It’s Wizard‘s 101st issue, which they choose to call #100, and it’s the beginning of the millennium (although I’m sure this shipped in November 1999). We’re all messed up, but that doesn’t mean we can’t check this out!
As it’s the year-end issue, the letters are all from comics pros and aren’t that interesting (although Mark Waid throws in some gay panic just for fun), but Straczynski does point out that DC took the wrong lesson from The Dark Knight Returns, which is true. Good for JMS!
On pages 26-27, we get the announcement about Ellis’s “Counter-X” thing, which briefly breathed life into some of the lesser X-books. These were pretty good for a while, but they lost steam pretty quickly and the series went the way of the dodo. Still, it was nice that Marvel was willing to do some interesting things with their comics! They also note the new Batgirl series, written by You-Haven’t-Thought-Of-This-Guy-In-A-While Kelly Puckett. All of the MC2 titles got axed except for Spider-Girl, which took editor Tom DeFalco by surprise (you’d think the editor would be more plugged in). He noted that they went to three titles so they could package them together for mass market distribution to big-box stores and such, but they ended up just in the direct market. Good job, Marvel! A few pages later, there’s a brief item about Savage Dragon, including the note that Larsen told his fan club that the book was in danger of getting cancelled. This was around issue #75. Over a quarter of a century later, Larsen is still trucking along, with the book up to issue #280.
On page 40, Wizard gives us the skinny on the latest Stan Lee-Steve Ditko developments. Ditko had launched a “letter-writing campaign” (how quaint!) accusing Lee of taking sole credit for creating Spider-Man. Lee responded with a letter of his own, in which he said he always considered Ditko a co-creator. Yeah, but did you send him any of that sweet, sweet movie money, Stan? Weird-ass Objectivist comics don’t come cheap, you know!!!!
Wizard has its “first looks,” and — brace yourself for a shock — one of them is Gatecrasher, Black Bull’s first title. I know — the magazine run by Gareb Shamus has a promotion of a comic from Gareb Shamus’s new comic company?!?!? What are the odds? There’s also a teaser about Aria/Angela: Heavenly Creatures, which was a two-issue story, presumably because that was all artist Jay Anacleto could handle. Apparently, he was a dentist. That’s kind of fun.
On pages 48-52, Wizard figures out which imprint — America’s Best Comics, Cliffhanger, or Marvel Knights — is the best. ABC wins in a landslide, which isn’t surprising, as Moore is, you know, good. They give out 5 points for 1st, 3 for 2nd, and 1 for 3rd. The categories: Writers (that one’s easy), Artists (Cliffhanger wins, but it’s kind of annoying, because they’re all so slow and very trendy, while even Wizard admits that ABC might have better artists, just ones that aren’t super hawwwwtttt), Characters (ABC wins again, with Cliffhanger finishing second), Storylines (ABC wins, with Marvel Knights finishing second), and Added Value (ABC, with its Victorian adverts and such, wins). Wizard might be goofy and occasionally too in love with what’s hawwwwtttt, but they do know good comics!
Next, we get Wizard settling debates in comics. Of course, they can’t really do that, but they have fun with it! First up: Who’s more important, the writer or the artist? You won’t be shocked to read that Wizard thinks the artist is more important. They’re right, of course, but it’s not shocking that they are, given their love of Joe Madureira and Todd McFarlane and Joey Q! They pick Watchmen over Dark Knight Returns (also correct), and they pick Kyle Rayner over Hal Jordan, which might have been true at the time, but thanks to the nostalgia-porn lovin’ Geoff Johns, doesn’t really matter anymore! For who’s a better creator, they like Byrne over Claremont, which is certainly right, although the new millennium hasn’t exactly been kind to either of them. The Justice League beats the Avengers in a fight (probably right), and Marvels is Alex Ross’s best work, over Kingdom Come (also probably right). They call Gotham “cooler” than Metropolis, which … I mean, sure, I’d rather read stories set in Gotham, so I guess it’s “cooler,” but only because it’s more of a shithole. I definitely wouldn’t want to live there. Christopher Reeve is a more convincing movie hero than Michael Keaton, which, sure. But neither of them holds a candle to William H. Macy, damn it! They like DC over Marvel, which is a major shift in the way Wizard views the two companies, but in 1999, DC was simply better. They choose Tim Drake as the better Robin over Dick Grayson (what, no Jason Todd?), which isn’t surprising — they even admit that Dick didn’t become a good character until he switched to Nightwing, but I do have a soft spot for 1970s college student Dick Grayson. In the creepiest category, they ask who’s the better “babe” artist, J. Scott Campbell or Michael Turner, and they decide that it’s Campbell. I’m not saying anything about