The fourth and final issue of Robin Lives! is on sale next week and you can read a preview here.
I've had a great time creating this story in collaboration with artist Rick Leonardi, and I hope everyone enjoys our grand finale. There are no sequels planned but, just in case, I have one forming in the back of my head.
No story is ever truly finished, for life goes on in our heroes and villains worlds, all we ever do is take the bus out of town for a while. I hope you come visit Gotham again Mister J!
ReplyDeleteI hope so, too, Zarius! Thanks!
DeleteTremendously enjoyed this miniseries, JM, especially #4!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Frank! So glad you enjoyed it!
DeleteHere is a question Dematteis...
ReplyDeleteI noticed that your old nemesis Ann Nocenti will be coming to a comic show near me in a week and a half. I assume it is because you told her how your experiences here with me changed your life, and brought you into new shades of blissful being you never expected. Now she expects some kind of a guru treatment.
ANYWAY... it got me thinking about our recent conversation on Denny O'Neil. A writer who was known for writing very human characters, and often told sociopolitical stories through the eyes of street level heroes, that stressed their humanity.
The thing is, that also kind of sounds like Ms. Nocenti.
So, as some one who has known them both, been edited by both, would you say it is fair to call her his spiritual torchbearer. Or at least a Denny O'Neil for a Vertigo mindset? Let's be honest, even when she wrote mainstream Daredevil books, it had some Vertigo tinges to it.
Jack
Never thought of that before. They're both very different stylistically, but I can see the connection thematically. Interesting!
DeleteWell, if we are being honest, I don;t think any one writes stylistically the same as Ms. Nocenti, and she does not write like anyone else.
DeleteJack
You can say the same for Denny.
DeleteActually, there is one writer I think you could claim they both have at least a passing stylistic connection to… Rod Serling.
DeleteNot necessarily in the same way. O’Neil is sort of Seling filtered through pulps and Nocenti through a bohemian Greenwich Village lens.
Jack
Well, I think many of us of a certain age are Serling filtered through a lens. I just wrote an intro for an upcoming MAN-THING Masterworks edition drawing connections between Gerber and Serling.
DeleteI actually started thinking that right after Imposter. Gerber even came to mind. I think he even said in an interview in Tales of the Zombie that his writing had more of a Twilight Zone bend than traditional monster stories.
ReplyDeleteIn truth, genre fiction as a whole was probably heavily influenced by Serling, and just for “of a certain age.” The advent of reruns made that show immortal.
The wide variety of topics and genres on the show guaranteed it could translate to anything.
Remember “it’s like Twilight Zone” entered the everyday vernacular long before “just Google it” did.
Jack
I've watched a number of eight or ten hour sci-fi/supernatural streaming series and thought, "Rod Serling could have done that, and done it better, in half an hour." His impact echoes on and on.
DeleteI get the time thing. When they resurrected the Twilight Zone in 2019, I remember there being a few I liked conceptually, had good idea, good actors, but it dragged.
DeleteI have not seen Black Mirror, but it has always been sold to me as the "modern Twilight Zone" so it is still very much a selling point to people.
Also, I can't prove this, and I have no evidence, but my guess is the basic understanding in Sci-fi magazines (the few left standing) that a Twilight Zone type story will sell. But, every once in a while it will pop up, and it always seems to be placed in a somewhat prominent place. Just a guess.
I don't want to lean TOO much into that. After all, even before the Twilight Zone many of the typical elements, like commentary and surprise endings were common in sci-fi. The Hanging Stranger by PKD for instance came out in 1953. Still... I don't think anyone can deny the long term effect on of the Twilight Zone on genre fiction.
Jack
TZ owed a lot to the fiction of two of its most prominent, and talented, contributors: Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont. They, in turn, were mentored by Bradbury, and his fingerprints were all over the Zone. You can also see the influence of science-fiction radio dramas like Dimension X and X Minus One (two of my favorite old time radio shows). But Serling took all those influences, and many more I'm sure, and made something unique and lasting. And, of course, his writing voice was so unique: There was no one like him.
