Lost in Translation

Careful readers probably have picked up on this already, but I do not live in the United States at the moment. I currently reside in the Mediterranean country of Spain, which puts me in a rather awkward position regarding comics and other media. For the most part, I do not like to purchase or read translated material very much because even the best of translations lose something along the way, and in my mind it feels as I am reading or watching a different material altogether. I have had the chance to read some titles both in English and Spanish and there is a noticeable difference in them (at least to me). Luckily through the Internet and a local shop that carries material in English, I can keep up with my comic reading habit. I wanted to talk a little about some of the things that occur with translations, and one very special case that I have not decided what I am going to do about it.

The most obvious problem in translation is the names of superheroes, and the way they decide to translate them are rather uniform. Some characters have the same name as they do in English, such as Thor and Superman (even though this one could easily be translated into "Superhombre"). Of course, not all of them are as straightforward, for example Spider-Man is mostly called just that, but people pronounce it using a Spanish pronunciation (roughly, espeedher man) and Batman is also called by his rightful name, but his alias Bruce Wayne is instead called Bruno Diaz in some Spanish-speaking countries. There are some straightforward translations, such as "Mister Fantastico" instead of Mister Fantastic and "Linterna Verde" for Green Lantern. Some work and some don't, especially when the translation leads to multiple words like Nightwing being "Ala Nocturna" or Hawkeye being "Ojo de Halcón". Additionally, Captain America becomes Capitan America, which is also pretty straightforward, but his nickname instead of being "Cap" is "Capi" which sounds kind of diminutive to me. And finally, there are some cases where whoever translated the comic books took great liberties. Deadpool for example is known as "Masacre" in some countries, and Martian Manhunter is "Detective Marciano". To make matters worse, different countries have different translations. When I was younger I used to watch the 90's X-Men animated series in Argentina (where I'm originally from), Rogue was called "Titania" and Wolverine was "Guepardo" (the literal translation), but here in Spain, the former is known as "Picara" and the latter as "Lobezno" (which translates into Wolf Cub, I have no idea what they call Wolf Cub from New/Young X-Men). Team names also suffer from some of these same problems, like the X-Men called "Hombres X" or "Patrulla X" depending on the country and the Avengers are known as "Los Vengadores" (which makes me wonder what the catchphrase that replaces "Avengers Assemble!" is).

Another problem that I have with translations is the actual interpretation of the text. When you read titles like Spider-Man, Cable and Deadpool, or any other comic that has a big comedic portion to it, puns, jokes and one-liners are greatly lost in translation. I have not read any comics in Spanish featuring the Riddler, but a lot of his riddles are play on words, so I can't imagine those making a lot of sense either. Curses and insults are another problem altogether, where sometimes literal translations end up sounding not as threatening or just downright goofy (I can't imagine what reading a Garth Ennis comic in Spanish would be like). And I do not if it is just me on this one, but when I read a character speaking Spanish, it sounds completely different that the voice I hear in my head than I would if I was reading that comic in English instead.

Aside from also suffering from the above problems, voice translations when it comes to movies and TV series, have a whole new set of problems. First of all (and I have no idea why) apparently there isn't a whole lot of Spanish voice actors because sometimes you are watching a dubbed movie and you will notice it is the same voice actor as something else you have watched previously. Basically every little girl in any movie that is put on TV will have the same voice actor as Lisa from the Simpsons. Other times, actors are given voice overs that do not match the original voice, or a combination with the point I was making earlier, like Jim Carey and Bruce Willis getting the same person doing the voiceover in different movies. And this is where my problem comes in: I want to see the Watchmen movie, which opens next week (March 6th), and has the same name in Spanish. It's odd that it is not translated somehow, and I think the closest translation would be "Vigilantes", and in that case the tag line would be "Quien vigila a los vigilantes?". For some reason, movie theaters here do not show movies in the original languages with subtitles, I would not mind watching it like that. Instead, they opt for completely dubbed movies and as I have stated which I find to be detrimental to the movie. On one hand, I really want to see the movie (which looks absolutely gorgeous visually and appears that it will be very faithful to the original material) the week it opens, and on the other I want to wait for the DVD release, where I would be able to see the finished product as it was intended. Decisions, decisions. What do you, my faithful 15 readers, think I should do about this dilemma?

Expect the Unexpected

X-Factor has been the name of three different groups or organizations, but currently it is the name of a detective agency that deals with issues and cases regarding mutants. The current X-Factor, which spun out of the events that happened House of M and the previous success of a mini-series called "Madrox", is one of the best titles out there on the market and most definitely the best "X" title on stands right now (and there's plenty of competition from Carey's X-Men, Kyle and Yost's X-Force, First Class by Jeff Parker, etc.). While it is not a huge commercial success, it is very different from other team books. One of the tag lines of the series when it began was "X-pect the unX-pected " and Peter David, after forty issues as the sole writer of X-Factor, continues to deliver the unexpected. The series has struggled during it's run for various different reasons, which I is what I want to talk about and explore in this entry.


First of all, the most obvious shortcoming the series had is the protagonists: none of them are A-listers and probably (at least before the series started) no one's favorites characters. The leading role belongs to James Madrox, also known as Multiple Man, a character that Peter David has written before in the old X-Factor team (from the late 80's) and the aforementioned mini-series. Rounding up the team are two former teammates of Jamie, Strong Guy and Wolfsbane, a former Generation X character, Monet, two former members of X-Force, Syrin and Rictor , and an almost-original character, Layla Miller. Like I said, not exactly popular or well known characters, but Mr. David has fleshed out the personalities so much on the course of his run that it would not be weird to hear comic book readers proclaim James Madrox or Layla Miller as one of their favorite characters. Even though Multiple Man is the clear leading man of the drama that is X-Factor, every character gets the spotlight at one point or the other, where they get to shine or at least deliver some great lines. A great example of this is issue thirteen of the series, called "Re-X-amination" (they just love to use those X puns), where the whole team is psychoanalyzed by Doc Samson, and all the personalities are wonderfully showcased by Peter David, with each character having his or her own voice and personal psychosis. The fantastic character work done is complimentary to the noir aspect that title often dwells in, something not very common in mainstream comic books, and it probable lead to the title struggling to find the right audience during it's beginnings.

Another aspect where X-Factor has struggled is in the art department: if comic books were bands, X-Factor would be Spinal Tap. All jokes aside, it is incredible just how many artists this series has gone through: Ryan Sook, Dennis Calero, Ariel Olivetti, Renato Arlem, Roy Allen Martinez, Pablo Raimondi, Khoi Pham, Valentine De Landro, Scot Eaton, Larry Stroman and Nelson (no last name, apparently) have all contributed to the series. This is especially troubling when you consider that the series is only forty issues long, an average of less than 4 issues per artist (although some have repeated their art duties, and some others only contributed for only one issue). In my humble personal opinion, and not to undermine some of the great artists that have contributed to the series, Pablo Raimondi is the X-Factor artist (he also provided the art for the original Madrox mini) as he seems to have the best handle on all of the characters. I wish he could be (and I have no idea why he is not) the regular artist for the series month in-and-out, that way X-Factor could have a look as consistent as the writing. Sadly, X-Factor suffered from having what I consider to be the worst art I have ever seen in a Marvel series from the last couple of years, at the hands of Larry Stroman . I have mentioned before that I do not like to complain about art, because I have zero talent when it comes to drawing, unless it is completely detrimental to the story. Stroman's art definitely falls under that category, and I was not the only one to think so. I heard plenty of people stopped following the title when he came on board and sales numbers seem to confirm that, with issue 33, the first one he was in selling around fifty thousand copies, while subsequent issues selling around thirty-four thousand or so units.

