What Was Up With ‘Wizard,’ #7: June 1998

I skipped a few months after I bought issue #79, so we’re at issue #82 of Wizard, with the groovy Howard Porter cover. Let’s check it out!

In the letters column, our guy Jim McLaughlin notes that two topics that sparked fierce debate in the column — the new JLA roster and the Kyle Rayner/Hal Jordan debate — got so contentious that Wizard turned them into articles. Important stuff, people, and I’m glad Wizard was there to get to the bottom of it all!

The first letter is from some dude who thinks libraries should carry comics. I dunno — when I was growing up, the Warminster Public Library had some comics, as it’s where I read the origins of some Golden Age and Silver Age characters, but the dude is totally right. It seems like most libraries have comics these days. Of course, no one reads these days, so they’re kind of pointless, but they’re there! The second dude … well, here’s his letter:

Wizard‘s response is pretty good, I suppose.

Another letter-writer says that he spotted the sex scene in Kingdom Come. It’s in issue #2, page 26, in case you didn’t know. I will not be pulling out (so to speak) my issue to check on this. Another guy writes that “Michael Turner is about the best artist” that he knows about. That dude needs to expand his circle! Another dude wondered if the guy in the Jerry Seinfeld American Express commercial was the guy who played Jimmy Olsen in the 1950s, and Wizard confirms that it was indeed Jack Larson. He’s talking about this one, in case you’re interested.

On pages 22-23, Wizard gives us the scoop on the big news coming out of Marvel: the reboot of Spider-Man. Ralph Macchio tells the mag that they’re ending all the titles and restarting them, yet Howard Mackie would still be writing both the rebooted regular books. Mackie is not a good writer, so this was already a bad idea, but it also feels like when DC rebooted their entire line in 2011 yet kept a lot of the same creators — if the books aren’t selling, why reboot them but keep the same people? Mackie was obviously not moving the needle with regard to Spidey, yet he was still the writer. Make it make sense, Marvel! There was also an announcement about Byrne’s “Twice Told Tales,” which would update Spider-Man’s origin “for the ’90s.” Of all the “for the ___” phrases you can use, “for the ’90s” is probably the scariest. This eventually showed up as Spider-Man: Chapter One, which I never read. It does seem that this reboot didn’t really take off until Straczynski came onboard, which was on issue #30, but I could be wrong. Anyway, that’s the news!

On the next page, we learn that Awesome Entertainment had suspended several of their titles. Wait, just a few months ago, Wizard was touting Awesome as the greatest company in the history of companies! Wha-happened? Well, its financial backer saw that comics was a money pit and decided to stop throwing cash at Liefeld, and things went south. The only ones that were going forward were The Coven by Loeb and Ian Churchill, which sold well, Menace, the Jada Pinkett book, and Re:Gex, which Liefeld drew, so he paid himself a low rate. Classics all! Supreme and Youngblood and Fighting American and Glory were all canceled, and all the great creators Awesome lured to them — Alan Moore included — were released from their contracts. Moore, of course, decided to do America’s Best Comics, which ended with him getting pissy with DC again. Anyway, Awesome wasn’t quite so awesome anymore. Poor Rob!

Wizard lets us know on page 26 that Peter David is leaving The Incredible Hulk. Again, this seemed to take even David by surprise. I knew Joe Casey took over, but I did not know that Javier Pulido drew it. Pulido only drew two issues before Ed McGuinness took over (although Wizard says Wieringo was going to be drawing it) and the book itself was killed after issue #474. Still, given what Pulido’s art became, I can’t imagine he’d be a good fit with a big, bombastic book like The Hulk. But maybe it’s great! A few pages later, we learn that Kevin Smith is going to be writing Green Arrow. Good for him! Then, we learn that Acclaim — which is basically Valiant — will cease publishing comics in June of 1998. Valiant came back some years later, but it took a while. The company had no money, according to president Fabian Nicieza, but maybe it shut down because everything Nicieza touches turns to crap. Just a thought!

