To me, this more accurately describes every Green Lantern. The concept of GL and the GL Corps exemplifies the notion that the powers don’t make the hero.

There’s many ways of proving this, but I’d like to limit this post to a look at how some of the more prominent emerald warriors view sacrifice and self-sacrifice.

Kyle Rayner is the Buddhist guru of self-sacrifice. On more than one occasion, he has volunteered to make the ultimate sacrifice – most recently during Blackest Night. Kyle doesn’t hesitate to make such decisions, because he’s content with no longer living as long as his friends survive (to fight another day).  He wasn't Ion for nothing.

Hal Jordan views self-sacrifice as part of his duty. Only after Kyle was able to reason with Hal (as Parallax) during Final Night* and appeal to his sense of heroic duty, did Hal help defeat the sun-eater.

John Stewart sees self-sacrifice as a form of redemption and as making a difference. With his Darkstar exo-suit torn to shreds and being essentially powerless, John took on Grayven (Darkseid’s kid) to help Kyle. This sacrifice left him paralyzed for quite a while.

Guy Gardner views self-sacrifice as a way to validate the sacrifices of others. Guy loves his friends and comrades – he really couldn’t stand it if the sacrifice of a friend turned out to be in vain. To Guy, sacrifice has to mean something and may use it as a ‘karmic comeuppance’ for any villain who disrupts his life, which has been disrupted many times before. Guy's self-sacrificial streak can be surprising to those who only known as the once obnoxious GL.

Alan Scott isn’t a member of the corps and in this distinction we find his take on sacrifice. Unlike Hal, he doesn’t see sacrifice as part of his (formal) duty, but as an example to be set. Alan realizes that any sacrifice he makes can (and will) inspire other heroes to do the same during our darkest hour. I guess it’s a golden age heroic ethic.

The powers don’t make the Emerald Warrior...

* Blackest Night? Final Night? What is it with DC and darkness?

True origin of Dazzler?

A comment from SallyP with regard to my last post mentioned Dazzler as let’s say a ‘questionable’ superhero. This made me think about the character.

I have to agree with Sally and just about anyone who nominates Dazzler for inclusion on such ‘lists of honour.’ However, I don’t want to get into the merits of the character, because ‘disco queen as mutant’ speaks for itself and Scipio has already done a wonderful job here, here and perhaps most tellingly here.

I do want to hypothesize about Dazzler’s genesis as character. In other words, what led Dazzler’s creation? What inspired such a memorable character?

As a mildly creative person myself, I often wonder how comic creators come up with characters and concepts. I am constantly entertained by the answers I find. For example, it was interesting to discover that the X-men were not named after Xavier, their founder and patriarch, but for the eXtra bit of power they possessed. Huh? What now?

I think I may be able to pinpoint the exact trigger for the temporary insanity that afflicted the minds of Tom Defalco and John Romita Jr. (and others*) when they created the mutant dancer in the late 70s (1979 or so).

*Jim Shooter, Louise Simonson, and Roger Stern [who came up with the name] may also deserve some of the ‘credit’ for Dazzler – creation via Marvel committee. See how everyone is trying to spread the credit around on this one? Initially, no one wanted any part in Dazzler’s creation. How could anyone NOT want to be part something as high concept as Dazzler?

To fair, Dazzler was supposed to be a HUGE media tie-in character with a Graphic Novel, possible Movie, and definately a real-life singer styled after her. Things didn't go as planned - there were a lot of reworkings of the character. Today I really want to talk about the second or third reworking (out of a possible baker's dozen reworkings Marvel have approved over the years).

When a character isn't working after reconceptualizing, what do you do? You say, "Damn the torpedoes. Full steam ahead!"

Is it just me or is Dazzler starting to do 'the robot' here? That unique sparking thing really gives the dance the freshness it needs. Dazzler, you're a true artist.

Dazzler at her disco best!

Here’s what I suspect happened:

The year was 1981. Defalco and Romita (or whoever the creative team were at the time) were hanging out at the Marvel Bullpen, wondering how they were going to rework the character whose original power was a voice with the same effect as Wonder Woman’s lasso (Bad guy: “I’ll tell you the truth. Just stop singing!”). I kid you not.

They decided to turn the radio on for some inspiration. Their favourite segment was on - the one where they play the song that was number one two years earlier to the day. The Bee Gees were singing a song called “Tragedy” (released in1979). That’s the instant when they came up with Dazzler’s mutant power getting in the way of her singing career, because that’s a tragedy.

Here are a few lyric excerpts from the song in question:

Tragedy
When you lose control
And you got no soul...

[That little bit sounds like Dazzler in a nutshell, doesn’t it?]

Tragedy
When the feeling’s gone
And you can’t go on
It’s tragedy...

[Apparently, she quit the whole hero gig at one stage. It was interfering with her vocal, musical, acting, and modelling ambitions. Our loss, I guess...]

And this little gem of an excerpt is kind of prophetic of fan reaction to Dazzler:

It’s hard to bear
With no one to love you,
You’re going nowhere...

