Valiant 101: HARBINGER WARS

Last week we took a look at what I have begun to call as the pre-Valiant, VALIANT, era of Valiant Comics. This week we officially kick things off in the new era in the form of Harbinger Wars.

Harbinger Wars, like all crossover events, involves a lot of parties or set of cast of characters. If I had to break it down, the story involves five: Toyo Harada and the Harbinger Foundation, the Renegades, Project Rising Spirit, Generation Zero, and of course, Bloodshot. All the parties involved have their own ambitions and motives, which overlap and intertwine with each other's, causing conflict among them. I could detail for you who's fighting whom over what and all, and bore, or perhaps more likely, confuse you, or I could simply show you this:

This is the first page of the 12-part story (including the tie-ins) and it does an excellent job in setting up the stage. As a new reader, with absolutely no knowledge of these characters, this was really helpful. Even if you choose to skip this page (But why would you? Not only is it a recap page, but look at it! It's masterfully designed! It is stunning.), the book is written so exquisitely that the story provides ample history, motivations, attributes for pretty much all of the major players. You get that Bloodshot is a douche, a one-man army on a mission. And you get that Toyo Harada is a dick. Obviously, having read the entire catalogue of Valiant Comics would certainly help, but it's not explicitly required; which is great for new readers like me.

Speaking of the story, writers Joshua Dysart and Duane Swierczynski split the writing duties here, with Dysart writing the Harbinger tie-ins, Swierczynski writing the Bloodshot tie-ins, and both co-writing the main Harbinger Wars book. I am so glad I chose to read the tie-ins here because they are fantastic, especially Harbinger. It's a period story, set in the 60s, and takes a look at the business dealings and the tense relationship between Toyo Harada's Harbinger Foundation and the government's Project Rising Spirits. This arc does exactly those things which are why I don't read the tie-ins to any event in the first place, but it does it so well that I was hooked.

Just like the writing duties, the art duties are split precisely: Clayton Henry draws Harbinger Wars, with Clayton Crain coming in from time to time to draw the flashback scenes; Khari Evans and Stefano Gaudiano team up for the Harbinger tie-ins; and Barry Kitson does the Bloodshot tie-ins. This avoids any rushed artworks or tons of inkers filling in to keep the book on schedule, but more importantly, this gives everyone a chance to shine. And boy do they shine. Harbinger Wars and its tie-ins are one of the most gorgeous superhero books in recent memory. Finally, if I may say so, Khari Evans is a monster and every major publisher should be fighting over him.

This may be nitpicking, but my only quibble with this book is slight lettering issues. I ran across a lot of instances where the word balloon did not coincide with the panel box, and it made me... uneasy. What can I say. I'm a perfectionist, I guess.

In the end, Harbinger Wars is not only a excellent introduction to the post-VALIANT, Valiant, era of Valiant Comics, it is, hands down, one of the best big superhero crossover stories. I had fun and isn't that what comics are supposed to be?

Valiant 101: UNITY

When I decided to check out the current state of Valiant Comics, I was pointed to their ongoings and some miniseries. I dug around some more and found out their biggest stories: Harbinger Wars, Armor Hunters, etc. But as I learnt more, I found out about the pre-Valiant, VALIANT, stories. Fascinated, I wanted to read something from that era to get a better idea of what Valiant was and what it has become today; which is what prompted me to read Unity.

Although Unity is written by a number of writers, it clearly is a Jim Shooter story. This is not to dismiss the efforts of the legends involved with this tale. Bob Layton, Roger Stern, David Lapham are all masters of their crafts; but Shooter's imprint is hard to escape. Structurally, Unity reminded me of Secret Wars, another event, that Shooter wrote for Marvel. In Secret Wars, heroes and villains are pulled from different parts of the Marvel universe to fight, and perhaps work together, in order to defeat a bigger threat. Unity follows a similar formula. But instead of just bringing characters together from different parts of the VALIANT universe, Shooter takes it one step further and brings in characters from across time and space.

