Peek a Boo!
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@ Sage: Thanks! I might review other Iron Man eps in the future... if I find the eps worth reviewing.
 
Nice post!!
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Ellis is one of the most anti-superhero mainstream comic writers so getting him to write Tony Stark, a character that is naturally an asshole, as a hero is probably not a good idea.

Tony doesn't come off as especially not-heroic in the anime, if that makes you feel any better. He's pretty much exactly the RDJ version of Tony: benevolent but selfish and flamboyant to a fault. Ellis apparently wrote the plot outlines only, all the dialog and the script structures are pretty classic Toshiki Inoue.

I think you may misunderstand Ellis's views on superhero fiction. I don't think he hates the genre so much as he hates the superhero industry and how it's malformed the comics marketplace. Given his druthers I think Ellis would spend all day writing crazy sci-fi adventure books loaded with political commentary, but that doesn't sell.

Very little sells well that doesn't feature superheroes, regardless of quality. So for a long time Ellis took time off from what he really cared about, every now and then, to phone in some work on cape books because he has to make ends meet. Lately he does more TV and other work, which he clearly finds more interesting, so good for him.

I find it odd that a lot of superhero fans express fear that when a writer who isn't himself a fan writes a character, he's going to try make that character look bad. If you're writing superhero books to make ends meet, then why on Earth would you do that? You'd be putting yourself out of a job and making it even harder to write the stuff you like.

This really baffles me because it's generally the loud, self-proclaimed fans who are most likely to write a hero doing loathsome things. The Tony Stark everyone hated in Civil War was the product of avid fanboy and Iron Man film consultant Mark Millar. All Ellis ever did with Tony Stark in his Iron Man stuff (that I've read) was make him into a Steve Jobs analogue.
 
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I find it odd that a lot of superhero fans express fear that when a writer who isn't himself a fan writes a character, he's going to try make that character look bad. If you're writing superhero books to make ends meet, then why on Earth would you do that? You'd be putting yourself out of a job and making it even harder to write the stuff you like.
I think more than anything I see Ellis as adding subversive elements with regard to superheroes. And for me it isn't that I fear when none fans write characters, in all honesty I think that if you are a fan of a character you shouldn't write them because then you end up writing more for yourself than anything. My problem is that a lot of writers won't write straight superheroes anymore since they are too "boring" and while I personally don't like that view in Ellis's case I can at least respect him for not trying to hide it. Frankly there are a lot of writers in the Marvel stable that I wouldn't want on projects like this, there are very few working superhero comic writers that I feel that can actually write superheroes.

This really baffles me because it's generally the loud, self-proclaimed fans who are most likely to write a hero doing loathsome things. The Tony Stark everyone hated in Civil War was the product of avid fanboy and Iron Man film consultant Mark Millar. All Ellis ever did with Tony Stark in his Iron Man stuff (that I've read) was make him into a Steve Jobs analogue.
Honestly I have no idea what Millar actually likes, he clearly doesn't like superheroes otherwise he wouldn't have spent this last decade writing what he has. I think Millar is just the most overt example of a problem that has gripped comics that superheroes just come down costumes and powers. The humanity that helped define them has been tossed by the wayside to allow for events to happen, and it just isn't Millar. Bendis is up there too, I mean the entire current state of the Marvel Universe comes down to Bendis making the Scarlet Witch crazy for no reason. Or the fact that writers have been constantly referencing Hank Pym hitting Janet/Wasp yet no longer even mentioning the events surrounding it. When Jack and Stan introduced flaws into their character they were meant accentuate their humanity not replace it.
 
Nice post!!
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I think more than anything I see Ellis as adding subversive elements with regard to superheroes.

Well, his original superhero works are pretty damned subversive, that's true. His Marvel work always struck me as fairly tame, though. I think the most subversive thing he ever managed at Marvel was Nextwave, which sold rather poorly and only seems to have substantially affected a few characters (mainly Machine Man).

Anyway, I don't think adding subversive elements to superheroes is necessarily inappropriate. Superman when launched was an extremely subversive character, that's why he got popular. Most Golden Age superheroes who achieved any real measure of success had a subversive element or two to their backstory.

The idea that superheroes should be defenders of the status quo got introduced in the 50s, during the genre's first mass die-off. Only the blander books that parents wouldn't hate could survive. When superheroes came back in the 60s at publishers other than DC, they were written very cautiously until the genre was solidly re-established in the 70s. Then in the 70s guys like Ghost Rider and The Punisher start showing up.

My problem is that a lot of writers won't write straight superheroes anymore since they are too "boring" and while I personally don't like that view in Ellis's case I can at least respect him for not trying to hide it.

I think the villain there is genre saturation more than anything else. If you look at the kids' lines Marvel and DC have put out over the years, a lot of really fantastic straight superhero stories were published there that sell in very poor numbers.

Then when those creators got promoted to the big leagues, they... immediately had to stop writing straight superhero stuff, because if they did their work just wouldn't stand out very much. There are just too many superhero books for plain Jane genre material to find a market.

Honestly I have no idea what Millar actually likes, he clearly doesn't like superheroes otherwise he wouldn't have spent this last decade writing what he has.