Poor Dazzler. Her career as a superhero is the stuff of tragedy. [Cue the Bee Gees track. Then let the track fade out just as the spotlight fades on Dazzler.]

Serious Superhero Team Webcomics

I’m always on the look-out for serious, action-packed, superhero team webcomics. By ‘serious’ I mean NOT a parody. Comics can have a Blue Beetle character or a Guy Gardner character. That’s fine. As long the stakes in each story are serious. Okay, they have titles like that in print form, but I should be able to get part of my fix online, right?

First up is Alpha Gods (previously known as Young Gods*), which isn’t really a webcomic. It’s a digital comic. Scroll down to read Part One and Two for free.

The second offering is a webcomic and is up to several episodes. It’s called Magellan (think Legion with a smaller cast meets New Mutants)

*Blame Master Artist Barry Windsor Smith who apparently holds the copyright over something called Young Gods, which is a pity ‘cause this creator was inspired by an obscure song either called or containing the words ‘young gods.’ Just love those kind of behind-the-scenes creative stories.

Some evergreen laughter-inducing stuff

Whenever I need a pick-me-up for the soul, I head to interwebs to explore the comics blogosphere for some laughs. Sometimes I find new hilarity, but other times I visit some older fare. The following is such evergreen scholarship and, considering my current superhero project, it might be required refresher course reading...

I present 2005's The top ten lamest superherheroes of all time and its sequel.

More recent is this: The crappiest comic superhero.

I don't agree with every hero on the list, though. For example, Vibe (as noted on the Absorbascon) is NOT lame and doesn't belong on any such list.

I could do a list of my own, but it would mirror my “Why I should write a single issue of Legion” post that I’ll refrain from ever posting. Hint: Bouncing Boy and Matter Eater lad DIE on page one.

True origin of Hal Jordan?

There must be other comic scholars who have posed this question, but...Did they create the characters of Hal Jordan and Captain James T. Kirk from Star Trek from the same mould?

You know, the charismatic hero who traverses the spaceways, has relations with many a human and alien female, doesn’t believe in no-win situations, and gets away with breaking various rules and directives while still being regarded as a great?

There are a pretty staggering number of similarities between the two... For example, I seem to recall Kirk also having to resort to the old “a-space-parasite-made-me-do-it” defence at some time.

Exhibit A: Both seem to share the same stylist.

Exhibit B: Both wear ridiculously tight uniforms (without benefit of a cape to divert the attention gawkers away from...um...assets).

Exhibit C: Both men have been called “a man among men and a hero for the ages.” Again, wearing ridiculously tight outfits will create such impressions.

Exhibit D: Hal Jordan has Barry Allen and Oliver Queen as both best friends and colleagues. Barry and Ollie have had many arguments (read: thinly veiled attempts to trump each other for Hal’s favour) over the years, which Barry could easily win/end in two seconds, but he admires Ollie’s passion for Hal too much.

Question: How does it feel to work with your best friend?

Answer: Much like working with your other best friend...

James Kirk has Spock and Doctor Leonard McCoy as best friends and colleagues. Spock and McCoy have had many arguments (read: thinly veiled attempts to trump each other for Kirk’s favour) over the years, which Spock could easily win/end in two seconds, but he admires McCoy’s passion for Kirk too much.

Seriously, Spock could end it like so...

...or like so...

...or even like so...

...but that's when he often sees McCoy's passion...

Exhibit E: Both Hal (Green Lantern: Rebirth and beyond) and Kirk (in Star Trek: Generations) were ‘reborn’ and fought alongside their successors.

Exhibit F: A river runs through it. Not only is this the name of a movie in which Brad Pitt looks disturbingly like the love-child of his director, Robert Redford, but also another compelling ‘coincidence’ shared between a particular Green Lantern and a Starfleet Captain. Allow me to elucidate...Hal’s surname is Jordan, the name of a river. Captain James T. Kirk’s middle name is Tiberius, which means ‘of the Tiber’, which is also the name of a river.

This is disturbing and off topic...

Exhibit G: Both work or have worked for people who’ve taken style tips from French Cardinal Richelieu.

One of the Guardians

A Starfleet Admiral wearing an outfit that makes his personality pop!

Cardinal Richelieu as style icon

Exhibit H: Both are prone to an unnaturally high incidence of grappling or wrestling with opponents and friends... Hal has the most powerful weapon in the universe on his finger and Captain Kirk’s phaser is set to stun anyway. So, there really no need to get physical. I could have shown a few images here to illustrate, but let’s keep this workplace-safe.

Random comic book research questions

Question 1: How much do comic readers miss letters columns? [This fanboy misses those columns a lot. There was always an interesting comment or question from a reader.]

Question 2: Have some of the letterhacks (peeps who wrote to letters columns) migrated to having comic blogs? If so, to what degree has this happened?

Question 3: What became of those letterhacks who did not make the trek to the comics blogosphere? Did they buy fewer comics becuase of this turn of events?

I ask these questions, because I remember that some folks enjoyed the columns more than the comics themselves (at times). The wholesale elimination of these columns always struck me as the equivalent of a blogger who becomes a published author and then decides to shut down his blog. Damn the marketing and fan interaction opportunities.

