Licensed To Ill
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The latest issue of Previews contained a solicitation that caught me off guard; coming this August, Boom! Studios will be releasing a Die Hard prequel comic, set in 1976 and featuring the exploits of a rookie cop named John McClane in New York. Seeing as how Die Hard is one of my all-time favourite films, and a must-watch holiday standard in my household, I was certainly intrigued, but cautiously so—licensed books like this are usually something of a crapshoot, with the emphasis heavily on the crap. So, in the interest of keeping everything in perspective, I thought I’d examine the idea of licensed properties from other media coming to comics with two recent examples in mind—Dynamite Entertainment’s The Man With No Name series, and Boom! Studios’ The Muppet Show. These two examples are polar opposites in terms of subject matter and, some might say, quality, but I believe that between them, they highlight some of the specific challenges creators face when asked to adapt a popular movie or TV show to the comic format.
The Man With No Name comic series, written by Christos Gage and illustrated by Wellington Diaz, debuted in 2008 from Dynamite, following the continuing adventures of Clint Eastwood’s poncho-wearing, cheroot-puffing hero from Sergio Leone’s famous “Dollars” trilogy—A Fistful of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More, and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. This concept appealed to me even more than Die Hard does; while Die Hard is one of my favourite movies, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is my all-time favourite movie. However, the initial concept of a series based on Eastwood’s legendary gunslinger had me scratching my head a bit—I mean, technically, the whole “Man With No Name” thing was essentially a marketing gimmick that MGM struck upon when importing the Spaghetti Western series to the States. Eastwood is credited as playing “Joe” in A Fistful of Dollars, “Monco” in For A Few Dollars More, and “Blondie” in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, so you can’t really say that he has no name. In fact, with that in mind, you could even argue that he’s not even really playing the same guy in all three films. So, producing a book “starring” that character is a bit of a cheat, since he amounts to little more than a wardrobe, some props, and a predilection for stony silence.
My initial misgivings proved to be correct, as The Man With No Name is merely a western comic featuring a guy who dresses sort of like Clint Eastwood in need of a serious haircut. However, he’s far more of a modern action hero, with lots more running, jumping, and firing of multiple rounds of ammunition than Eastwood ever did back in the day. It might have been wrong of me to expect the crazy-long stretches of silence, the intense staredowns that seemingly go on forever, and the decisive, expertly-placed single shots that end the showdowns in all the Leone pictures, but that’s what I expect from a story based on that property. The reason to watch those films isn’t Eastwood’s character (he’s a bit thin, after all), it’s the gallows humour, the eerie build-up to lightning-quick violence, the sardonic emphasis on greed and its inevitable consequences, and, of course, the unforgettable Ennio Morricone music. The Man With No Name (which, I understand, is soon being retitled as The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly) fails because it tries to sell a character when it should be selling an overall mood (as an aside, for a much better example of the genre being translated to comic form, check out Scott Morse’s 2004 graphic novel from Oni Press, the somewhat lazily-titled Spaghetti Western).
On the other hand, there’s The Muppet Show comic from Boom! Studios’ new Boom! Kids line. Written and illustrated by Roger Langridge, this four-issue series is an outstanding example of a licensed property making the leap to comics. Each issue manages the Herculean task of actually feeling like an episode of the original Muppet Show, combining backstage shenanigans with familiar sketches like Pigs In Space and The Swedish Chef (and, of course, copious heckling from Statler and Waldorf). Additionally, this title features possibly the best incorporation of original song lyrics in comics since Alan Moore’s use of music in titles like V For Vendetta and Top Ten. Langridge’s dialogue is sharp and funny and totally true to the Muppet characters, his stories manage to be both humourous and touching without being schmaltzy, and his artwork is at once simple, textured, and expressive. Additionally, it’s a suitable read for both kids and nostalgic grown-ups. This is a textbook example of how to do a licensed property justice—the final product feels like The Muppet Show, only being read instead of watched.
I am somewhat encouraged by the fact that The Muppet Show is being produced by the same publisher that will be bringing us Die Hard Year One this summer, but I still worry that this will just be a generic action comic featuring a guy named John McClane who kinda-sorta looks like a young Bruce Willis (I haven’t seen the interior art yet, so I might be way off). Maybe he’ll meet a young Holly Gennaro and they’ll talk about how they always wanted to go to L.A., or he’ll pass by a young, well-dressed Eurothug named Hans Gruber on the streets of New York and have a shiver of premonition. In any event, I strangely find myself hoping that the final result is more Kermit the Frog than Clint Eastwood.