And the final hardship that the current X-Factor series has had to suffer is something that many fans complain about, and something I have mentioned before, event fatigue. Since X-Factor is not a straight out superhero title like all others, the events tend to hinder the normal plot and character development of the series which is normally more down-to-Earth, at least in the "missions" that the team goes through. X-Factor has been affected by almost every major event in the last couple of years (with the exception of World War Hulk), and the title hits some of it's lowest points during said events. During Civil War, the team made a stand against the registration act, which put it in an awkward position, as the rest of mutants stayed outside of the events (well, for the most part). Endangered Species did not effect the title very much, as it was more of a status quo than an actual event. The real damage came from the event that affected all X-Men teams called "Messiah CompleX", which lead to X-Factor losing not one but two of it's members (and Multiple Man got a tattoo). Wolfsbane ended up joining X-Force, a good book, but one where she is extremely redundant and almost not her former self from X-Factor. Additionally, Layla Miller got stuck in an alternate dystopian future (that's comic books for you) with apparently no means back. Trying to read the title during this event without additionally reading the other titles involved in the event is almost futile, as most of the current plots take a back seat to the events involving the rest of the X-teams. I hardly doubt that this was part of Peter David's original vision for the book, and during Secret Invasion, he filled those empty roles in the form of Longshot and Darwin. Sadly, during Secret Invasion, the book also fell to the standard "Who's a skrull?" game that every other book was doing at the time.

Despite some of the misgivings and missteps that X-Factor has gone through, it is still an excellent read. The last two issues (thirty-nine and forty) have driven the title back to the original "expect the unexpected" form of storytelling, where the reader is not sure what is going to happen next. I wish I could say more about it, but Mr. David has urged readers and reviewers alike not to spoil it for anyone, and I intend to listen to him. After all, he has provided me with plenty of entertainment and I owe at least that to him. But if you are not reading X-Factor, because you stopped during the events or because of the art or you just never bothered to check it out, you are seriously missing out on one of the best titles in stands today.

Marvel's New Noise

First of all, I would like to say that I am a bigger Marvel fan than a DC fan, both in the comics I prefer to read and in the quantity that I consume them. The whys and wherefores of this are a matter of discussion for another day, but I wanted to point out before I go about today's blog. It feels to me than Marvel is better at attracting and helping new writers develop a fan base than DC. I am obviously not saying that Marvel has better talent (not to mention that such a claim comes to down to a reader's preference), as DC has some great writers such as Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka, Gail Simone, Kurt Busiek, etc. These writers are all great professionals that have been in the industry for a long time, and that's where the "problem" comes about. It is important for a company to foster new or rarely heard voices in the industry in order to create new ideas and stay relevant. I believe that Marvel does a better job in this aspect of their company, "grabbing" and fostering new writers and giving them high profile jobs.

One of my favorite writers currently working at Marvel is the wonderful Jason Aaron. According to Wikipedia, Aaron's first work was for DC's Vertigo imprint with the The Other Side mini-series and the still ongoing Scalped series (which I highly recommend). Even though he is still working on Scalped, Aaron has moved on to writing for Marvel, getting exponentially bigger assignments over time: first a back-up Wolverine story, then a critically acclaimed four issue story on the same title (Get Mystique), the main writing duties of Ghost Rider and a fill-in for Black Panther's Secret Invasion tie-in which I have already mentioned. Finally, Marvel has given him a new title, featuring our favorite short Canadian superhero with metal claws, called Wolverine: Weapon X. In just a couple of years, Jason Aaron has gone from his Vertigo critical-darling creator owned work to writing one of Marvel's most profitable characters, earning plenty of praise from fans and critics along the way.

Five years ago, Matt Fraction was writing comics and graphic novels in indie presses. Much like Aaron, Fraction was given increasingly important writing jobs, first working alongside Ed Brubaker in the popular revival of the Immortal Iron Fist. A couple of years later, and he has under his belt a two year run on Punisher, a ten issue almost-creator-owned series in the form of The Order, and a group of very critically acclaimed Thor one-shots collectively known as the Ages of Thunder series. Fraction is currently writing two of Marvel's flagship titles, Invincible Iron Man and Uncanny X-Men. Even if Fraction is somewhat hit or miss for me, to the point where I either hate or love his work (and I will abstain from going into a full list of which titles fall under each category), I have to admire the man for getting so many promotions in such a short period of time so he must be doing something right.


I could go on for a very long time, but it's usually the same story over and over. Marvel has writers like Greg Pak (who in a few years single-handledly reinvigorated the Hulk franchise among other works), Fred Van Lente (writing one of the best ongoing series, Incredible Hercules, and other fun mini series), Jonathan Hickman (co-writer of Secret Warriors and who is set to take over Fantastic Four), Christos Gage (having written more awesome fill-ins and mini-series that I can count) and Duane Swierczynski (currently writing Cable, Immortal Iron Fist and Punisher: Frank Castle) to compliment their older veterans like DnA, Warren Ellis, Mike Carey and Peter David. Of course, DC also has some new or young writers, like John Rogers (Blue Beetle), Marc Andreyko (Manhunter), G. Willow Wilson (Vixen), Sterling Gates (Supergirl) and Peter Tomasi (who has been working in the industry for long time as an editor but only recently started writing comics), but it seems to me that other than Tomasi the new writers get stuck in the back alleys of the DC universe and it is a lot harder to get a spot in the flagship titles. DC has a lot of up and coming writers, but they are mostly under the Vertigo and Wildstorm imprints and only some of of them also write super hero comics for the main universe.

In conclusion, it seems that either by design or by practice, Marvel has a younger set of writers than DC. I personally believe it is good that the company foments new talent, even if it is not always a commercial hit or critically acclaimed. I personally have been enjoying the current direction in the Marvel universe, and so have a lot more readers if the sale numbers are to be believed. Should DC start tapping into younger writers to help shape their universe? Or is it fine as it is, being handled by professionals that know what to do with the characters?

NextWave is Love

To continue with the theme in yesterday's post, where I discussed love in comics, today I will discuss one of the more primal reasons why I love comics. Sure, characterization is important, and a compelling storyline is almost essential for most readers. Most people first fell in love with comics when they were young children, and what caught our eyes the most at that age were huge explosions and mindless violence. NextWave - Agents of H.A.T.E., a 12 issue series from 2006, is basically explosions, mindless violence, taped together by an insanely thin plot. Warren Ellis, the writer of the series, admittedly came up with the idea when drunk, and basks into the decadence of the super-hero genre. Instead of trying to give the readers something deep and thought provoking, it completely embraces the insanity of comic books and created (what I think) is a modern masterpiece of comic books.

