No real blog post this week! Just a couple of stories I've found interesting and deciding to share:
Men's Health asked a bunch of comics creators to recommend some comics. This list is worth a read - you'll find at least one thing to add to your wishlist.
The dust has started to clear on the first great Krakoan Age. People who know me are aware that I have largely been a fan of this period of X-men comics...up until the hard nose dive all the stories took post Inferno. So I'm going to present something I've been noodling on for a while.
A part of the big appeal of this comics experiment was the idea that all of these comics were telling one big story. I don't think every part of that story is worth investing in. And I think any honest fan or critical appraisal of these comics needs to be brutally honest about which of these stories is actually re-readable.
Because to me, that's comics.
I keep you on my shelf for a quick laugh or cry or to get pumped up, or I hand them off to someone who'd enjoy them more than me. There is nothing sadder than a comic that just collects dust because nobody wants to look at it again.
The following list of comics are runs from the Krakoan era that I would (and have) happily reread. These are the ones I think you should spend your money on, or at least grab at the library.
I'll give a short explanation of my thoughts on why I think those stories are worth investing it, and a brief explanation where there might be gaps.
Came across this map posted by @BlvdSubway on twitter earlier. The first thing it made me think of was a Metroidvania map - I've always been a fan of that side-view of mapping of the mythic underground, despite being iffy on the genre (I like Castlevania much more than Metroid.)
I've been giving a lot of thought to dungeon and adventure design - maybe session design is a more accurate term - since the wind down of my 2023 totally-not-a-west-marches campaign, The 5th World. Maybe I'll do a blog post about that at some point, since I have a thoughts/feelings/regrets. But the biggest one is about being flexible enough to unshackle myself from a specific system. My years long dalliance with 5th edition has soured quite a bit. I'm currently in a cautious flirtation with Pathfinder 2e - we're still feeling each other out. I like it as a player but I'm not sure I would have a good time actually running it.
All that has left me to wade around in a mess of OSR systems - I've mostly gravitated towards Whitebox FMAG, but still have to go back and forth with the voice in my head that says "Just run The Black Hack 1E, yall were made for each other."
Anyway. Session Design.
While pundits argue over whether "superhero fatigue" is a real thing, 2024 has actually been a pretty good year for capeshit and capeshift adjacent programming. Here's some stuff I've enjoyed in recent weeks:
The People's Joker
This movie is an emotional tour de force. It is a gut-wrenching trans coming of age story wearing a Batman snuggie. From its unabshed love for Joel Schumacher and the 90s Spider-man cartoon, to its incisive deconstruction of SNL - this movie is worth catching with a crowd if you can.
X-men '97
I still maintain that the first three episodes of this show looked like an old newgrounds cartoon someone texted from an iPhone to an Android, but even I'm not enough of a hater to pretend this jawn hasn't been heat. There is something very clever about the way it has been utilizing the plot developments of the Morrison (and post-Morrison) era to go back and bolster its re-imagining of 80s and 90s storylines.
I do wonder if anyone under the age of 30 is actually watching this show though.
Extraordinary
A spiritual successor to classics like No Heroics and Misfits, Extraordinary is a pretty, easy to watch show about struggling shitheads who just want to feel special. Great way to lift your spirits if you're jobless and binging Hulu shows in the middle of the day.
The 2nd season just dropped. In good conscience I cannot really recommend a show that opens with an unironic dance sequence set to a Lizzo song, but perhaps you will enjoy that type of corny shit. There are some mean and fun new characters.
MONARCH: Legacy of Monsters
About half way through this show it became impossible to ignore that Matt Fraction was helming it. Pretty much every bad narrative impulse that makes you go "oh come on" while reading a comic is present in this show from about the half-way point to the end. But damn do we get a surprising amount of Kaiju action. Apple TV budgets are going crazy.
Worth watching if you're on the Anna Sawai bandwagon after Shogun.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
This isn't a superhero show by even the most absurd stretch, but it does kind of have the vibe of a mid-aughts indie comic that everybody loved but won't get a sequel. There's some incisive writing on race and identity, some amazing comedic performances (John Turturro and Wagner Moura steal the show when they appear), but Maya Erskine really holds it the fuck down. I was not familiar with her game at all.
---
In other news:
-I'm still waiting on the mass critical re-evaluation of Madame Web.
-We got our first terrible look at David Corenswet as Superman
-Avengelyne might end up starring Margot Robbie? Honestly just makes me wonder whats up with the Witchblade rights.
-Marvel makes a statement I don't agree with.
-The homie, @artschooldrop just dropped his webcomic, The Human Toilet. It should go without saying its pretty nsfw. My boy has an undeniable pen and I need him to hit us with four pages a week as long as he can.