The Monarch was a Batman villain in the classic "costumed thief" mode, except where, say, the Riddler spent his time working on death traps and ways to stick rebuses to downtown billboards, he put all of his energy into the fine art of getting away from the scene of the crime. This is actually a pretty good strategy, I reckon. Why risk Arkham for the fleeting joy of seeing Batman almost get squashed by a giant rubber duck when you can escape to the jungles of South America with millions of dollars and have trained monkeys act it out for you every night before you go to your extremely occupied bed?
And sure enough, just having escaped from Batman was enough to make the Monarch's name. Batman just stared sadly at his portrait every night, saying "Sigh... sigh..."
This is not a very nice-looking costume. The Medieval serf, hard worker though he might have been, has never been looked upon as history's fashion plate. These guys are probably dressed in material a hundred times better than any serf ever even saw, let alone wore, but there's no helping some outfits. Plus, taken out of context like this, it kind of looks like Batman is being attacked by a gang of poorly-dressed transvestites - I'm sure that there was a lot of confusion on the streets of Gotham.
See, the Monarch has a son, a disappointing son. A son who he dresses up like a court jester and makes fun of with the help of his hired goons (quote: "You're th' greatest! And your son's the worst! HO - HO - HO!"). I'm not too sure what the kid did to draw such mockery - from the context of the story it might just be that he's a clumsy guy.
They had me at the house ad. A couple of weeks ago, Image slapped an ad for Chew on the back of… something, probably Invincible, and I knew that I’d be buying it. Standard detective fare doesn’t generally turn my crank, but show me a book where the investigative role is filled by something oddball (a dinosaur in a human suit, a fictional character who has emerged from a historical novel, a gang of computer nerds in a camper van, etc.) and I’m a pretty easy sell. There’s something about the mystery genre that benefits from the addition of strangeness. This is probably why I like Detective Chimp so much.
Woo! Now this is what I am talking about. The past nine issues of Secret Six have been great and all but have featured the Six in what is basically a heroic role - they’re after the Get Out of Hell Free Card but so are a lot of much less savory people, or they’re killing potential child-killers or whatever. The point is that they weren’t doing anything that, say, the Outsiders wouldn’t get up to but the methods and dynamics that came into play were different because the people that were doing it were amoral villain types. Now, not that I had anything wrong with that setup - I’d be pleased to read more adventures of the Semi-heroic Six - but it’s really quite refreshing that this storyline revolves around the team signing up with what are very clearly some bad bad dudes and that the choice is not how they will go about achieving their reasonably good ends but exactly how evil they are prepared to be; how compromised they are going to allow themselves to become for the sake of a job. Moral ambiguity, yeah!
Heh, I just noticed that this sucker doesn’t have an “of 8” or what have you after the issue number. Clever ploy to obfuscate the exact length of this “World Without a Superman” dooflappy? Don’t worry: even if it is, Dan Didio will spill the beans on Superman’s return to Earth well in advance (if he hasn’t already, that is). As with Jersey Gods, I’m really enjoying this ongoing look at the workings of an alien society, all stitched together out of the Kryptonian history that’s built up over the last seventy years (“Ooo, a Byrne-style Kryptonian! And an allusion to the old story about all of the black people on Krypton living on an island!”). Seeing the Green Lanterns interacting with this new society was a good time, though I’m a bit confused - over in Strange Adventures folks are having a hard time raising Oa on the space radio due to all of the craziness happening with “Prelude to Blackest Night” stuff. Is this happening before that? After? I’m normally pretty willing to look the other way on minor continuity gaffes but if this book synchs up with that crossover just in time for a bunch of Black Lanterns to show up I may slowly raise one eyebrow.
Terrific! New Batman! Basic Batman! Fighting guys, detecting, gadgets! Sure the team is Dick Grayson and Damien but so what? Batman and Robin chase down a guy named Mr. Toad in their flying Batmobile - this is enough for me.
It’s a good sign when an adaptation makes me want to read the original work. Okay, I guess sometimes it’s because the adaptation is so bad - Postman the movie, I’m looking at you - but in this case I just want to check out the aspects of the story that had to be left out in order to fit the comic book format.
Man, Astro City. I didn’t really get to say too much about this when the last issue came out due to, you know, life (my girlfriend is wonderful and tolerant and never gives me grief about my hobby or the time I spend on the blog, but there’s only so much reading and writing about comics that I can do in an evening without feeling like a big dumb neglector. Someday I will get a big grant and spend all day doing this stuff, if I can finally catch that dang leprechaun). I love Astro City, unconditionally. I love the Alex Ross covers (Alex Ross plus new characters equals great) and the extensive and eternally-unfolding history and all that. The only time that I was ever glad to hear about someone getting mercury poisoning was in the context of that being the reason for the long hiatus in this comic. Man, that sounds bad. Okay, I wasn’t glad that Kurt Busiek was poisoned so much as that there was an external reason for the disappearance of Astro City and that it would return. Maybe I should edit out the poison part of this review.