On pages 36-37, Wizard has a really nice tribute to Archie Goodwin, who died on 1 March. They write about his contributions to comics and get some statements from comics pros, including Al Williamson, which was neat. Goodwin was a fine writer and a great editor, and he died far too young.

Wizard, as usual, shows they know a bit about non-Liefeld comics with a nice article about Eightball on pages 40-42. They do bring up the fact that “Ghost World” had been optioned, and hey! it did actually get made into a movie, so good job, Mr. Clowes! I still haven’t read Eightball, but I’ll get around to it soon enough. I always enjoy the cognitive dissonance of finding articles like these inside a Wizard magazine.

On pages 44-48, they ask graduates of the Kubert School what they learned there. Hey, it’s another interesting article that’s not about Spider-Man or the X-Men! What do you know about that! The graduates are: Adam and Andy Kubert (1984), Jim Balent (1984), Stephen Bissette (1978), Rick Veitch (1978), Tim Truman (1981), Tom Mandrake (1979), and Jan Duursema (1979). Balent says that he learned about the importance of hitting deadlines. Say what you will about the dude’s art, but he was remarkably on time when he drew Catwoman. Bissette points out that he had to learn all the aspects of comics, including publishing, and it helped him survive in the business. Wizard also has a brief primer about how to get into the school. That’s nice.

Busiek and Sean Chen were taking over Iron Man, so Wizard has a decent article about it. Busiek was very keen to stress how important “The Crossing” was to his story, and as someone who has never read “The Crossing,” I thought it was universally reviled. Apparently not by Busiek! There’s also a fun sidebar by an engineer at Dartmouth, who says Tony’s armor is a fairly ridiculous fantasy. I mean, we all knew that, right?

Wizard then has an article about the history of the Hal Jordan-Kyle Rayner war. This is one of the stupider things that has ever come up in comics, but it is worth noting that back in the 1990s, DC seemed pretty committed to slotting new characters into familiar roles, so there really wasn’t any guarantee that Hal was coming back. The founder of H.E.A.T (Hal’s Emerald Attack/Advancement Team, and yes, really), Harry Phillipo, is actually quoted at the beginning of this article thusly: “We just care about our comics, and what has been happening in the last few years to them as the corporate monoliths manipulate and destroy legends to grab a few bucks through sensationalism.” I imagine he said that with a straight face, but I can’t be sure. Wizard writes that Green Lantern fans “are among the most passionate in comics” (really?). However, Wizard points out, “[T]hey’ve also got more complex, shifting alliances than middle-school girls,” which is a pretty fun burn. James Busbee (the article writer) points out that sales had slipped so much in 1993 that Kevin Dooley, the editor, needed change — where were all the passionate GL fans? — and he tasked Ron Marz to do so. After Hal Jordan went nuts in issues #48-50, Dooley says that the H.E.A.T. people actually sent him death threats, which, come on, people. After people told them all to chill the fuck out, they changed their tactics to say they didn’t want to get rid of Kyle, just that they wanted Hal back. Of course, Dooley could point at sales, because sales went way up on the book. Fans of Hal point out the history of the character, which is fine, but it’s also true that by the time Hal went away, the book just wasn’t selling very well. Marz thinks Kyle, as someone who’s less heroic than Hal, is much more interesting than Hal (I mean, he created Kyle, so of course he’d think so), but DC, of course, couldn’t keep Hal away, as they found ways to get him into comics thanks to flashbacks and time travel and such. In a sidebar, they have one of the H.E.A.T. dudes, Jack Grimes, and Marz talk about Hal, and Marz makes a good point about why Hal turned evil, as he’s the kind of guy who would suppress stuff for years, and when Coast City got zapped an no hero seemed to care, it just pushed him over the edge. I was never a serious Green Lantern reader and even I thought that “Emerald Twilight” did a decent job showing this. Geoff Johns, I assume, thought otherwise. Anyway, Wizard ends with a poll asking which GL do fans prefer, and it’s essentially split down the middle. Oh well! I will point out that, as far as I know, DC has not finished collecting the Marz run on Green Lantern, so it shows you which way the wind is blowing these days.

