Oh, we’re getting close to the big millennium issue! So exciting! For now, let’s take a look at Wizard #99, the “Halloween” issue, with that sweet Alex Ross cover!
Wizard likes their fun, so Doctor Doom shows up in Gareb Shamus’s opening letter and kills him (seriously!) and takes over the magazine. Hilariously, everyone on the masthead is listed as “lackey,” which is a nice commitment to the bit.
Stan Lee has the first letter in the letters column, as he admits that Superman is a more influential superhero than Spider-Man. That’s fun. Wizard‘s odd feud with Beau Smith continues, as a letter writer claims that Smith is a big wimp, and Wizard claims that Smith badmouthed the letter writer. So weird. Someone asked how many alternate universes existed in the Marvel Universe(s) — remember the good old days when you could actually count them? — and comes up 10, but Wizard reminds him of the Ultraverse (yes!) and the New Universe (yes!!!!), which apparently was not officially dead. Good times! The rest of the letters are uninteresting, so let’s move on!
On pages 16-17, we learn that Top Cow is bringing in Scott Lodbell to write The Darkness and Dan Jurgens to write Tomb Raider. It’s not a bad short article, as they note that when Top Cow’s original superheroes started to fade, they pivoted to more supernatural stuff, which worked for them. Now, they decided to reach outside the company for talent, as they didn’t want to be known only as the company with flashy art and hot chicks. I would argue they didn’t achieve a better balance for several more years, but good for them for trying! They also mention that their old friend Christina Z. would be the new solo writer on Witchblade, and that Magdalena (by Marcia Chen and Joe Benitez) and “Venus” (by David Wohl and David Finch) will be coming from the company in the near future. Venus is Aphrodite IX, right? They sound similar. Anyway, it’s an interesting glimpse at the company. Meanwhile, Peter David was reviving Captain Marvel, which turned out to be a pretty decent series. Down at the bottom of the page, Jeph Loeb talks about the responsibility of writing Superman: “You can make Spawn all day long and what Spawn is going to do is make Todd McFarlane richer. It isn’t going to improve the industry at large.” Is there more context for this quote, because that’s a douchey thing to say, plus if you write Superman, you’re just making the evil overlords at DC and Warner Bros. who don’t want to pay Siegel and Shuster richer, so fuck right off, Jeph. What weird shade to throw at a dude who basically got rich being a one-man operation. McFarlane often seems like a douchebag himself, but I’d rather he be rich than some hedge fund douchebro who sees Superman as an “IP” rather than a character. In the “Buzz Bin” on the same page, we discover that Oni did an adaptation of The Blair Witch Project and referred to a comic that doesn’t exist, which is a nice twist on the marketing for the movie. People had been calling Oni to find out more about the book, because of course they had! There was also a note about the banned Elseworlds 80-Page Giant, some copies of which made it to the U.K. I love how when DC actually released this years later, nobody cared. They fell victim to the Streisand Effect, in a way. On page 20, Wizard has a note about several Vertigo one-shots or mini-series coming out to celebrate the new millennium. Here they are: I Die at Midnight by Kyle Baker, Totem by Tom Peyer and Duncan Fregedo, Brave Old World by William Messner-Loebs and Guy Davis, Pulp Fantastic by Howard Chaykin, David Tischman, and Rick Burkett, and Four Horsemen by Robert Rodi and Esad Ribic (newcomer Esad Ribic, that is). Ok, here’s the thing: I was buying comics at the time, and I bought a good amount of Vertigo books, and I went to the comics store every week, and I have never heard of any of these. Is that weird? That seems weird. They all came out, too, so they were actually on the shelves. That is strange. Did anyone read any of them? On page 21, Wizard notes you can buy stock in Stan Lee Media. Ooohhh, that didn’t turn out to be that good of an idea. Then, on page 23, we learn that Dark Horse is going to bring out a “remastered” version of Steranko’s Red Tide. A sure-to-be classic, this one was!!! Uh … yeah, it never came out. Oh well. A few pages later, Wizard announces Legion Lost, which I guess was very well received. I don’t know — I’ve never been a Legion guy. But people dig it, right?
On page 30, we get the news about Soul Saga, the new sword-and-sorcery series from Chris Lichtner and Stephen Platt. I mean, I love me some S.Platt, as did Wizard back in the day, but the high hopes for this series did not pan out, as it made it only to 5 issues. So sad! On the next page, there’s an item about Legs, the one-shot that was Sam Kieth’s return to comics. I haven’t read this, either, but it’s out there!
Wizard highlights Evan Dorkin’s strip “Eltingville” in yet another example of Wizard knowing their shit but preferring to write about how hot Lara Croft is. They even have a goofy “introductory” strip on the pages following. Dorkin would comment every so often on the old blog, and he’s a pretty interesting comics creator, so while I never loved “Eltingville” (what I’ve read of it), it’s still nice to see it get highlighted here.
On pages 40-44, Wizard has a neat article about Alex Ross’s process for his Batman comic, War on Crime. He talks about what he was thinking about when he created it, and we see some of his pencil sketches, as well as a sidebar about creating a sculpture of a head to use for Batman. It’s pretty keen. Then, they have an article about villains and what their plans are for the new millennium. It’s a lot of standard super-villain stuff, but I do like that Wizard is paying attention to the “Twelve” thing in the X-books, which never really went anywhere, and that Walt Simonson was prepping for his Orion series, which is, of course, excellent. Most of the villains are standard DC and Marvel characters, and then Wizard throws the Saint of Killers in there, just for fun. I mean, I’m not sure he’s a villain, but ok. Then, we get a nice interview with Ray Park, who had his moment about this time, with playing Darth Maul and then the Toad. It’s fairly interesting. Park disappeared as quickly as he appeared, so I hope he enjoyed himself!