DeleteI am familiar with Dimension X and X -minus ONe, and I can see what you are getting at, but that was during the Wild West Days of sci-fi. Those stories were all over the map...in large part because they were adapted from sci-fi magazines. Usually Galaxy.
DeleteMany of the Twilight Zone episodes did as well, but it was always more filtered for tone...as you pointed out. I actually think that is one of the things that held back TZ 2018, it was written in a more traditional writers room element, A bit of the magic was lost. That magic pf course includes having a small number of actual sci-fi writers on the original, instead of TV writers.
That having been said, those stories used on the Zone seemed more like inspiration than adaption. Even when writers like MAtheson got to adapt his own work.
In a way it is kind of sad though. The Twilight Zone and Star Trek became so influential and such hallmarks, they began the end of those wild west days. not unlike how Conan and Lord of the Rings had a similar effect on fantasy fiction. Writers draw heavily from it, readers/vieiwers connect with it, and publishers see it as a more guaranteed line of revenue.
JAck
"A guaranteed line of revenue." Yep. Everything today is a "franchise." Serling wasn't looking to create a franchise, he was just telling great stories.
DeleteThe franchise is especially weird since it was started by Marvel, and so much of it was pulled from the 70s...an era when everyone was just doing whatever they felt.
DeleteBut even before franchises, there was of course just the safe bets of what was like something else that was doing well.
A guy I know who was involved in the music industry one pointed out that back in the 60s and 70s the owners of the labels used to essentially say, "I don;t know what these kids want, just sign what people like."
But then in the 80s...and more so later...they started trying to mold things. I remember an 80s heavy metal musician once talk about how their album was changed, and a song they were forced to write was pushed above everything else...clashing with the rest of the album. He then said the mentality was "if one is good 100 is better"
It is all interconnected, and not new art v. commerce and all that.
To bring the conversation full circle...remember, this started talking about Nocenti being the spiritual successor to Denny O;Neil...I met her today.
Jack
Glad you got to meet Ann. She's not just a wonderful writer, she's a good person.
DeleteShe is also an extraordinary conversationalist.
DeleteI had not been to Motor City in a few years...even prior to the pandemic, but this was like a ghost town, so I actually got a chance to talk with the creators.
Ms. Nocenti talked about going to CBGB back in the day, having been in a band in that era. Working at High Times, and hanging out with John Sinclair and Iggy Pop. How the night before there was a weed convention, and how strange it was hanging out with "weed bros."
She seemed very interested in the history of Henry Ford insanity, and the corruption of the Detroit cops. We briefly talked about Philip K. Dick.
She was actually the person who pushed me into going, since I think she does the con circuit less than many others. She did not disappoint, I could have talked to her for hours.
Also, Todd Dezaggo told me that you he and someone else on the Spider-team got the editor to come to upstate New York, instead of going down to NYC. Getting your editor to come to you? Respect, Dematteis.
I also talked to Ron Marz a bit, and Christopher Priest about Perry Mason, and it was great, but Ms. Nocenti was by far the one I will remember the most.
JAck
The Spider-team came upstate because we had a Spidey creatives conference scheduled and my wife was extremely pregnant at the time. I didn't want to be far from home, so Tom D, Danny Fingeroth, and the whole team came up for a few days instead of having our local group come down to the city for the meeting. And we had a great time.
DeleteMr. Dezaggo only mentioned it off hand to a joke i made about Howard Mackie being the only one with a "De" in his name. DEmatteis, DEfalco, DEzaggo, you get it. Never mentioned the pregnancy, most likely did not think it was his place to say, and it was only a quick aside.
DeleteThe only reason why it stuck in my brain is that, with some of the editors I have had, you being magically trapped from a waist down in a giant boulder would not be enough of a reason.
It was always going to be abut the editor;s flexibility and understanding as well, but the respect...that is what we call freelancer solidarity, Dematteis.
That having been said, what you should have done was make them all think that they walked into a Stephen King novel that takes place in a small town, with crazy locals.
