As I occasionally did back in the day, I skipped a few months of Wizard, but then I jumped back in with issue #104, with Joe Jusko’s very odd X-Men painting as the cover!
In the letters column, someone asks about the Gen13 animated movie and whether it will be released on video. Apparently, Disney was sitting on it for “a billion legalistic reasons,” which sounds ominous. It seems like it was just Disney being grumpy that Jim Lee sold WildStorm to DC, but maybe there was more to it. It also seems that the film was never released in the States. So sad! Wizard was also running a “build-a-Wizard-website” contest (which seems like a way to get some cheap labor for the magazine), and they ran this picture with it, and I, being a disgusting male, wonder who this is:
Meanwhile, it’s been some time since the I’ve dug the envelope art people send in, but this month, we have two cool examples:
The issue proper begins with a nice article about J. Michael Straczynski’s new Top Cow imprint, Joe’s Comics. All was rosy between JMS and Top Cow at the time (it would not remain so), with Matt Hawkins, the E-i-C, actually saying shit like, “Straczynski has proven he’s one of the best writers, bar none, in comics. He’s on par with Warren Ellis and Alan Moore.” [emphasis mine] I mean, let’s pump the brakes a bit there, Mr. Hawkins! Still, he was getting an imprint, and Midnight Nation was coming up, and all was well in the JMS universe. I’m sure they were always the best of friends!
On page 22, there’s a short item about the fact that Stan Lee may have created a character for Marvel prior to the Fantastic Four. Are they — are they talking about the Sentry? He debuted in 2000, so it’s possible, but is Wizard in on the joke or did Marvel really let them run this without telling them it was a joke? I guess we’ll see in future issues of Wizard!
Oh dear, people were dying — they made it to the new millennium and just couldn’t continue! Gil Kane died on 31 January 2000 at 74. Charles Schulz died on 13 February at 77. George Roussos died on 19 February. He was 84. And Steven Hughes died on 18 February at 48. That’s a bummer.
Brian Pulido was launching Infinity Comics with Counter-Strike, a modern-day Robin Hood story by Len Kaminski and Ivan Reis. It looks like at least one issue came out. Did anyone ever read this?
Kevin Smith, Joe Quesada, and Jimmy Palmiotti were recording a “multi-media CD” that was going to be included with the fancy hardcover of “Guardian Devil” — a commentary track, I suppose, which is kind of neat. There’s some interesting stuff about the origins of Smith writing Daredevil, which is always fun.
There’s an item about Alex Ross’s and Paul Dini’s Wonder Twins comic. This never came out, did it? I remember this item and how it was going to come out, but I’ve looked around, and it doesn’t seem to exist. What happened to it? There’s also a bit about the revamp of Vampirella by David Conway — co-founder of My Bloody Valentine — and Kevin Lau. Lau was giving her a manga-ized update, and Wizard has this to say: “Once a poster girl for the 1970s Hefner-esque brand of sexuality, Lau’s Vampi prefers subtlety to silicone implants.” Here is Lau’s Vampi, who prefers subtlety to silicone:
Wizard has a list of the suspects in Batman: Dark Victory, which was coming out at the time. I’m not going to spoil a 25-year-old comic, but while Wizard does not choose the correct killer, they do give pretty good odds to the actual killer. So that’s nice.
Then we get Wizard‘s funniest moments in comics. It’s always nice when anyone remembers what the word “comic” means, and Wizard highlights the deadly serious books so much that this is a groovy article. Of course, the funniest “in-fight” (meaning fight between superheroes who are ostensibly allies) is Batman punching Guy Gardner. You knew it would be! Rick Jones’s bachelor party is the funniest “superhero bachelor party,” which, I mean, is it the only one? The funniest villain is Herr Starr from Preacher, mainly because of all the shit that happens to him, not because he’s actually funny. The funniest “replacement costume” is when Spider-Man had to wear a Fantastic Four costume with a paper bag on his head after Reed Richards removed the symbiote costume from him. Johnny taped a “Kick Me” sign on his back, too, and yes, this is a pretty funny moment. Dr. Spectro gets the “funniest costume,” which is fine. The funniest character is Dogwelder, because of course he is. The funniest cover is not bad:
On page 50, Wizard begins a lengthy article about X-Men, which was coming out a few months after the issue hit the stands. It’s ten pages long, which is shocking for Wizard, and they do a nice job going in-depth with it all. Most of it you know now because you saw the movie, but it’s nice that they go so deep into the making of the film. They write about Rebecca Romijn-Stamos’s makeup job and Hugh Jackman’s claws, and they talk about how the cast came to be (and who some of the other actors vying for roles were, which is fun). Wizard completely ignores Blade, which is strange because it was a big hit, but I guess because it had no expectations, they put the pressure of “carrying” a new wave of superhero movies on X-Men as wiping out the memory of Batman & Robin, which was the most recent big-budget superhero movie (if we do ignore Blade, even though I don’t think we should). It’s a good article.
