What Was Up With ‘Wizard,’ #4: January 1998

Ok, I noted last time that I started buying Wizard more regularly, but I didn’t realize that my very next issue was yet another “Giant Year-End Blockbuster,” to quote the cover of this sucker. Sorry, I thought I had smaller issues, but we’re back with a “what was going on in 1997!” issue of Wizard, #77 from January 1998. Let’s get to it!

There’s a two-page video-game advert to begin, but then you turn the page and we get a two-page ad for a Grant Morrison/Mark Millar Vampirella story that will be coming out. That seems a bit excessive, but what the heck!

It’s an anniversary issue (sort of; the end of the year is an anniversary, right?), so letter column guru Jim McLauchlin solicited letters from comics pros, which isn’t a bad idea. Stan Lee wants everyone to know that comics are awesome and are here to stay. Good for you, Stan! Todd McFarlane wants to know where new readers are coming from. No one has answered that question yet, Mr. Todd! Erik Larsen wants to know who won the contest that Clark Bar makers ran in comics back in the summer of 1978. The winner would appear in a comic, but Wizard cannot find any answers for Mr. Larsen! Fabian Nicieza drops a line to plug Acclaim comics, as you might expect (he was the president of the company at the time), while Hart Fisher of Boneyard Press wants retailers to give away overstock and try more cross-promotion, including reaching out to local tattoo artists, which causes McLauchlin to have some PTSD (I wonder if tattoos had come up a lot in the year I didn’t get Wizard, because it seems like it would be something that wouldn’t go away). Jim Lee wants to know why the Wizard staff keeps stealing his bathrobe at San Diego every year, and in the next letter, Joey Q writes in to thank McLauchlin for the personalized bathrobe he gives Jimmy Palmiotti every year at San Diego. Oh, those comics scamps! Jeph Loeb writes a long letter about Snapple, which turns out to be … a metaphor (Loeb is an excellent writer, don’t you know)! Christina Z. argues that art in comics should show women with ridiculous measurements, because escapism. Man, Kelly, Sue, and Maddy should have definitely interviewed Christina on their podcast back in the day. That would have been a time! Kurt Busiek writes in to defend how he’s doing the Avengers, because people want it to be like the Justice League, and he says it isn’t. Joe Kelly writes in simply to thank everyone in his life … it’s kind of boring. Amanda Conner wants to discuss Attention Deficit Disorder (back before the “H” was added), which seems a bit odd. Finally, Peter David tells a funny story about a kid who wanted him to sign X-Factor #90, but David refused because he didn’t write it. The kid insisted that he had because Wizard said he did, and even after David showed him the credits, he insisted that Wizard was right. When David told him Wizard was wrong, the kid’s world was shattered. I would have loved to have been next in line when that kid’s world crumbled around him! That’s the last letter, but, as always, Wizard shows us the best art on the envelopes addressed to them. They have this one from “Paolo Rivera.” Do we think that’s the artist who later worked for Marvel? Rivera would have been about 16/17 at this time, so it could be!

Wizard announces the creation of Cliffhanger on pages 26-27, as Madureira, Campbell, and Ramos formed the imprint. Battle Chasers, Danger Girl, and Crimson — are there three titles more indicative of the ridiculousness of 1990s comics? I think not!

Some future comics news: an Image crossover called Alternate Image, which Jim Valentino called “very, very odd”; Loeb and Sale on Superman: For All Seasons; this insane advertisement on page 29:

Retro shows up in JLA thanks to a fan winning a Wizard contest; Trina Robbins and Colleen Doran are doing Wonder Woman: The Once and Future Story; Frank Frazetta Fantasy Illustrated #1 was coming out, with a lot of different creators (but not Frazetta, whose health wasn’t great); Jurgens and Romita are launching a new Thor series (Thor went about a year-and-a-half without his own title — can you imagine that happening in today’s Marvel?); Shadows & Light was coming out as a quarterly anthology, with a Marz/Stelfreeze Daredevil story, a Black Widow story by Gene Ha and Gerard Jones (oh dear); a Wrightson Hulk story; and an Iron Man story by Wien and Ditko; Steve Skroce was leaving Amazing Spider-Man to work on Supreme with Alan Moore — he said he wanted to work with Moore, of course, but also that “Marvel and Awesome were very close financially,” which … really?; the DeMatteis/Zulli Longshot story was coming out. Phew! I know some of these did come out and some didn’t, but I just thought I’d let you know what was on the horizon in late 1997!

