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Monthly Archives: March 2014

The case against a shared Spider-Man / X-Men / MCU Universe, part one

Silver Surfer

Silver Surfer

My life’s been better since I learned to stop worrying and accept the Marvel films rights status quo. If all of the heroes were under the Disney/Marvel roof it’d be unlikely we’d see as many Marvel heroes on the big screen in a single year as we do now. Theoretically, if Disney/Marvel had X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Spider-Man they’d be less likely to start gambling on films like Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy. Marvel Studios is currently averaging two films a year and Kevin Fiege has said it’s unlikely the studio will up that number. There’s no reason to think that would be different in a Marvel Cinematic Universe that includes Wolverine and Spider-Man as potential Avengers members. Instead, thanks to the rights debacle, 2014 will see the release of films featuring Captain America, Spider-Man, X-Men, and the Guardians of the Galaxy.

What we’re now hearing is the rights holders of these various properties want to dig deeper and do more with what they own. I believe this actually happening is contingent on two things happening for the House of Mouse/Ideas: Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man need to be successful.

Guardians of the Galaxy being successful opens numerous pathways for Fox when it comes to playing with the Marvel Cosmic. Ant-Man being successful could act as encouragement for Sony to follow through with spinning off the Spideyverse. What could that mean for the expansion of Universes?

I’m going to do some speculation, but before I do it should be made clear that I have no clue where the rights of these characters fall. For example, Cloak and Dagger is a bit of a muddle. They made their debut in Spider-Man and were typically associated with his titles. They were classified as mutants, so they could fall under the X-Cinematic Universe. However, they have carried their own titles on occasion, so it could be argued they’re part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They could fall into the Quicksilver/Scarlet Witch zone where it basically comes down to whoever gets to them first and even then multiple Universes can use them as long as they respect certain noun and adjective usage.

Today I’ll toss out two possibilities regarding Fox and Marvel Cosmic. The Spideyverse requires a bit more fleshing out, so I’ll touch on that tomorrow.

Silver Surfer

Silver Surfer was arguably the single best part of the previous Fantastic Four movies. Silver Surfer could (and likely will) be introduced in a sequel to the Fantastic Four reboot. That reintroduction should be followed by a Silver Surfer solo origin film that also acts as a prequel by ending with Silver Surfer leading Galactus to Earth.

Starjammers

Starjammers 1st Appearance

Starjammers 1st Appearance

Disney/Marvel might have the Guardians of the Galaxy, but Fox has the Starjammers. In the comic the leader of the Starjammers, Corsair, is the father of Cyclops and Havok. I need to rewatch X-Men: First Class, because I don’t recall how deep that film went with Havok’s origin story (I’m not even sure Havok and Cyclops were brothers in that film?). It isn’t necessarily relevant as the X-Cinematic Universe origin is nothing like the X-Men Comic Universe origin, so there’s a limitless number of ways to introduce the space faring team. The Starjammers would also bring the Shi’ar into the XCU fold. The Shi’ar, unlike the Skrull and Kree who are important to Fantastic Four and the Avengers, have almost exclusively been featured in X-Men and Fantastic Four titles.

Tomorrow I’ll take a look at the endless opportunities for Spideyverse.

Bay Area Crowdfunding: The New Parkway Facade

newparkwayNot comic book related, but a very worthy mention for one of the coolest indie movie theaters in the United States. Oakland’s New Parkway is raising money to put a new façade on the space. Not only will this help bring attention to the theater, but also make a glum section of 24th & Telegraph a little brighter. The Kickstarter has less than 39 hours left and they’re more than $20,000 away from their goal, so the chances they’ll get what they need this round isn’t likely. This is less of plea for readers of The Shared Universe to pledge, but more of a hope that The New Parkway will try again.

It should be noted that I only found out about this campaign this morning thanks to a sponsored post on Facebook. It’s tragic really, because I spent eight hours in The New Parkway lobby for CAAMFest on Sunday and if there was anything alerting patrons to the Kickstarter it certainly didn’t catch my eye. If they relaunch the campaign I have a handful of suggestions for making a more successful campaign:

1. Have they sought a façade improvement grant through the city of Oakland? The city has limited funds earmarked for helping businesses make better first impressions. There’s no guarantee that The New Parkway would qualify, but I’d like to know the theater at the least made the effort.