The best past, even if you live in another city, just not New York... they couldn't tell the difference. They think it called Buffalo, NY because it is where buffalo are farmed.
I like to think Tom Defalco was sitting with arms crossed, sitting in a Michelin star restaurant chomping a cigar saying "I'm not milking any cows, farm boy."
But the REAL point of course was, not enough people talk about Perry MAson and how cool Raymond Burr was in the role. You probably can't even remember the last time you talked about Perry Mason. How strange is that? Why aren't more people talking about the 1957 show Perry Mason more often?
Jack
That show was very big when I was very little...I remember my aunt being a huge Perry Mason fan...and it has one of the greatest theme songs in television history: Ba-da-da-DUMP-DUMP! Ba-da-da-DUMP-DUMP!
DeleteMy Grandfather was a big fan of Perry Mason, he even read the pulps back in the day. My uncle was also a fan.
DeleteSo, when one of them were watching my brother and I it was not uncommon to have reruns on in the background. So common that when I was a kid, because Matlock was the show "old people watched," I assumed there was some rivalry between the two shows.
Interesting side note, Perry Mason was a major influence on Law and Order, and Dick Wolf said he did not like how Perry Mason defended criminals from the law. Which is weird, because Perry Mason never defended people who committed murder...at least as best as I can remember. Usually they were false accusations.
Jack
My memory is that he always defended innocent people and got the guilty party to confess on the stand. That was the whole shtick!
DeleteI remember Perry Mason. As influential as the "get the real criminal to confess on the stand" bit was, later shows tended to have characters doing so Columbo style, pretending to be foolish. Whereas Mason always came across as hyper competent.
DeleteDavid Walton
I wonder how those old shows would hold up today, David.
DeleteI feel like the comedy of that era aged much better than the dramas. I Love Lucy and The Dick van Dyke show are evergreen. I've shown 50s and 60s comedies to my kids and they enjoy them just as much as I do.
DeleteBut with the dramas the characters are just a bit too dry and professional for contemporary audiences. And the modern viewer would be baffled that Perry isn't investigating his parents' murder or his best friend's disappearance or some other longform arc on the side. Every episode now has to end with a cryptic clue about an unresolved trauma to keep the audience's attention "The sad birthday clown has the answers you seek about your cousin's killer, Mr Mason!"
David Walton
Or a serial killer who shows up once a season to torment Perry and his associates in a three episode arc.
DeleteExactly! (Maybe it's time for you to get cracking on this Perry Mason revival...)
DeleteI'm just going to call it now, the serial killer is the real Perry Mason and the one we know stole his identity twenty years ago to save Christmas for a small town whose economy collapsed when the mines closed. It will all make sense by Season 11, naturally.
David Walton
HBO did an interesting MASON revival a few years ago...but it didn't really have much in common with the original beyond its name.
DeleteIs it worth watching? If so I'll give it a look at some point.
DeleteDavid Walton
Worth watching...as long as you know it's a real departure from the old show.
DeleteThanks for the recommendation, I'll check it out.
DeleteDavid Walton
I figured out the best way to adapt Will Eisner's work. Animated, in his art style, with an opening commentary and/or interviews about the unique quality of the work, and the time frame or place they are about. And of course, airing on PBS.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe any other outlet would truly make sense for Eisner;s work.
there, your hero solved the unsolvable puzzle.
Jack
I'd love to see an animated Spirit movie in Eisner's style. Absolutely the way to go.
DeleteI was thinking...at least for the PBS stuff, more like A Contract with God, A life Force, The building.
DeleteHOWEVER, yes, I don't think you put the Spirit in live action without it feeling off. We all know Frank Miller's Spirit was accused of being too much like Sin City, but there was a pilot for a TV show, in like 1987, was a bit too much like teh Adam West Batman.
Eisner was too much of a cartoonist (in the best possible way) to have his stories be separated from his art style.
There are plenty of comics I think would be great as animated works aimed beyond the usual animated preconceived notions, From eightball and American splendor to A God Somewhere and Moonshadow to Godland.
