Origins of the Dark Mason

Plots

By Jarys Maragopoulos and Rudraigh Quattrin

Edited by Rudraigh Quattrin

 

I’ve sent Brickie away to play with Chester for a while.

What I’m about to do, I’m not proud of, and I want neither of them to know about it.  Hell, if I can keep the rest of the team from learning of my actions, that’d be great, but it may not be in the cards.

We have a crisis on our hands.  What is about to happen needs to be done, but only if done for the right reasons.

I walk through the hallways in the Depths’ underwater fortress.  This is such an odd place.  I think Glacier might be more comfortable here than I am.  All this water, but no stone.  No earth.  It’s like I’m disconnected from everything.  The silence is nice, but I can’t Feel anything.

Not Quite a Comix Review

I’ve been pretending to work hard at grad school for the last few days, but I’ve been keeping up on my comics.  Here are three good things to pick up.

1. Deadpool- The Merc with the Mouth gets his own ongoing series!  Watch as he signs up with the Skrull Empire… in Pool-o-Vision!

2. Magneto: Testament- Marvel is finally publishing the definitive origin and history of Magneto.  This is a very serious work because of the established character history.  I’ll have a longer piece on this one, soon.  This book is excellent, though.  Go read it.

3. Old Man Logan- In yet another dystopian future, Wolverine has been so defeated and so humbled that he swears never to raise his hands in violence again.  This one’s a little odd, in that it’s the future but the old west.  But, hey!  It’s worked before.  It kinda reminds me of Unforgiven, which is definitely a plus.

7 Things That Made Me Geek Out This Week

I’ve been back almost a week now, and the combo of jet-lag and sad panda has worn off enough to do what I’m here to do in the first place: geek it up. I spent five days in and around the edge of the Arctic Circle, without internet. Five whole days! There was one sojourn onto Berglaug’s grandparents’ dial-up (yes, they still make dial-up), but my usual internet rounds were left abandoned. I’ve had a lot to catch up on.

Right then. I’ve got more windows open on my huge ass monitor than I know what to do with. Pandora’s rocking me out, and I’ve got one eye on Trillian and one eye on YouTube, which begs the question of how I am writing this at all.

Ah yes. It’s time to internet.

Revenge of the Weekly Comix Review

Yes, friends, it’s been too long. I’ve fallen in my duties; lapsed, like a newly-confirmed Catholic; failed even in the very parallelism and grammar of this sentence.

I’ll try to make it a while before I get distracted by life, once more.

Over the past two or three weeks, I’ve picked up a few good titles. These include Joker’s Asylum, various X-Titles, various Avengers titles, New Warriors, Hulk, GeNeXt (god, I hate that choice of font!), and some Transformers Spotlights.

OMFG A Comix Review

So how’s about we get down to brass tacks and review some comics already?

After the jump, Drew Goddard sends me into paroxysms of gush, Astonishing isn’t quite, and I come to my senses about Wolverine: First Class. GO! GO! GO!

SPOILERS!

My Birthday Present To Myself

Card carrying member, suckers. Biggity-bam.

Mr. Gaiman will now explain to you why this is awesome.

Like Brother, Like Sister

My brother, as some of you know, is fucking rad. He is one of my bestest buddies, and he is better than you (yes, you) will ever be in arenas. He is also a freshman in college, and he just sent me his final essay for his English class to proofread and critique. The assignment was to make an analysis of societal change in literature. He wrote a paper about how comic books have progressed thematically between the Silver Age and now.

“Comic books are a medium of writing that have an immense amount of flexibility when it comes to content and are a medium that have not faded in the last 50 years…The 1950’s were a time where people wanted to see superheroes that promoted good in the world and destroyed America’s enemies…Following political unrest and war in the United States, people began to want to see stories that told of the dark and private life of heroes. Finally, modern comics are stories that tend to have deep roots in political criticism, or warnings about the direction that society is taking.”