Pages 38-39 give us a quick recap of the year. Superman went all blue and lightning-y, which didn’t please the readers all that much. Marvel fired Rob Liefeld from “Heroes Reborn” because of missed deadlines (and, presumably, Liefeld being a douchebag), although they had a clause in the contract that allowed them to cite low sales. There were rumors that Marvel was going to hand over creative control of several books to Jim Lee, which is fun because Lee was presumably in the midst of talking to DC about selling them WildStorm — DC acquired it in 1998, so I can’t imagine Lee hadn’t already been talking to them when this snippet of news was published in Wizard. Bastion was the Big Bad in the X-Universe in 1997, and after “Operation: Zero Tolerance” ran its course, Marvel revamped the X-books as a bunch of creators left. Ugh, Bastion. Fuck that guy, amirite? Finally, Marvel spent 1997 in bankruptcy, but by September, they had sorted it all out and, of course, 1997 turned out to be a pretty good year for the House of Ideas. It’s always good when the rich get richer, right?

On page 40, we get a pretty interesting article about Marvel and its attempts to return to a more coherent universe. You’ll recall that Marvel split up into five fiefdoms in 1995 (X-books, Spidey books, other superheroes, horror stuff, and licensed stuff), each with a separate editor-in-chief, and things did not go well. Bob Harras came on as sole E-i-C after a while, but the X-books were still supreme (by 1995, there were more than a half-dozen mutant books — imagine that!). Harras did the whole “Heroes Reborn” thing as a way to get the superheroes away from the mutants, and then, when he brought them back, he got a lot of good talent on the non-mutant stuff in Marvel’s catalog. They were also planning on tighter continuity among all the titles, not just the isolated fiefdoms. It’s kind of odd to read something like this today, when Marvel, especially, seems to not really care about cohesion in its universe (although they try it every once in a while). Harras thought it was a big selling point of Marvel, and at the time, he was probably right. Part of the article was examining where Marvel’s non-mutant books went awry. They mention the Avengers consisting of characters like Sersi and the Black Knight; Captain America #425, in which Cap discovered that the Super-Soldier serum in his blood was killing him; the revelation of Alicia Masters as a Skrull in Fantastic Four #357; Tony Stark becoming a villain and getting replaced by … Teen Tony!!!!; the Clone Saga (natch); Eric Masterson taking over as Thor in issue #451. Excellent comics, all!

Tom Palmer Jr., Wizard‘s resident snobby indie-lover, has an article about, well, independent comics. Of course! He’s writing about “small-press comics” and how a bunch of self-published comics went off to Image or other smaller publishers, which seems to be a dilemma only in his own mind. I mean, yes, Image was the third-largest publisher at the time (and probably still is), but they weren’t a corporate conglomerate like DC or Marvel, so it seems that it’s fine to call them “independent” even if they’re not strictly “small press.” Palmer makes the point that Bone was the inflection point for “small press” comics, as before then, despite the success of something like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, readers largely ignored small press books. Bone was such a big success that it forced people to pay attention to small press books, and the creators began getting noticed by the Big Two. Palmer points out that some fans accused creators of “selling out” when they went to Image, which some rando named Brian Michael Bendis (how pretentious, using three names!) thinks is crap. He was happy moving Jinx to Image, because it got him a bigger readership. Some of the creators bemoaned the death of the communal feeling of small press comics, but such is life. I’m not sure how much of that is just a nostalgic feeling for youth, but, I mean, nothing lasts forever, good or bad. Wizard has a couple of sidebars — one is about Jeff Smith and Terry Moore returning to self-publishing after spending some time at Image, and the other is a list of their top five “small-press gems”: Bacchus, Black Hole, Mister Blank, Scud, and Squee. Not a bad list, I suppose.

