I took a few months off after the last magazine I got, so let’s move on to Wizard #92, from April 1999, with that fun Kevin Maguire cover. The millennium approaches!!!!
Gareb Shamus, in his opening letter, writes about the internet. Oh, the glorious 20th century, when we thought the internet would solve our problems rather than ruining society as we know it! “It seems like everywhere you turn,” writes Mr. Shamus, “everyone is talking about the Internet.” (Oh, back when we used to capitalize it!) “How it’s going to do this. How it’s going to do that … Well, it’s true and it will do even more.” He notes it won’t affect physical comic books — really, Gareb? — “but it will change everything from how you buy [them], to how you find what you’re looking for, and how you find others who are interested in it as much as you.” Man, Shamus was on it! Apparently, “We can use the Web [yep, also capitalized] to provide daily information to you on all the interests you have from comics to Star Wars to wrestling. We also scan the Web for comic book and action figure transactions, and provide a daily listing of the interesting deals that went down, from rare variants to #1 issues.” Man, this sounds like a utopia! I’m glad it was never perverted in any way!
It’s time for letters! Someone asked who inked Fantastic Four #1. Maybe he should have gone to Gareb Shamus’s Internet to find out! (It was Dick Ayers, by the way.) Someone also wanted to know what Romita Jr.’s first published work was, and Romita answered that it was a six-page back-up story, “Chaos at the Coffee Bean,” in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #11 from 1977. Go read it now! Someone else asked “What exactly are White Castles? They seem to be a big thing at Wizard. But what are they?” Jim McLauchlin answers: “White Castles are scrumptious little square hamburger treats that get their unique flavor from the way they’re prepared — they’re steamed instead of fried or grilled. [“steamed hams”?!?!?!] They taste great, but they’re equally famous for …uh … let’s just say ‘the quick fashion in which they achieve egress from your system.’ Still, it is an amazing culinary concoction which must be sampled at least once in life.” Ok, if you’ve never had White Castle, it’s definitely not something you really need in your life. The company did expand into the West, specifically Las Vegas and Arizona, which was surprising because it was always an East Coast thing, as McLauchlin notes in his reply. I’ve had White Castle once in my life, and that was enough. It was not around Pennsylvania when I was growing up, and I don’t think I had even heard of it until I was the summer after my sophomore year in high school, when my church youth group spent a week in Fort Thomas, Kentucky (right across the river from Cincinnati), where we helped paint a shelter and hang out with the youth group at their church (I guess our junior minister at the time knew their minister, or something). We had a fun time, and all the Kentuckian teens told us we just had to go to White Castle, so we did. I don’t know how many of my fellow Pennsylvanians enjoyed it, but I hated the sliders. Just hated them. So, I never went back to White Castle. Aren’t you glad I write these things on this blog? Also, it’s weird to think that this letter was written before Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. I bet that dude wouldn’t have written this a few years later! Another dude asked if Marvel is planning to release all of Amazing Spider-Man in “Marvel Masterworks,” and he also notes that prices for them have gone way up. Oh, that fool! Wizard notes that Marvel puts of Masterworks on a case-by-case basis, which was always interesting, as they’re numbered weirdly because they did it this way.
Okey-dokey, let’s move on to the news! As you might recall, Marvel was having a difficult time getting someone to write the X-Men, mainly because they didn’t call me (it was about this time that I had about 50 issues plotted out, which I’m sure I still have in a box somewhere) and because everyone hated Bob Harras but were afraid to say it out loud. Well, now we learn that Alan Davis would be taking over as sole writer of both books and the penciler on X-Men. Davis did what he could, but it was still just a mess, and Davis sending them through time and space didn’t help. I like Davis, and these books aren’t terrible, they’re just messy, and I don’t know if that’s Davis’s fault or if it’s just because he was presented with such a mess. In a sidebar, Wizard mentions the “Marvel Tech” launch, which didn’t make much of an impact, but good for Marvel. This was launching in a few months from this point, yet while Joe Casey was writing Deathlok, they didn’t know if Leonardo Manco or Ashley Woods was drawing it; Pascual Ferry was drawing Magus but they didn’t have a writer; and X-51, the Machine Man actually had both a writer (Mike Higgins) and a penciler (Karl Bollers). Good for them! Moving on, John Byrne and Bart Sears were doing a new Spider-Woman title. I don’t know how longer Sears lasted, but the series only made it to 18 issues. Then, Wizard lets us know that Warner Bros. was considering doing a Batman musical. Come on, that would have been awesome! I assume it never got off the ground, but man, I would watch something like that. The Spawn universe was expanding, as Rick Veitch was writing Cy-Gor and Bendis was doing Sam & Twitch. I have no idea what happened with Cy-Gor, but Sam & Twitch had a nice run. Frank Miller was working on a new Sin City story, “Hell and Back,” which came out a bit later in that year. Joe Orlando died in December 1998 at 71, and Wizard had a nice little piece about it. Right below it, there was an item about Usagi Yojimbo being used in Japanese history classes at Portland State University. I was in grad school at PSU at that time; I’m sure I read about this, but I never took the class!