Solar, "the cornerstone of the VALIANT universe" (which is basically just a fancier way of saying he was their big guy) and the geomancer, Geoff McHenry, arrive at what prima facie looks to be a murder-suicide scene. Solar identifies the body as that of Erica Pierce, who was caught in the same explosion that gave Solar his powers. Geoff, however, thinks something bigger is at play. He believes Erica not only survived that explosion but is also onto something sinister. Although a little hesitant, Solar later agrees with Geoff's analysis and takes him to a land "beyond space and time and known reality".

Turns out not only did Erica survive the explosion, she blames Solar for all her misfortunes since the accident. She now wants to wipe away all parallel timelines -- creating a unity -- and rewrite reality. Geoff realises this a threat too big for Solar to take on alone. He jumps back to the regular timeline -- which happens to be 1992 -- to gather forces that include Harbingers, the Eternal Warrior, X-O Manowar, Archer and Armstrong.

The year 4001 is significant to Valiant universe for various reasons. Many of its biggest characters are billed to either be from the future or operate in the future. Unity cleverly involves those characters as well. Since every era in the Valiant universe has to have a geomancer, there must be a geomancer in the year 4001 as well. And thus, we are introduced to Rokland Tate. Like his counterpart from 1992, Rokland also realises that, well, it's about to go down. He gathers Rai, Magnus, and the Eternal Warrior to help Solar. (Yes, Eternal Warrior again. He's eternal.)

The heroes from the year 4001 join those from year 1992 to take on Erica, but as it turns out it's not so easy. This land "beyond space and time and known reality" where they are, was built by Erica herself. Here she is the "Mothergod". Everybody worships her with unshakable faith, and her forces, which include but are not limited to cyborg dinosaurs, are innumerable. Which is why I guess it takes 19 issues to defeat her.

One of the things that, in my opinion, makes Unity so good is how Shooter and Co. manage to bring in every Valiant character for this story. And by 'every' I do mean every. They find clever ways to involve characters like Turok or Shadowman: characters who do not necessarily translate directly into the story are brought in using some innovative methods. Also, the story is not told chronologically. This makes it both interesting (since you need to pay close attention to everything because you never know when one plotline would impact or influence some other plotline down the road) and repetitive (because every issue spoon feeds; the first few pages drag).

But what really impressed me is the colours on the books throughout. The palette on these books is not what we have generally come to expect in comic books. Colouring on this event is unconventional. Almost reminded me of old kindergarten books. And I mean that absolutely as a compliment.

My only quibble with this book are (what I found to be) unnecessary plotlines like Erica having "daddy issues" and the incest relationship between two characters. I understand the objective here. As I have come to learn, VALIANT Comics were known to weave their superheroes in "real world" scenarios and make them face "real world" challenges. (A common example is how characters that died in the VALIANT universe stayed dead.) But for me that didn't work. The "real world" drama that did work for me though, were the complexities of relationships that were explored when Kris gets pregnant with Torque's child and Pete thinks it's his. That, in my opinion, was done much better than this:

In the end, Unity manages to achieve what it set out to do. It pulled off a big spectacle of a crossover event. But more importantly, for me, as a first time reader, Unity provided excellent introduction to the VALIANT characters. If I had to pick, my favourite character was X-O Manowar. A complete douche, he didn't give a shit about other heroes' plan to defeat the "Mothergod". Rather, he built his own private army to plunder her off her riches. That was completely bonkers.

Valiant 101: A Brief History

Over the last few years, Valiant Comics has grown from just an "indie alternative" to the superhero universes of Marvel and DC to their legitimate competition. I was too young back when Valiant-- no wait... --back when VALIANT was at its zenith and I completely missed out when they relaunched their line a couple of years ago and got to where they are now. Last year, I attended a panel by Dinesh Shamdasani (CEO & Chief Creative Officer at Valiant Entertainment) at the Delhi Comic Con. Hearing him talk with such enthusiasm about his characters motivated me to go check out the buzz surrounding their comics. Over the next few weeks, I would be reading some their best stories, would be going through all of their "tipping points": stories that shaped their current universe, and hopefully, I would be sharing my thoughts here. But before I go read the stories, I wanted to know the backstory of this publisher. I have come to realise studying the history of a comic book publisher helps in understanding their stories better: why it is they do the story that they do. (Quick example: the reason the Justice League, in every origin story, comes together by accident is that the DC Universe was never cohesive to begin with. Batman existed in his own bubble, Superman existed in his own; except an odd story together. Marvel, on the other hand, was planned from the beginning by creators such as Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and more. And thus, the Avengers are always brought together.)

