The Nature of Fictional Canon

I think about the idea of “canon” in fiction a lot; lately I’ve begun to feel that letting go of the whole concept might be the next step in maturing my tastes.  I don’t know why the films for Episodes I-III should have any effect on my enjoyment of Star Wars.  Kingdom Come isn’t any less important of a series because it’s “out of canon.”

Ask a fan to define canon and it feels like an oxymoron:  “something in canon is what really happened, as opposed to re-imaginings, or unofficial or fan work.”  But none of it really happened.  I know no one is arguing that they think their favorite stories are “real.”  But commitments to fictional canon represent that some stories about Batman are “more real” than others.  And that, even in a minor way, does seem to be from a mindset of misplaced reality.

It’s not a question of “which of these really happened” it’s more “stop fooling yourself, none of these happened. Batman isn’t real.”

But before I go any farther, let’s make one thing clear: I not only understand canon, I’m a damn expert.  I know which characters are clones in Star Trek and which are just being played by the same actor; I’ve spoken for hours about which parts of World of Warcraft are considered canonical to the universe.  I can argue for why Iron Man’s timeline has slid to injure him in the Middle East, but the Punisher is still a veteran from Vietnam.

Tags: canon

Just One Trade | Dynamo 5, Vol. 1: Post-Nuclear Family

Dynamo 5 ran for 25 issues in the early aughts (is that the term we’re using?).  I knew about it tangentially, but never really got into it.  Last week there it was on the shelf at the comic shop, and there I was with cash burning a hole in my pocket and my Just One Trade tradition of buy-first-review-later.

The series plays in what has become the traditional comic “mythology.”  Some people might call it derivative, but 75 years of comics have built a cultural familiarity that is beyond just one, two or a hundred characters and books.  The common themes and traditions in the “typical” superhero myth are wonderful building blocks for great human stories.

Even when a writer breaks those “rules” and plays against type, the thing that makes that stand out is the rules and types he breaks from.

So when writer Jay Faerber started this spin-off from his Noble Causes series, he presupposed his readers might understand a “Superman-type” when they see one, and this story is about the 5 illegitimate children Superman leaves behind when he dies.  Each child has a different mother, and none of them were born to his wife (his “Lois”).  They have inherited one power each: flight, strength, telepathy, shapeshifting and super-vision.

Tags: Dynamo 5, Image

A Jerk of the Knee: Brian K. Vaughan’s Saga

Romeo and Juliet are magical alien lovers.

If you pressed me to boil down Brian K Vaughan’s new series Saga into a single sentence, that’s what I’d have to tell you.  This new-twist-on-an-old-trope premise serves as the backdrop for a tale about an unusual family with very human family values—two people from different alien races (Alana and Marko) fall in love, have a child, and are hunted by their respective races while trying desperately to live in peace.  While Vaughan’s certainly no stranger to telling stories about characters on the run (see: Runaways, Y the Last Man, and Pride of Baghdad), what sets Saga apart is that Earth is nowhere to be found.  For the first time in his career, Vaughan has chosen to forego a fictionalized version of the modern world in favor of creating an entirely brand-new, surrealist backdrop for his new series.  But does it work?  Having read issues 1 and 2, here’s my knee-jerk reaction to how Saga’s shaping up so far.

Tags: Jerk of the Knee, Reviews, Saga

John Cassaday’s Astonishing X-Men #50 Cover

So Awesome

5 Reasons Why the New 52 Is Not So Bad

The great difficulty in coming up with five bullet points in favor of DC’s New 52 initiative is that, quite frankly, I couldn’t care less about it.  It stops meaning anything to me beyond deliberating over which new titles are worth reading.  I get bored charting continuity across books, and I prefer to keep a distance from the nefarious inner working of publishing politics.  The relaunch has been successful in piquing the interest of many non-comics readers, which is terrific, but there will be a spike if enough money is thrown behind any product.  And I have no interest in applauding marketing tactics.

But I love comics and DC has some talent in its ranks, which means I’m still a faithful reader.  Naysayers tend to be categorically dismissive, and with branding fatigue and frequent publisher announcements that readers have been conditioned to swallow with a handful of salt, I’ll be the first to sympathize.   But the whole well is not poisoned.  The truth is, these books are as good (and as bad, yes) as they’ve ever been.  With or without the reboot, the writers and illustrators would likely still be producing work of a similar quality.  That’s the crux of these five (errr… ten) points: the New 52 is not killing comics.  Here are some good ones.

