Mighty Marvel Mouse ears - Marvel Acquired By Disney For $4 Bil

It was announced that Marvel Entertainment will be acquired by The Walt Disney Company this morning in a deal that's estimated at $4 Billion, according to TechCrunch who reported the news.

Let me say that again, The Avengers, Iron Man, Spider-Man, X-Men, Captain America, Fantastic Four, Thor and every color-shade of the Hulk is now property of Disney. Apparently both company's respective boards signed off on it so this is a done deal folks.

"All is well in the Marvel U," said Mavel Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada via Twitter just moments after the news broke. "Everybody take a deep breath, all your favorite comics remain unchanged and Tom Brevoort remains grouchy."

I'm quite tickled that the company that brought forth such bastions of sexual repression like the Jonas Brothers, will at least for a time be funding the efforts of one Warren Ellis.

The natural emotion for something this epic in scope is typically to list off all the reasons why this will ruin said subject (in this case Marvel) because things are changing and changing makes people angry. But I honestly don't see this as a bad decision. Disney is known for preserving timeless characters in their own special kind of continuity and that's exactly why they bought a company that does the same.

In all likelihood having Disney as a parent company will probably enhance the comic experience ten fold. Why? well first off, no one in editorial has to be burdened by marketing X-Men under-roos, Spider-Man sippy cups and other useless (yet demanded) fare just to stay afloat while taking plenty of chances in their editorial department (read, the department that actually produces the comic books).

Someone else will now tend to the money making aspects of exploiting the characters we've come to love. Someone who is good at it. Marvel is good at making comics so I expect more of the same from them. If you need an example, look to Warner Brothers who doesn't dictate the creativity inside DC Comics editorial.

I just hope and pray that this news doesn't force a Jonas Brothers comic into existence (although, probably it will).

Palin: It's Simple...

- TechGOnzo

What's Cooler than Writing for Geeks of Doom?

Only one thing comes to my mind actually...

That would be telling people you write for Geeks of Doom. If you missed it last week, check out my first-ever post: "Top Ten Warren Ellis Tweets"

http://geeksofdoom.com/2008/06/16/top-10-warren-ellis-tweets/


-TechGOnzo

Spoiler Free Iron Man movie reaction

Let me first say, this is not a review. I mostly hate reviews of things that are strictly creative, art or make a statement. Therefore if I DID do a review it would be something like this:

“See it.” --- # End Sarcasm#

Tony Stark, the one from this movie, succeeds as the all-star version of every tech geek in silicon valley-- a witty, popular billionaire with unlimited resources and enough time to tinker around on whatever project interests them. Mostly tech geeks are also passively cocky, but only in proportion to the amount of success (measured in trade journal articles and dollars earned) they've had. The cockiness is usually pretty valid, too, because these guys rarely disappoint.

Iron Man the movie doesn't disappoint either.

That being said, I've never really seen Iron Man as the standard super-hero archetype. When I was growing up reading comics from back in the day --- When Marvel's brand logo still had the word “comics” in it --- I always saw Iron Man as the ultra cool looking character who's civilian life resembled some rubbery douchebag who's facial hair always matched the decade we were living in. His tales were all pretty dramatic, too. They had to have dramatic story lines because tech in the `70s and `80s really sort of sucked compared to the world we live in today.

So imagine a younger version of Steve Jobs as the hero we all want him to be even though we hear otherwise from the net media. Then, imagine his desire to chase after a perfect piece of technology. Now get Robert Downey Jr. to play him in a flick and prepare to be entertained upon watching the first few minutes of the film. Also, the movie anticipates every single time you would seemingly have a fanboy moment and plays it up to a point that works for an entire audience.

That's all I'm saying. For all other inquires, see my review.

-TechGOnzo

Image Comics founder among citizens of Diggnation

Rob Liefeld and I are friends...at least on the social news networking site digg.com.

Apparently we share the same appreciation for news coverage on the Vatican's decision to place a statue of Galileo in its hallways-- as an apology of sorts after putting him to death for telling people the earth wasn't the center of the universe.

ANYWAYS, I read the story and decided to click the “digg it” button embedded into the browser, which was registering at 1 digg. The submitter was one “RobLiefeld” but I really never considered that it was actually the famous comic book artist that I knew in my youth as the guy who drew cool, bad ass mutants with huge shoulder pads and even bigger guns. As best I can tell, this user is the real deal. I arrived at this conclusion only after reading some of his comments to other posts.

All of them were a bit off color, cocky and reeked with sullen elitism...all the signs of a genuine comic book fanboy. Either this was the Rob Liefeld who drew about 25 percent of all art that hung on my wall when I was nine-years-old, or someone who can fake being him really well.

It actually makes perfect sense that Liefeld is somewhat of an active digg user. The truth is that he's got a lot in common with both Kevin Rose and the former Tech TV crew (in regards to starting a revolution of sorts--- specifically to Rose's departure from the G4 television network.) While Rose believed in the work he did while at Tech TV, his conviction was extinguished when the network was re-branded, which meant it was moving in a direction (one would assume it would be called the wrong direction if you visited the exodus message board of old Tech TV fans ) that might hinder future aspirations.

If you don't know who Liefeld is, then you are probably not one of the four million people who purchased* a copy of X-Force #1 or had no interest in super-hero comics in the '80s and `90s. Aside from his creative talent, he also helped bring about a revolution in graphic literature into the modern age of technology.

X-odus or Exodus?

In 1992, Liefeld and a group of white-hot talented artists quit their day jobs at Marvel Comics to start a new company appropriately called Image. The movement was dubbed the X-odus.