Jack
A CONTRACT WITH GOD would be perfect.
DeleteI've always thought an animated MOONSHADOW, done in the Muth style, would be the way to go.
As I have said before, The Simpsons, holds a similar cultural importance for Millennials as the Beatles did for Baby Boomers, and Star Wars for Gen X. Which is why the respect for animation has increased in recent years.
DeleteI also think movies like Into the Spider-Verse and the wide array of styles on Adult Swim over the years shows a desire for unique looking animation. Comics would be perfect for that.
I also think America is ready for a push to expand what animation can be. I just don;t think the executives that hold the purse strings agree.
As for Moonshadow...
As much as I would like to see a return to hand drawn animation, I think it is only now with computer aided animation that you could actually capture Muth's art accurately.
Jack
Honestly, I'd be happy either way.
DeleteI just think it would be hard to make those water colors move by hand.
DeleteJack
An animated Moonshadow adaptation in Muth's style would be perfection. Into the Spiderverse captured Sienkiewicz's stylized version of the Kingpin so it's doable.
DeleteIn my opinion a Moonshadow animation style would have the sophistication of ITSV coupled with the surrealism and rawness of Pink Floyd's The Wall.
David Walton
I am sure you will be having your old pal Peter Parker over for a holiday dinner, or at least sending a Christmas card,so chew on this...
ReplyDeleteWhat if Peter Parker is self-sabotaging himself... in the name of enlightenment?
Peter Parker is the hard luck hero, but perhaps subconsciously he knows something primal to the human experience,
AS much as people like to claim they invented the idea of humble living as a road to happiness every decade, it is actually one of the oldest concepts. From Christianity's sermon on the mount to Buddhism's Noble Eight-fold path (in this case right intent and lacking attachment). For all his griping, I submit the idea Peter knows this and worked towards it, without knowing.
When we first see Peter he is miserable...well, not quite. He actually has a quite happy home life in a rather modest working class home. However, that bliss is shattered when his fame and his desire for money make him cold to others... because he did not get enough.
Then we meet Jonah Jameson. Who becomes an ongoing antagonist for Spider-man. He loves his son, has a good job, and lots of money, and yet he is rich.
As time progresses forward, we actually see Jonah is not even a bad person. We see he is actually principled in many ways, even in the Stan Lee era, Jonah stops advocating for a candidate the moment he finds out he is racist. Later stories even show that it was rising in the ranks of the Bugle that kind of wore away Jonah.
Then we start seeing the villains. Spider-Man is almost unique in Silver Age Marvel. He fights actual criminals, only Daredevil can also make that claim. Captain America is a secret agent. The F.F. and Thor fight cosmic and mythological threats. Dr. Strange mystical foes. Hulk, the army.
What does this pursuit of money and wealth do? It makes them act out. HArm people. and makes them miserable. None more than the Kingpin and Green Goblin.
Both are wealthy men, who have disastrous relationships with their families, and destroys them inside.
Okay, so that common theme exists, but does that mean Pete actually absorbs it?
When does Peter find happiness again? College, when he first starts to get REAL struggle. Yet, he finds friends for the first time, most of whom are also struggling. Except Harry...who becomes an addict.
He first tuns away the idea of protest, but later joins in the fight for affordable housing on campus.
That is still no sign he is absorbing these lessons, but what does he do next? Goes to graduate school, with all his friends gone...only to drop out. He gives up his career in science, which would have given him a good career, only to become a photographer. A photographer who works freelance. Not even staff, even though Joe Robertson would definitely give him a job.
He dates Black Cat, who is a little off, and also a thief. still obsessed with money. She also, notably, is disgusted by the Peter Parker part of him... the humble working class boy.
He then winds up with MJ, who ye s is doing well, but he got to know them when they were both struggling college students.
Eventually they get married, but Peter is shown to be a little uncomfortable in this life, when does he relax? When MJ gets black-balled and he moves in with Aunt May.
When does he find peace after the clone saga? When he and MJ move into Aunt MAy's house and take care of Aunt Anna, with Pete again at the Bugle eschewing a well-paying science job and MJ no longer an actress.