Tags: New 52

5 Reasons Why the New 52 Sucks

The New 52 is about comics, and I don’t mean the issues sold.  Like the Other Patrick, I have no interest in talking about marketing tactics, especially if it has to do with the merit of spending money on advertising and seeing a bump in sales as a result.  I’m interested in the comics.  Not counting the dollar signs, did the New 52 do anything right?

I say no.  I don’t think it did anything at all, other than sell well.  I know that’s enough for the people behind the desks, but as a reader it’s ridiculous how pointless the entire thing was.  In fact, here are 5 reasons why we’re worse off than where we started.

Tags: Batman, New 52, Superman

Everything 90s Is New Again

To many, the 90s were a dark time in comic book history. Sales wise, things were booming, selling through the roof. Variant covers, holograms, foil covers, lots of different covers.  Collector mentality was at an all-time high. Problem was, creatively, it’s often pegged, and not entirely unfairly, as a somewhat bankrupt era. It was the time of big guns, big muscles, big boobs and violence, violence, violence. Everything was over-blown and huge. Eventually, it crashed and burned, hard, almost taking the entire industry with it. And then, like that, we all tried to pretend it didn’t happen. We write it off as a joke and poke fun at the superstar creators of the time.

Until now.

We now find ourselves in a bona fide resurgence of 90s titles. Prophet, Bloodstrike, Supreme Stormwatch, all of Valiant Comics. But here’s the rub, most of them are pretty good. Comic books based on what is largely considered the worst decade of the medium are turning out pretty fantastic. This is surprising a lot of people, but it really shouldn’t, especially if you were a reader during those supposedly dark times. Because while the comics themselves weren’t all that great from that timeframe, the ideas weren’t half bad. Most were actually pretty good. The problem was all in execution.

A Look at David Lapham

Stray Bullets, issue 1, a piece of page 18

I’ve been hooked on David Lapham lately.  One day last week, I woke up tossing and turning around 4:30 am.  When this happens, I typically read myself back to sleep.  So this particular morning, I decided to finally crack in to Stray Bullets, his decade-long self-published crime opus. It was suggested a few days ago that my citing Lapham as a favorite without having read this particular book is like someone touting Welles without watching Citizen Kane.  Beginning publication in 1995, it is often considered his seminal work, and does appear to be a prototype for several of his later projects.  After reading the second issue that morning, I shivered my way back to bed, my mind a turgid whirl of dark thoughts and conflicted emotions.  Uneasy slumber followed.

Tags: Lapham

Birth of a Fanboy (or How I learned to stop worrying and love comic books)

Hi everyone—long time reader, first time writer for Earth616.  I’ve been tracking Ben and Patrick’s brainchild for a while now, and I’ve loved just sitting in the wings and digging these two excellent comic book buffs shooting the shit about their favorite books and characters.  Whether they’re reminiscing about their formative years, dissecting a series to see what makes it tick, or just taking a candid look at what’s happening in the comics industry today, every article feels like it’s been crafted with love.  These guys are obviously passionate about the medium, and it shows.

When Patrick first asked me if I’d be interested in writing something for the site, my first response was ‘Hell yes!’, followed shortly by ‘Oh shit, what exactly am I going to say?’  After sweating this problem for a couple of days, I realized that the great thing about a blog is that it’s incredibly personal—what I loved so much about reading Earth616 is that it just felt like a couple of buddies spitballing about their lives and the comics that they love.   So I figured I’d do just that; in the spirit of the comics that we all adore,  I’m going to give you my origin story.

The Pitch: A Whole New World

My gut reaction to the news of a Watchmen follow-up is probably one shared with most other comic fans: fucking blasphemy.

Over the last few weeks my attitude hasn’t leveled out, if anything it’s been smoldering like hot coals.

Instead of explaining the first rule of Watchmen (you don’t follow-up on Watchmen), or filling pages with a rant that’s just going to ring true-but-immature, I’m going to try to explain what I WOULD have been excited for.