The series only lasted a bit more than a year and was never a huge commercial success, with sales number usually in between twenty and thirty thousand units (even with a Civil War tie-in cover). The real success, fueled by Warren Ellis' absurdity and Stuart Immonen's sometimes surreal drawings, was the lasting impact it had on the characters. The team was made up of four rather unpopular heroes (Photon/Monica Rambeau, Machine Man/Aaron Stack, Elsa Bloodstone, and Boom Boom/Tabitha Smith) and one original creation (The Captain) and put them together. The members of NextWave were crude, mean, petty and sometimes downright stupid, constantly bickering and insulting each other, a great departure from their previously heroic personalities. Besides, the out-of-character persona of the protagonists, the story in NextWave also feature flashbacks into other Marvel characters acting oddly, such as Captain America telling Photon to get him dinner and the Celestials calling Machine Man a "total $#!&". From the beginning, it seemed like NextWave would be set outside of regular Marvel continuity (Ellis and Quesada both stated so), but once the series ended and the dust settled, a lot of other creators picked up on the events in NextWave and slowly did their best to make the 616 universe mirror the series.

For example, during Civil War (by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven) we see Monica Rambeau wearing the same trench-coat that she wore during NextWave (and according to the script by Ellis, the coat was part of the uniform of the team)


The whole team appeared in a promotional art/cover for Avengers - The Initiative (right under the "THE"). And in the pages of Civil War - Battle Damage Report, it says that they all have registered with the Super Hero Registration Act.

In a story from X-Men - Manifest Destiny (by James Asmus and Chris Burnham), Tabitha Smith has the airhead and materialistic personality that she had in NextWave and she even claims to have been part of the team (and Beast doesn't know what that is).


Additionally, after the marriage of Black Panther and Storm (by Reginald Hudlin and Scot Eaton), the newlyweds receive a gift from a certain "Kirk" of the Beyond Corp. (one of the antagonists of the NextWave team).


The big winner of the whole series was Aaron Stack, after NextWave his popularity skyrocketed. He appeared in the pages of Marvel Comics Presents (by Ivan Brandon and Niko Henrichon), where it is revealed that he was currently living in the floating city that NextWave stole at the end of the series and he also mentions the part with the Celestials.


Machine Man also appeared in the pages of Ms. Marvel (by Brian Reed and company) where she joined the regular cast of Ms. Marvel's team. In this series, Machine Man solicited, as part of his deal with SHIELD, a Life Model Decoy of the aforementioned Monica Rambeau which he ends up using as his back-up body.


And finally, he was given the main role in the third series of the popular Marvel Zombies franchise (by Fred Van Lente and Kev Walker) where we see more of his now trademarked dislike for the "fleshy ones", especially of the undead kind.

So as you can see, I was not the only one that loved NextWave - Agents of H.A.T.E. Hopefully the higher ups at Marvel will decide to grant us another series, Warren Ellis himself stated that he would like to continue working on the team. And even if that never happens, at least I know that the characters will continue to receive love from all the other writers that also seemed to enjoy the explosions, insults and mindless violence.

Peter and Mary Jane (Or How I Came To Hate Joe Quesada)

Perhaps hate is a strong word, more along the lines of dislike. Tell the truth, I respect the man for helping Marvel out of bankruptcy, but I find that every time he gets involved in trying to tell the stories for the writers, the outcomes is horrendous. The biggest screw-up in his career, in my humble opinion, was the debacle of One More Day, where Peter Parker sold his marriage with Mary Jane Watson to save his octogenarian aunt from death. It has been more than a year since that happen and I have not bought any single issue or collection of Amazing Spider-Man since then in boycott to what I consider to be incredible lazy and uncreative writing. Am I bitter? Maybe, but I think I have a good reason to do so.

I have always been a fan of Spider-Man ever since I was a kid, but I never really started reading the ongoing comics until the J. Michael Straczynski years. Despite what people think about him and his run on ASM (I think Sins Past was a stupid idea as much as the next guy) one of the best things that JMS did was making Peter Parker grow as a person. While responsibility has always been a tenet of the Spider-Man mythos, during his tenure on the title, he gave Peter Parker something else, stability and maturity: Peter was no longer a freelance photographer, he got a job as an elementary school teacher, he had to finally face Aunt May about his alter-ego, and he worked out the problems and issues him and Mary Jane were having (another writer had previously separated them). During the writer's run, Peter and MJ's relationship went through trials and tribulations, but at the end their love was strong enough to mend all injuries. One More Day's greatest crime was not the fact that it undid the marriage (I'm hardly a "sanctity of marriage" kind of guy), but the fact that it destroyed the long-time relationship that these two characters had over time. They weren't always the perfect happy couple, they argued and sometimes they became jealous of each other, but those are things that all real couples must face at one point or the other. Their interests aren't exactly the same, Peter is probably not the kind to be interested in the modeling world and MJ is probably not going to be cracking open a biochemistry book, but that's how people are in real life too.

One of JMS' points about their relationship was that these characters loved each other so much, that without each other they could not function, and that is something that reverberates with me. I have a lovely wife, Janett, and together we have gone through so much that we both have grown as human beings, because our love has kept us together. When we first started going out, her hair was long and red and I have always been the perpetual nerd, so I would jokingly call her (in what is either really cute or really geeky, depends how you view it) "The MJ to my Peter Parker". In an almost petty way, it feels like Quesada and Marvel took that away (even if we still have the older stories), in order to reverse the character to what it was 30 years ago. What is the message that I am supposed to get from this? Married people are not interesting? That if the devil offered me a really good deal, I should give up my wife for it? Or maybe that I am just not the target audience for Amazing Spider-Man anymore (even though I am not that old)? In that case, I guess then it is not incredible petty of me to decide not to buy the comics anymore.

And to end this post of a happier note, I would also like to wish a very happy Valentine's Day (it already is the fourteenth here, but the blog seems to be on U.S. time) to my wife, who I love very much and who also likes to read my blog. I really did hit the jackpot when I met her, and no editorial mandate is going to take her away from me.

The Eternal Debate - Conclusion

And by eternal, I mean for the past 12 or so months. You could not go anywhere in the Internet (well, at least the sites I frequent) without finding a conversation about either Final Crisis or Secret Invasion. Or both. This year's events from the Big Two felt incredibly long, by design or by circumstances, but they are now officially over (Legion of 3 Worlds notwithstanding), which allows us to look at both events objectively, or at least as objectively as comic book readers can get.

That is where I come in. I want to look at the different aspects of both events, measure them up against each other and see who comes up on top. To do so, I have chosen several categories (or rounds) which will allow me to compare both sides of the 2008 Special Edition Event Coin. If you have not yet read both series in their entirety, there will be spoilers ahead. Oh, yeah, and the point system may or may not be arbitrary or what most people consider fair. You have been warned.

