Comic Book Alphabet Of Awesomeness - A

In this first installment of the Comic Book Alphabet Of Awesomeness, we'll not only examine the first letter of the alphabet, (which I won't keep you waiting: it's A) but also perhaps the most misunderstood superhero of them all.

Yes.

A is for Aquaman.

So why does Aquaman get such a bad wrap?

The character has been around since the Golden Age of comics and definitely still has fans, but why does he get no respect?

The answer is simple:

The closest he's been to greatness

The Superfriends cartoon.

It's pretty sad when most of what the population knows about one of the founding superheroes of the DC Universe comes from a cartoon that gave us the Wonder Twins and also Wendy, Marvin and *ahem* Wonderdog.

Fists aren't the only thing they were bumping. Am I right? Am I Right?

Yep

According to Superfriends, all Aquaman was really capable of was riding around on either a jet ski, strapping two flying fish to his feet or getting captured and giving the rest of the Superfriends something to do for 20 minutes.

Not really the best superhero legacy to leave behind, especially comsidering the damage done to Aquamans rep for the following decades.

Ok, maybe I'm being a LITTLE too harsh on the cartoon. It might not help that Aquamans powers aren't too great.

Sure he's superstrong, but the Justice League has like 15 other people to fill that spot.

He has telepathy, which is great and all but kind of useless when all a normal person has to do his hit a button on their phone and can talk to anyone they know.

But he prefers to use this ability when he flexes his royalty and talks to fish, which again could be awesome but is only really helpful when he's you know, underwater. Sure, being able to command the creatures inhabiting almost 70% of the Earth's surface is pretty bitchin', but when the Justice League gets called out to West Detroit?

To make things worse the Drive Thru isn't jet ski accessible

Well I'm guessing it just ends in lots of crying. Also, when underwater I'm guessing talking to fish isn't as awesome as it might sound. Imagine having a conversation with someone whose attention span lasts seconds, and once the conversation turns towards plankton I'm guessing all interest is lost.

Yeah he can swim really fast which kind of makes him the Superman of underwater, until you remember that Superman is pretty much Superman whereever he goes. Also key in the fact that Superman can't be out of water for an hour without starting to die.

Good for rappers and underwater dwelling superheroes

That bad rap he gets? Well it's probably because he deserves it. Way to Aquaman.

Movies of 2009

Ok, I don't know why it's taken me so long to get to this one. It's something that's been kicking around in my head for a week or so, so it's about time before January is over.

Here's my list of 10 movies to get excited for in 2009:

10. They Came From Upstairs - Yes, the studio that brought you Alvin and the Chipmunks ripped off what looks like both Gremlins and Lilo and Stitch, but I can't help it. I'll see anything with Ashley Tisdale in it.



9. Coraline - If it looks familiar, that's because it's by the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach and Monkeybone. I know, I probably just rocked a lot of worlds there, but yes. Tim Burton didn't direct those movies.

Coraline is straight out of the mind of Neil Gaiman so you can count on an inventiveness you don't normally get out other writers. I could say it's because he's better, but I don't want to make anyone feel bad. So we'll just say it's because he's British instead.



8. 9 - Yes, my #8 is 9. Another computer animated film but this one boasts some real star power behind it with, Elijah Woods, John C. Reilly, Martin Landau, Jennifer Connelly, and Crispin Glover.

Based on an 11 minute, silent shortfilm this looks all sorts of epic. Probably helped out by Coheed And Cambria's "Welcome Home" in the trailer.



7. Up - I've loved almost every Disney/Pixar film except one, but this one looks like it'll be one of the good ones. There's not a lot to judge by yet, but Pixar has a way with characters like nobody else. I'm looking forward to this one.



6. Transformers 2: Rise Of The Fallen - I really enjoyed the first one. It was the right amount of action and eye candy. I guess there are going to be giant robots in this one though?



5. Dead Snow - Hopefully this foreign Sundance Film will see a wider release in the states. Zombie Nazis and black humor. What more could you possibly need?



4. X-Men Origins: Wolverine - Yeah, it probably won't be the best movie ever, but it looks better than X3. Also, Wolverine going berzerk and killing Stryker's troops was one of the best parts of X2. So I'm expecting that plus Gambit and Deadpool, which means a fun movie more than anything else.



3. Star Trek - This reboot by JJ Abrams looks like it exceeds the awesome-levels 10x over. With Simon Pegg as Scotty and Leonard Nimoy making a cameo as old Spock, I'm more than pumped for this one.



2. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - Yeah I'm sad this got pushed back, because that means we could have SEEN this by now, but it just makes this coming summer awesome for movies. Hard to say if it can match this past summers hype level though.



1. Watchmen - I just don't know what else to say about this one.



It's going to be a good year.

Super-Hero Bailout Plan?

According to USA Today, the comics market is booming thanks to films like The Dark Knight and Iron Man.

Really?

Because the #1 selling comic book of 2008 was Marvel's Secret Invasion #1.

The #1 selling *ahem* "graphic novel" was Watchmen.