The more I read, the more I realised that the history of Valiant Comics could be broken into three chapters. Or in simpler terms: things were great, then stuff happened, now it's all good again.

Chapter One: VALIANT Comics

In the late 80s, Jim Shooter took over as the editor-in-chief at Marvel after Stan Lee left for Los Angeles to oversee the then embryonic Marvel TV, animation, live action movies division. Although he brought out some of Marvel's best books during his tenure, including Frank Miller's Daredevil, Chris Claremont and John Bryne's Uncanny X-Men, and written by himself, and what is considered to be Marvel's first major crossover (or "event"), Secret Wars, Shooter also had a reputation for being a bully. He was known to hammer his way into every creative decision. Over time the voices of disapproval grew strong enough and Shooter was fired from Marvel in 1987.

Shooter decided to form his own company and launched Voyager Communications with Steve Massarsky (a small time artist manager), Winston Fowlkes (publishing veteran from Time Inc.), and Michael Nugent and Melanie Okun (investors from Triumph Capital). He gathered his pals from Marvel, which included Bob Layton (creator of some of the best Iron Man stories, including Demon in a Bottle) and Barry Windsor-Smith (one of the greatest illustrators of all time). Together they formed the creative force behind VALIANT Comics.

Shooter wanted to write superhero comics, both create new and use the characters he bought from Gold Key Comics. Massarsky, however, wanted to enter the mass media market and brokered a deal with Nintendo. Although he was dissatisfied, Shooter liked the idea of directly entering mass media market.

Things did not work out, though. Turned out no one wanted to read stories about Mario, everybody wanted to experience a story about Mario through a video game. Reportedly, VALIANT lost 3.3 million dollars in two and a half years.

After a few more failed ventures, Shooter finally convinced Massarsky to go back to publishing superheroes. It was the right decision. In 1992, the company returned to profit. Half year down the line, VALIANT was voted by retailers at a Diamond convention as the publisher of the year and Jim Shooter won the Diamond Gemmi award for lifetime achievement alongside Stan Lee. At the same convention next year, VALIANT beat DC and Marvel and won the Best Publisher over 5% Market Share. A feat that stands till date.

It did so by making both smart creative and business decisions. Unity, VALIANT's eighteen-part crossover, officially began with Unity #0, which was given away free at comic book stores. This, and the event in general, drew in thousands of new readers, with sales rivalling the biggest books by Marvel and DC. These new readers wanted to know more about the pre-Unity VALIANT books, but since VALIANT Comics had relatively small print runs, getting those books was difficult, which in turn made them "collectables". VALIANT Comics also came up with the idea of the #0 -- zero issue or origin story -- which is now a popular industry concept.

Things weren't so great behind-the-scenes, though. Triumph Capital LP, the money behind Voyager Communications, was beginning to see a return on their initial investment, and saw a chance to make a lot of money by selling the company. This made sense. Triumph was, after all, a venture company, not a comics publisher. Once the sheer profit of a sale became apparent to Triumph, it was time to get their money and go. They planned on selling their share to investors Charles Lazarus of Toys "R" Us, Michael Ovitz and Wayne Huizenga from Blockbuster Video. Shooter would have no creative control in this deal and was offered an employment contract.

He left.

Fortunately for the readers, Bob Layton and Co. kept the comic book side of the company running and put out great stories every month. This is not to say that the behind-the-scenes drama did no damage to the machine.