Wizard casts an X-Men movie starting on page 58, so let’s check it out. They have Patrick Stewart as Professor X. Had anyone floated that idea before this, because this has to be close to when the actual movie started filming, and I can’t believe it wasn’t in the rumor mill. I mean, in the late 1990s, of course you’re going to say Stewart as Xavier, but it’s still neat that Wizard nailed this. They have Michael Biehn as Cyclops — at this point, Biehn was 41, so probably too old to play Cyclops, but he probably would have been better than Marsden. Nicole Kidman is Jean Grey, presumably because Wizard couldn’t think of another redheaded actor. Kidman was 30 at the time, and she would have been pretty good, I think. I like Janssen, but she didn’t seem to fit the role all that well. They have De Niro as Wolverine, which honestly would have been cool to see. De Niro was 54 at the time, so probably too old, and Jackman did a really good job with it, obviously, but at press time for this issue, he had been in a few episodes of television shows and precisely zero (0) feature films. Cary Elwes is their choice for Warren Worthington, which probably would have worked. Elwes was 36 and still pretty youthful-looking, and he could have sold Angel’s entitled douchebaggery. Wizard has Craig Kilborn as Iceman, which makes me chuckle, because they say that Bobby Drake is a “real wise-ass,” and Kilborn, honestly, seems like an asshole. They cast Iman as Storm, which is a bit on the nose, if you ask me. Iman still looked great at the time (she was 42), but she’s not really that good an actor. Storm didn’t get much to do in the movie, as we found out, so maybe Iman would have been neat, but I still think Berry was a better choice. For Rogue, they cast Charisma Carpenter, who was 27 at the time. I don’t know much about Carpenter or her skills, but I thought Paquin did an excellent job as Rogue (plus, she was only 17/18 when the movie was being filmed, so she had the “wide-eyed innocent” thing going for her, which the movie needed). They had Sam Neill as Beast, which … sure. Neill was 50 at the time, so he was far too old for the role, but he probably would have done a good job. Does anyone remember Neill in Amerika? I loved that mini-series when I was a teenager. For some reason, they cast Bishop, giving the role to Morris Chestnut. I don’t have a problem with that. Chestnut was only 28 at the time, so he might have been, a bit paradoxically, too young for the part, but he’s a good actor. My biggest objection is Wizard putting Bishop in an X-Men movie. Tia Carrere is their choice for Psylocke, which is fine, I guess. Carrere was 30 at the time, and she’s never been a great actor, but she would probably have looked nice in spandex. I mean, Maggie Cheung was right there, but Carrere would have been fine. They cast Jonathan Brandis as Cannonball. I’ve never heard of Brandis, but it seems he was in It in 1990, which Wizard references. Brandis, sadly, died by suicide in 2003. Patrick Muldoon is their choice for Gambit — Muldoon has never done very much in film/television, but for some reason Wizard thought he’d do ok. Well, he wouldn’t have, because Gambit sucks, but such is life. Wizard inexplicably puts Marrow in their movie, and they cast Fairuza Balk for the role, and … you know, that might have made me like Marrow, because Balk is just a weird enough actor to make it work. They put “Jacko” (Mark Jackson) as Maggott, which, again, why for the love of all that’s holy are we putting Marrow and Maggott in an X-Men movie?!?!? You remember Jacko — he was in those Energizer commercials back in the day. Then, because why not, they have Cecilia Reyes, and they cast Gloria Reuben, who was 33 at the time. I’ve always liked Reuben, so sure. Except it’s Cecilia Reyes!!! They have Russell Crowe as Mr. Sinister, which is really good casting, especially at the time. Scott Glenn as Bastion is also very good casting, even though there’s no way a crap character like Bastion should be in an X-Men movie. We get Brian Thompson as Apocalypse, which … I guess? Thompson has always done good as a villain, because he’s just not terribly attractive, so sure? For Sabretooth, they have Clancy Brown, which is a pretty good choice. Brown was not quite 40 at the time, and he would have kind of ruled as Sabretooth. I think, physically, Tyler Mane was fine, as Sabretooth in the movies didn’t have much to do, but Brown would have been keen. Finally, they cast Rutger Hauer as Magneto. Hauer was 53 or so at the time, and while McKellen was excellent as Magneto, how cool would Hauer have been? McKellen and Stewart are about the same age, and they fit better together, so the eventual casting worked, but Hauer would have been neat. I like the casting choices in general, except Wizard inadvertently anticipated the bloat of superhero movies by casting … four main villains? What the heck? How would that have worked? Wizard cares not!

