Multiverses of Madness and the Comics

 

Growing up a comics kid, with a focus on Marvel, I of course loved even the C level heroes. And Dr. Strange was certainly that. But he had a certain popularity with college students, due in large part to the great Steve Ditko's psychedelic take on Salvador Dali. Doctor Strange travelled realms of crazy abstract backgrounds. 

And Strange regular cameoing in other titles got his exposure. Just like in the most recent Spider Man movie, Spidey and other heroes would sometimes seek out the wizard for advice with supernatural situations. Doc also led his own minor league hero team, The Defenders, that went on to have a long history, often without Strange appearing. But now, in the MCU, Doc Strange takes front and center. He actually seems to be the heir apparent to Tony Snark (even cracking wise at an accelerated rate). 

So as a kid the offbeat elements stood out. The crazy interdimensional backgrounds, Ditko's signature finger-bending hand gestures and body postures (made famous in early Spider Man). And Stan Lee gave Ditko credit for the character, a rare moment of generosity about character creation. 

So, the weirdo backgrounds and even the classic hand gestures made their way into the Marvel films, and the dimensional architecture as well, In spades. 

In the hands of Sam Raimi (among my top 5 favorite directors), the world of Strange just seems right. His style fits right in with the classic Ditko style. The backgrounds, the demons, the crash edits and Dutch angles. Sam brings all his best tropes into the MCU. Evil Dead and Drag Me to Hell all seem like influences here. 

Scarlet Witch is the big bad, a plotline left over from her Disney series. All she wants is her kids, but since she can't have hers, she will settle for taking over the body of a counterpart of hers from another dimension. Or something. 

I remember her pretend kids from comics in the 80's. Some of that had Al Milgrom as artist, who I absolutely hate, so I didn't read much. I don't know if Wanda using actual magic was a thing back then, or a modern invention. In my day she was a mutant who could alter probability in a random fashion that she could not fully control. She might turn a hail of bullets into butterflies with a hex, or create a shield of ice from fire hydrant water to block them. She never really knew. 

Now she is a powerful wizard in her own right, and more powerful (because of the Darkhold?) than even Doc Strange. Anyway, I don't really need to get into plot specifics. It didn't matter much to me. It was the insider elements that tickled me. 

The Darkhold stuff took me back. That book, Marvels Necronomicon, was in many titles I read as a kid. I remember it factoring into the early Werewolf by Night issues. And apparently the book was responsible for the existence of vampires. So nice to see it getting love these days. 

But its the multiverse that tickles me. As a kid it was Marvel, and to a lesser degree DC comics ("not a dream! Not an imaginary tale!"), whose mid century "Imaginary tales" eventually evolved into alternate dimensiona explanations. Earth 616 and 219 and 411 or whatnot. 

By the 70's both Marvel and DC dug deep into alternate universe stuff. I mean, I guess What If...? was the penultimate love for the concept. And its great to see it happening in the movies. in the case of DC films, it's an evolution of the company trying to salvage the poor reception of early film fare such as Batman vs. Superman and such. I mean, its giving us a chance soon to see the Michael Keaton Batman alongside the more recent Batfleck, and that tickles me to no end. 20 Years ago me being told by a visitor from the future that this would happen would have made my head explode. Even the last Spider Man film did it. Molina Doc Ock and Defoe Green Goblin? Yes please. Though I have to admit, that movie did not hold me for long. I have yet to watch enough of it to see all the Spider Man film actors together. But that has more to do with not really being a fan of the recent Spidey films. But shit, I'm glad its all happening. 

I love alternate universe stuff, and I look forward to seeing what they do with it. But especially in the case of DC. I'm unashamedly a fan of the films, even the derided ones. Batman V Supers and Suicide Squad 1 weren't quite the films I would have hoped (worst Lex Luthor ever), but I still find plenty to like in them. And I absolutley adore the Snyder Cut Justice League. I like the dark Snyder touches over the Marvel films heavy reliance on Tony Stark Snark, and essentially every character being a comedy gagster (that really should have been Spider Man and Deadpools schtick only).

So I should add you get to an alternate version of Reed Richards. I'm chomping at the bit to see what they do with an FF movie. And this is a little glimpse (I half expected Ben Grimm to come smashing in). And Fox's Doctor X played by Patrick Stewart was fanboy giggle worthy. The Illuminati. Wow. They even stuck in Black Bolt from the poorly received Inhumans show (I have yet to see it), and he was awesome. The only thing missing was Prince Namor. That would have been sweet. 