2. What materials will go into the façade? How much labor? One of the many things I love about The New Parkway is the entire venue is very DIY. I imagine this will continue when creating the new façade and as a backer I’d like to know how much of the funding is going toward materials and how much is going toward manual labor.

3. How will they promote the campaign? What’s the plan for getting the word out? Any in-house events planned?

4. Lower backer levels. Statistically projects with reward levels of $20 or less are more likely to succeed. Kickstarter isn’t shy about sharing data, so it’s known that Kickstarters without a reward level under $20 only succeed 28 percent of the time while those with a reward level below $20 succeed 45 percent of the time.  Also, the most popular backer level is $25.

5. More updates. I have no statistics on updates, but I do know when I back a campaign I feel more connected if I receive four or five updates during the life of the campaign. In addition to feeling valued it keeps the campaign in my mind and I push it out to friends. For the first Kickstarter the New Parkway made eight updates during the life of the campaign, but this time they only made their first three days ago.

The New Parkway is an amazing space and it deserves to have a top notch street facing showcase.  If you haven’t been it’s worth checking out.

Bay Area Comic Crowdfunding: The Rattler

The Rattler prismatic

The Rattler prismatic

Why did I invest in the Kickstarter for Jason McNamara and Greg Hinkle’s horror graphic novel The Rattler? Because if I’m going to trust anyone to put out a solid horror comic it’s going to be the guy who says he writes graphic novels because he wants “every child in America to believe Two-Face wants to chop them into little pieces.”  Bonus: It includes an artist who went on an epic San Francisco bender with James Robinson in an effort to come up with an original concept for a new Airboy series.

According to Kickstarter The Rattler is a 96-page “atmospheric thriller that delivers strong characterization, a dark sense of humor and moments of abject terror.”

The last two years have seen a healthy  increase in horror comics, but it’s still rare to find a title that can instill genuine terror. Many of the early reviews of The Rattler seem to suggest this book succeeds in bringing terror and tension. The graphic novel came to my attention thanks to an enthusiastic write-up on Nerdlocker who says “I was terrified of what was waiting to jump out at me in the next panel.” Greg Burgas, writing for ComicBookResources, backs this up adding “Reading the book is a fairly white-knuckle experience, and it’s partly because McNamara knows how to manipulate the reader well.”

The Kickstarter launched today and is shooting for a modest $4,600.  There are some great backer rewards including a rad prismatic sticker you can use to decorate your Trapper Keeper.

rattler

Requiem for an Engine: The Warren Ellis comic board’s legacy

It was a strange and fruitful blip in the online comic community. Writer Warren Ellis’s comic book message board The Engine ran from early September 2005 to Aug. 31, 2007, birthing in its short life new comic books, ongoing collaborative superteams, Eisner and Harvey Award-winning projects, and at least one marriage.

My affectionate memories are not only those of a participant, but of one of six hand-picked moderators (or Filthy Assistants, or Enforcers, or Attack Wombs, or…) from its birth to retirement. I spent hours a day reading, enforcing, and talking Engine, so it looms large in my memory as a crucible of comic history. The Engine was uniquely suited to making things happen, not just talking about them, and I’m heading back into the mid-aughts to explore what made it such fertile ground and why its echoes affect comics to this day.

The Engine logo by Brian Wood

The Engine logo by Brian Wood

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change”

The Engine’s original charter called for a unique structure: protected sections for published or contracted-to-publish creators working outside the superhero genre. Somewhere in the mid-aughts web small indie fora devoted to a particular creator’s work no doubt puttered along nicely, but major comic sites simply didn’t excise superheroes.