Millar is apparently a huge superhero fan with pretty nuanced views on the genre. He's just one of those fans-turned-writer who learned the hard way that if you do polished genre work, you'll never sell books. Millar's career didn't take off until he started writing the hyperviolent schlock stuff he's now known for. I think now he just keeps doing it because it sells. If it ever stopped selling, he'd do something else.

The humanity that helped define them has been tossed by the wayside to allow for events to happen, and it just isn't Millar.

The idea of heroes as necessarily infinitely compassionate is another trope that worked its way into the genre in the 50s. If you go back to the 40s, some heroes were nice guys and some were just goddamn terrifying.

Early Superman could and did threaten people and The Specter was, well, the Specter. Most post-50s heroes were basically nice guys if they were created in the 60s and then started getting weird again when the 70s rolled around.

I think the real problem with a lot of modern superhero writing is that it tends to rely on characters doing things that are shocking and uncharacteristic. Then instead of offering a good explanation for why the character did that to begin with, it's left unexplained and then later retconned or swept under the rug when it's time to move on to the next plot.

The real problem as I see it is that the publishers have decided that only actionactionaction and plotplotplot sell books. This leaves little room for characterization or theme, which are the story elements that tend to hold on to the longer-term fans.

Or the fact that writers have been constantly referencing Hank Pym hitting Janet/Wasp yet no longer even mentioning the events surrounding it.

That's because most fans who are aware of that little factoid about the characters have never read the book it happened in, and don't want to since it's old and not reputed to be an especially good comic. So kind of like Tony's drinking problem from Demon in a Bottle, it gets exaggerated into over time by fans who've never read the original material, but want to repeat the fandom's "in-jokes." So after awhile one of the first things people learn about Tony Stark is that he has or used to have a drinking problem.
 
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I meant subversive more in terms of undercutting the wonder of the genre by adding a certain sense of bleakness to the whole ordeal. Which I feel has been a major part of his career at Marvel even back in his Excalibur days with the creation of Pete Wisdom. It may just be that have I rather conservative tastes with regard to superheroes but I think the genre works best when there is that sense of the fantastic and wonderment. Even with those subversive elements you mentioned they still manged to cultivate that sense of wonder. Also I think it is important to differentiate the subversive nature of the various works. Since there can significant differences between what exactly they are trying to subvert, for instance the 70's X-Men and the Authority.

As for humanity I didn't mean they have to act all nice and courteous, just that they had for lack of better term some moral grounding. Let's take Wolverine, a character that used to be willing to kill if the need arose but still had issues when he did now leads a wet-works team that included children. That should never happen in superheroes stories, it is depressing and turns the characters involved into monsters.
 
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I think you may misunderstand Ellis's views on superhero fiction. I don't think he hates the genre so much as he hates the superhero industry and how it's malformed the comics marketplace. Given his druthers I think Ellis would spend all day writing crazy sci-fi adventure books loaded with political commentary, but that doesn't sell.

Anna Mercury ongoing.

This really baffles me because it's generally the loud, self-proclaimed fans who are most likely to write a hero doing loathsome things. The Tony Stark everyone hated in Civil War was the product of avid fanboy and Iron Man film consultant Mark Millar. All Ellis ever did with Tony Stark in his Iron Man stuff (that I've read) was make him into a Steve Jobs analogue.

I don't know, I just think Millar's...not talented. Geoff Johns appears to be a pretty hardcore fanboy, but (IMO) he churns out pretty decent work.

I think the villain there is genre saturation more than anything else. If you look at the kids' lines Marvel and DC have put out over the years, a lot of really fantastic straight superhero stories were published there that sell in very poor numbers.

Then when those creators got promoted to the big leagues, they... immediately had to stop writing straight superhero stuff, because if they did their work just wouldn't stand out very much. There are just too many superhero books for plain Jane genre material to find a market.

I sense you're talking about Fred Van Lente. His Marvel Adventures stories were amazing--especially his Iron Man. Haven't really bothered with his stuff outside of that though.
 
Nice post!!
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Anna Mercury ongoing.

If you're saying this thing exists, it probably won't break 15K per issue. For a Marvel or DC book, that would be cancellation territory. Most non-superhero indies sell in that range, though. Anything that breaks out of that, like Walking Dead or The Boys, is what gets regarded as a big indie hit.

I don't know, I just think Millar's...not talented.

Before he sold out, Mark Millar wrote some of pretty much the best Superman stories I've ever read in the old Superman Adventures comic from the 90s. Scott McCloud also did some great work in that book, too. Of course, being a kid's tie-in title, it sold like butt and hardly anyone read the stories.

I sense you're talking about Fred Van Lente.

Not just Fred Van Lente. There's this long history of amazing straight superhero work being done in kid's books that just will not sell that goes back to the 90s. Rick Burchett, Jeff Parker, Sean McKeever, Tony Bedard...

People say they want straight superhero stories, then don't actually buy the work when it comes out. So of course Marvel and DC go back to pumping out Blackest Nights and Shadowlands, that's what sells.
 
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I would love this if there was no story and nothing but action, just like the trailer. i will definitely look out for this is in between sleeping, and flipping cars.I'm glad to see Iron Man anime will debut in North America. I like to see more USA-Japan anime production like this. It can help the anime industry on both side.
 
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