He keeps returning to humble ways of life when "better ones" are possible. He even becomes an Avenger, moves in, and sides with the millionaire in the Civil War, only to have his life ruined.
continued...
A fascinating deep dive into Peter's psyche, Jack. What's so great about the character, what makes him truly iconic, is that Peter/Spidey is open to many worlds of interpretation and yet there is something essential that remains the same in all those interpretations...and that (to me, anyway) is Peter's inherent decency.
ReplyDeleteWell the bulk of my point has disappeared, but I will assume you recall the point. Peter being about a man's struggle for enlightenment in his working class roots, only to be pulled by society's declaration that is not enough.
DeleteWell, something interesting happened a couple days after I wrote that. I stumbled upon a fellow on the Youtube who stated that he believed that Spider-man was in a state of arrested development, and apparently editor. Nick Lowe had agreed.
Truth be told, I think most people familiar with comics would agree this is pretty common to pop up in long running books every now and then. It is a byproduct of long running stories and characters being balanced around editor needs, creative desires, and fan expectations. It is just the nature of the beast.
However, what struck me were some of the examples that he used. Partially because they were reflective of my examples, and partially because of the odd pace Peter has to hold in comics.
One of the interesting ones was he said he found it odd that Peter still hung around with his high school and college friends.
Now, I would be lying if I said I kept in touch with any of mine, with the Pandemic straining the last of them.
However, Peter Parker was created as a teenager in 1962. Making him only slightly older than my father (born 1948) and my mother (1950). My parents were also successful in their chosen field.
Now, that does not mean we were wealthy, because we weren't rather just that they were not stuck in a Homer Simpson type situation, where they were at the whims of life. And forced into a rut.
Still, my father;s two best friends he had known most of his life, one he met in high school and got to know in college. and the other in kindergarten. The latter of whom was so close to my father, we called him "Uncle Cliff" and y grandfather came to his funeral.
My mother's best friend was her college room mate, who she kept in close contact with... despite living in New Jersey. She was also very close to her childhood friends so much so that when I was in Elementary school she helped one of them move her parents into a new home. Keep in mind, this was all before social media...by almost a decade, and my mother grew up four hours form where I did.
continued...
DeleteThat is on tap of just other people I know who maintained long term friendships. ONe of them;s high school friend is his dentist.
The other came down to jobs. How others move past Peter. This is actually an old observation, in the early 80s Pete went into Grad school as his friends graduated, and Harry Osborn was off running a major corporation, and absent from the Spider-books from most of the 80s.
But I know a guy was a a stock guy in New York, came back to Detroit to help his parents close down their tutoring company when his other got sick, only to make it his full time job and take over.
He actually said one of the most profound things I ever heard. "in stocks you can;t succeed unless you take from somebody else, but here when you succeed it means everyone succeeded."
These things do not have to be a rut or "arrested development," so why did he read it this way. Because it would be for him. But he's not Peter Parker.
Stan Lee always made it clear, when he called Peter the "every-man superhero" he meant it was about flaws and hard luck, "an heir to all things human." However, people seem to have internalized it to mean something else...the it is them. Most likely made worst by the usually young age they first encountered the character.
There is an almost tyrannicidal need to have him make the same decisions as the reader, or to justify them.
And on the other end of things, abut a year a go I heard another fella on the YouTube complaining about Peter being in his 30s and still having money problems. Which is hilarious, because in America, you are never too old to have money problems (ask a public school teacher), but he seemed to be in his early 20s, so I will consider it adorable.
But this is the other end, when it is too reflective. This person sounded British, and currently 20% of the UK lives in poverty.
Peter Parker himself is an America, where for about 15 years, 70 % of Americans have been living paycheck to paycheck (we never REALLY recovered from 2008). Break that down by generation, it is 49% of Baby Boomers, Pete's original generation. That is why so many have not retired, have had to go mack to work, and people over 65 are losing their homes at a rate not seen since the Great Depression . 60% of Gen X, which most economists believe most will be unlikely to get enough in retirement savings. And Millennials...the generation Peters currently in it is 70%...which is why so many have still not settled down and/or had kids.