Anyway, Multiverse Madness. Can't wait to see more madness. Uh, in the Multiverse.

Oh, one final spoiler. Doc Stranges gal pal from the 70's, Clea, shows up in a credits sequence. That was a deep cut, and I almost spit out beer. And they don't explain anything, so nobody except way out in the weeds old school fanboys like me even get the significance. Awesome. 

Hugo Weaving and The Red Skull

Captain America wasn’t one of my favorite Marvel characters, but for a time in the 80’s and early 90’s I was a regular reader. You could not deny his importance. Captain America was the one dude in the superhero community that all the other Marvel Characters trusted to open up to. From Spider-Man bemoaning his Aunt May’s latest heart attack, to The Black Widow complaining about that not-so-fresh feeling, Captain A was your go-to guy. His inspiring words got them back up n’ at ‘em.

In continuity, Cap was really the first superhero in the Marvel Universe (if you don’t count various wild west heroes). He fought through World War 2, and up till modern times has been the pinnacle of human perfection. His sparring partner, German bellhop turned Hitlerian super soldier named The Red Skull, came to modern times with him to continue the eternal dance.

In the media Cap never got a fair shake. He had a horrible TV pilot (he was a surfer dude, if I recall) back in the day, and in 1990 he finally got the big screen treatment. Despite a great back-up cast, including Ronny “Total Recall” Cox, Ned “Squeal like a pig!” Beatty, and Darrin “Kolchak” Mcgavin, it was a real stinker. Matt Salinger as Cap was uninspired casting. Plus they made the Red Skull an Italian. Huh? Wha? Was that even necessary? Was one of the producers German or something? Chalk that up to one of the most head scratching changes in comic to film history (making the 5’2” Wolverine a skinny 6’1” guy is a close second).

Now we are getting a new Cap film, one based in the new Marvel cinematic universe. The movie trailer footage looks great, with Cap in his WW2 natural environment. Cap is in the Nazi killing business, and brother, business is a’ boomin’! Iron Man set a high bar for this new generation of movie heroes, and both Thor and the upcoming Avengers film are going to at least be feasts for fanboy eyes (but hopefully better stories and continuity than the last Wolverine and X-Men films).

Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull is a no-brainer, and from the pic above you can see they are going the right direction for him. Since childhood I dreamed of comic book movies that didn’t suck and at least half-assed tried to get it right. For a fanboy of any age, this is looking like a good time to be alive if you love these iconic ink and paint characters.

Comic Dork Monday: “You…you’re a duck?!”

Howard the Duck is very dear to my heart. He was my first real non-superhero comics character that lived among superheroes. At around 12 years old or thereabouts, I had been collecting comics for a few years. It was the late 70’s, and my parents decided to take me on a San Diego vacation where they would let me hang out at the Comic Con (yes, the very same Comic Con famous today as a place for Hollywood to whore its sketchy wares). Actually, two years in a row, but I think it was that first one I really loved.

My parents went and soaked up the summer sun for two days while letting the con babysit me until around 9PM or so each night, before picking me up to head to our much cheaper hotel down the street. There were two great highlights of my young self’s odyssey. First (and probably the best) was sitting by the pool with Mel Blanc in the afternoon. Mel had spoken earlier in the day at a panel, so I knew he was the guy who did the voices in my favorite cartoons. For some reason, others did not really approach him, but I went right to his table. I sat for well over a half hour with him (although as memory fades, it could have been an hour, or it could have been ten minutes), and he did voices for me and even sang a song as Speedy Gonzales (it was about a fat Mexican lady “…wanna eat, wanna eat, wanna eat, Juanita”). I did not realize the magnitude of that encounter until years later.

Another encounter I probably took for granted at first (until I saw him on TV on a show called “Wonderama” some time later hawking comics) was with Stan Lee. I listened to a group of a dozen dudes or so in the lobby who surrounded Stan as he kicked back in one of the lounges answering questions (he was really friendly to the fans as I recall). One of the guys there asked “Whatever happened to Howard the Duck?” Stan had no answer and somebody else chimed in “he fell on some rocks and died.”

Well, Howard did not die. He actually fell off of some cosmic steps in the Man Things comics, and fell to our earth to start his own series. This is where I discovered the joys of Howard.