I also recall that some editors and assistant editors actually gained quite a following because of their witty responses contained within these columns.

How someone else should tie it all together...

As long as I can remember, speculative short fiction has been in trouble. Okay, that’s not really accurate. It’s short fiction’s print magazines that have (for the better part of last decade or so) been in trouble. Much of this is a reflection of the aging of their consumers and their inability to attract new (and younger) audiences.

A few years ago, when I was still worried about the survival of speculative short fiction, I came up with this idea. I use the past tense since I no longer equate survival of short specfic magazines with the survival of the form. No, I think themed anthologies are the lifeblood of the speculative short form.

Sorry about the rant. Back to the idea, which I can outline, because to pull it off would require lots of capital and it borrows from some of what’s currently being done. But...but...but...if you succeeded in making the numbers work , you’d actually attract new readers to the form (as a sort of a cross-pollination of forms...more on this later).

Let’s say, you focused on the genres of Military SF, Sword and Sorcery, and Supernatural Horror and were interested in minmalist short stories between 2000 and 4000 words. I chose these genres and sub-genres (off the top of my head) because they normally have a lot of visual punch, but you could use others as well.

You could produce online ezine, a print magazine / antho, a podcast series, a comic book antho, and a manga antho from the same stories by asking for a combination of exclusive first print, electronic, audio rights, translation rights, archival rights as well as rights to produce derivative works. Heck, we could go the route of Francis Ford Copolla’s Zoetrope All-story and request all rights, but as a sympathizer with all writers I’d never advise any writer (or publisher) to go this route. I mean, imagine they make a movie based on your work and you find yourself out in the cold.

The key would be that a print story = podcast story = audiobook = online / downloadable story, while comic book + manga would differ by 30 to 35% from the original short story (and from each w.r.t.  visual communication and amount of dialogue used) in terms of say the ending. This is where the derivative rights would come in. The Comic and Manga versions would already differ (in a legal sense) just because the forms are so different. Again, I'm not a lawyer and am only really familiar with rights usually granted with prose short fiction, so I could have omitted other necessary rights.

Back to the cross-pollination aspect:  If a person buys the comic book, they could receive the podcast or audiobook (which is 30 to 35% different) for free. This could be applied to various other buy-one-form-get-one-free combinations.

Since a Pro rate for a short story comes in at 6 cents a word (last I checked) and taking into account all the rights the writer would be granting, a fair payment might be US$360 (max 4000 @ 8 cents a word) upfront PLUS some % on the back end. Again this depends on the capital available.

Of course, the real cost would come from labour: slush readers, editors, webmasters, digital artists, mangaka (or rather pencillers who can draw manga style since mangaka are usually one-person acts), comic pencillers*, inkers, letterers, colourists. The comic dudes above would work on a work-for-hire to simplify copyright issues, etcetera. You could add comic writers to alter the story for comic form, but some consultation between editors and artists should take care of that.

*An important requirement for pencillers is to be able to draw from a short story instead of a full comic script. It occurs to me that doing this is closer to Marvel Style than Full Script.

General comic script formats (at least, the ones I’ve heard of):

1. Full Script
This is the format for writer-control-freaks, which is why I opted to learn this format! Basically, this is a page-by-page, panel-by-panel, break-down of what the writer wants to see. It involves panel descriptions (what must appear in each panel, including setting, action, captions and dialogue). The artist uses this as a guide to pencil the story.

2. Plot Script (a.k.a. Marvel Style a.k.a. Plot First a.k.a. Plot-art-dialogue)
This format involves the writer creating a synopsis of the plot, breaking it down to the page level, supplying action and setting. At this stage, the writer mentions only some of the dialogue (if any). Then the artist pencils the comic and, as a side effect, has the most control over the pacing and panel composition of the comic. Only afterwards, does the writer add the captions and dialogue.

Looking back, a lot of the Marvel’s internal story logic makes sense now... “There’s not enough space for Iron Man to explain his actions fully. Maybe, I can delete this section of dialogue and let reader’s imagination fill in the rest. Of course, this is a trial scene and he’s defending himself by giving a minute-by-minute account of actions, which the reader didn’t see, on the night in question. And there aren’t any witnesses or closed circuit cameras. What’s worse, the next page is splash page Avengers-S.H.I.E.L.D.-Skrull slugfest...Damn you, Bendisverse!”

3. Kurtzman Style
This involves drawing rough thumbnail sketches and scribbling down all the dialogue and captions inside these sketches. Then, the real artist transforms these sketches into real pencilled comic panels.

I only mentioned this tiresome-sounding format, because of Kurzman’s association with EC Comics and their association with horror comics and my idea’s reliance on supernatural horror. I can’t draw, so this format isn’t for me. Best left to writer-artists, maybe?

Anyway, see how a Marvel-style proficient artist would be better for translating short stories to comics or manga?

I even thought of a catchy name B.O.S.S. [Based On Short Stories]. Hopefully, Hugo Boss wouldn’t have problem with the name. This idea requires a lot of money to realise and may be slow to turn a profit, so only millionnaires and media conglomerates need attempt it.