The Conclusion

The Eternal Debate, at least for this humble blogger, is officially over with the final score being Secret Invasion 4 - Final Crisis 3. I feel this represents my feelings about the events quite nicely. Secret Invasion worked better as an event: it was reader friendly and it will probably be a huge commercial success once the final sale numbers are posted, the repercussions of it were felt all across the Marvel Universe garnering interest from readers and creating new opportunities for writers, and presented an uniform look that came out in a timely and organized fashion. Final Crisis was the better story, rewarding and entertaining in it's own way, but I feel it would have worked better as a stand alone story, rather than a huge summer event.

In case you have missed it, here are the links for all six parts of The Eternal Debate:

Part I - The Death
Part II - The Return
Part III - The Spin-Offs
Part IV - The Tie-Ins
Part V - The Art
Part VI - The Story

The Eternal Debate - Part VI : Final Crisis vs. Secret Invasion (The Story)

And by eternal, I mean for the past 12 or so months. You could not go anywhere in the Internet (well, at least the sites I frequent) without finding a conversation about either Final Crisis or Secret Invasion. Or both. This year's events from the Big Two felt incredibly long, by design or by circumstances, but they are now officially over (Legion of 3 Worlds notwithstanding), which allows us to look at both events objectively, or at least as objectively as comic book readers can get.

That is where I come in. I want to look at the different aspects of both events, measure them up against each other and see who comes up on top. To do so, I have chosen several categories (or rounds) which will allow me to compare both sides of the 2008 Special Edition Event Coin. If you have not yet read both series in their entirety, there will be spoilers ahead. Oh, yeah, and the point system may or may not be arbitrary or what most people consider fair. You have been warned.

Secret Invasion is leading against Final Crisis 4 - 2 as we reach the final lap of the Eternal Debate.

The Story

Not to undermine the very talented people that contribute the art to the stories, but for many readers, the story is the deal breaker when it comes to purchasing a comic or not. I have heard from many people that they will put up with insulting art as long as the story is good enough. In this post, I will not be re-telling, summarizing or annotating the totality of what happens in either Secret Invasion or Final Crisis, and I will talk about spoilers freely, so I urge you to go read the stories first (and form your own opinion, hopefully). For the purpose of this review, I will only be talking mostly about the events and writing of the main mini series and none of the tie-ins. I understand that both events benefit from reading the tie-ins (more so for Final Crisis, something that I have mentioned in one of my previous posts), but I feel that to be more objective with my review I must judge this from the eye of a casual reader who will only pick up the main event and not shell out the extra money for the tie-ins that Marvel and DC put out.

Secret Invasion, a story apparently long in the making inside the mind of Brian Michael Bendis, was a very good idea but not properly thought or fleshed out. The main idea behind it is that the Skrulls, a shape-shifting race of aliens, want to take over the Earth because one of their religious books claims that it rightfully belongs to them. To do so, they came up with a new technology that allows them to clone the superpowers and appearances (that no earthly means could apparently reveal) of any superheroes that they could get their hands on, and used it to infiltrate various super-teams and organizations of Earth. The Skrulls' plan, which was planned for years, seemingly fails with ease once Reed Richards is freed and their Invasion only lasts one miserable day. The events of Secret Invasion effectively portray how worldwide the invasion is, we see plenty of places around the world face the alien invasion (albeit briefly), even if the majority of the forces and events happen in New York (the home of most super heroes in the Marvel Universe). The problem arises from the fact that this invasion force declared victory (and announced it to the whole world) way too early, before all the heroes were defeated or accounted for. Bendis did not properly evoke the feeling that the Skrull army was victorious, and the lack of the passage of time only made matters worse (as I said, the mini series took 8 months to come out, but only one or two days passed in the story). There were also problems with the power set of the skrulls: the camouflaging effect wasn't explained in the series (you had to read the tie-ins for that) and just how powerful they were (some supposedly had the power of Black Bolt, which even at a fraction of the original, is pretty damn powerful but they could be taken down by Wolverine or Hawkeye). Additionally, the whole skrull armada fell apart the moment the Queen died, which leads me to believe that every one of the skrulls was a foot soldier and there were no commanding officers (even though some were shown in the series). Finally, the series ends with the President of the United States disbanding SHIELD, a United Nations-sponsored organization that is not controlled by one single nation. The plot holes and mistakes range from rather subtle to obvious, but they are still there and they affect the story that Bendis wanted to tell.

Grant Morrison was at helm of writing Final Crisis and it is very easy to tell. The story picks up on a lot of themes that Morrison has written about in the past, such as the nature of stories and the fourth wall in comics (Animal Man), international heroes (New X-Men) and Superman as a symbol of hope (All-Star Superman). The story is dense and full of details to go over and over, as proved by all the sites that provide annotations for the whole event. To provide a summary of the events of Final Crisis would be beyond the scope of this blog and would take me way too long, so I would recommend reading it yourself at least twice. I originally read Final Crisis in the monthly format it came out in and found it extremely disappointing, but as preparations for this blog, I re-read it and found myself liking it more with each additional reading. To say that Final Crisis is without flaw, however, would be an outright lie. First of all, Final Crisis is as not-new-reader-friendly as events can be: to get a full understanding of all the events, characters, and themes you would need a very good knowledge of the DC universe and a good portion of Morrison's previous work (such as Seven Soldiers, which I have not read and lead to me not knowing what Frankestein was doing in the DC universe). Even long time readers claimed to have trouble following the story, even though events are usually used by the Big Two to attract new readers. The writing style, I've seen it referred as "channel-zapping", is supposed to portray how chaotic the events of this crisis are, but I found to it to be detrimental to the story because of how much information the reader is being bombarded. It just feels that there is too much information and too little space to show it all or expand on what we see (for example, Aquaman shows up for one panel and then we know nothing else about it). As previously discussed, the Morrison-penned tie-ins for Final Crisis are very important, so the events shown on the main mini-series seem disjointed or just missing information (like Superman stepping out on Lois and then showing back 3 issues later).

The obvious allegory between Secret Invasion and Final Crisis is that between a good action movie and an ambitious art film. One is aimed to entertain, especially if you turn the suspension of disbelief all the way to eleven, while the other one is a study of certain topics, characters, or situations by the author, and your enjoyment of it is relatively tied to your interest of the topic. One will have you repeating awesome one-liners ("My God has a hammer" or "Nick Fury was right") with your friends and the other one makes you question the real meaning behind certain scenes (like Batman being hit by the Omega sanction or what Superman's wish for a happy ending really meant). Secret Invasion had a wider appeal and was entertaining for what it was, but Final Crisis is something completely different: Morrison told the story he wanted to tell, and it is not meant for everyone. Like I mentioned above, I disliked it at first but the story grew on me after repeated readings while Secret Invasion's repeated readings led to its misgivings becoming more apparent. Because of this, I feel that DC's Final Crisis, and Grant Morrison, wins this final round.

