Okay, it’s been a good long while since I unleashed a comic book rant here and got my geek on. If you don’t read comic books, or don’t care, or whatever, you can safely pass this by. Otherwise, expect this to go long, and you may even be a little embarrassed for me.

Full-on rant after the jump…

What’s prompted this rant was the final issue of Marvel‘s big "Civil War" crossover series, which I picked up the other day. After reading it, I pretty much realized that yeah, even though I liked the premise and even defended it and the series to my buddy Paul (who’s old school about comics), I pretty much hated it.

Yep. Hated it, and hate what they’ve done to the Marvel Universe. So I’m falling right in line with Paul. I guess I’m pretty old school, too.

The premise was interesting. Had a lot of potential, even. But the execution fell apart, characterizations are way off the mark, and they’re slaughtering too many sacred cows to just let it stand. There’s too many plot holes you can drive a truck through, and things are basically left unresolved. There’s a term for that: bad writing.

I mean, what the hell? They turned Iron Man and a bunch of other superheroes into fascist killers, and then let them win? No. You don’t win against Captain America. You just don’t.

And all current trends that I can see indicate that this is the new direction for the Marvel Universe. Ummm, no. I used to like what Bendis was doing, but now it seems like the powers that be have given him full creative reign and now he’s gutting and retconning pretty much everything. And that’s just not cool.

(Examples? Apparently he’s retconned Captain Mar-Vell into the "Civil War" series… his "Illuminati" series is retconning major Marvel events… including the "Infinity Gauntlet." When I heard this, I was pretty much horrified. There’s lines, and there’s lines.)

In fact, I’m disliking it so much that I’m hoping that Marvel’s big "World War Hulk" crossover they’re planning this summer basically has the Hulk coming back to Earth (don’t ask) and kicking everyone’s ass and just destroying everything. Game over, and reboot things back to the way they were before.

I guess I’m feeling vengeful over it.

Of course, that’s probably exactly what the Marvel Powers want people to think, just so they can sell more books. It’s all a setup. Bad Marvel, bad.

Now, I’m not feeling this way about all the Marvel books. Here are the ones that I’m liking:

Daredevil: Still good, and not dabbling in any of that "Civil War" nonsense. It took two storylines, which ran a bit long, but writer Ed Brubaker was able to clean up most of Bendis’s loose ends and set things on an even keel again.

Astounding X-Men: For my money, the only X-book worth reading. Joss Whedon and John Cassady are putting out a fantastic book—I just wish they could do it on time. And stop dragging out the stories forever.

The Punisher: Well, Garth Ennis‘s Punisher, at any rate. Ennis is pretty much the only one who can write the Punisher any more, he’s had that profound an influence on the character. Any other writer on Punisher is coming across really weak. Plus, Ennis’s stories continue to surprise me, so that’s always a good thing.

Although—and here’s where I’ll recant some of my excoriation of "Civil War"—the new "Punisher War Journal" (not by Ennis) is so far enjoyable to me. I mean, the Punisher killed Stilt-Man! How can you go wrong with that? Plus the latest (third) issue is masterful, even though Frank wipes out a bunch of long-standing supervillains.

And speaking of Ennis, the man is a machine. How many books a month is he writing now, six? But despite that, he’s a good writer, and can meet his deadlines. That seems to be a pretty rare thing these days. More on him a bit later…

The Ultimates: I love this book. Love it, love it, love it. Weird, right? Because it’s set in the Ultimate universe, outside of main Marvel continuity, and I’m pretty tepid on the other Ultimate titles out there. It is, however, the worst book in terms of how late every single issue is. Seriously, I think they go four to six months between issues or something. Good grief.

But I can’t quite figure out why I love it so much. It’s written my Mark Millar, and I can’t really say I’m a fan of his other stuff: the main "Civil War" series (go figure), "Ultimate X-Men" (which I thought was mishandled from the start and is now pretty much a waste of time), even back to his "Authority" days, which was creative but too… I don’t know, over-the-top, I guess. Too farcical, or something. Not coherent. Which pretty much sums up his writing style.

But still, I love "The Ultimates." The exception that proves the rule, I guess.