So Peter is getting complaints for not being like a their real world and also for being too much like the real world, but not like someone's expectations of their own future.
I believe that has become the true challenge of Peter Parker in the modern era. Many fans have claimed fans, which has always been the case. But too many have done so in a way where they can't meet the character where he lives, and limis the types of stories they are even willing to enjoy.
Now, there is nothing wrong with disliking a comic, You should not buy something you don't enjoy. I myself have not read new issue of Amazing Spider-Man in a while. However, there are right reasons and wrong reasons to dislike something.
This seems like a struggle in the relationship between comics and their readers that is...weird.
just a thought.
Jack
I am still very close with a group of people I've known since high school and college. We're like family. Some of the folks in the group actually went to nursery school together! Not a sign of arrested development, just friendship and love.
DeleteWe've all made many other friends over the years, but our bonds have held strong.
Yes, I thought the example strange as well. However, it was not the only time I have heard similar sentiments.
DeleteIn the now gone part of my statement about Peter Parker and enlightenment, that one of the causes of unhappiness is "horizon thinking."
Well, perhaps it is not surprising there is a growing mental health crisis in America if we have tied that to a "need" to eliminate real humans form our lives.
Perhaps this whole society needs a visit from Jacob Marley.
But the point is, this odd type of fandom seems to be forcing no-win scenarios for characters. and creators.
The point of Spider-MAn is not to match the readers life experiences exactly. It is one thing to want new types of stories, and new characters. I get that. However, that does not seem to be the point.
It seems related to issues with characters as well. like the "why doesn't Batman kill the Joker?" argument. in order:
1. You could not use the character again
2. It is not his job and was created as the byproduct of a society that believes all criminals deserve due process.
3. it is an established part of the character.
Similarly, it is being annoyed that a character is not acting how the reader would. However, if most people saw there parents killed in an alley when they were 8...they would probably go to therapy, instead of become a vigilante.
just kind of look at what I think is a complication for this era of comics.
Jack
For bonus points...
DeleteThere is no right or wrong answer, and perhaps no answer at all, but something worth thinking about...
What is with all the evil Supermen in recent years? Why does our society want that?
I don't mean pastiches either, that is something else entirely. We have seen constant alternate realities wer Superman turns evil. Why?
However, if we are talking about pastiches, Captain America has picked up a few. IF they go off model he is always shown to be this gross version. Maybe a warmonger, or naive, or a racist, or sexist, or all of the above.
But, why not one where a good decent WWII hero is unfrozen, sees a world that still has war, and racism, and injustice and becomes a radical when he sees the world he was promised never came to be.
I know what you are about to say, "I did that with Savior 28!"
No you didn't. You wrote a great story, no doubt, but that was about a superhero who continued to fight evil, and questioned things when events changed him.
Like I said, there is no right or wrong, or even an answer maybe. Just something to think about. As to what our society seems to want.
Jack
I'll disagree with your assessment of SAVIOR 28, Jack. But that's okay.
DeleteFYI: I'll be off social media for the holidays, starting soon, so if you post something and don't see it show up, that's why.
Happy Holidays to you and yours!
Once a wise guy, always a wise guy! ; )
DeleteWhat are you talking about? I don't have any mob connections.
DeleteThat I know of.
JAck
Although, I did once date a girl whose great grandfather was an accountant for the Purple Gang. And a friend of mine form back in school ran with them too.
DeleteWeird
Jack
P.S. I was the one who pointed out the clients in the photo were the Purple Gang.
Just to clear up. It was my friend in school;s great grandfather, not him who ran with the Purple Gang.
DeleteJack
That Peter Parker is an ok guy so long as you don't expect him to arrive for social engagements in a timely fashion, or to leave them in an orderly one.
ReplyDeleteDavid Walton
Very true, David! Very true!
DeleteGood story, sir! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteYou're very welcome!
Delete