From his works cited:

4. Ellis, Warren. Transmetropolitan. New York: DC Comics, 1998.
5. Facts about Code-Approved Comics Magazines. New York: the Association, 1959.
6. Moore, Alan. Watchmen. New York: DC Comics, 1987.
8. The Comic Code Authority. 27, Dec 2003. Comic Artville Library. 6, May 2008.
10. Whedon, Joss. Astonishing X-Men. New York: Marvel Comics, 2006.

*tear*

I am so proud.

Just Print The Bastard Already

Just a quickie before bed: Marvel has released a preview of Giant Sized Astonishing X-Men, which will conclude the epicly good and painfully drawn out series. About damn time. They say there’s possible spoilers on some of the artwork, but the panels are all without text, so it’s just a lot of people looking at each other without context.

Many fans have pointed to references in recent comics as likely spoilers for the hyped death that is said to occur in this issue.

If it happens, I’m gonna strangle someone.

Good News Before Bed

[23:14] Becky: YO
[23:14] Becky: they’re doing a comic book version of “the facts in the case of the departure of miss finch”
[23:14] Becky: dark horse
[23:14] Becky: in a month
[23:14] Rudraigh: !!!
[23:15] Becky: am happy now
[23:15] Rudraigh: that will be awesome
[23:16] Becky: he needs to write more books
[23:16] Becky: i’ve been jonesing to read some gaiman these days
[23:16] Rudraigh: definitely
[23:17] Rudraigh: yeah, I’ve almost run dry
[23:17] Rudraigh: I guess I could find “the incredible mr. punch” or “the day I swapped my dad for 2 goldfish”
[23:17] Becky: mr punch disturbed me
[23:17] Becky: i dunno, i went to bed after reading it feeling kinda weirded out
[23:18] Becky: i loved 2 goldfish
[23:19] Becky: YO
[23:19] Becky: mr gaiman reading “a study in emerald”
[23:19] Becky: yusssss
[23:19] Rudraigh: oh christ
[23:20] Becky: is that oh christ good?
[23:20] Rudraigh: very much so
[23:20] Rudraigh: I’m excited
[23:20] Becky: then use your caps lock
[23:20] Becky: or at least exclamation points
[23:20] Rudraigh: sorry. it’s late
[23:20] Rudraigh: !!!
[23:20] Becky: much better

About Damn Time

As I finish off my chamomile tea and get ready to hit the hay, I thought I’d end this fine weekend by sharing with you a bit of great news. Yes, rejoice, for a US court of law has ruled that, in the case of Superman, creators own their characters. At least a little bit.

From the article:
A federal judge here on Wednesday ruled that the heirs of Jerome Siegel — who 70 years ago sold the rights to the action hero he created with Joseph Shuster to Detective Comics for $130 — were entitled to claim a share of the United States copyright to the character. The ruling left intact Time Warner’s international rights to the character, which it has long owned through its DC Comics unit.

In other words, woot and huzzah. I can’t speak for the families of the creators in question, but to me, this ruling has nothing to do with money. As a someone who is taking their first baby steps into the world of writing and publishing, the idea of The Man owning my ideas and doing whatever the hell they feel like with them is worrisome. I’m all for growth and collaboration and change within the creative community. I love that. Ideas and stories are fluid, and they should be built on and changed as time allows. That’s what makes them great. But if you’re taking my world, telling people it’s my world, and then doing something I don’t like with it, then no. I’m not cool with that, and especially not if you’re making Scrooge McDuck-sized piles of money with it. However, that’s the reality of going corporate, and it sucks.

I have a feeling that this judge might have given writers and artists alike the hope for something different. But since I’m a level one super-noob when it comes to talking about ownership rights, here’s two well-known gents who thought this was good news as well. I found their reactions quite in character.

Warren Ellis: “fucking immense”
Neil Gaiman: “oh good”

Indeed, sirs.