In his first issue, a Conan send-up where Spider-Man also appeared, Howard fought “Pro Rata” the wizard accountant. Here he met Beverly Switzer, his lovely companion (and eventually sometimes girlfriend) who would be his sidekick for most of his run. Most of their adventures would take place in and around Cleveland for the majority of Howard’s 70’s popularity.

Howard was created by Steve Gerber, writer of a number of Man-Thing comics. Man-Things Florida swamp had a major cosmic nexus point in it (in addition to other fantasy goodies such as The Fountain of Youth and a wizard’s tower), and Howard was one of a small number of extra-dimensional secondary characters who encountered Man-Thing and adventured with the mindless hump of muck before getting his own comic. Gerber wrote the majority of the Howard’s first run, and often was at disagreement with others staffers about what exactly Howard was supposed to be. Gerber thought of him not as a cartoon character, but an actual talking duck from an alternate earth. Early Howard artist Frank Brunner actually left the series because he wanted Howard to be a cartoon that, like a Looney Tunes character, could be smashed and crushed and pop back unharmed. “Un uh” said Gerber, this was a living and breathing alien creature who bleeds and feels pain when hurt; by no means immortal.

In the late 70’s Howard ran for president in the comic, and I for sure remember Marvel’s heavy promotion of this, with buttons and everything. Even 7-11 got into the act with commemorative Howard cups. Yeah, he was getting fairly well known for a non-superhero character. Howard even had a newspaper strip for a couple of years. I was an eager Howard collector at the time, owning the first 20 or 30 issues (I Ebayed these a few years ago).

Towards the end of his first color comics run, Howard was plagued with a load of problems of almost biblical proportions. Gerber, who complained nonstop about other people’s approach to his creation, was removed from the series by the Marvel mucketymucks. This was about the time I had moved on from Howard, and had stopped collecting. But Howard continued for a bit longer in black and white magazine format. I do remember buying one of these, and it featured a suicidal Howard bemoaning his loneliness (girlfriend Beverly had apparently left and taken up hooking down at the docks) in a bizarre parody of It’s a Wonderful Life.

In 1978 Gerber sued Marvel over Howard, in the first such case dealing with comic creator rights. He was championed by many comic book luminaries, including Jack “King” Kirby, who along with Gerber created the hilarious Destroyer Duck to help with legal fees. Disney threw their hat into the Howard ring, stirring up shit over Howard’s similarities to Donald Duck, forcing Howard to eventually put on pants to look different from Disney’s asshole-ish foul. This itself was actually parodied in the comics, where decency groups cried out to pants poor Howard (despite his apparent lack of any kind of genitalia).

Howard popped up in the Marvelverse™ here and there, and even had another wack at this own series before the heinous abortion of a film that was thrown together by George Lucas (apparently in the workings since the making of American Graffiti). For this awesomely awful outing, Howards philosophical and existential nature was entirely removed for the sake of making him a nice, likeable guy (spew). As clueless producer Gloria Katz said "It's a film about a duck from outer space... It's not supposed to be an existential experience... We're supposed to have fun with this concept, but for some reason reviewers weren't able to get over that problem." Hollywood threw away its chance to feature a smart, adult wisecracking character in the Groucho Marx mold. Instead of the cool Howard from the comics, we got a tired, out of date Marty McFly type good guy. It did not work, and for me at least, the film was the nail in the coffin as far as Howard goes.

Howard has been fully off my radar since that movie, but like any comic character of worth he has been continued to be milked in one way or another over the years. I heard that at one point Gerber used Howard, the “real Howard,” in Image comic series such as Savage Dragon. Gerber owns this character, who in the Imageverse™ is undercover and goes by the name “Leonard” and dyed his feathers green. He even has gal pal Beverly there under a new moniker as well. Huh. Maybe she just should have kept hooking down at those docks.

Whatever goes down with Howard, nothing will ever come close to the sheer cool that this character exuded in those early days of his existential existence. Howard, you will probably never get another movie, and I think that is a good thing. Sail on, Ducky.

Comic Dork Monday: June Jitsui kicks Spider-Ass

Believe me, this is not a comic book post but a gaming post. But let’s talk comics for a second.

Any older dude who read Comics back in the day probably fondly remembers the old Twinkie advertisements on the inside back cover. Usually, a major superhero like Spider-Man or Superman would for some reason need to use Twinkie snack cakes as a secret weapon to stop some bank robber or other low level street hood. That’s right, Spider-Man can dodge bullets and Supes can spin the earth backwards on it’s axis, but they need fattening snack treats to take down numbnut criminals, costumed or otherwise.