Instead of taking the cheap route of printing comics with the minimum cost, the company chose to utilize the best technology of the time. Gone were pages of crappy paper and low DPI color printing. The image books were glossy pages in high-resolution. Marvel and DC soon had to follow Image's lead to ensure their place at the top (eventually leading to a new era of foiled, holographic, lithographed books---A.K.A. Expensive Crap)

Usually the credit for this new era of comics goes to Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, Marc Silvestri, Whilce Portacio, Jim Valentino and Erik Larsen who are all among the Image Comics founding members. Each have had great success with the studios they set up with the company over a decade ago. Some would even argue that Liefeld has the least of all the contributions since his work never really took off in the way the others did.

Critics describe his Image work harshly by saying:

“...contained elements that became Image stereotypes: huge muscles, breasts, and guns. However, Youngblood immediately began to suffer from delayed publication dates and major changes in direction.”

I find it hard to believe that Liefeld's role was anything less than absolutely essential to the movement that began the Image imprint.

Rather than looking at the longevity of Liefeld's creative projects, look at the campy-ass New Mutants series written by Chris Claremont about five years into it's run. That book was worthless by most standards and probably only survived as long as it did out of nostalgia for the times when stories were actually good. It was a throwback when Liefeld got put on the book. My thinking is that they didn't much care what he did because they expected it to fail anyways. It didn't.

Eventually the campy team of goofy mutant kids was transformed into a a stronger, better and prettier force of warriors. They had a purpose and a new direction that did not mesh well with the classic old guys' methodology. It was X-Force and it sold more copies of its first issue than any other book Marvel had published at that time.

If you look at what happened in the next few years, you'd know that Liefeld was probably channeling the energy he'd later take with him to help form that new company---the Image founders, perhaps, a version of X-Force in the real world. All that frustration of big box corporate comics was building and, in turn, producing some great stuff that had never been seen before.

When I reached high school I remember even harsher criticism of Liefeld when he took on the “Heroes Reborn” story line back at Marvel. Mostly it was of industry guys and other creators reiterating the less than complimentary points I've mentioned above. A hand full even described him as the center of his own universe.

Unlike Galileo, no one has ever figured out a way to execute him for crimes of heresy. However, if they do find a way, I'll expect history to repeat itself by having a Liefeld bust or statue installed into the Image Comics office.

-TechGOnzo

*I'm well aware that it was probably closer to 1.5 million people who actually purchased a copy of X-Force at initial publication in mass quantities of around 4 million...and that's still lotsa damn books.

Frank Miller: Conservative?

Let me first say, that I am not a Republican nor am I pro war.

But then again, neither is Frank Miller (necessarily).

My proof of this can be found in several essays the man has written against President George W. Bush AND the representation of Superman in his supremely bad ass graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns. Read that, then tell me Miller is pro anything.

Now I happen to be one of the few people on earth worthy of being called a fanboy—largely because I worked in a comic shop for the past four years and have read them for far longer. I know this about Frank Miller because I’ve read several of his stories. So for someone to tell me that this man has injected political propaganda into a work he created nearly a decade ago, well that person’s argument would have to stand up against quite a bit of force.

Such a person exists….my good Friend Valerie. Her Blog: http://blog.myspace.com/valerie_rose

Is this a pro war movie? Yes, because #!$%^ those Persian son’s of bitches. However, I fail to see its parallel with the Iraq war other than the fact that they are both wars and one side is much more powerful than the other. She makes some interesting claims about the film, which I do not believe are completely wrong. Yet, there is a bit of knowledge she doesn’t thoroughly list about them.

Lets start with the history of why this was perhaps the most important war our culture has ever been through.

The Spartans were not like the other societies in the Roman Empire. They were in fact a warrior cult. These men lived and breathed strength because they felt they must always be stronger than their opponents, who sought to take away their freedoms and enslave them.

This was the case when a Persian Army messenger came to Sparta with a request to their king. Simply acknowledge that they were stronger than Sparta, and no harm would be done. To King Leonida, this sounded as if the dark skinned messenger was saying “admit that slavery is ok, and we’ll let you play the ‘freedom game’ a little longer.” So when given the choice of fighting now or fighting later, Leonidas chose now.

But there was a problem. To go to war, you needed to seek the approval of the oracle, which was a high priestess of sorts who could glimpse into the future.

Valerie’s blog says that there are Christian references in the film many times and I cannot deny that there is. However, Leonidas didn’t care for Religion. He is not a man who let a ideology passed down thru the ages get in the way of his own. Nothing was going to get in the way of preserving Freedom, not even the church.

And so Leonidas took 300 of his men to fight the Persians. He never officially went to war. I can draw a conclusion from her blog that would compare this to Bush’s initial invasion. I would do this, however, this is what is known to have happened in ancient time. It wasn’t made up because it proves a political point.

These 300 men, why are they so important? Because if you’ll consult several historians who specialize in studying this particular period, you’d find that this is where they attribute the start of Western Civilization as we know it. It is believed, by several of these historians, that had Leonidas not taken these men to battle the Persian army, all of Greece would have fallen to a surprise attack from the Persian army.

Free will, individuality, democracy, a free flow of information…this would have all been lost in the event of a Persian takeover.

This is why Frank Miller chose to tell the story of this particular battle and not others. If the director decided to use imagery that suggested Christian references, such as the one Valerie mentions during the end of the battle. (the arrows in Leonidas pierced his body in the same places as Jesus’ crucifixion) If this were to be the case, then the message would be that Religion is not worth freedom.

And eventually what took over Rome was not a large Asian army, but rather the ideology of a religion that would take the place of the existing ideology, which did not protect the free men.

This is not propaganda. This is the story of how we came to be what we are. It is pledged to those 300 men who knew they’d die so that we could preserve the idea of freedom, and tarnish those who wished to erase it.

Is war a good thing? I don’t think so. However, if this particular war meant we continued western civilization…well in my opinion, that would say something about war itself.