In early 1994, VALIANT teamed up with Image Comics to do an inter-company crossover called Deathmate. Image has a similar "origin story" as VALIANT. It was also formed by former Marvel creators, but unlike VALIANT, it did not have a cohesive universe but rather, similar to Dark Horse Comics, it had smaller studios publishing their own stories under the bigger Image Comics umbrella. Deathmate was marred by scheduling and production delays, particularly from Image's side. Retailers who had ordered in bulk suffered heavy losses. At the same time, the comic book boom imploded and the magic that was VALIANT seemed to have died down.

Chapter Two: Acclaim Entertainment

In late 1994 / early 1995, Massarsky sold VALIANT to Acclaim Entertainment for $65 million. Acclaim began reshaping the VALIANT characters into properties more suited for video games, which was Acclaim's bread and butter. Some characters like Turok made smooth transition to the new media. Others, however, very not so lucky. (Like X-O Manowar, who was teamed up with Iron Man in a game called Heavy Metal.)

This is not to say that Acclaim were not committed to making comic books. They got heavy hitters like Mark Waid, Garth Ennis, and more, to write their biggest characters. However, these characters were simply too much changed to suit Acclaim's vision for their video games that fans barely recognized them any more. The characters they had come to love over the years were gone. The books performed poorly both financially and critically. Quantum and Woody, though, was very well received.

Acclaim even got Jim Shooter back to do Unity 2000, a miniseries that was supposed to bridge the old VALIANT universe and the then-current Acclaim universe. Sadly, only three of the scheduled six books were published as Acclaim got into deep financial troubles, and by 2004, Acclaim Entertainment filed for bankruptcy.

Chapter Three: Valiant Entertainment

Dinesh Shamdasani and Jason Kothari, entrepreneurs and fans of VALIANT comics, learned that the entire VALIANT comics characters library is up for auction at a rather obtainable price. Dinesh gathered some investors and made a bid for it.

Although Dinesh and Co. lost, the company that did win the auction pulled out after they found that another company had filed for intent-to-use on several VALIANT characters. The group that claimed the right to the names of these characters called themselves Valiant Intellectual Properties while Dinesh named his group Valiant Entertainment. Valiant v Valiant, in court.

Reportedly, Valiant Intellectual Properties hired a big shot lawyer, one well versed with cases associated with comic book IPs, who ended up costing them a fortune. Two years later and thousands of dollars down, VIP were forced into a settlement.

In 2008, Valiant Entertainment did their first announcement after procuring the rights. They announced the return of Jim Shooter (Although it didn't really work out. More on that in a bit.). They hired Warren Simons as Editor-in-Chief. They got an investment from Peter Cuneo, former Marvel CEO, who came on as Valiant's chairman with his son, Gavin Cuneo, an experienced investment banker, as CFO.

(Jim Shooter was fired for a breach of contract after he went out to work for Dark Horse Comics relaunch of Gold Key Comics characters -- characters, who were part of the original VALIANT universe.)

Valiant Entertainment gradually went out to rebuild their fanbase. Rather than building their brand on nostalgia, Valiant rebuilt them on accessibility: anybody should pick up the books and get instantly hooked up. They "broke down characters and redesigned them". In a good way. They started "Summer of Valiant," that announced new books with great creative teams annually, signalling new directions that kept things fresh.

To their credit, Dinesh and Co. realized that they can't compete with the Big 2 when it came to hiring big names for their books. So, they went "moneyball". They hired people who, for the lack of a better term, were cheap, but were very good at what they did. They got Robert Venditti, who at that time was relatively unknown but had made the right noises with The Surrogates, to write X-O Manowar. They got Justin Jordon, who at that time was relatively unknown but had made the right noises with The Legend of Luthor Strode, for Shadowman. They got Joshua Dysart, who at that time was relatively unknown but had made the right noises with The Unknown Soldier, for Harbinger. And so on.

It paid off wonderfully. In just three to four years, Valiant Comics grew exponentially. Consider this: their latest crossover, Book of Death, topped 200,000 in sales and became “the most successful independent crossover event of the decade”. Sony has optioned Bloodshot and Harbinger for a shared universe set of films similar to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In short, things are looking great.