In this particular ad, Spider-Man is on his way home from the deli when he runs into a beautiful but deadly mistress of martial arts. First off, Spidey is a native New Yorker and Twinkies are what he gets at the deli? Huh. Second, why the fuck is he walking home? If he had gone as Peter Parker, would he have swung home? Who the hell is writing this shit, Rob Liefeld? Sheesh.

So while passing through Central Park (wow, Spidey does live dangerously) our hero runs into the formerly unseen by us villainess June Jitsui. Apparently Spidey has a past with her that we are not made privy to. Maybe a jilted booty call from before he met Mary Jane? We’ve really only see Peter Parker get lucky with white chicks. Well, anyway, you know what they say about Asian girls…

Oh my God, this apparently unpowered Chinese chippie proceeds to kick the living shit out of Spidey, who describes her prowess as similar to “running into a truck.” Why can’t this proto-mutant half spider take her on? I mean, he is superfast, agile, has a danger sense, and is strong enough to bend steel girders. And check out the kick in panel 3. What the hell? She obviously just phoned that one in. Looks like the kick a trucker would use to boot the rest stop hooker out of the semi’s cab. He couldn’t block that? Well, for some reason his webbing will not work without the awesome power of sugar and cholesterol, so it’s his bag of Twinkies from Morty’s Deli that saves the day.

June greedily eyes the Twinkies and brashly proclaims to them “I’m going to turn you into poo!” before scarfing them down. Well, ok, that line is actually from Family Guy. I’m trying to be a funnyman here.

OK, here’s the rub. At some point in the late 80’s I used June as a villain character in my Champions games. I shit you not! I needed a crooked sensei to operate a chain of martial arts studios that fronted for criminal enterprises, so I plucked June from this strange advert. I did however make the last name “JItsu” instead of “Jitsui.” C’mon, I have a little respect for my GM’ing rep.

She was around for awhile in the street level games that I ran. One martial arts PC even had her as a bit of an arch enemy. At some point somebody hired this guy’s enemies (including June, some criminal wrestlers, etc.) to attack him one at a time to weaken him. The third attack or so of the day was from June in a busy outdoor shopping mall, who actually bitch-slapped the already weakened PC around much like she did to old Web Head in the ad.

In the 90’s she didn’t really show up in my Champs games, and went back into obscurity.

I recently started doing some street level “Dark Champions” games as an alternative for my group, and for the first game I resurrected June Jitsu. I even still had a mini for her (that actually looked a lot like the comic book June). Thing is, it’s around 20 years later, so I made her a washed up entrepreneur who was down to just one studio in the bad part of town. She still fronts for her students criminal activities, but is a bit worn down. She smokes and drinks a lot now, and though still decent looking in her 40’s she is for sure not on her game as she once was.

After a couple of games the characters have yet to tangle directly with her, but that will happen next game (and who knows when that will happen – this is an alternate when I only have three players at a session). As used up as the dragon lady is, she still has some skill (don’t forget that mighty “trucker kick”) and I’m looking forward to her mixing it up with the PC’s one at a time or as a group. She is good enough still that one on one the PC is very likely to experience the smack down that poor, deli loving Spider-Man did that fateful day in Central Park.

Now go eat a Twinkie!

Addendum: from what I understand, June Jitsui appeared one other time in the 80’s. It was in a mini-series called “Fing Fang Foom,” a great old school Marvel monster character I loved, but never heard of the miniseries. Apparently, June appeared in some kind of Riker’s Island jail break scene (she is such a tough cookie they probably had her in with the dudes making bitches out of all the bikers, skin heads, and Mexican Mafia members).

Comic Book gaming styles

After posting about my comic book gaming history last week, I got a bit introspective about the three decades of my experience running those sorts of games. Over all that time, my GM style evolved in many ways, reflecting the changes in the comic book industry itself. I thought I would touch on that a bit more.

I grew up with comics. Even by my early teens I had quite a collection. Besides buying the occasional current issue off the racks, my folks would often return from swap meets with a pile of comics to add to my growing stock. These were special treats, because they would more often than not be 10-20 years old, so I was very much in touch with older, pre-Silver Age comics.

I loved the iconic, God-like heroes of DC of course; Batman, Superman, Green Lantern. But I was a Marvel boy tried and true. I could connect at a deeper level with Peter Parker and his personal problems far more than Batman and his Joker-chasing adventures. Homework, girls, and bullies were part of Spider-Man’s life just like mine, and that made him more real to me. So around 1979, when I was fleshing out my comic book world for gaming, Marvel played a huge part.