A few days before The Engine went live, Ellis expounded on his two primary intentions in 8/29/05’s Bad Signal e-newsletter:

[The Engine] serves two purposes: a point for conversation about FELL, DESOLATION JONES and my other adult-oriented, non-superhero, creator owned works. There are loads of other places for people to talk about PLANETARY, NEXTWAVE, JACK CROSS, ULTIMATE SECRET and all. And also a stage for like-minded creators, involved in original non-superhero work, to talk about what they’re doing. That, you’ll note, is not an all-inclusive and all-welcoming stance, and I’m going to be selective about it, too. There’ll also, with luck, be a space for pros to talk that’ll be read-only to everyone else: there are conversations worth having in public that wouldn’t survive thread-drift from the audience.
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A Daredevil Tour of the Bay Area: Issue 1

The Man Without Fear is also the Man Without Rest. After a long road trip Daredevil finally arrived in San Francisco yesterday. Instead of taking a day or two to enjoy the smells and sounds of the Bay Area, he’s already working with the SFPD to track down a kidnapped child. The first issue of the fourth volume of Daredevil is an enjoyable romp that finds hornhead being chased by sky sleds from The Embarcadero to Nob Hill. As noted in the issue, this isn’t the hero’s first stint in San Francisco.

This regular feature on The Shared Universe is intended to act as a tour guide of the Bay Area by following the adventures of our most recent New York City transplant.  If an issue of Daredevil features any notable landmarks I’ll pull them out and provide some context for readers unfamiliar with this region of the country.

In the unlikely event that Waid or Samnee stumble across this website I want to mention that I have no interest in nitpicking inconsistencies with reality. I respect the prerogative of the artist and writer to bend facts and visuals for the purpose of storytelling. Also, I know Daredevil’s a character in a funny book.

A Daredevil Tour of the Bay Area: Issue 1

The issue starts at a San Francisco police station where Matt Murdock is lending his unique set of highly tuned senses to the search for a missing child. He puzzles together enough clues for one of the officers to conclude that the girl may be in the old Naval Yard on San Francisco’s Treasure Island. Matt believes she may be in a bowling alley on the island.

Daredevil Issue 1: Treasure Island reference

Daredevil Issue 1: Treasure Island reference

First Stop: Treasure Island Naval Yard

Treasure Island is a man-made land mass in the San Francisco Bay. The landmass is named for Treasure Island author Robert Louis Stevenson who briefly lived in San Francisco from 1879-80. It was built in the 30s as a federal Works Progress Administration project to provide a place to host the 1939 World’s Fair. The island became a Naval Base during World War II until it was closed in 1997. In 2008 the federal government sold Treasure Island to the city of San Francisco. Since that time there’s been a great deal of controversy over radiation levels and whether or not the island should have been opened for residential use.

(This is at least the second mention of Treasure Island in a comic book since August of last year. In Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman‘s Station-to-Station a secret lab there creates dinosaurs, laser guns, and a massive tentacle monster.)

And, yes, as Matt Murdock learns, there is an abandoned bowling alley on the naval base grounds.
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Image to release Sex Criminals on local comic shops

Berkeley-based Image Comics is preparing to release the first trade paperback of Chip Zdarsky and Matt Fraction’s wildly successful time stopping sex romp Sex Criminals next month. The publisher announced 28128Sex Criminals Vol 1_LGlast week volume one, Sex Criminals: One Weird Trick, will be available at local comic shops on April 16 with mass market distribution on April 29. Over the last few years Image has been loudly declaring its continued commitment to local comic shops as the first line of defense for a strong comic industry foundation. If you’re in the Bay Area consult our directory of local comic shops to find out where you can pick up a copy.

Gene Yang revives the first Asian-American superhero in “The Shadow Hero”

ShadowHero-Ecover-1-rgbBay Area creator Gene Yang is arguably one of the most consistently celebrated modern graphic novelists. His 2013 two volume novel Boxers & Saints was a finalist for a National Book Award, landed on numerous end of year lists, and was noted as one of the best books of the year by Library Journal. His 2006 book, American Born Chinese, was also a National Book Award finalist, received both a Printz and an Eisner, was named 2006/2007 Best Book by the Chinese American Librarians Association, and was noted on numerous lists.

Yang is finally applying his craft to the realm of superheroes with The Shadow Hero. He’s teaming up with illustrator Sonny Liew to resurrect Chu Hing’s Golden Age hero the Green Turtle. The Green Turtle made his appearance in issues of Blazing Comics and is considered the first Asian American superhero. Yang recently conducted an email interview with Publishers Weekly and he explained the publishing history of the Green Turtle.