Okay, enough Marvel comics. Let’s move on to a Wildstorm (or rather, a previously-Wildstorm) book: "The Boys."

Simply the best comic book to come out in the past year. The best. Period.

Written by Garth Ennis and illustrated by Darick Robertson, it’s… well, it’s hard to describe if you haven’t read it. Basically, it’s a superhero book, but it’s really not pro-superhero. It’s about the people who are tasked with watching the superheroes and stomping on them when they get out of line.

And, it’s for mature readers. There is no question that you don’t want your kids getting ahold of this book. Garth Ennis is writing it, and well… he said this book would "out-Preacher Preacher," and if you’ve ever read "Preacher"…

I can’t even do this book justice. Just go buy it. Buy the back issues. Prepare to be shock and awed.

Here’s a stupid thing, though: DC Comics (who owns Wildstorm) canceled the book. Apparently the retards at DC that are in charge of such things were "concerned" over the content of the book and killed it. Never mind that it was not only the top-selling book that Wildstorm was publishing but also the only book published on time—which is huge in the industry right now.

Seriously, nobody can get a regular monthly comic book out on time these days. It’s laughable.

So anyway, DC decides to kill the top-selling, only-on-time book one of their subsidiary publishers was producing. It boggles the mind.

There’s a happy ending, though: Dynamite Entertainment has picked up "The Boys" and will continue to publish it. I predict that this is going to be huge coup on the part of Dynamite and at some point DC will try to buy back the book, realizing their enormous error. Losers.

Okay, enough on the DC ‘tards. Just go check out "The Boys."

What else? Oh, I picked up the first issue of the new "Star Trek: The Next Generation" comic not too long ago. It was pretty terrible. I’m not sure if it was more terrible than when Marvel had the Star Trek license a few years ago, and stunned even the fanboys by producing an X-Men/Star Trek crossover… but just not good.

Okay, I’ve run my course for now. Sure, I’ve got a bunch of ideas about what Marvel should be doing and what kind of books and creators I’d like to see combined and produced, but until one of the companies hires me on as a writer…

…I’ll just have to blog about it all at some point.

The other day Dave posted a story riddle with a creepy punchline: the people who answer it "correctly"—i.e. a certain way—think like psychopaths. (Sorry to spoil the surprise.) It’s meant to illustrate a particular way of thinking that pyschopaths exhibit: that of other people—even family—as impersonal tools to be used for their own benefit.

(Fortunately, I didn’t answer the riddle "correctly.")

Of course, I make random connections, as I am wont to do, and I remembered this older post on Boing Boing about psychopathy:

Are psychopaths genetically adapted to survive by exploiting the rest of us?

[CBC's Quirks and Quarks] talks to research psychologists about the biological basis for psychopathy — and the fact that psychopaths are sexually profligate and have lots of kids. Psychopathic rapists target fertile women — not children or old women.

Dr. Marnie Rice is a psychologist with the Mental Health Centre Penetanguishene, in Penetanguishene, Ontario. She studies criminal psychopaths who are incarcerated there. She views psychopathic behaviour as an evolved survival strategy. She says that there’s not a lot of evidence to suggest that psychopaths are mentally ill but there’s good reason to believe that their disturbing behaviour is an evolved trait. She says psychopaths have evolved to capitalize in a particular environmental niche — namely preying on the rest of society.

Yeah, it’s kind of an odd thing to be ruminating about. But it’s a weirdly compelling idea to imagine that psychopathy is a possible result of natural selection. It makes a certain sense. I wonder what the "particular environmental niche" is referring to—large cities? Seems to me (from a purely layman’s perspective) that’s where this particular trait would take hold and be successful in an evolutionary context.

For reference, here’s Wikipedia’s article on psychopathy.

Anyway, cheery thoughts to take you into the weekend.

So my friend Brian of BuzzTouch Designs has a regular podcast, each show lasting a few minutes (not super long, like some) and touching on local happenings—and on yesterday’s "episode" I was the guest star. Or interviewee. Or something. Basically, Brian called me up and we did an interview (I was in my "Brew Site" persona) on the topic of beer label art.

I had fun doing it, and actually thought it turned out okay. (Not a slam on Brian—I just wasn’t sure how I’d sound myself!) You can listen to the show here.

So far this 2007 I’ve been consuming bunches of books. Kind of continuing my trend from last year, though based what I’ve gone through in these first six weeks of the year, my year-end list might be much larger.

• Lisey’s Story, by Stephen King. His latest, pretty good but not the best he’s ever written. I had a pretty good hunch where the plot was going and I was mostly right. What makes it interesting is all the backstory which is where all the real stuff is happening.
• Manifold: Origin, by Stephen Baxter. Rounding out the Manifold series he wrote (the first two of which I read in the last months of 2006). Interesting concepts, all of them (he wrote them as possible solutions/scenarios to the Fermi paradox), but one thing Baxter generally isn’t good at is characterization. And Origin, plot-wise, is the weakest of the bunch; a lot of stuff happens that has nothing to do with the final reveal, or the overall point of the story.
• High Desert of Central Oregon and Bend in Central Oregon, both by Raymond Hatton, which I reviewed respectively on Hack Bend here and here.
• The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins. Sure to be controversial. Oddly enough, it’s the first Dawkins book I’ve read, even though he’s been publishing since the ’70s. He’s been called "Darwin’s rottweiler," and that’s pretty much in full force here.
• Mona Lisa Overdrive, by William Gibson. Pretty good read—it’s Gibson, after all—but I think my least favorite of his three "Sprawl" novels. Neuromancer set a pretty high bar.
• I’ve been going through all the trade paperbacks of the Fables comic series (available at the library, which is very cool). This is a really brilliant series. The premise: All those fairy tales and fables of lore are real, but they’ve all been driven out of their worlds by a mysterious Adversary, and live in New York City in their own private and secret community named Fabletown. King Cole is the mayor, Snow White the deputy mayor, like that. For mature readers. I’m through the first seven trades, at least three were this year.
• The Ghost Map, by Steven Johnson. Pretty good, about the cholera outbreak in Victorian London in 1854 and how that changed science and cities.
• I’m also finishing up Bend, Overall by Scott Cook, though that’s quite a bit shorter than most of the others. It’s a guidebook read.

Next book will be fiction again. I haven’t decided on one definitively yet; it’s between Idoru (William Gibson), Wolves of the Calla or Cell (Stephen King), Singularity Sky (Charles Stross), and A Deepness in the Sky (Vernor Vinge). Or, perhaps I’ll read several concurrently…

Okay, I was a little slow on the uptake for this one: Transformers: The Movie. Live action. For real. Opening July 4th of this year.

I remember hearing the rumor about this way back when, thought, "Hey, that would be cool," without thinking it would actually happen—you know, the usual Hollywood stuff, rumors are always flying. Then, suddenly, I recently spot the trailer online and nearly fall out of my chair.

Yes, I’m fully aware I’m out-geeking even myself here, but back in the day Transformers were the toys to have and it was the cartoon on TV to watch. I even made paper Transformers, for crying out loud.

Not surprisingly, Wikipedia has a comprehensive page on the Transformers movie. I only have one complaint: Bumblebee will no longer be a Volkswagon Bug—instead, he’s a 1974 Chevrolet Camaro. WTF?? That just ain’t right.

I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later, but I don’t quite get how this is going to work: Publisher launches its first "wiki" novel. It’s:

…a Web-based, collaborative novel that can be written, edited or read by anyone, anywhere thanks to "wiki" software, the technology behind Web encyclopaedia Wikipedia.

The novel, "A Million Penguins," went live on Thursday and its first lines are already being written, edited and rewritten by enthusiasts on www.amillionpenguins.com.

Penguin, which embarked on the project with a group of creative writing and new media students, says it is using the novel as a test of whether a group of disparate and diverse people can create a "believable fictional voice."

So, are they planning on "locking down" chapters as they’re finished? Because there’s really nothing stopping anybody from going in and changing, well, everything at any point, if it truly is open like Wikipedia. Suddenly chapter three makes no sense because chapters one and two are now telling a different story.

Cool and interesting experiment, though. I might have to play around with it.