And with that, ladies and gentlemen, we are done with the history lesson. Next, we take a look at the very first event of this publisher. We take a look at Unity.

The Playlist Zone: ANANSI BOYS

For readers of Neil Gaiman's American Gods, Anansi Boys automatically becomes the next recommendation. It's also about old gods, dysfunctional families, forgotten magic, but also, music.

I did this exercise with American Gods, and it sort of involuntarily moved on with Anansi Boys, too.



PS: I should mention that Anansi Boys is not a sequel or prequel to American Gods. We learn more about one of the characters from American Gods in Anansi Boys and that's pretty much it. You do not need to read American Gods before Anansi Boys, or vice versa.

The Playlist Zone: AMERICAN GODS

While reading Neil Gaiman's American Gods last year, I kept a list of the songs mentioned in the book, purely for my own amusement. I made a Spotify playlist sometime later and totally forgot about it. Now that they are finally adapting the book into a TV series, this seems to be a good time to revisit the playlist, and the book.

Event Battle 2015: MARVEL’s SECRET WARS vs DC’s CONVERGENCE

When I started this, I had hoped I would somehow turn this into an (almost) annual sort of thing. And now posting the third edition to this, I think I’ve done that, haven’t I?

Welcome to EVENT BATTLE 2015.

Both DC and Marvel had earth universe shattering blockbuster events this year, and frankly, on different levels, I enjoyed them both. Agreed, both events seemed similar, some would even say “recycled” (more on this later), however, they were fun comics, and you know what? Comics should fun.

Let’s take a look at Marvel’s SECRET WARS… 

Written by Jonathan Hickman, Secret Wars is the culmination of his two year run on Avengers and New Avengers. The Avengers, or more appropriately, the Illuminati, are faced with the threat of world destruction by planetary collision. I didn’t really follow Hickman’s run (I know, I know. I’m an idiot.), but from what I recall, the only way for the Illuminati to save their world seems to be the destruction of the other, and this obviously, causes friction among the group members.

To its credit, Secret Wars does not make Hickman’s New Avengers stuff a required reading. The story opens directly with the heroes of Earth 616 (regular Marvel universe) making a life raft to save a handful of people, because, well, saving seven billion turns out to be impossible. On the other hand, the Cabal (Thanos and his group) have already travelled to Earth 1060 (Ultimate Marvel universe)to influence the smartest man there: Reed Richards, aka the Master.

The Master convinces the Nick Fury of the Ultimate Marvel universe that the only way to save Earth 1060 is by the destruction of Earth 616. But the only thing war has ever led to is the ruination of both sides.

Miraculously, Earth is saved by our lord and saviour, Doctor Doom. Wielding the powers of the Beyonders, he almost single-handedly recreates our planet with patchworks from different universes, each territory a domain onto itself under the iron rule of Doom. This, however, is not Earth. This is Battleworld.

The story really kicks off when Doom’s forces discover the two life rafts that had escaped from Earth 1060 and Earth 616, respectively. Learning what Doom has done, how wrong, how broken it really is, the survivors of both earths form a temporary alliance to take down Doom and fix everything. This, however, won’t be easy. You see, if Doom has the power to create a world, doesn’t that make him a god?

I have already spoken about my admiration for Hickman’s ability to write great dialogues. In a book like this, where the antagonist is basically a god king, and territories of his realm are ruled over by royal families, Hickman really takes it to the next level. Maybe it’s the Game of Thrones-esque subplot that forms. Also, Hickman is a clever writer that respects the reader’s intelligence. He does not waste pages on flashback sequences or action scenes. Sure, there are action scenes, but anything that is not so important to main plot, which is of course, Reed Richards (the Earth 1060 one) vs Doctor Doom, is left to the reader’s imagination. Example: he does not explicitly specify exactly what does the Thor of Earth 1060 say to influence the other Thors against Doom. (Yes, you read that right. Thors.)