On page 29, there’s a bit about Lady Pendragon by Matt Hawkins. I never read Lady Pendragon, but I do find it interesting that some years later, Hawkins was doing stuff like Think Tank and really diving into the military-industrial complex. Quite the evolution from scantily-clad Guinevere! In their “thumbs-up/thumbs-down” section, they like “No Man’s Land” and … Slingers? and are very unimpressed with Aria in color. Wizard tells it like it is, people! They note that Topps is no longer publishing comics, so their licensed stuff will be gone and Wizard updates us on where it might go. It did not look good. Meanwhile, Beau Smith offered a tongue-in-cheek answer to the rumor that Todd MacFarlane bought Mark McGwire’s 70th home run ball: “Todd has no balls.” Good for you, Mr. Smith!
Moving on, we get a brief interview/summary/preview about Invisibles, which was gearing up for its countdown to its end. It begins by Morrison claiming they experienced an alien, possibly from another reality, in Nepal, a statement that makes me reconsider my Whorrisonian fandom, but, hey, you do you, Grant! They later claim that things that happen in the book influence the real world — in the book, King Mob is tortured and suffers a mutilated face, and two months later, Morrison gets an abscess in their cheek and ends up in the hospital. If only there was a word that could describe such phenomena?!?!? Anyway, it’s an interesting article. I’ve still never finished Invisibles. I’ll get around to it one day.
Next, Jim McLauchlin has an article subtitled “The 10 Things You’ve Always Wanted to Know About Dawn but Were Afraid to Ask,” which, the only thing I’ve ever wanted to know about Dawn is why doesn’t she wash that mascara off her face, but I guess some people wanted to know more! It’s not a bad article, as we get a lot of information about the character and a nice sidebar about the Dawn look-a-like contest at Dragon*Con 1998, but I just don’t care that much about Dawn.
Beginning on page 42, Wizard has a pretty in-depth article about Batman Beyond, which had debuted on … wait for it … the WB Network (I mean, of course it did, but I just got a serious Nineties flashback with all this “WB” stuff). They talk to Paul Dini about the characters and stories, which is good enough, but the latter half of the article is about the development of the episodes, each of which takes about a year to create. It’s very detailed but very fascinating. There’s a fun sidebar about things that didn’t make it into episodes, some because of time (no Enemy Ace!), and some because of censorship (Batman dreams of suicide; there are hints he’s turning into a vampire). Overall, it’s a nice article. Moving on, we get a good interview with Tom DeFalco, who was writing the “MC2” books at the time. MC2, according to Wizard, “flies in the face of comics tradition by presenting a future where optimism rules and by establishing a heroine as the three-book line’s flagship character.” I mean, good for the first one, but man, that second one is depressing, isn’t it? I’m not sure if it’s changed, either. Anyway, I never read the MC2 books, but Young Juggernaut is wearing a flannel shirt wrapped around his waist in one drawing in the article, so I think I probably would have mocked it. I suppose it was pretty decent, yeah?
Wizard, as we know, was obsessed with whether DC or Marvel was better, so on page 54, they break it down, scientific-like. They say that Marvel’s characters — both its heroes and villains — are better because they’re more humanistic, which, sure. For writers, they give the edge to DC, which wasn’t hard in the late 1990s, when Marvel’s writers were either floundering or had been poached from DC (a trend that would continue in the very near future with Morrison, Ennis, and Ellis, to name the most high-profile ones, moving over). They naturally give the artist edge to Marvel, because they always give the artist edge to Marvel, although I would argue at that moment, DC’s artists were better. Marvel obviously gets the nod in the “universe” category, as its comics are set in a vaguely realistic “real world” while DC is constantly rebooting their universe and it’s filled with fictional cities. I guess, but this seems like a weak category and choice, because DC’s universe at the time wasn’t that confusing. Plus, Marvel’s insistence on “never rebooting” means that Flash Thompson fought in Vietnam and Ororo Munro’s parents were killed during the Suez Crisis. The next category is “Diversity.” Of course, it’s not what you think — this is 1999! Black people and women don’t read comics, come on! They mean stuff outside of superheroes, and DC is clearly the winner here. DC wins with the “Risk Factor” category, as Wizard appreciates them trying new things, but does point out that it’s mostly because DC was trying to catch up to Marvel, while Marvel didn’t really need to take any risks. So there’s that. DC also wins in the “Mass Media” category, as they were just better at it at the time (being owned by Warner Bros. certainly helps), but Wizard notes that Marvel has made good strides. This means, of course, that DC wins, 4-3, but Wizard points out how fluid things are in the world of comics. It’s a pretty good article, as it does show what the states of the companies were at the time (there’s a fun sidebar of goofy categories in which Wizard points out that Warner Bros. has “87 percent of all the money ever printed”) and what we can expect from the future. Wizard did not anticipate Marvel’s foray in “alternate realities” — the kind they sort-of bashed DC about, but the Ultimate line was, of course, a yuuuugggge success for the House of Ideas. The reign of Bill Jemas was just around the corner!