Next up: a casting call! Yes, Wizard decides to cast the second Spawn movie. Good for them! They note that since Al Simmons is mostly burnt up these days, you need someone with a good voice, so they get Laurence Fishburne, which, yeah, that works. Apparently, in the comics, Al can appear human … but he’s white? What the heck? Anyway, they cast Steve Zahn as “White Spawn,” which also works pretty well. Terry Fitzgerald, who’s a friend of Spawn’s, is Eriq La Salle. Again, no problem with this. Sam Burke, the private investigator (the “tub-of-goo” private investigator, because it’s Wizard in the 1990s) is Jim Belushi, which I don’t mind even though I don’t like Belushi very much, because apparently Sam is kind of unpleasant. For Wanda, Al’s wife, they cast Gloria Reuben, whom they also cast in their X-Men movie back in issue #77. Reuben is getting a lot of work in the Wizard-verse! They cast Ashli Adams as Al’s daughter, Cyan, which, I guess. Adams didn’t last long as an actor (she was 8 when Wizard cast her), but she was doing her thing at the time! As Twitch (Sam’s partner), they cat Michael Jeter, simply because he looks like Twitch. Wizard did this a whole lot, but Jeter was an interesting actor, so I have no problem with this. For “The Keeper,” Wizard cast David Bowie, which, sure. Bowie was a weirdo, so he probably would have done it. Billy Kincaid, who’s a serial killer, is played by Louie Anderson, and Wizard, naturally, takes great pains to point out that they’re both overweight. Spawn’s mentor, Cogliostro, is Anthony Hopkins, which would probably have worked, as Hopkins is, you know, a good actor. For Bobby and Bootsy, the “resident bums of Spawn Alley,” they cast Bobcay Goldthwait and Dwight Schultz. Schultz, they note, is from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Yeah, that’s what he’s famous for. Anyway, this is a solid enough cast. I don’t know enough about Spawn to really know if it would work, but it seems fine. It’s frustrating, because there’s really not anything to really ridicule here!
Wizard turns to Hollywood, with a fairly in-depth look at The Blair Witch Project and the potential for sequels, as it was such a big hit. Caveat emptor and all that, because the second Blair Witch movie was pretty terrible. They also have a brief note about the ‘Murican release of Princess Mononoke, which was coming out in October 1999. It’s a very good movie, if you haven’t seen it. Scott Lobdell signed on with Dimension Films to develop Hellhole, which never made big waves in comics and even less in movie-land. Wizard also reported that Famke Janssen had been cast as Jean Grey in X-Men, but they retracted their announcement that Jim Caviezel would play Cyclops. Caviezel might be a bit nuts these days, but he would have been a good choice for Scott Summers. Oh well.
In the fan art section, we find the winner with a Medieval Spawn vs. Malebolgia drawing, which isn’t bad. Last time out, I didn’t know that one of the runners-up went on to a professional career, which was my bad, but this out, we find a runner-up drawn by Sean Izaakse, so that’s pretty keen!
Dr. Doom does the Wizard Top Ten, which is often funny … and then you get to #5 and you have to remind yourself that, yeah, it’s the 1990s:
One thing that’s fun about going through these old magazines is finding names that would later be working on bigger books and realizing how long some of these people had been working in comics. In the “upcoming books” section on page 108, we find this note about Little Gloomy #1:
Landry Walker and Eric Jones would later do some excellent work for the “Johnny DC” line of books, and it’s fun to see their names here.
Wizard has fun with the Top Ten creators, as it’s Halloween time. They need to have fun with it, as the names rarely change!
We also get the Top Ten back issues. It’s a neat list. First is The Blair Witch Project #1 by Jen van Meter, Bernie Mireault, Guy Davis, and Tommy Lee Edwards. That’s a fun group! Wizard, rudely, wonders “who the hell are any of these people,” even though, as we know, they know a lot more about oddball comics than they let on. The Karl Kesel/Dave Taylor World’s Finest #1 showed up on the list, which was a bit surprising, but Wildcats #1 showing up is not. These lists are always interesting to check out, mainly because when I actually own them (I own 4 of the comics on the list), I wonder how pricey they are these days. Probably not very.
The charts from five years earlier made my head hurt:
I usually don’t mention anything in the price guide, but I always take a look at it. Wizard always highlights issues, either because they’re first appearances or they fit a theme, and this month, I happened to see this (with added commentary by the mag, because they were doing that this month):
McGregor/Yeates/Magyar/Constanza/Parsons? Mock if you want, Wizard, but that has to be a pretty cool book, right? Does anyone have this?
Doom has the final page, and instead of a flashback to a certain month years before, he has the Fantastic Four’s most embarrassing moments. The 1994 movie is only #3 on his list, while H.E.R.B.I.E. takes the top spot. It’s not a bad list.
All righty-o, we’re through another issue of Wizard. Good for us! We’re so close to the millennium! Come back to see if I got any of those issues! And, as always, we take a look at some advertisements in the mag!
Thanks for reading, everyone!
I only recently purchased a copy of Kyle Baker’s I Die at Midnight, which was fun in that Bakery way– guy takes a bunch of pills because his girlfriend dumped him, then there’s hope of getting back together so he has to race to find an antidote on NYE in NYC. I’m unfamiliar with the other ‘millennium’ books mentioned, but they all sound interesting.