The other hot-button topic at the time, besides the Hal/Kyle debate, was the expansion of Morrison’s Justice League. Would it lead to a cancellation? Wizard wanted answers!!!! It’s a pretty good topic, and Wizard actually doesn’t just buy the company line of Morrison and editor Dan Raspler, which is nice. Of course, the book suffered a bit when Morrison left the comic, but it had some cool stuff when they left. Wizard doesn’t care about holding their feet to the fire! Then we get an interview with Erik Larsen, who was taking over Aquaman from Peter David. It’s a pretty good interview, but one thing Larsen says kind of cracks me up. Wizard asks, “Is there anything you wouldn’t put in the book?” and Larsen responds, “I’d say full frontal nudity or anal presentation, but give me a couple of months [Laughs.]” This cracks me up because in issue #228, Larsen had some very explicit stuff in Savage Dragon. It took a while, and I can’t remember how much nudity there was, but it was pretty explicit!

Oh, then we get another casting call, this one for … an Alpha Flight movie? Really, Wizard? Alpha Flight?!?!? I know Alpha Flight was having a tiny bit of a moment in 1998, but man, there is no way anyone would make an Alpha Flight movie ever. But hey, Wizard likes a good casting call! They have Ben Affleck as Guardian. I don’t hate this — in 1998, Affleck was 25, and while Guardian was — sigh — a cloned version of O.G. James Hudson whose age was … frozen? at 19, I think Affleck could have done a good job with this. Danny Woodburn was their choice for Puck. Woodburn’s most famous role was probably as Mickey on Seinfeld, and he was in his mid-30s at the time, and I have no problem with this choice. Because Wizard is goofy, they cast a wampa from Hoth as Sasquatch. Ha, ha, Wizard. Heather Hudson’s role was given to Gillian Anderson, again it seems because of her hair color, although I think Anderson could have done a very good job at this. She was 29 at the time. I don’t know anything about Murmur, but Wizard cast Yasmeen Ghauri, a Canadian model with Indian ancestry. I don’t know anything about Ghauri, but it seems like Wizard just wants eye candy in the movie. They cast Mark Wahlberg as Radius, which is fine with me. Wahlberg was 27 or so at the time, and he had already done Boogie Nights, in which he was pretty good. I guess Radius has a younger brother, Flex, and Wizard cast Edward Norton for that role (Norton is, I should point out, two years older than Wahlberg). Norton had killed it in his first movie in 1996, Primal Fear, and he was very good in his second movie, The People vs. Larry Flynt (Norton had a very good start to his career), and in a few months, American History X would come out, in which he was also very good. I can buy him in the role. I guess Wizard wanted Sunfire in the movie, so they cast Dustin Nguyen, which is a wildly 1990s choice. Nguyen’s glory days on 21 Jump Street were well in the past, but I guess Wizard didn’t know any other Asian actors? The head of Department H in this iteration of Alpha Flight was General Clarke, and Wizard cast Pete Postlethwaite, which seems like a lay-up, especially in 1998, when Postlethwaite was in his early 50s and on a bit of a nice streak, with Alien³, In the Name of the Father, The Usual Suspects, Romeo + Juliet, the wonderfully underrated Brassed Off, The Lost World, and Amistad in his recent rearview. There’s a Scorpio in Wizard‘s cast, and they cast Dylan McDermott (or is it Dermot Mulroney?), which is fine. We get Mariska Hargitay as Diamond Lil, another choice I have no issue with. Hargitay was in her early 30s at the time, and it kind of cracks me up that this was a few years before she got her ubiquitous role on Law & Order. Hargitay, of course, is most famous for auditioning for “Elaine” on Jerry Seinfeld’s show-within-a-show, at which she insults Jeremy Piven, who had just left the room after his (successful, as it turns out) audition to play George. You know it’s true! Wizard casts everyone’s favorite, Keanu Reeves, as Northstar, which is kind of brilliant, actually, although I have to crack up when Wizard claims that “As the angry, diseased hero Northstar [Come on, Wizard!], Reeves might walk away with an Oscar for his efforts.” Really, Wizard? Fucking really? They cast Kelsey Grammer as Mesmero, which is perfectly fine, and Dennis Miller as the Master, which is also perfectly fine. I like this cast, for the most part. I just can’t believe Wizard would cast an Alpha Flight movie. At this point, the new Alpha Flight had shipped maybe its 10th issue. It ended with issue #20. As I noted, its moment was brief!