this! They “decide” that Gwen Stacy died from her neck snapping, not the fall, which, come on, Wizard, stop being ghoulish. They say that Lois Lane is a “cooler gal pal” than Mary Jane Watson, which, I guess. They make a good case that the Daily Bugle is a better newspaper than the Daily Planet. Debating which fictional newspaper is better is so twentieth century, man! They also come down on the “yay, heroes killing!” side of the debate, which isn’t the worst position to take. I mean, someone should kill the Joker, right? They do a Lee-versus-Kirby that they rule in favor of Lee, claiming that Kirby never had achieved the same level of success than when they worked together. I mean, you could make the same argument about Lee without Kirby or Ditko or Romita, but it’s not the worst argument. These days, it seems that people lean a bit more Kirby (and Wizard had just claimed the artist is more important!), but it’s still a good debate to have, and it probably won’t be settled, as none of those gentlemen are with us anymore. Betty is better than Veronica, Wizard claims, and Alfred is better than Jarvis. I mean, of course … to both of those. In other “great” debates, they claim Joel Schumacher was more damaging to comics than Fredric Wertham, which is laughable (it’s a sidebar, so Wizard is not taking this too seriously, but still!), plus a bunch of things we don’t need to discuss. A fun article all around!
I don’t write about the contests Wizard runs very often (once before?), but the scavenger hunt (the “seventh annual” one) has quite the list of things to find:
I know this isn’t quite “pre-internet” days, but it was still at a time when you couldn’t find everything on the internet, so this must have been fun gathering.
There’s this advertisement for Psycomic.com, which I guess had launched by this time. Here it is:
I don’t think I went to Psycomic all that often — maybe occasionally — but they hit on something when they came up with a much more iconic advertising model:
If you don’t remember this, you weren’t reading comics around the turn of the millennium!
As it’s the year-end issue, Wizard does year-end things, as in the Best of 1999 stuff! For Best Series, they pick … Earth X? I mean, maybe, but that’s kind of an odd choice. Bold, Wizard! For the series to watch out for, they pick the upcoming Ennis/Dillon Punisher. As I appear to be the only comic book reader in creation who isn’t enamored of that comic, I guess that’s a good choice! As Best Hero, they picked Nightwing. Again, I guess — I wasn’t reading Nightwing back then. For the hero to watch out for, they picked Captain America, because … Dan Jurgens, the Tapioca Pudding of Comics, was taking over his book? All righty. Ultron is their Best Villain, because that scene (oh, it’s coming!) took place in 1999. Lex Luthor is the villain to watch in 2000, but Wizard is unaware that Luthor would become president in the new year. They got it right for the wrong reason! Alan Moore is their Best Writer, given his work on America’s Best Comics. Easy if predictable choice by Wizard. Jeph Loeb is their writer to watch out for, which … just no. Pérez is the Best Artist, and, I mean, pick any year between about 1980 and his death and that could be a good choice, but for 1999, it was his work on Avengers that got it for him. J.G. Jones is the artist to watch out for, which is also a pretty easy choice. For Best Moment, they pick that scene from Avengers #22. I mean, it’s pretty cool. For the moment they want to see, they pick Jesse Custer vs. God. I mean, the ending to Preacher was all right, but the ending of Morrison’s JLA, to just pick something that happened in 2000, was better. Tom Strong is the Best New Character, which makes sense. Wizard likes them some ABC!
On page 82, Wizard begins a nice article about Image, seven years on from its founding. They interview all the founders (including Portacio, who left the company almost immediately because his sister died and he had to deal with that, emotionally, and Valentino, who never did a lot of comics for the company but was busy finding new talent), get a little bit of insight from them — McFarlane and Larsen weren’t terribly happy about Lee selling WildStorm to DC, everyone still hates Liefeld (although they’re diplomatic about it) — and we get a fun timeline at the bottom of the page. The timeline is full of missed deadlines and titles disappearing — Wizard keeps making jokes about Darker Image #2 — and it really does show, in tiny capsule form, how bad a company Image was in the 1990s, despite its pretty wild success. I mean, sure, McFarlane and Larsen were successes at “regular” Image and Silvestri was doing well with Top Cow, but it was still a mess. It’s fairly impressive that it re-oriented itself in the early 2000s and became such a successful place. This is a keen article. McFarlane seems like the douchiest one, but not by much over Liefeld. Larsen, like he always does, seems like he just wants to be left alone to do Savage Dragon, and that’s what he’s been doing for the past quarter-century!
