Oh, Mr. J'onzz....

John Carter called.

He wants his red cabochon Mars-symbol-thingy back.

Seriously, though, isn't that cover art up there for Warlord of Mars #7 by Joe Jusko pretty awesome?

Wonder Woman's identity revealed

Did anyone hear?

They cast Wonder Woman for the new TV show.

Adrianne Palicki is a 5'11" actress who has appeared regularly on Friday Night Lights, Smallville, and the never-aired Aquaman pilot.

Well, she looks the part, at least in this picture.  I haven't seen anything she's in, so I can't really comment.

Here's the official description of the Wonder Woman show, which has its share of red flags as far as I'm concerned:

The series pilot is a reinvention of the iconic DC Comics title in which Wonder Woman – a.k.a. Diana Prince – is a vigilante crime fighter in Los Angeles but also a successful corporate executive and a modern woman trying to balance all of the elements of her extraordinary life. Kelley and Bill D’Elia (“Boston Legal,” “The Practice”) are the executive producers. The pilot was written by Kelley and will be directed by Jeffrey Reiner (NBC’s “The Event”). “Wonder Woman” is from David E. Kelley Productions and Warner Bros. Television.

I'm a little wary of the words "corporate executive" and "modern woman trying to balance all the elements..."  All I can picture is a soccer mom in a power suit on her way to a board meeting with a latte in one hand and a cell phone in the other.  Meh.  Then again, I am a cynic and this could all turn out fine.

What do you all think?

Look at the prety pictures

I'm too tired and fighting off a cold to come up with the blog post I was intending to write.

So in the meantime, enjoy the view of Amy Reeder Hadley's art from Madame Xanadu #21 and some dialogue by Matt Wagner.  Madame Xanadu is having some apartment problems, it would seem, and J'onn still has that trademark dry sense of humor.  Good stuff!

Silver Age John Jones Week, Day 4

Becuase in my universe, a week is ten days, and we're somehow on Day 4.  And it's countdown item #3.  Anywho...

3.  Silver Age J'onn J'onzz had a purpose.

This is something that seems to have fallen by the wayside in recent years.  (Or perhaps just in the wake of the Crisis.)  In some 90's stories you'll hear J'onn refer to himself as a "manhunter," which is some sort of Martian peacekeeper kind of role.  But back in the day, "manhunter" was just slang for a cop, and J'onn J'onzz chose to become Slueth from Outer Space.

The gimmick of J'onn's character was that he was a detective who used his powers to solve the crimes that regular humans couldn't.  He's now gotten away from his detective work altogether and many a DC writer doesn't know what to do with him besides make him confront the ghosts of Martian past when flying solo, or acting as the fall guy for Superman in ensemble stories.

Capture the criminal...or go back home?

If you bring J'onn J'onzz back to his detective roots, he'll have some purpose again.  (Another way to give his character some meaning: shepherding a group of immature heroes.  Hey, it worked once before.)  Either way, J'onn needs to DO something to participate in society.  Right now, J'onn isn't serving man or any higher purpose other than the vaguest of superhero motivations.  The more he goes off and is forced to confront rebuilding Mars, the less relevant his is to Earth and the less identifiable he becomes.

Give him a personal mission that forces him to make a few tough decisions, a mission that we can relate to, and it will only improve the quality of his character.

Making the difficult choice: what a hero is supposed to do.

Only Madame Xanadu....

...can smack the Phantom Stranger around.

Silver Age John Jones Week, Day 3

2.  The John Jones noir dynamic.

I recently had the pleasure of reading all three of the available trades of Matt Wagner and Amy Reeder Hadley's Madame Xanadu.  What a treat.  More on that series later, but for now, let's just say I was overwhelmingly surprised to see a Silver Age John Johns running around solving mysteries.

Now, I'll take a John Jones cameo.  He showed up for a panel or two in DC Universe Legacies and that made me happy.  Well, to see the character actually understood and used as he should be by Matt Wager was downright mind-blowing.  "Mr. Jones" shows up during the 1950's to help Madame Xanadu to solve a case they are both working on.  He came off so mysterious and full of intrigue that Madame Xanadu at first mistook him for the Phantom Stranger.  Though never revealed his true identity, several hints were laid down in just the right spots.  The end effect was that of an implacable character closely guarding his own secrets and though rent down to his core by his vulnerabilities, still saw to the needs of others over his own safety.

And if it were Popeye helping her?  "I yam as I yam!"  Geez, that was bad.  Even for me.

What I just described up there could easily be a noir protagonist.  While the mystery is generated here becuase Jones is seen from an outside perspective, in the right hands, the same dynamic could be translated to a story seen from J'onn's point-of-view.  It's the setting, really, that makes this all work.

All that needs to be done to achieve this dynamic is bring J'onn back to the 50's and surround him with humans.  Having a secret = instant tension.  Tension = suspense = a good story.  While death is treated as a joke in the comics world, having one's secret identity revealed is a real game changer.  And when a character has to act despite the risk of losing something, well, that makes the story even better.  It's just one more vulnerability for a character defined by his weaknesses.  If everyone around you could potentially blow your cover and cause you to lose your job or your good standing in society, everyday life would be like venturing out into a mine field.  It makes J'onn's current "plight" in Brightest Day about as exciting as reading about someone walking through the park.

See?  That tension showed actually up in the Silver Age, too.

Me, I'll take a mine field over the park any day when it comes to fiction.