The story is filled with jaw-dropping, epic moments. I will not spoil them for you, but, um… Thors! Groot! Hulks! Thanos! Black Panther!

Coming to the art on the book, well, it’s gorgeous. Ive Svorcina’s colours over Esad Ribic’s pencils make a fantastic combination.They illustrate the complete nine issues saga without missing a beat.I’ve been a fan of Ribic since the God-Butcher saga he did with Jason Aaron on Thor: God of Thunder, and was saddened to learn he would leaving the book after just one more arc. I guess I didn’t knew he was gearing up to illustrate one of Marvel’s best events in years.

Now let’s take look at what DC had to offer in 2015… 

DC also did a nine issue company wide crossover event. They called it CONVERGENCE.

Brainiac, who over the last few years has been turned into DC Comics’ Galactus, creates a planet to keep his bottled cities, (Brainiac travels the multiverse to capture and collect cultures so that he can study them in their natural environment.), and for some reason, thinks it would be a good idea to make the planet sentinel. The sentinel planet calls itself Telos.

Telos decides that the best way to serve its master would be to do a survival of the fittest type tournament to determine the best of the lot. And thus, everybody… FIGHT!

If you are unfamiliar with the current happenings of Earth-2 in the DC Universe, it got destroyed. Yeah. Anyways, the heroes of that earth did manage to send a couple of spaceships filled with survivors off into the wild before the planet went kaboom. In a twist of fate, the heroes are pulled from certain death to not-so-certain-but-pretty-probable death when they are pulled in to this battle royal by Telos.

Every city on the planet is busy fighting off their opponent city that Telos has picked for them, the heroes of these cities are engaged in a battle for the survival of their city. Earth-2 heroes, as cruel as this sounds, have nothing to fight for. Their world is already dead.

So they decide to bring down Telos and end this madness.

Interestingly, for this event, DC Comics decided to hand over the control of their universe to someone who didn’t have much experience in writing comics. Now, that is not questioning Jeff King’s abilities as a writer. I’m sure he’s a good writer, and like I mentioned earlier, I enjoyed Convergence at its own level. All I’m saying is, if you want to bring in someone who’s not familiar with comic book writing but is pretty famous and all,you bring them in by letting them co-write or take full control of a modestly selling comic book, let them get the hang of the ropes, and then gradually move them up. That is, I suppose, the traditional way. Bold move by DC letting King write their next big crossover event. And guess what? It paid off. Convergence might not be The Omega Men in terms of writing or anything else, but it was much better than Futures End so all’s well that ends well.

Speaking of Futures End, Convergence also does not follow the monthly comic book schedule. That means a lot of artists, a lot of colourists, working round the clock to keep the book on schedule. However, unlike Futures End, the art on Convergence, as disparate as it may be, gels together to form a cohesive unit. And I really loved the colours on this book, man.

THE VERDICT

I’ve mentioned here earlier how the Big Two hype these events as something that is really going to change the course of their respective universe, but once the story is done, they kind of undo the work towards the end, and the event has little to no impact on the shared universe. For a change, both DC’s and Marvel’s event had major repercussions throughout their books. So much in fact, that the implications were solicited weeks before the actual story responsible for those implications had wrapped up.

Now coming back to what I said we’ll discuss later. Both Secret Wars andConvergence have been criticized for “recycling” plots of previously published comic books. Secret Wars, in fact, reuses the title of the very first Marvel event, and all the tie-ins reuse title and/or plotlines of past events, albeit with a twist. In Convergence, Brainiac forms a patchwork planet. These patches from different universes, although separated from each other, are under “the iron rule” of Telos. Sounds familiar? Hold on, there’s more. Telos starts a battle royal tournament on this planet to determine the strongest city, effectively forming a… Battleworld. Dun dun duhh.

This is not the first time the Big Two have been accused of borrowing from each other. Hawkeye and Green Arrow, Swamp Thing and Man-Thing. See a pattern?