Then, because it’s the end of the century/millennium, Wizard does a “short history of comics” article, which is nifty. Some tidbits: according to Stan Lee, Martin Goodman created Marvel to make the youth of ‘Murica aware of the dangers of Nazism; Action Comics #58 tells us that Superman thinks it’s groovy to “slap a Jap”; Ditko didn’t draw speed lines or sound effects for Spider-Man, so Lee added them … and pissed off his artist; Marvel had five editors-in-chief between Lee (who stepped down in April 1973 after 20 years on the job) and Shooter (who came on board in January 1978); Erik Larsen lost all his possessions — including comics and original art — in a house fire. Lots of interesting stuff here, and for once, Wizard keeps the cheekiness to a minimum (and is actually kind of funny when they do indulge).
Moving on, we get … a casting call for a Daredevil movie! Oh, Wizard, you rapscallions! The cast was actually chosen by Smith, Palmiotti, and Quesada, so you know Smith is going to lobby for his favorite actors! And what do you know, they go with … Matt Damon as Matt Murdock. Oh, so close to what we really got! This is actually pretty good — would the movie have been better if they got Damon and not his evil twin, Affleck? They cast Oliver Platt as Foggy Nelson. No notes, gentlemen! A few years later, Favreau would play Nelson, and I think Platt would have been better. They cast Robin Wright as Karen Page, which is also a good choice. Wright was 33 at the time (four years older than Damon, mind you) and is a good actor, so yeah, that would work. Rosalind Sharpe is in this movie (is she still around at all?), and they cast Sigourney Weaver, and any time you can get Weaver in your movie, that’s a good thing (she is, sadly, only 11 years older than Platt, but what the heck). Anne Bancroft was still doing her thing (she died in 2005), so Wizard casts her as Matt’s mom, Maggie. That’s a decent choice. I’m not sure if Angelina Jolie works as Natasha Romanov, but sure. They’re basing this on their first story, so we have a Mr. Gabriel, and they cast Mike Starr, who’s a good “hey, that guy” actor. They cast 41-year-old Alec Baldwin as Bullseye, which I don’t think works. I like Baldwin, especially in the 1990s, but I think Farrell was a much better choice (at this point in 1999, Farrell was a nobody, so it’s no wonder Wizard didn’t pick him). They go big with De Niro (“Bobby D,” as my daughter refers to him) as Wilson Fisk, which is fine, but Duncan was kind of an inspired choice (and I doubt if anyone will touch D’Onofrio’s version for a long time). They have Spacey as Mysterio, which would probably work, although these days, not so much. Given that they’re adapting their own story, it’s not surprising they didn’t cast Elektra, but it’s still a bit odd. Oh well. Just a few years later, Affleck’s Daredevil would fail to set anyone’s world on fire, so maybe Smith and his cronies should have made this one!
In movie news, Wizard reports that Hugh Jackman is Wolverine, which came as a shock to everyone, it seems. Dougray Scott, who probably doesn’t send Tom Cruise a Christmas card, couldn’t get out of Mission: Impossible 2, which ran behind schedule, so Jackman stepped in and, in addition to being in a cult, has had a pretty good career. Scott has faded into obscurity. Such is life. There was also news about Bruce Campbell’s new show, Jack of All Trades, which seemed fun. It lasted 22 episodes, none of which I have seen. There was a brief note in which Keanu had expressed interest in playing Batman. What a weird world that would have been.
The winner of the “draw Wizard #100’s cover) contest was Carlo Barberi, who’s still working in comics. Good for him! I … have nothing else to say about that. Let’s move on!
There are new wrestling action figures out from JAKKS Pacific, including one of The Rock that will haunt your nightmares:
I mean, who looked at that and said, “Yep, it’s good to go!” Come on!
Oh, there are Top Ten Creators, you bet! Check out some new faces: Krueger, Larroca, and Ha. Good times! Plus, that’s some fun “Buried Treasure”!
The charts from 5 years earlier were dominated by … X-books, of course, but for a good reason, as the Age of Apocalypse kicked off. Apparently, those books did not stay hot, but they sure stayed in everyone’s consciousness!
I rarely write about the price guide, but this edition is interesting: Wizard runs some covers for their magazine that they never printed, which is kind of neat, and they also have a brief history of the magazine, which is also kind of neat. You always have to glance at the price guide, because you never know what you’ll find!
And so we come to the end of another issue. As always, I will run some advertisements, because those are fun!
Thanks for reading, everyone! Next time: The New Millennium!!!!!