In the film and television section, Wizard has a brief item about Witchblade, which was finally getting made into a TV movie, with Yancy Butler in the title role. Wizard had been talking about the comic being made into a show or movie for a few years, so good for it getting there! I never watched it, but it was a thing! Butler was 29 at the time of filming, and I don’t know if that’s young for an NYPD detective, but she needed to be young and nubile for the costume! Over the past two decades, Butler seems to have an issue with drunk driving, which is too bad. I do like that Henri, the French dude from Cheers who tries to steal Woody’s girlfriend, was the main villain on the show. Fun stuff! Sam Raimi was confirmed as the Spider-Man director, but the rumors were about Liam Neeson getting cast as Norman Osborn. Don’t believe the rumors, people! There were also rumors about who was getting cast as Anakin Skywalker in the next Star Wars movie, “with names ranging from the ultimate to the unheard of.” I’m guessing Christensen was one of those “unheard of,” because Wizard gives us their top 5 candidates: DiCaprio, Ryan Phillippe, Paul Walker, Eric Christian Olsen, and Jeff Garner. Wizard claims the last dude was recommended to Lucas by Ray Parks, but they could be pulling our legs. Either way, none of those gentlemen got the gig of a lifetime! That’s why Christensen had his choice of roles for the past 20 years and two Oscars, to boot! There was some interesting “buzz” around Hollywood: Darren Aronofsky was in talks to direct the next Batman movie, which would have been something; Oliver Stone and Nicolas Cage might team up for Superman, ditching the costume and going with a leather, Matrix look; Madonna was linked to a Wonder Woman movie but “insiders” said she was too old (she was 42 at the time, so maybe, but she still looked pretty good); Johnny Depp had been offered the role of Jack the Ripper in the planned From Hell movie, which turned out to be untrue, of course, and it makes me wonder if Wizard got their wires crossed, as Depp was clearly nothing like William Gull, so maybe he had been offered Abberline already but Wizard just thought he was playing the killer; Tim Burton was directing Planet of the Apes — I’m sure that turned out well! On the next page, we found out that a movie about Jarvis had been planned but had also been killed, which is a shame, because that could have been a fun movie. Oh well.
There’s not much that’s interesting until we get to the charts, where we see what topped the charts five years earlier. It’s an X-apalooza!!!!!
Wizard, meanwhile, shoved the Top Ten Creators into the price guide for some reason:
In the price guide, the theme this month is “Comics We Can’t Believe They Made.” Their selections? Welcome Back, Kotter #1; Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew #1; Mother Teresa of Calcutta #1; Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #106 (the “I Am Curious (Black)” issue); The A-Team #1; Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters book one; Rex the Wonder Dog #6; The Adventures of Jell-o Man and Wobbly #1; Life of a Fetus #1; Police Academy #1; Justice League Annual #1 (the Antarctica issue and the only one on this list that I’ve read); Adventures of Jerry Lewis #69; Kona #5 (because of the giant cat?); Andy Devine Western #1; Mr. T and the T-Force #1; World Around Us #1 (“The Illustrated Story of Dogs”); John F. Kennedy: Champion of Freedom #1; The Three Stooges Meet Hercules; The Adventures of Kool-Aid Man; Walt Disney’s Spin & Marty #714 (is it the implied homosexuality?). Frankly, most of these seem awesome. They also have a “George Pérez” checklist — everything he had worked on up to that point. I don’t know when this debuted (this is the first time I’ve seen it), but it’s a very cool idea. Lots of obscure stuff in it along with his famous stuff!
Wizard no longer does the “flashback” thing on the final page, but the past few issues I’ve gotten, they’ve been jokey pages that did not make me laugh. This time around, they have a brief Q-and-A with Judd Winick as he begins writing Green Lantern. Nothing too amazing, but they do ask him if “I was on The Real World” or “I write comics” is a better pick-up line, and he admits that neither is that good. Poor Judd Winick!
All right, let’s take a look at some advertisements as we finish another journey through Wizard. Lots of good turn-of-the-millennium advertising!
Thanks for reading, everyone! I hope you all have a nice day!