On pages 68-74, Wizard has a really interesting interview with Todd McFarlane (in his office over his garage in Phoenix). They talk about Spawn a lot, naturally, but also McFarlane’s thoughts on the industry and what else he’s doing with the character and how he feels about Rob Liefeld (hint: not magnanimous at all). McFarlane is an interesting dude, whether you like Spawn or not or whether you agree with him or not, so it’s nice to have a long interview with him.

Then we get a 1998 preview. Aquaman will be playing a big role in a “Millennium Giants” crossover — dang, who remembers the “Millennium Giants” crossover? Astro City will get the Steel Jack story, and Wizard says that Busiek will explain what bad thing happened in the 1970s, which is, of course, referencing the “Dark Age,” which didn’t come out until the mid-2000s or so? Busiek planned ahead! Speaking of Busiek, he and Pérez were relaunching Avengers. I wonder if that went well? The Bat-Quake was on the horizon in Gotham, so that was a thing. Waid and Garney were back on Captain America, but this second run isn’t as beloved as the first one. Fickle, fickle fandom! I’d tell you what was going to happen in The Darkness, but that would imply that anyone cared about The Darkness. Marvel was planning a “Deadpool” month for October, which makes me wonder if there was ever time when Deadpool wasn’t overexposed???? Scott Lobdell was taking over the Fantastic Four, so good for him! Morrison and Millar were in the middle of writing Flash, which was an odd caesura in the Waid run. I enjoyed it, but it was still odd. Coming up in Gen¹³, we’ll get stories focusing on Freefall, Burnout, and Rainmaker. Well, thank God for that. Green Lantern was gearing up for issue #100, with a special guest star!!!! (Zero points if you figure out who is was.) Peter David was coming to an end of his time on The Incredible Hulk, although it wasn’t clear if he knew that yet, and there were plans for a movie, with … Johnny Depp playing Banner? Adult Tony Stark was back in Iron Man. Good for him! JLA was still kicking ass, as it did. Waid was still writing Ka-Zar, in which he teamed up with Thanos? Sure, why not. Preacher was coming up on the “War in the Sun” arc (Wizard calls it “Fire Under the Sun,” so I guess it changed before publication), which was a big moment in the series. Spawn was doing Spawn things. Spider-Man was going to be framed for murder (are we really sure he didn’t do it?), and then … creates four separate identities … to keep a low profile? I remember those things, but did not read them, and I’m not sure I knew that was his reasoning. That seems wildly stupid. It is, of course, because Marvel wanted more Spider-Man books, but he’s only one character instead a bunch of characters like the X-Men, so they had to come up with a wildly stupid reason to have four books. Nice to think that these days they just don’t care about justifying a billion books starring one character. “You’ll just buy them all, fanboys!” It was Superman’s 60th anniversary, so you know the weird Superman Blue/Red wasn’t going to last, but Wizard had no news on the return of “classic” Supes, just some folderol about the Millennium Giants. Lots of mentions of upcoming Superman specials like For All Seasons and Red Son. Thunderbolts is set to have a “major revelation” in issue #12 (I forget what it was), and Sara Pezzini is doing hot cop stuff in Witchblade. Wolverine was definitely getting his adamantium back in 1998, so there was that. The X-Men were doing mutant-y things, and Wizard claimed the 35th anniversary — which would be in 1998 — would be a big deal. Reader, it was not. In the sidebar, they checked in some more minor books, but nothing jumped out to me.