On pages 82-83, Wizard has an interesting article on the future Batman coming up in animation form. At this point, he’s called Terry “McGavin” and it’s called Batman Tomorrow, but we don’t need to worry about that, as they get nice insight from Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, and Alan Burnett. In an inset in the corner on one of the pages, we learn that apparently Johnny Depp’s Hulk movie was dead. So sad! There’s also a bit about Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla movie, only parts of which I’ve seen, but man, it’s no good.

Wizard once again gets a good artist to do their drawing tutorials, as Liam Sharp shows up to tell budding artists how to bulk their characters up. It’s a wildly “1990s” thing, but Sharp does make a good point that artists ought to study anatomy a little bit to see how muscle groups relate to each other. He writes a lot about how to make the veins stand out, which, ew, but it’s still another good point about anatomy. Speaking of which, on the next few pages we get readers’ fan art. No future stars, it doesn’t seem, but some fun stuff!

Wizard delves into toys, and we find, on page 98, a Todd McFarlane action figure. No lie!

Did anyone get one of these? On page 101, we find the Jones Soda WildStorm collection, with labels featuring characters from WildStorm comics. You know you still have them all in your garage fridge, ready to sell on eBay!!! Then, we learn that Dave McKean is doing the cover art for Stabbing Westward’s third album. Man, Stabbing Westward. I dug their first album. I should go find the others!

The top heroes and villains list on pages 116-117 is fairly typical, but Wizard‘s “Mort of the Month” is Shaggy Man. I wonder if this was before he got his Morrisonian makeover, because I doubt if Wizard would have dared question the God of All Comics’ wisdom in this matter! We move on through the comics shipping in May and get to reviews. Wizard very much likes JLA: Year One, which isn’t surprising as it’s a good comic. They were not impressed with the end of Daredevil‘s run, but I’m not sure why they were reviewing it when the reboot was coming so soon. Oh well. They absolutely loathed Lobo #43-50, which isn’t surprising as Lobo works best in very small doses, so a long ongoing seems like a recipe for disaster. Interestingly enough, they did not like Bone #26-31, because they said it was an early example of “writing for the trade,” as the stories seemed to be drawn out unnecessarily. Wizard: always on the cutting edge of complaining!

We’re back with the Top Ten Writers and Artists, which sees the return of Christina Z., who fell off last time. All the usual suspects are there! Wizard‘s “Buried Treasure” is Howard the Duck #13, because that was the first appearance of KISS in a comic. KISS: Psycho Circus was a thing back in ’98, people!

The Top 10 back issues give us the usual suspects, with a few new ones: Witchblade #1, JLA #1, KISS: Psycho Circus #1, JLA #2, The Darkness #11 (the chromium cover!!!!), Divine Right #1, Ascension #1, Uncanny X-Men #350, The Coven #1, The Darkness #1. So! Much! Awesomeness!!!!!

That’s pretty much it, except for the final page, on which Wizard always looks back to a month X years in the past. This time, they’re flashing back to May 1987 and the launch of the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League. Also in May ’87, Beverly Hills Cop II and Ishtar debuted, ALF began its run, and Gary Hart quit the presidential race because his affair with Donna Rice was made public. Oh, for such a time when politicians had a bit of shame!!!!

And so another issue of Wizard is in the books. I hope you’re having as much fun reading these as I have writing them up! Join me in two weeks for … well, I don’t know which issue, but another one, for sure!!!!