The Eternal Debate - Part V : Final Crisis vs. Secret Invasion (The Art)

And by eternal, I mean for the past 12 or so months. You could not go anywhere in the Internet (well, at least the sites I frequent) without finding a conversation about either Final Crisis or Secret Invasion. Or both. This year's events from the Big Two felt incredibly long, by design or by circumstances, but they are now officially over (Legion of 3 Worlds notwithstanding), which allows us to look at both events objectively, or at least as objectively as comic book readers can get.

That is where I come in. I want to look at the different aspects of both events, measure them up against each other and see who comes up on top. To do so, I have chosen several categories (or rounds) which will allow me to compare both sides of the 2008 Special Edition Event Coin. If you have not yet read both series in their entirety, there will be spoilers ahead. Oh, yeah, and the point system may or may not be arbitrary or what most people consider fair. You have been warned.

After yesterday's interlude, we now resume the Eternal Debate with the last round being a tie and Secret Invasion leading 3 - 2 against Final Crisis.

The Art

If I am completely honest, I have to admit that I am probably the farthest thing from an artist. Ask me to draw a person and you would probably get a stick figure out of it, I would have no idea how to ink the finished result, and I would also probably struggle to color inside the lines. I remember my wife once saw an old drawing I had to do for school and she pointed out how I have a good understanding of perspective but sadly, I do not have much of anything else in terms of artistic skill. Therefore I feel a bit hypocritical to point out flaws and misgivings in any art, and especially so for comic book artists who work under stressful deadlines and illustrating the ideas of someone else, which is no easy feat. Unless the art is completely distracting or harming the story, I do not feel the need to make a huge deal out of errors or mistakes in it. Luckily, the Big Two always save up the best artists for events like Secret Invasion and Final Crisis.

The art duties for Secret Invasion were handled by the team of Leinil Francis Yu (penciller), Mark Morales (inker), and Laura Martin (colorist). Additionally, Gabriele Dell’Otto provided gorgeous painted covers for the whole mini series. Yu's artwork is full of kinetic energy, the panels are very clear and easy to read, and his work on facial expressions conveys the right emotions (most of the time). The script by Bendis gives Yu plenty of exotic locales to draw, such as the Savage Land and outer space, and a great load of heroes to fill the pages with. There's plenty of huge group shots and double page spreads that Yu uses effectively, channeling the detailed work of George Perez at times. The only complain I have about Yu's artwork is that he has a tendency to make the chin of his male figures very protruding. For characters like Thor and Luke Cage, who have a bigger body type, it is not as noticeable but when he draws it the same way on Spider-Man and Iron Fist, who have a smaller frame, I can't help but notice it. The work of Morales and Martin is incredibly well done, complementing Yu's work greatly. The colors are sometimes a little too bright to the eye, giving a very shiny aspect to materials that shouldn't be so reflective. The ink lines and shadows are rather thick and noticeable, which I like, but might not be to every reader's liking or preference. Overall, the art of Secret Invasion is quite pleasing to the eye and only suffers from minor missteps.

Final Crisis' art was handled by what can only be described as an ensemble of creators (according to Wikipedia): J.G. Jones, Carlos Pacheco, Doug Mahnke (pencillers), Jesus Merino, Christian Alamy, Tom Nguyen, Drew Gerasi, Norm Rapmund, Rodney Ramos, Walden Wong, Dough Mahnke (inkers), Alex Sinclair, Pete Pantazis, Tony Aviña (colorists) and Marco Rudy (the Wikipedia page files him under "Artists" with J.G. Jones, but I am not sure what he did exactly). There is a reason behind this extraordinarily long list of artists: J.G. Jones was originally set to be the main and only penciller of the series, but circumstances caused him to be late and DC decided to bring Pacheco and Mahnke to help him and eventually take over him. By the final issue of the series, Doug Mahnke took over all of the penciller duties (even doing some of his own inks), but because the book was already late, DC did all within its powers (in this case, bringing a number of colorists and inkers) to get the book out on time. J.G. Jones, however, did provide some beautiful covers for the entirety of the series. As for the interior, Morrison's script gave the artists plenty to work with, filling the pages with strange characters and some very particular panel work (somewhat reminiscent of We3). In turn the artists delivered some very memorable scenes such as Superman holding Batman's corpse and Barry Allen making his return. Alex Sinclair, the colorist that worked on the greatest portion of the series, conveyed a world that is at times filled with bleakness and destruction and at times filled with hope and the incredible. There was, however, one very noticeable mishap on the pages of Final Crisis 06, Shilo Norman who was previously shown as being black skinned was colored in a way that made him look Asian. In the end, the biggest feat by the huge art team was to emulate the original artists properly and finish thsis series in a timely fashion.

Both Final Crisis and Secret Invasion featured top notch art by some of the best artists in the medium. There is no denying the fact that Jones, Pacheco, Mahnke and the rest ofthe team delivered some great pages for Final Crisis, but for me the deciding factor for me is the uniformity of the artwork in Secret Invasion. I understand that DC is not at fault here, J.G. Jones himself admitted that it was his fault, and I understand that you can't plan for the unexpected (unless you are Batman). The end result of this was that Final Crisis' ending pages look different than the ones at the begining and I think that harms the flow of the story, especially when you consider this is a mini-series. I feel that at the end of the day, I must reward this round to Marvel and Secret Invasion for the consistent look that was provided by their art team, even if both events had great artists.

Interlude: Loeb On The Ultimate Line

We interrupt the special programming of "The Eternal Debate" to bring you this news report. Sadly, it has to do with much maligned Jeph Loeb. Rokk , when I started this blog, gave me some friendly and good advice: "Be careful not to become an Internet echo chamber". He is right, it is very easy to be just another snarky jester in the ocean of snarky jesters that is the Internet, but I just read an interview with Jeph Loeb from the New York ComicCon and I face-palmed from the stupidity of this man. Allow me to elaborate, and for that we have to travel all the way back to early 2001...

In 2001, Marvel decided to create a new line of comics: The Ultimate Universe. The whole point of the Ultimate Universe was to re-imagine classic Marvel characters such as Spider-Man, X-Men, Fantastic Four, and the Avengers without any of the continuity baggage that they have been lugging around for the past 40 years. The experiment, at least in the early years, was considered a wild success, it became a popular, commercial, and critical success. The two biggest masterminds behind the new Ultimate Universe were Mark Millar, writing Ultimate X-Men, and Brian Michael Bendis, writing Ultimate Spider-Man. Following the down-to-basics success of these two titles, Marvel expanded the line and created The Ultimates: a re-imagining of Marvel's beloved Avengers. The Ultimates received two mini-series written by Mark Millar where characters like Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Giant Man, Wasp and Hulk operated as government agents (working for SHIELD) and every one of them had very distinct personalities (especially when compared to their mainstream counterparts). The series was very politically-minded without coming across as downright preachy, entertaining without coming across as just eye-candy, and interesting but very new-reader friendly. I personally loved both mini-series and would recommend them to almost everyone (the only exception being old-school Avengers fans who might not like the new interpretations and their personalities). But then, tragedy struck...