So The Dark Knight did what exactly? According to Diamond, the top 10 comics of '08 were:

1 Secret Invasion #1 (Marvel)
2 Secret Invasion #2 (Marvel)
3 Secret Invasion #3 (Marvel)
4 Secret Invasion #4 (Marvel)
5 Secret Invasion #5 (Marvel)
6 Secret Invasion #6 (Marvel)
7 Uncanny X-Men #500 (Marvel)
8 Secret Invasion #7 (Marvel)
9 Final Crisis #1 (DC)
10 Secret Invasion #8 (Marvel)

and the top 10 Graphic Novels were:

1 Watchmen (DC)
2 Batman: The Killing Joke (DC)
3 Joker (DC)
4 Y the Last Man Vol. 10 (DC)
5 Walking Dead Vol. 8 (Image)
6 Batman: Dark Knight Returns (DC)
7 Fables: The Good Prince (DC)
8 Wanted (Image)
9 Buffy the Vampire Slayer: No Future for You (Dark Horse)
10 Y the Last Man Vol. 1 (DC)


Sure I guess you could chalk up The Killing Joke's sales to The Dark Knight, same with DKR and Joker, but everything else on that list sold on it's own merits without the help of the "Hollywood Bump".

What I find most interesting from these numbers is while the top 10 comics list was dominated by Marvel, they don't even appear on the top 10 list of Graphic Novels.

Where's the Iron Man or Hulk books on those lists? Where's the Spirit and the Punisher?

I think we're just seeing patterns where none really lie. The only thing that seems to really have gotten any huge media hype is the Watchmen trade. It's a "new" property that not a lot of people outside the medium know about, nevermind the fact that even before the movie the Watchmen tpb was always on the best selling of the year list anyways.

Sure maybe not #1 but it was always ranked somewhere on the top 100 list. Which for a book that was first published more than 20 years ago, that's quite a feat.

My main problem with this article is that it's almost trying to make it sound like there's some big comic boom going on.

There's not.

Sure there's some really good stuff out there right now, but there's also lots of crap. I'm spending less on comics now than ever before. Yes, there are other economic factors at play but the main thing about comic books is: if there's something I love, I'll buy it.

What we're seeing is a lot of movies based on comics coming out because there were a few that performed really well, and the market got flooded. Think back to penguin movies a couple years ago.

See what I mean?

With quite a few underperforming films this and last year, what I think we're going to see is studios being a little more wary when it comes to not only grabbing rights for comic properties, but also putting more care into the films themselves. The studios have now realized that you can't fill seats alone with the tagline "Hey look, Comics guys!"

The Spirit - What Happened?

After it's Christmas day release, the film adaptation of The Spirit has gone on to earn $15 million at the box office. The film has also earned it's self a 15% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

I think it's safe to say that The Spirit is indeed a flop of a film.

So what happened?

Will Eisner's The Spirit has risen to the forefront of the graphic medium over the past decades as an example of how comic books should be done.

Frank Miller's The Spirit has shown us exactly how comic adaptations shouldn't be.

Noticably the movie went from being Will Eisner's 'The Spirit' to From the creator of 300 and Sin City: Frank Miller

The main problem with the adaptation was that it really wasn't The Spirit. Miller has often noted Eisner as a big influence of his work but the two had very different views on how comics should work as a medium. A big part of what The Spirit was became lost when trying to shoehorn it into the "Millerverse". Meanwhile the Darwyn Cooke version of The Spirit comes off quite well on it's own while paying homage to the original.

The Spirit doesn't work in the same way as Sin City. The books are two different tones and trying to make the Spirit film work the same way as the Sin City films is absolutley ridiculous.

A big part of why the Sin City movie worked was that it looked just like the Sin City books, and the main reason of that was Robert Rodriguez bringing their creator onboard as a co-director. That move proved the Sin City film the truest comic adaptation ever. But having Miller as the sole director and in turn having him cop his own visual style, The Spirit seems to have been damned.

If only the movie industry had asked comic fans about this first, we could have saved their golden boy creator of blockbusters like 300, Sin City and Robocop.

See, we've already seen what Miller is capable of. Or as I guess I should say not capable of.

Frank Miller has created some of the most memorable works in comics, and this is going beyond his own work with 300 and Sin City.

Miller was responsible for giving Marvel's Daredevil title new life, with the introduction, death and eventual rebirth of Elektra.

His tale Batman: Year One went on to cement Batman's place as a character with real potential, a story which later went on to influence the film Batman Begins heavily. His other Batman work The Dark Knight Returns was lauded as one of the most inventive Batman stories ever, and alongside writer Alan Moore the two made comics matter in the 80's.

But then Miller started to slip. His next Batman related works, the DKR sequel The Dark Knight Strikes Again and All-Star Batman and Robin both came off as too over the top and as if he was someone trying to write a Frank Miller story.

Yes. Frank Miller has gone batshit insane.

So here we stand now, The Spirit adaptation will fade overtime but what does this mean for Frank Miller? There were plans for a Sin City 2 put into motion right after the first film came out, what will this mean for that?

Will Frank ever work in this town again?