Beginning on page 98, Wizard does its best-of for 1997. Astro City is their best series, which is fine, as AC is excellent. They also have things to keep an eye on in 1998, and for that series, they pick the Busiek/Pérez Avengers. Their best hero is Robin, which is fine. Wizard always seemed to have a soft spot for Robin’s solo series, which I know was thought of well. Their hero to keep an eye on was Captain America, as Waid and Garney were back on the book. Baron Zemo was their villain of the year, thanks to Thunderbolts, which isn’t a bad choice. Prometheus was the villain to look out for, but Prometheus never really became the big threat that it seemed Morrison wanted him to be. Oh well. Busiek was their best writer, which, I mean, sure — he wrote their best series and their best villain! Joe Kelly was the one to watch in ’98, although his stint writing X-Men didn’t really set the world on fire. Joe Madureira was their best artist, which seems such a 1997 person to pick. I’ve always liked Madureira’s art, but I don’t know if he was the best artist of 1997. Andy Kubert, doing his thing on Ka-Zar, was the artist to look out for. Their best slugfest was the JLA vs. Heaven and Hell, which was pretty cool. I think Brian mentioned, years ago, that it was the only time Blue Superman was done well, and he does have some cool-ass moments. The one to watch for is the inevitable battle between the Thunderbolts and the Avengers. Beats me if that ever came about, because I’m behind on both of those comics! The best moment was the Thunderbolts reveal, which, of course. They’re looking forward to the return of “classic” Superman in 1998. Their “sleeper book” is Akiko by Mark Crilley, which I’ve never read. So sad! Their sleeper for 1998 was Major Bummer, which didn’t work out. It’s still a great comic, but it didn’t make it too far into the year before the cancellation axe came for it! Dogwelder is the best new character of 1997, which, duh. They don’t have a best new character to look out for, for obvious reasons. DC was the publisher of the year, and they thought Marvel was poised for a comeback in 1998. Their biggest disappointments of the year are: the end of “Operation: Zero Tolerance” (of course, because it sucked); the Spider-Man books in general and the return of Norman Osborn in particular; “Heroes Reborn” (considering how much Wizard hyped this, its suckiness had to sting); bad comic book movies — Batman & Robin, Spawn, and Steel; “lame” video games based on comics; the cancellation of Aztek, which, yes, did suck, because Aztek was neat.

On page 124, Wizard tries to answer the “most important” questions about comic books in 1998. Ooh, I hope they’ll be about distribution problems, getting new readers hooked, and compensating both current and older creators better! Aren’t those the important questions? Let’s see … the first one is whether Superman can still be relevant. Well, shit. Wizard did not have high hopes for our friend Supes, despite Superman Lives, starring Nicolas Cage, coming to our screens in 1999 (can’t wait to see that!). There wasn’t a lot of publicity about Superman in general, which made Wizard sad. The next question is whether McFarlane will ever draw a comic again. Wait, that’s an “important” question? Really? Short answer: no. Long answer. Hell no. Moving on! Will Wolverine get his adamantium back? Why is this even a question? Of course he would! I’m actually impressed Marvel lasted five years without him having it. The next question is: “Has Spider-Man hit rock bottom?” Dang, Wizard, kick a dude while he’s down, why don’t you? Wizard admits that things don’t look good, and, honestly, the mid-1990s Spidey stuff was the character’s nadir, as we now know. Poor Spidey! Wizard wonders whether Joe Madureira can survive without the X-Men, which, to me, is actually a fascinating question almost 30 year later. Madureira, I know, has had a good career since his X-Men days … just not in comics. He’s done so little in comics since he left the X-Men, but it also appears he didn’t want to. This is a good question in hindsight because it points out the difficulties of doing well in comics, and Madureira just … didn’t. Wizard wants to know what’s going on with the X-Men and Spider-Man movies, and they note that it’s more likely that an X-Men movie is coming out, as Bryan Singer had already been attached. Spider-Man still had some legal stuff to go through, but it didn’t take too long to get one done! The next question wonders if Awesome Entertainment could survive the controversy around Liefeld, and Rob was very optimistic about the company … which didn’t last too long. Oh well! The last question was “Where’s Jim Shooter?” Ok, weird, considering Shooter wasn’t the biggest name around, but Wizard really liked Valiant back in the day, so when Shooter was ousted from there, they seemed to latch onto him. He’d been working in movies, in case you want to know!