I decided to set my island nation of New Haven in the Marvel Universe, except 20 years in the future. That gave me something to ground my world with, but the future setting gave me more freedom that Marvel’s modern New York would have. I didn’t really want to use Marvel characters all that much, I just wanted the setting.

Within a year or two, X-Men comics featured the famous “Days of Future Past” storyline, in which mutant-hunting Sentinel robots had rounded-up mutants, killed most of the world’s superheroes, and set-off World War 3. That was perfect for me, as it eliminated most of Marvel’s superhero roster, while leaving enough of it free for me to use in my future Marvel setting. There wasn’t much chance of Spider-Man showing up on the streets of New America City in New Haven, but if a player wanted to have “The Son of Spider-Man” as a character, then no problem. As a matter of fact, a girlfriend of mine in the early 80’s ran the daughter of Wolverine, and low and behold a decade and a half later a daughter of Wolverine showed up in the Marvel universe.

The very first superhero games I ran in the late 70’s, using the Superhero 2044 rules didn’t have any real style. With that system, there wasn’t much more to do than have your powerful hero show up, and lay waste to bank robbers and cause tons of property damage in the process. It was howling mad fun for kids to have men in power armor squash crooks into street pizza, but as we got older we wanted a little bit more than that.

So when I made the transition to Villains and Vigilantes, Silver Age Marvel comics set the tone for the goings on. Angsty heroes and anti-heroes ruled the Marvel landscape of the late 70’s, so our games reflected that. Then in the mid-eighties the X-Men comics were huge, so of course I ran my own campaign of new X-Men in New Haven’s future world. As a matter of fact, the anti-mutant hysteria popular in Marvel for decades entered my game world frequently.

But in the later 80’s two great, ground breaking comics changed the comic book landscape forever. One was The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller gritty new take on the Batman. OK, as a comic geek I know that Miller did not invent this darker Batman. In the 70’s the work of Neil Adams and others had turned Bats from a jokey Adam West dork into a noir detective who had travelled the world after the death of his parents picking up Samurai and Ninja skills. But Miller’s dark future of Gotham City had a profound effect on how I presented destitute parts of New Haven’s metropolis. I began to set more scenarios in the run-down parts of town instead of NH’s gleaming downtown spires. Street criminals became less comic, and more ruthless and dangerous. With the crack epidemic of the 80’s hammering the evening news, more scenarios involving drugs and drug dealers happened in my street-level games. Of course, being a futuristic Sci Fi world, these would more often than not be super-drugs that granted temporary super-powers to junkies.

By the late 80’s, I discovered two more comic properties that changed how I ran games and how I perceived the existence of heroes. First was, of course, The Watchmen. Alan Moore’s take on what the world would be like with real Superheroes had a profound affect on me. Suddenly Supermen were just as subject to darker and malignant human foibles and passions as the rest of us, and were more often than not driven insane by their own hubris and crapulence. This more cynical view of the superhero world was increased in me tenfold when I began reading Marshal Law. Law was a super-powered cop who hunted super-powered gang members, rapists, and killers, and was a total deconstruction of the Superhero myth.

The early to late 90’s was my heyday of superhero gaming (in terms of amount of games and frequency), and many of my players were not only unfamiliar with superhero RPG’s, but with comics themselves. So my own take on superhero deconstruction was greatly received by my players, and often hailed as a unique view on the super-powered world!

With the huge popularity of the Miller-influenced Dark Knight films, and the recent release of a The Watchmen movie, larger audiences have been exposed to the deconstruction of the Superhero myth. But in my games, it was a long-running standard.

It has now been almost 10 years since my last Champions games. With a decent D&D group going strong, I have the occasional hankering to revisit New Haven. But how will it have changed? Have dark heroes continued to violently fight crime in the ally’s and parking lots of the bad side of town? Are super-drugs and violent criminals still a raging problem, or has the possible lack of heroes swinging around the cityscape made a positive difference in New Haven? In my final games around 2000, characters dealt with a world-wide alien invasion that was defeated at tremendous cost. How has New Haven, and the future world, handled all this in the years following? A surge in space exploration? More racism against those who are different or strange? These questions and more will have to be dealt with. But how I go about it, and how my players react to it, will be the real fun. I can’t wait! Just gotta get that pesky D&D campaign over with, then…”It’s clobberin’ time!”

‘Nuff said, true believer.