And this is not accusing the creators involved of plagiarism. I have immense respect for comic book creators – they make my favourite books! These sort of things just happen. Because if it worked for them and it sells, surely it will work for us too, right?

(Did you know Batman was created because DC wanted to recreate the success of Superman by introducing a new superhero, but since they already had a superhero for the day, they went with a superhero for the night?)

If I had to pick one of the two, I would, with a doubt, go with Secret Wars. Yes, this year DC did a much better job than their past events, but Secret Wars was on a different level, man.

Contrary to what this blog might suggest, I do not read only superhero comic books. Confession: I do not enjoy superhero comic books anymore. I read these events because they give a general idea of what’s going on with both publisher’s line. But boy oh boy did I enjoy Secret Wars. It had not purpose being that good!

PS: The patchwork planet subplot in both events allowed creators to do a lot of interesting stories free from the confinement of continuity and such. So I broke my rule of never reading tie-ins for big crossover events and tried a few. If you also want to try some,here are some recommendations… 

For Convergence: Shazam! by Jeff Parker, Evan “Doc” Shaner, Jordie Bellaire;Swamp Thing by Len Wein, Kelley Jones, Michelle Madsen; Superman by Dan Jurgens, Lee Weeks, Brad Anderson; The Question by Greg Rucka, Cully Hammer, Dave McCaig

For Secret Wars: Thors by Jason Aaron, Chris Spouse, Goran Sudžuka, Karl Story, Dexter Vines, Marte Gracia; Civil War by Charles Soule, Leinil Yu, Gerry Alanguilan, Sunny Gho; Weirdworld by Jason Aaron, Mike del Mundo, Marco D'Alfonso; A-Force by G. Willow Wilson, Marguerite Bennett, Jorge Molina, Craig Yeung, Laura Martin, Matt Milla

Event Battle 2014: DC’s FUTURES END vs MARVEL’s ORIGINAL SIN

Welcome to second edition of EVENT BATTLE, ladies and gentlemen. Miss me?

(In case you do not know what this is, follow this link.)

I'll assume you already know what comic book events are, considering you came back (thank you!). I'll also assume you have tremendous patience, considering you waited this long for this post. It's partly my fault. I'll admit I am a bit lazy (okay, a lot but still) but DC Comics' 2014 event was fourty-nine weekly issues that started in 2014 and ended only a couple of months back.

Let's begin with DC Comics' FUTURES END...

DC's 2014 event takes us thirty-five years into the future where the satellite AI Brother Eye has virtually eradicated humanity by converting everybody, or rather everything, into hive mind cyborgs. Brother Eye was created by Mr. Terrific with the help of Batman years ago, but with much better intentions. Batman (Bruce Wayne) realises his folly and sends his protégé Batman Beyond (Terry McGuiness) back in time to stop the AI's creation. However, things do not go exactly as planned as Batman Beyond misses his time-jump landing point off by five years where Brother Eye's creation has already started, which is why the event is set five years in to the future of the current DC Universe.

Even five years in the future, the DC Universe is a grim place. The world is recovering from a war between the superpowered factions of Earth-Prime and Earth 2. Both sides have suffered heavy losses, and apparently, Superman had to make the biggest sacrifice or he suffered the most or... something happened.

If that sounds a bit vague, it's because it is. The war and its details are revealed almost midway through the series with little to no buildup or gradual reveals in the previous issues, except inexplicable mentions thrown here and there.

Written by Brian Azzarello, Keith Giffen, Dan Jurgens and Jeff Lemire, the series follows multiple plotlines that converge into and around one another. A large cast is used to tell the story and it's clear which writer brought in which character. Structurally, this series is reminiscent of 52, a year long weekly series that DC did in 2006, however Futures End does not have the same level of cohesiveness that made 52 work. There are inconsistencies in the storytelling and in the writing itself. Example: Constantine's dialogues are written sometimes in neutral accent and sometimes in a way to highlight his British accent.