Wizard has one of their drawing articles on page 134, with George Pérez explaining how to do a group shot. As usual when Wizard avoids the hype and concentrates on process, it’s very well done. Then, on page 140, we get a look at comics-related merchandise that came out. There’s a porcelain “death dealer” statue by Frazetta, retailing for $250. There’s a Hellboy 11-inch resin statue coming in at $325. There’s a $175-statue of Psylocke in the Danger Room, which is just kind of weird-looking:

We get some video game news that I’m going to skip, and then we get some Star Wars-related toys that I’m also going to skip. On page 160, Wizard hits us with the latest home-made action figures, which always strikes me as incredibly charming, amazingly creative, and wildly geeky. An Evil Ernie won the prize this month, but I like these Witchblade, Jay Sherman, and Sunfire ones:

Wizard reviews are always fun, and on page 163, we get some! They’re incredibly harsh on Excalibur #107-113, but as those issues were written by Ben Raab, I can’t say I blame them. They don’t love Detective #708-714, which, to be fair, weren’t that great. They were a bit kinder to Resurrection Man, the first nine issues of which they read, but they still don’t love it. I remember reading at least one issue (possibly two?), but it didn’t really grab me. They really like Quantum & Woody, but that’s because it’s a good comic!

Hollywood news comes in on page 178, with DC promising the Nic Cage Superman movie in 1999, even though Tim Burton dropped Kevin Smith’s script, which Wizard was so excited about a year earlier. They also plan to have a new Batman movie with Clooney in the role in 2000. That’s a good double feature for a your Gnurdsday night viewing! There were plans for a Spawn sequel, which never showed up. Fox was planning on airing the Nick Fury movie starring David Hasselhoff, which I never saw. It does not sound good. In a sidebar, they interview Lisa Rinna, who plays Val, and she tries hard to sell it! Mike Allred’s Astroesque was going to be released on home video in January. Did any of our readers ever see this? Universal purchased the film rights to Batton Lash’s Counselors of the Macabre series, which I would have loved to see get made into a movie (or better yet, a series). So sad! Geena Davis was in talks to star in … a live-action Sailor Moon movie? Good for her! Blade was coming out in February!

Instead of a top ten heroes and/or villains of the month, Wizard hits us with the “most horribly ‘politically incorrect’ characters of all time!” Oh, this should go well. Luke Cage is #1. Cannonball, Vibe, Yellow Claw, Shamrock, Rage, Pieface, Batroc (“he sucks hard, like all those French do,” opines Wizard), the Collective Man, and … Batman? The last one is very tongue-in-cheek, even more so than the rest of the article, but it’s really not as cringe-inducing as you might think, as Wizard does point out how stupidly stereotypical these characters are. Their “Mort of the Month” is Monsieur Mallah, which, sure, but Grant Morrison did such nice work with the big ape in Doom Patrol, so I can’t hate him too much!

Wizard then gives us their top ten back issues of the year, based on what retailers tell them (so I’m not sure how scientific it is!). The top ten are: Witchblade #1 (sigh), JLA #1, Darkchylde #1 (double sigh), The Darkness #1 (heavy sigh), Preacher #1, Fantastic Four #1 (the “Heroes Reborn” one), JLA #2, The Darkness #0 (very heavy sigh), Witchblade #2 (quiet weeping), and Hitman #1. So very, very 1990s, that list is! In the “Market Watch,” they take a look at some trends. Bone #1 plummeted in value, because it had been reprinted so much that you didn’t need the original. The Cyberforce Sourcebook #2 went up a bit because there was a “Darkness” pin-up in it two years before the series premiered, and while it doesn’t count as a first appearance, the fans still dug it. Just … man, comics fans are weird. In the same section, Wizard gives us the top 10 writers and artists. That’s always fun! Plus, a “buried treasure” — the first appearance of Kabuki!

That’s pretty much it for this issue. We get the price guide, a listing of conventions (including one coming up in beautiful Langhorne, PA!), and a nice one-page retrospective about the Claremont/Byrne X-Men. And then, we are done!

This was another fun issue of Wizard. As usual, there’s some very cool stuff mixed in with the outrageous hype of crap. But, I mean, that was their M.O.! Let’s take a look at some of the advertisements in this mag (presented completely without comment, because I got none of the things advertised). I keep forgetting to do that, but I remembered this time!

And, finally, of course, if you had the money, you could get a firm grip on this:

Have a nice day, everyone! I’ll be back with another issue in two weeks!