Alright, so maybe I am exaggerating a bit, but Jeph Loeb was giving the helms of a new mini-series concerning the Ultimates. The new series was very, very, very bad. The characters just became cardboard cutouts of their former selves, moving through the motions without any of their previous personalities. Questionable writing is nothing new and something that all comics readers are in someway used to in one way or the other. Jeph Loeb almost completely ignored everything that happened during Millar's run, turning the Ultimates more and more into their original versions in the 616 Marvel Universe:

• Ultimate Thor started speaking in "ye olde" speak and carrying a stone hammer instead of the usual battle metal axe/hammer combination he had before.
  
• Ultimate Wolverine and Ultimate Spider-Man make an appearance. At the time, Wolverine and Spider-Man were also part of the New Avengers.
• Ultimate Pyro went from being a hero to being a villain.
• Ultimate Scarlet Witch lost control of her powers, just like in House of M. Her outfit also resembled her mainstream version.
• Ultimate Wasp stopped being Asian (without explanation) and became the de facto leader.
  
• Hank Pym went from using the codename Giant Man to using Yellowjacket instead.
  

That is just off the top of my head, I am sure there were more disregards for the stories that came before. Of course, this isn't always inherently a bad thing: Alan Moore on his first (or was it second?) issue in his legendary run of Swamp Thing completely changed the character to great results. The problem raises from the fact that Jeph Loeb is no Alan Moore. The writing in Ultimates 3 was as subtle as a bull in a china shop, full of cheap "shocking" moments, and with atrocious dialogue. For some mysterious reason Ultimates 3 sold well (I'm blaming Joe Madueira, the artist), but the series was almost universally panned by critics. Marvel additionally gave Loeb another mini-series called Ultimatum, a continuation of the events in Ultimates, in which many of the original characters are dying left and right and the writing continues to be equally underwhelming. During an interview with CBR, Loeb had this to say:

"The problem became that – specifically pointing to what Bendis was doing on the Avengers – he took some of what Mark [Millar] had done and made them much more dark and unpredictable than they'd ever been before, and that book took off...justifiably. But pretty soon, the line between what went on in the Marvel Universe and what went on in the Ultimate Universe became very blurred, and you didn't have that same unique quality that the Ultimate Universe had when it was first born. So that needed to be addressed. That was what we first set out to do, and I had an idea as to how to do that...called "Ultimatum." "

A fair idea. If the two universes are too similar, they become somewhat redundant and something needs to be changed. The problem rises from something else he said:

"Well, "Ultimates 3" took it out of the political arena and made it closer to what the Avengers originally were. It took place in Tony Stark's world. It was run by Tony Stark, and it was put in a place where the conflicts were internal. The Scarlet Witch was murdered, and everyone reacted to that. The villains they were up against were superhero villains. They were not characters that were recreations or rethinkings of characters that had been in the Marvel Universe."

In case you are not following, Loeb did not like that the Ultimate Universe and the 616 Universe were too similar, so his solution was to make Ultimates 3 as close possibly to the 616 Universe as he could. Flawless logic! To make matters worse, instead of making the Ultimate characters grow to be different, his solution is to kill as many characters as possible and have the survivors deal with that. This is not an incredibly original idea and when you couple it with the fact that his writing is horrendous, I fear for the future of the Ultimate line. If anything, at least I know that I am not the only one that feels this way. In an unrelated interview , Mark Millar was talking about the possibility of other writers exploring the world he created (much like he co-created the Ultimate Universe) in the pages of Old Man Logan:

"One thing I have noticed sometimes is that whenever something is successful – and this is at DC and at Marvel – then there's always a cheap, shoddy follow up by the wrong creative team usually. And then there's an even worse creative team to come and follow them. And then the thing just dies on its arse."

Well, there you have it, my personal rant is over. We now return you to your scheduled program.

The Eternal Debate - Part IV : Final Crisis vs. Secret Invasion (The Tie-Ins)

And by eternal, I mean for the past 12 or so months. You could not go anywhere in the Internet (well, at least the sites I frequent) without finding a conversation about either Final Crisis or Secret Invasion. Or both. This year's events from the Big Two felt incredibly long, by design or by circumstances, but they are now officially over (Legion of 3 Worlds notwithstanding), which allows us to look at both events objectively, or at least as objectively as comic book readers can get.

That is where I come in. I want to look at the different aspects of both events, measure them up against each other and see who comes up on top. To do so, I have chosen several categories (or rounds) which will allow me to compare both sides of the 2008 Special Edition Event Coin. If you have not yet read both series in their entirety, there will be spoilers ahead. Oh, yeah, and the point system may or may not be arbitrary or what most people consider fair. You have been warned.

This is day four of the Eternal Debate, with Secret Invasion taking a lead of 2-1 against Final Crisis.

The Tie-ins

Ask any comic book fan what three aspects of their hobby frustrates him or her more than anything and they will probably tell you the following: continuity (and the disregard for it), volumes (deciding what volume a given comic book is part of) and useless tie-ins, almost always stemming from big events such as Secret Invasion and Final Crisis. Depending on who you ask, and how cynical that person happens to be, tie-ins are either a shameless money grab by the Big Two trying to cash in on the popularity of big events or just a chance for other writers to explore themes from said big events. The truth is that they are probably a bit of both, but there is no denying that some tie-ins are actually very good while others are almost completely useless and only partially related to the main event. The amount of tie-ins in the past year for the two events I'm reviewing is incredible, according to my hand count on Wikipedia, there were more than twenty Final Crisis and around one hundred or so (holy $#!&) Secret Invasion tie-ins.

Final Crisis had a smaller set of tie-ins that were for the most part released as mini-series and one-shots, the most notable exception being the tie-in in Batman's title that were also part of the highly publicized R.I.P. storyline. One of the most exceptional aspects of the Final Crisis tie-ins was that Grant Morrison wrote five of them, and these issues played a very big part to understanding the events of Final Crisis (Morrison himself has released a reading order , and his tie-ins are indeed there). Of course, this is a double edged sword because there is a huge amount of comic readers that did/do not purchase all of the tie-ins, either because of event fatigue or the dwindling economy and shrinking wallets. According to the sales numbers, only about one out of two people that bought Final Crisis 03 also bought the Superman Beyond 01 tie-in, meaning that there's a good portion of the readership that is missing a chapter in their Final Crisis storyline. To make matters worse, the hardcover and paperback collections of Final Crisis are being released as two parts (the main event and a companion book), it almost seems that they are purposely trying to do the opposite of what Morrison says. While the Morrison-written tie-ins are almost essential to understanding the story, the rest have been only tangentially related to the main event but at the same time overall enjoyable (most of them by Geoff Johns and Greg Rucka). As I mention in the introductory paragraph, there is still one tie-in that has not ended, Legion of 3 Worlds, which is kind of ridiculous when you consider the events in this mini-series happen before the events of Final Crisis.

Marvel opted for a different approach for their Secret Invasion tie-ins: they seemed to have thrown everything at the wall and hoped that it would stick. Almost every Marvel ongoing series felt the repercussions of the Skrull invasion in their pages, while the ones that were in the middle of an important story arc were given a special mini-series (such as Fantastic Four, Thor and Spider-Man). Looking at this from a marketing point-of view, this is a genius move from Marvel's side because it forces almost every one of their readers into reading a part of the event. The problem with dealing with such a huge amount of tie-ins is that the end-result is a mixed bag of stories ranging from good, such as Guardians of the Galaxy, to bad, like X-Factor (a title that has only suffered every time it gets dragged into an event). In addition to the above-mentioned tie-ins, there were also several one-shots and special mini-series to further showcase just how global this invasion was. The Secret Invasion tie-ins took place in several locales around the world: Washington (Thunderbolts), San Francisco (X-Men), United Kingdom (Captain Britain and MI13), Wakanda (Black Panther), and even the moon (Secret Invasion - Inhumans). The Black Panther's Secret Invasion tie-in is my personal favorite of the whole bunch; written by Jason Aaron, we not only see the Skrulls in very different light (as soldiers who are just caught in a war and want to head home), we also see the Black Panther deal with the heavy burdens of being a ruler of a land while at the same time battling the Skrulls in a way that would make The God of Prep-Time proud.

DC and Marvel took different approaches to their big event's tie-ins this year. I (obviously) have not read them all, but in sheer terms of quantity Marvel would have won this round. Even if the results weren't that good, the Secret Invasion tie-ins really did help to convey the global (and universal) scale of the Skrull invasion in the Marvel Universe. On the other hand, some tie-ins felt very forced or useless and just harmed the ongoing storyline of some titles. The Final Crisis titles aimed for quality over quantity, with each tie-in focusing on very specific parts of the DC Universe such as the LEGION, Flash, Batman and Checkmate. The only fault (and sadly, it's a big one) that I can find with them is what I mentioned above: if the tie-ins are fundamental to understanding the main story, then they should have been part of the event. I feel that both of the Big Two, while having vastly different approaches, handled the tie-ins in a successful manner with only minor missteps. Therefore, this round is declared a draw and each company adds a point to the scoreboard.

PS: I realize I should have done the post about the tie-ins before the post about the spin-offs, just because it would have flowed better thematically. It's only my fourth day in the blogosphere, I'm allowed to make mistakes.

The Eternal Debate - Part III : Final Crisis vs. Secret Invasion (The Spin-Offs)

And by eternal, I mean for the past 12 or so months. You could not go anywhere in the Internet (well, at least the sites I frequent) without finding a conversation about either Final Crisis or Secret Invasion. Or both. This year's events from the Big Two felt incredibly long, by design or by circumstances, but they are now officially over (Legion of 3 Worlds notwithstanding), which allows us to look at both events objectively, or at least as objectively as comic book readers can get.

That is where I come in. I want to look at the different aspects of both events, measure them up against each other and see who comes up on top. To do so, I have chosen several categories (or rounds) which will allow me to compare both sides of the 2008 Special Edition Event Coin. If you have not yet read both series in their entirety, there will be spoilers ahead. Oh, yeah, and the point system may or may not be arbitrary or what most people consider fair. You have been warned.

Following the last two posts, it's a tie between Final Crisis and Secret Invasion with each having won one round.

The Spin-Offs

Big events are usually among the most sold comics year after year, and the Big Two know this. After the end of each event, there's usually a couple of titles that come out of the events, often dealing with the aftermath or to explore a new aspect of character(s) that played a prominent role. The past few years we have seen quite a few quality titles spin out of big events, titles such as: Blue Beetle (from Infinite Crisis), Booster Gold (from 52), Avengers - The Initiative (from Civil War) and Incredible Hercules (from World War Hulk). While not every spin-off is a critical or commercial success (New Warriors, I'm looking at you), the bar is set pretty high for events to deliver on new or fresh titles.

Spinning out from the aftermath of Marvel's Secret Invasion, we have the Secret Warriors (with the first issue hitting stores this week, coincidentally), a group of novice, new characters being led by Nick Fury, former leader of SHIELD. Fury purposely wanted super-powered people that were not in the public eye, as he feared that any known heroes could be compromised by the Skrull invasion. While they first appeared in the pages of Mighty Avengers, the team showed up together during Secret Invasion in the streets of New York to aid the heroes of the city. Other than that, they did not do a whole lot during the event, other than joining the brawl and surprising the other Marvel heroes. The team is mostly a carte blanche for future creators to explore and expand, and Marvel's character department could certainly use some new blood to pump into their veins. In addition to this title, Secret Invasion has led into the new status quo called Dark Reign (of which there have been a couple of one-shots and tie-ins in several ongoing series) where Norman Osborn is in charge of the security of the United States. Osborn put together a new team, in the pages of the ominously named Dark Avengers, to be his personal right-hand propaganda tool. The team is mostly made up of amoral characters posing as iconic heroes that the general public of the Marvel Universe would recognize.

On the other side of the comic universe, Final Crisis hasn't actually led to any spin-offs. DC announced a couple of one-shots and the participation of four one-shots under the "Faces of Evil" banner, a quasi-event that has been described as "inspirationally tied to Final Crisis". The idea behind these is to showcase villains and the consequences of what happens when evil wins (one of the tag-lines for Final Crisis was "The Day Evil Won"), but the execution has been very uneven. On the other hand, The Super Young Team (the Japanese heroes that seemed to idolize the members of the Justice League) looked like they were bound to get a series out of Final Crisis, and I remember Morrison stating that he wanted to do one in an interview. Why the higher-ups decided not to is a mystery: Morrison has very ardent fans and the Super Young Team seemed to have been very liked and received by the readers, even if they played a very minimal part in Final Crisis (the team aided Mister Miracle, but they could have been easily replaced by any other young team). Wait a minute, a parody team made up of superficial heroes with their own series written by a British author? That sounds somewhat familiar, maybe they are afraid of similar sale numbers. All kidding aside, it seems that at the moment the DC universe has not caught up to the events of Final Crisis yet, and maybe that is why we have not seen any spin-offs that deal with the aftermath.

It would have been interesting to see the Big Two have two young teams spin off from their big events, the more serious-minded Secret Warriors and the caricaturesque Super Young Team, as it would have created an interesting symmetry. In my humble opinion, the decision from DC to not give Grant Morrison the chance to flesh out these Japanese heroes appears like a mistake, unless there are bigger plans in the works that we have not heard yet. At the end of the day, this round has to go out to Marvel by default. DC has not done anything with the events of Final Crisis, which seem to be happening in a bubble while Marvel has gone headfirst into the status quo after the events of Secret Invasion.

The Eternal Debate - Part II : Final Crisis vs. Secret Invasion (The Return)

And by eternal, I mean for the past 12 or so months. You could not go anywhere in the Internet (well, at least the sites I frequent) without finding a conversation about either Final Crisis or Secret Invasion. Or both. This year's events from the Big Two felt incredibly long, by design or by circumstances, but they are now officially over (Legion of 3 Worlds notwithstanding), which allows us to look at both events objectively, or at least as objectively as comic book readers can get.

That is where I come in. I want to look at the different aspects of both events, measure them up against each other and see who comes up on top. To do so, I have chosen several categories (or rounds) which will allow me to compare both sides of the 2008 Special Edition Event Coin. If you have not yet read both series in their entirety, there will be spoilers ahead. Oh, yeah, and the point system may or may not be arbitrary or what most people consider fair. You have been warned.

After yesterday's post, Secret Invasion leads 1-0 against Final Crisis.

The Return

While almost every comic book event features a shocking death, there is also a trend of returning popular characters during said events. This year saw the return of Barry Allen, in the pages of Final Crisis, and Mockingbird, in the pages of Secret Invasion. The return of these particular characters speaks a lot about the current trends that the Big Two (or at least their writers) are following at the moment.

Mockingbird, while having been around ever since the 1970's, reached the height of popularity during the late 80's and early 90's when she became part of the West Coast Avengers and for being married to Hawkeye (as a matter of fact, she originally "died" trying to save him). During Secret Invasion, it is revealed that the Mockingbird that died all the way back in 1993 was actually just a skrull (and had been one for who knows how long). To make matters more confusing, Mockingbird's soul and body have actually been seen a couple of times after her untimely death at the hands of Mephisto, at times aiding her friends or being manipulated by villains. I hate to nitpick on continuity, but this is one of the times that the writer (or whoever decided that this should happen) really messed things up by bringing back a character from the dead. I also find it hard to believe that any fans were clamoring for her return from the nether regions of the Marvel Universe. It does, however, go in hand with Marvel's direction as of late, where the events and character of the early 90's (a scary time to be a comic fan, as most people know) are being revisited or revamped. Characters like Darkhawk and the alternate timeline of 2099 are getting the revamp treatment, so why not Mockingbird too, right?


Barry Allen, most commonly known as the second Flash, has been dead for the past 23 years after sacrificing himself to stop the Anti-Monitor in the original Crisis on Infinite Earths. His death, one of the most famous and iconic ones in all comicdom, and possible return has been a hot issue for comic fans for years (I am one of those that believes he should have stayed dead). The pages of Final Crisis saw the return of the Silver Age legend, exclaiming "Run!" as he was being chased by the DCU's avatar of Death. Just by the nature of his powers, it is not incredibly hard to believe his comeback to the living world. Speedsters are shown travelling back and forth in time with relative ease in the DCU, so if a future writer wanted to reverse Barry Allen's death, there was already a built-in loophole to bringing him back. Barry Allen is almost synonymous with the Silver Age of comic books, with many people considering his first appearance as the beginning of said era, and this fits with the current output of many DC titles in recent years. While not exactly aiming for the Silver Age, DC seems to be consistently trying to return their universe to the era before Crisis on Infinite Earths: the return of the Multiverse, Hal Jordan becoming a hero again, and the Justice Society of America often teaming up with the Justice League of America in times of crisis.

To be honest, neither of the characters really did a whole lot in their respective events, but both companies have promised to further explore the ramifications of their return. Both events would not have lost much from having the characters stay dead, and the decision to bring back Mockingbird and Barry Allen only reinforces the revolving-door policy that the Big Two have on death (something which I mentioned in yesterday's post). At the end of the day, the return of Barry Allen has been requested from some fans for years while I have never heard of anyone wanting to see Mockingbird back. Add in the continuity-headache factor that the return of Mockingbird causes and I wonder why anyone would bother to bring her back at all. Even though I mentioned I would not have liked to see Barry Allen's return (and I am concerned if having 3 Flashes around is a bit redundant, too) I think that Final Crisis, for giving the fans what they want and a more easily understood (as far as comic books go) return, wins this round.

The Eternal Debate - Part I : Final Crisis vs. Secret Invasion (The Death)

And by eternal, I mean for the past 12 or so months. You could not go anywhere in the Internet (well, at least the sites I frequent) without finding a conversation about either Final Crisis or Secret Invasion. Or both. This year's events from the Big Two felt incredibly long, by design or by circumstances, but they are now officially over (Legion of 3 Worlds notwithstanding), which allows us to look at both events objectively, or at least as objectively as comic book readers can get.

That is where I come in. I want to look at the different aspects of both events, measure them up against each other and see who comes up on top. To do so, I have chosen several categories (or rounds) which will allow me to compare both sides of the 2008 Special Edition Event Coin in a series of posts. If you have not yet read both series in their entirety, there will be spoilers ahead. Oh, yeah, and the point system may or may not be arbitrary or what most people consider fair. You have been warned.

The Death

Ever since the original Crisis on Infinite Earths, no comic book big event is really an event without a big profile death. This year's casualties: MartianManhunter and The Wasp. The coincidences that these two share are rather obvious: both of them are founding members of each company's premiere team (theJLA and Avengers, respectively), both of them are known for being good at handling teams or group dynamics, while at the same time neither of the characters are really that popular. Yes, MartianManhunter has had his own solo series, but he's hardly known to the non-comic reading world. The Wasp, to my knowledge, has never had an ongoing series and she wasn't even particularly liked to a lot of people. So both events killed "safe" characters, neither one would cause too much of an outrage or garner the attention of the mainstream public (like Batman's eventual "death" later would). MartianManhunter's death was particularly disappointing, as he only appeared for two panels, drugged out of his mind by villains before dying by spear-on-fire-through-the-chest (the number one cause of death for Martians of that age and sex group). The Wasp, on the other hand, died in the heat of a battle between the heroes andSkrulls: having been tricked by a skrull impersonating Hank Pym, Wasp inadvertently became the Skrull's secret weapon (some sort of exploding biological bomb) until Thor put her out her misery by Kirby-crackling her into another dimension or something.

Both characters received a "Requiem" special issue, that dealt with the repercussions of their demise and, the reaction of those close to the departed and to recap the lives of the heroes. "Secret Invasion: Requiem" was mostly made up of reprints, with very little new insight on the life of Wasp and more to do with Hank Pym's life after the events of Secret Invasion. "Final Crisis: Requiem" expands on the death of MartianManhunter while at the same time showing us in detail his last moments and the arrangements he had for his funeral, it was an incredibly done and moving issue (and one of the best things to come out of Final Crisis if you ask me).

In the end, both Wasp and Martian Manhunter were tricked into oblivion by the antagonists. Martian Manhunter went down early in the event, as a means to establish how evil/resourceful/hardcore Libra was. With his dying breath, however, he not only gave the bad guys the biggest scare of their lives, he also sent one last telepathic message to his friends who would become his caretakers. The Wasp, however, almost killed all of her friends and someone else had to come to the rescue. I guess this round goes to MartianManhunter and Final Crisis. But...

DC, in an incredibly stupid marketing move, revealed the figures for the upcoming Blackest Night event. The event is going to feature the Black Lanterns, formerly dead people brought back to life, and guess who is there? That's right, everyone's favorite Martian is back mere months after his death, in the company's next big event. Comics already get a bad reputation for their revolving door policy on the death of characters, and DC has just affirmed it even more so. Wasp's death was also suspiciously ambiguous: with no body to be recovered, a future writer could very easily turn back her death in the future, I have to respect Marvel a bit more for not immediately returning one of their characters back to life. So this round goes to Secret Invasion, because DC shoot their own foot with Martian Manhunter's return.