The weekly comic book format is unusual for the North American comic book industry. Sure, you have new comics releasing every week but almost every individual comic book follows the monthly schedule. Doing a weekly comic book is no easy thing. A large art team is brought in to keep Futures End on schedule. Take a look: Aaron Lopresti, Alberto Ponticelli, Allan Goldman, Andy MacDonald, Art Thibert, Cam Smith, Cully Hamner, Dan Green, Dan Jurgens, Dexter Vines, Drew Geraci, Ethan Van Sciver, Freddie Williams II, Georges Jeanty, Jack Herbert, Jesus Merino, Karl Story, Mark Irwin, Patrick Zircher, Scot Eaton, Scott Hanna, Scott Kolins, Stephen Thompson, Tom Raney, Vincente Cifuentes, Wayne Faucher, with Hi-Fi colouring every issue.

That's a lot of people.

There are obvious artwork inconsistencies because every artist has his own style, however all the artists involved follow the "DC House Style" so the event does looks like one big cohesive beast. Ryan Sook did the cover for every issue of the series and they are absolutely stunning.

Oh and yes, the stabbing and maiming that has become the staple of The New 52 is very much alive in the series.

Now, let's take a look at what Marvel had to offer in 2014...

Written by Jason Aaron with Mike Deodato doing the art, ORIGINAL SIN is basically a superhero murder mystery.

Somebody has murdered The Watcher, an immensely powerful cosmic being whose job is to witness everything that occurs in the Marvel Universe. Witness everything, mind you, and not interfere. The Watcher is one of the many crazy ideas introduced way back in Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four. (Like Galactus. A cosmic being that eats planets! Take a moment and think about it. That is absolutely bonkers.)

A panicked Thor brings the Watcher's murder to the Avengers' notice and considering that there aren't many who know of the Watcher's existence (the Watcher appears to only those whose actions affect the fate of humanity) and that there aren't many who can pull something like that off, Nick Fury warns Captain America that the investigation into the murder could lead to some "dark places."

While the Avengers continue their own investigation, a mystery man recruits Black Panther to take a different path. Three teams are formed and are sent to different locations in the Marvel Universe. Black Panther, Emma Frost and Ant-Man (Scott Lang) journey to the center of Earth, as Moon Knight, Winter Soldier and Gamora head to deep space, while Doctor Strange and the Punisher travel to "somewhere far beyond the realm of man."

Jason Aaron is a fantastic writer but writing a big comic book event is different. You may be able to do any character justice with your writing, you may be able to do justice to every supporting character of his/hers, but handling multiple characters at the same time, handling multiple teams, multiple villains at the same time is tough. There aren't many writers who can do that. Jim Shooter is the absolute master around those parts, and it's great to see Aaron leave a mark. The fact that he is able to build intrigue and suspense is an added bonus.

I could write paragraphs and paragraphs of appreciation for the art on this book but it still won't do it any justice. Mike Deodato draws every issue of the eight-part event and still manages to keep the book on schedule which, quite frankly, is unheard of these days. But that's not all. Never is the artwork rushed. Every page is utterly gorgeous. If you were to buy a superhero comic book based on the artwork alone, Original Sin is a pretty strong contender.

THE VERDICT

Fortunately, Original Sin does not have the same flaw as Marvel's last year's event Infinity had. Things are shaken up, characters are killed, but when the dust settles and all's set and done, we are not back to square one. Sure, new characters take place of the old and to some, the entire event may look like an excuse to do away with the version of Nick Fury moviegoers are not accustomed to, but the three main characters – Nick Fury, Winter Soldier, Thor – who are most affected by the events of the story actually have their status quo changed. Infact, Thor has been one of my favourite books since (like it wasn't already) and Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier has been a trip.

On the other hand, Futures End was set thirty-five years in to the future of DC Universe. Anything that happens in that book is not going to stay because judging by what the Big 2 are doing these days, we can get a reboot/relaunch anytime. This makes Futures End an Elseworlds story essentially. Unfortunately, it's not a good one. And I love Elseworlds stories!

I really want to write a bit about the ending of Futures End and how awful it is but I would have to spoil it for you so I'll leave you with this: