It is often hard for a comic that draws its material from real events to succeed in an industry that favors super heroes, grown men in tights and mythical battles, but fortunately it is also far from impossible. Marjane Satrapi’s
Marjane was born in
A common policy in the comics industry is that when sales go down events goes up! Especially if you are a Marvel fan you might have noticed something wrong with their main Universe, those old-fashioned issues where the good guy fought the evil one in a big battle, well no more of those, nowadays we have to read about cosmic, historical events every month. But is this the actual point or are they really afraid to drastically change something out there?
The Civil War is over, the super hero registration act has passed and as hard as I try to find what changed in the Marvel titles the only difference I see is Spider-Man being unmasked, his family in danger and him back in the black suite (for 4 months before he finds a new one I guess). Captain America dies in issue #25 of his own series and in Civil War – The Initiative we find out that nooo, Rogers is not really dead but hidden in a secret SHIELD facility, the X-Men are again on the run (big difference), Iron-Man is assembling a new team of Avengers (wow, innovative), only poor Hulk had to be thrown into a black hole (what, you thought he wouldn’t return? Check World War Hulk Prologue: World Breaker #1)! So is anything ever going to change, and do we want to?
This whole thing reminds me of similar events and how they too changed nothing, like the House of M and Infinite Crisis. It’s the perfect way to attract attention to your main titles by killing a couple of the secondary characters nobody would ever read about, present them like decent people and pretend it made a difference to the first class heroes. So DC killed the Blue Beetle, who gives a damn (except from those guys I met on line the other day creating a poll to make them bring him back)? Marvel killed Goliath and some other nobodies who might return anytime from another dimension or a gate Dr Strange will make or a black hole or something. Nothing’s ever going to change because deep inside we don’t want to; these heroes are our favorites for reasons that don’t allow them to change. You think otherwise? Well give Spider-Man 6 more months with his identity revealed and you’ll see!
I usually despise those “my 10 favorite” (or relevant) lists where you have to choose between completely different creations the ones you prefer, but if someone asked me to mention my 10 favorite comics, Transmetropolitan would be very close to the top of the list (although not it the first place, that spot is long ago taken by Sandman). It’s a work of genius, a masterpiece so funny, visionary, perceptive and utterly delightful you don’t ever want it to end! Well, the bad news are its already ended some years ago but fear not, it’s always available in bookstores all over the world in trade paperbacks albums.
Spider Jerusalem is a troubled man, a journalist once famous for his two best selling books and currently self-banished in a little house in the mountains, alone and almost crazy. But Spider is also a big city man, he needs the crowd, the confrontations, he needs the news, so he returns to the City, a futuristic amalgam of technology, corrupted politics, high tech drugs and religious manipulation. Along with his two filthy assistants he will look for the truth in places no one else dares to go, he will enrage presidents, degrade public figures, beat the crap out of those pulling the strings and if everything else fails use his bowel disruptor! He’s Spider Jerusalem and he hates it here but no matter what you do you won’t make him go away, the live consciousness of the future
Transmetropolitan, written by Warren Ellis and drawn by Darick Robertson, is a work as beautiful and enjoyable as it is harsh, cruel and prophetic. The beliefs expressed in it by Ellis might seem extravagant and distant but take a moment to wonder how far our society is to this dark vision, and how possible is for us to find hope if even Spider and the other characters of this superb comic managed to. Stories like this make us better people…
Most of you reading this article will have already watched the new film by Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Requiem for a Dream), The Fountain, starring Hugh Jackman (X-Men, The Prestige, Van Helsing) and Rachel Weisz (The Mummy, Enemy at the Gates, Constantine). Aronofsky’s controversial creation is something to love or to hate, and although I belong to the first category I must admit that there are much more in the Fountain than the movie offered, to live the entire experience there’s only one way, reading the graphic novel by Vertigo!
This is not a new idea by Aronofsky, the idea was one of his first but when he presented it to the studios it was cancelled in no time, no studio would make a film so different and uncategorized as this. After the tremendous success of Requiem and Pi though he could use his influence and soon the film came to life, still with many changes, budget cuts and scenario interferences, Darren seems to have said then:
“I knew it was a hard film to make and I said at least if
The scenario is quite complicated, 3 different stories told together I a frenzy montage speaking about love, death and immortality. A Spanish conquistador sent by his queen in 1535 to find the tree of eternal life in the middle of the Mayan civilization, a doctor looking for the cure of cancer to save his wife in 2005, a man and a tree travelling through space in 2645 inside a bubble looking for a dying star, different stories trying to tell the same thing which is different for each viewer, and that’s the beauty of the movie and even more the comic. Watch it, explore it, love it!
Frank Miller is one of the most influential comic creators ever, but who could expect that he would also change the way we conceive film making! After Robocop 2, 3 and 4, Elektra and the magnificent
This is the story of King Leonidas of
The film was made entirely in blue and green screen sets for the settings to appear as comic-like as possible, the actors (in most cases) were tremendous in their roles and although there were parts were the Spartans were not laconic at all and the features of an action film threat to spoil the atmosphere, the overall outcome was an epic movie capable of offering 2 hours of fun and even more of pure awe. If Sin City 2 is that good, heck maybe they should make an academy award for comic creators!
One of the most interesting and historic hidden identities in the Marvel Universe, Matt Murdock spends his days practicing the law, a blind lawyer defending the weak and following the rules, but when night falls he wears the red and becomes the fear of Hell’s Kitchen, a fearsome vigilante, Daredevil himself! Daredevil was originally created by Stan Lee (Daredevil #01, April 1964) and further explored by great writers and artists like Jack Kirby, John Romita Sr., Wally Wood, Brian Michael Bendis and othe
rs, but it was Frank Miller the one who offered the series the recognition and popularity it deserved. Today’s blog is dedicated to one of the issues that changed this legendary character forever, specifically the 181st issue of the first volume of Daredevil titled “Last Hand”, or as we’d call it “The Death of Elektra”!
Killing a character in an ongoing story is always hard, imagine what it was like in a case like this where Elektra was an extremely important and interesting figure in the scenario, she was Matt’s first love, she knew the secret of his identity, she fought him in every occasion balancing between her evil choices as a hired assassin and the affection to her nemesis, some might say she was more intriguing than Daredevil himself. After sparing Foggy Nelson’s life (Murdock’s best friend) Elektra gets in a combat with Bullseye, a hired killer as herself but paranoid and completely evil, a man able to turn every object into a lethal weapon. She seems to be winning and draws first blood when Bullseye cuts her throat with a throwing poker card saying his best known line:
“You’re pretty good… but me… I’m magic”
After which he stabbes her with her own sai. Elektra crawls all the way to Matt’s house to die in his arms while Bullseye watches them hidden in the nearby crowd.
The death of Elektra was a landmark, a significant point in comics history, it was maybe the first time a popular and important character got killed in order to help the story evolve. After that Daredevil is presented more angry and scary, his fights with Bullseye always involve his desire for revenge; Elektra haunts his dreams and affects his life. Of course later the writers were unable to stick to their first decision and made some quite louse storylines about her return (her appearances in volume 2 were much better though) but we have to remember this was even before the death of Robin, back in 1982, before even that ghastly Daredevil movie we had to endure recently.
Jump in and see the real thing in the Daredevil comic books, even you poor scared friend who watched Ben Affleck jumping roofs and kicking around. It’s a different experience, I swear in my hyper sensitive senses!
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