We always have to have a casting call, and this time around, Wizard gets Kevin Smith to cast his Superman movie! Smith points out that when he was writing the movie, he suggested Nicolas Cage for Brainiac, which I think would have worked pretty well. Producer Jon Peters suggested Cage as Supes, but Smith mentions that Peters also once though Sean Penn would be good in the role because he has the charisma of a “caged animal” and “violent killer” — qualities which Peters thinks are inherent to the character, according to Smith. So he gives us his casting call, and if you think he’s not going to use actors he’s worked with a lot, you don’t know Kevin Smith! He has Affleck as Superman. Affleck was only 27 or so at the time, and he probably would have worked, but I wonder if he had shed his “douchebro” veneer enough by this time. Smith has Jason Lee as Brainiac, which I do not love. I really like Lee, but man, he always has that manic energy in him that I just don’t think would work in a living computer. Smith claims that Lee has a “calm, almost monotone delivery Brainiac demands,” which makes me wonder if Smith ever watched his own movies, because that ain’t Lee at all. He gets Jack Nicholson for Luthor, which, again, I’m not too down with. Nicholson is an older version of Jason Lee, someone who, sure, can play cold and steely, but there’s always a bit of insanity lurking underneath, and if there’s one thing Luthor does not need, it’s that. It made Nicholson a memorable (bordering on great) Joker, but I don’t know if it would work for Luthor. He casts Linda Fiorentino as Lois, and the first thing he writes about her is “Okay, so there’s a bit of an age gap between Linda and Ben.” Fiorentino was around 40 at the time, which feels perfect for an award-winning journalist at the height of her powers, and while I love this casting because I love Fiorentino, she would have dispatched Affleck like he was a hapless praying mantis. Man, I miss Fiorentino. Someone should give her a job. Smith gives his buddy Jason Mewes a job as Jimmy Olsen, which cracks me right the hell up. I think it would work really well for this View Askew Superman Smith is plotting. He adds Mercy, a character from the animated series, to the cast, and gives us Famke Janssen, which, sure. He casts David Hyde Pierce as the Eradicator, which … ??? I like Pierce, but I’m not sure if he could pull that off. He has John Mahoney as Perry White, which is fine with me. He puts Joey Lauren Adams in the Cat Grant role, and as I stan hard for Joey Lauren Adams, I’m good with this. He knows Doomsday would have to be CGI, but for the voice, he wanted his buddy Walt Flanagan, which, whatever. Michael Keaton would make a brief appearance as Batman. Smith claimed that Peters wanted Brainiac to fight a pair of polar bears outside the Fortress of Solitude, so he casts Meryl Streep and Renée Zellweger as the polar bears, because he’s goofy. He does point out that the chances of you getting cast in a Superman movie rise if you’re friends with him, so there you have it! This isn’t the best cast, but it’s not terrible. We need more Linda Fiorentino and Joey Lauren Adams in our lives, damn it!
Wizard moves on with news of Preacher being made into a movie. I still haven’t watched the series, but it seems like it would work better as that, wouldn’t it? There’s a fun sidebar about The Phantom Menace, including what exactly the “phantom menace” is, so that’s fun (it hadn’t been released yet, but it was coming!). The rest of the entertainment news is, frankly, kind of dull. Let’s move on!
Walt Simonson is at Wizard‘s “Basic Training” drawing board, and he explains storytelling to us — how to pace things, how much to show on a page, where to make an impact with your page — and because it’s Simonson, it’s very keen. Then, on page 83, we find this amazing Curse of the Spawn action figure:
Wizard does its reviews starting on page 106, with Danger Girl #1-4. They do like it, but they admit it’s pure fluff, and they mention its lateness could piss readers off. The original series only made it 7 issues, and there have been a lot of DG comics since, but Campbell is rarely involved. They absolutely loathe Spider-Man: Chapter One, which sounds about right. They don’t hate Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty, but they don’t love it, either, and they note that the sales aren’t great. The book did not last too much longer, but one of the issues was a Steve Mannion one, so it’s not all bad. They reviewed some issues of DV8 and really hated them, but, I mean, at this point it was a Mike Heisler/Al Rio joint, so can we be that surprised?
All righty-o, we’ve reached … the Top Ten Creators! Look at all those pasty white dudes! And … is that Christina Z once again back in the Top Ten? Good for her!
Wizard, of course, is doing their “look back” to what topped the charts five years earlier. Look at those Spawn/Batman books!
Finally, on the last page, they flash back to 13 years earlier … what was going on in March of 1986? Oh, just a fun little comic called The Dark Knight Returns. If you’ve never heard of it, too bad — it came and went without an impact! In other entertainment, Highlander came out and “Rock Me Amadeus” was on the charts. Fun stuff! And, um, I hate to break it to you, but DKR came out forty (40!) years ago now. Feel the weight of the years, graying nerds!!!!!
Let’s wrap this up with advertisements! You know you love them!
Thanks for reading, everyone. I hope you’re enjoying our journeys through the back issues of your favorite comics mag!