Rumor has it, Chu Hing wanted to make his character a Chinese American, but his publisher didn’t think it was a good idea. Chu subverted his publisher by drawing the Green Turtle so that we almost never see his face. In those original comics, he usually has his back to us. When he is turned around, something – a piece of furniture, another character’s head, his own arm – blocks his face from our view. Supposedly, Chu did this so that we could imagine the Green Turtle as he originally intended, as a Chinese American.

Yang goes on to say that the Green Turtle wasn’t very popular and only lasted five issues of Blazing Comics. As a result of his short life in pulp the back story of the hero has never been told. That back story is what Yang is telling in his new comic.

The comic is first being released as a six-part digital series. That six-part series will be published by First Second in a trade paperback format this July. The Publishers Weekly article has more details on The Shadow Hero. Yang has also been writing occasional behind-the scenes posts at creation of the comic on his blog. The digital issues are available on Amazon Kindle, B&N Nook, and Apple iBooks.

Daredevil swings through North Beach

In advance of the first issue of Daredevil’s new series, which will see the horned hero in San Francisco, Marvel Comics and Wizard World have released a sneak peak at a variant cover that will be made available for VIP attendees of Wizard World Louisville Comic Con. The cover by illustrator Michael Golden gives fans a first taste of Daredevil with recognizable San Francisco landmarks. The cover shows Daredevil swinging to action in front of the 105-year-old Columbus Tower (also known as the Sentinel Building) and the Transamerica Pyramid. The Transamerica Pyramid, which is the tallest building in San Francisco at 853-feet, had only recently completed construction when Matt Murdock last visited the Bay Area in 1972. Around that same time Francis Ford Coppola purchased and renovated Columbus Tower and it currently houses his American Zoetrope studios. The variant cover is below.

Daredevil Columbus Tower Large

The first issue of Daredevil Volume 4 hits shelves on March 19.

Last Chance to See: ‘Lasso of Truth’ at the Marin Theatre Company

Jessa Brie Moreno, Liz Sklar and Nicholas Rose

Jessa Brie Moreno, Liz Sklar and Nicholas Rose

Regrettably, I only found out about Marin Theatre Company running a production of Carson Kreitzer’s “Lasso of Truth” on Friday. The show, which tells the story of Wonder Woman’s creator William Moulton Marston, debuted on February 20 and runs until March 16. The story follows a woman who grew up with Wonder Woman untangling how all of the elements of Marston’s rather fascinating personal life and how those elements came into the creation of the world’s most popular female superhero. Marston invented the polygraph, was in a polyamorous relationship with his wife and a student, and had an interest in bondage. The show runs nightly until the 16th with bonus matinee shows at 2 p.m. on March 9, 15, and 16. The San Francisco Chronicle has a short interview with playwright Carson Keitzer. Below is a preview trailer for the play.

Marin Theatre Company
397 Miller Avenue
Mill Valley, CA 94941

 

Exhibit: Spoke Art Gallery pays tribute to David Lynch

The owls are not what they seem.

The owls are not what they seem.

Never in my life have I wanted to attend Paris Fashion Week, but reading The 405’s description of Kenzo’s fashion show is making me reconsider my lack of interest in high fashion. Kenzo designers, Humberto Leon and Carol Lim, literally turned heads on Sunday by tapping David Lynch’s Twin Peaks as inspiration for their Autumn/Winter 2014 line. In case that doesn’t make the clothing line intriguing enough the design duo had Lynch direct the atmosphere for the Kenzo show. In addition to the models doing their turns on the catwalk to a soundscape provided by Lynch there was an unsettling screaming head that looked like a grownup version of the Eraserhead tadpole baby. According to the 405’s post this is the third time these particular designers have used Lynch as a muse.

Kenzo’s designers aren’t the only artists mainlining Lynch this week.  Starting March 8, San Francisco’s Spoke Art Gallery, 816 Sutter Street, will open In Dreams: An Art Show Tribute to the Films of David Lynch (hat tip to the Last Gasp blog). The exhibit, which runs until March 29, will showcase art inspired by Lynch’s entire body of work from the Great Northern Hotel to Arrakis.

More than 50 artists will be contributing to this group show and a preview of some of the work can be seen on the Facebook event wall. The open reception is March 8 starting at 6 p.m. It promises to be a crazy clown time.

The list of artists can be found below and at the Spoke Art Gallery website.

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